Monday, December 05, 2011

Attention Job Seekers - Here's Some Advice You Can't Use

This has been making the rounds due to its comical allusion to The Grapes of Wrath as a path to prosperity. But really?
There are phases to the building of the business that works today.
  1. Come up with the idea
  2. Flesh out the idea quickly
  3. If it involves computer programming, find someone to program it. You may even be able to use something like WordPress to launch your business with a blogging platform and the correct plug ins
  4. Find a paying customer.
The new path to prosperity is to start a blog? Oh, wait, I guess the answer is in choosing "the correct plug ins". Right....

If my idea is more complex than one that can be launched through a blog, where can I find cheap, competent programmers who will transform my "idea" into "paying customer(s)"? Most really good programmers are employed, doing their own thing, or charge a premium price per hour. And the bad ones? They'll take your money, give you an unusable product, and call it a day. Assuming they don't try to steal your idea.

This guy's other business idea is to gamble on hiring the candidate who "feels right" regardless of qualification - so maybe he thinks the path to prosperity is to team up with an untested, uncredentialed programmer and "take a chance".... (Or perhaps he means that you should bluster your way through interviews for jobs you're not qualified to get, because between offering to work for reduced pay and "incentives" and being "risky", eventually an employer is going to see you as the best long-term bet?)

I'm also wondering what ideas we're talking about? Come up with the idea for the next Facebook or Groupon, then build it using WordPress plugins? Make and sell crafts? (If so, a better approach may be to sell through auction sites or Etsy.) Seriously, what does this guy think he's talking about?
Eventually you may be on to something big. Or, at the least, you will have a nice lifestyle business you can operate. Plus, if you run your own show you don’t have to worry about big corporations or Wall Street. Get big enough and they’ll be your client you won’t be theirs.
You may be onto something big, or not. (I would love to hear this guy's examples, and surely he must have dozens, of this model in action.) And then you can have a nice "lifestyle business" (whatever that is... perhaps beer money) that you can transform into something so big that big corporations and Wall Street will become your clients! "And all I have to do is... act naturally."

Look, I'm all for entrepreneurship and self-employment. But let's approach it from a real world perspective.

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