http://www.feld.com/archives/2011/10/be-on-fire.html
Cause that picture is now my new wallpaper...
Also it sounds like you have a similar path to mine. Launch stuff, fail, launch again stop mid way when no traction, launch, fail.
Mind if I ask what you are doing that having 5 clients is all you need to be self-sufficient?
I am doing media monitoring, I collect vast amounts of data on social networks, p2p, rss, webscraping ... then built reporting tools on top of it - high level trend reporting, customer segmentation for acquisition and brand targeting, planogram computing based on collaborative filtering, an entire media and brand intelligence platform.
I also do Forex trading with TensorFlow, but that's only making about 70-80k a year, which is probably a living wage, but not if you're in London and have an insatiable appetite for GPU's like me ;)
This is the second time today I'm reading about "solving X with TensorFlow", which I find very interesting. It's not, "solving X with machine intelligence/AI/an application I wrote". I don't really have a point, just thought it was interesting!
Please teach me how to do this. I will pay you for your time.
I'm about 1-2 weeks away from launching into beta, if you're interested I can provide you with a machine, a license for the platform, and consulting on how to search for profitable strategies.
My contact details are in my profile :)
Expect to fail. And while it shouldn't be a goal, my failures have always been more beneficial, more productive than any success. Success always has the risk of promoting complacency. Failure will test your character and grit. In the end you will know more about yourself having tried than not. I also recommend doing it as young as possible. It helps to teach you the possibilities. If you decide it's not for you then you have time to start over and rebuild. Maybe with maturity and a different perspective you have the opportunity to pursue it again later on.
Much to my point about doing it young, if you are unsure, but you are tempted by the siren song of startup fame and fortune. The hype, glamour, fame and fortune is largely the exception and not the rule. The hard work and the hard lessons are much more the norm. The benefits you might receive are earned, and they are paid for in sweat, stress and sleepless nights.
The bottom-line is that it comes down to knowing yourself. You make a great counterpoint to those that are certain working for themselves, or starting a startup is their path.
If you are uncertain, the best way to confirm it is to test yourself, take the risk.
I worked every evening, every weekend, on the tube on the way to and from the office. During my lunch hours. My coworkers knew not to interrupt me during lunch, because I always took a sandwich to the same desk, put my headphones on, and worked.
Have you seen that comic "You must burn", that's exactly it. It's painful, there's moments of crippling self doubt, there's moments when you'd rather be doing literally anything else, but you must burn through them. https://startupiceland.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/you-must-...
I had several failures. I launched an iPad app that failed. I launched several webapps that failed. In total, 4 "product launches" that failed and crashed and burnt, and countless more mini-projects that never finished or caught traction.
It took me years to get my first B2B client, but once I got it, I didn't have to work ever again, now I have 5 clients, and am concentrating on launching new products and growing and partnering.