Have you considered developing tools or plugin to easy their work? For instance, I'm using WholeTomato's Visual Assist and it really rocks.
> The problem with this is that I have zero ideas in that space...that said it's definitely an interesting space. Making some of the things you can do by programming available to a non-technical audience seems very hard though.
Just don't go overboard. I urge you to go out and meet people, and look for ways to easy their pain. For instance, you will be shocked at how small-business owners struggle to accomplish simple tasks. At how big-companies employee struggle with outdated software.
Good luck!
I can't find the original article but here's a rference to it: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/11/mort-elvis-einstein...
- They seem to have the money because they buy expensive IDEs, expensive version control systems, expensive things that allow them to track project progress, etc.
- They care less about whether what they are using is open source
- Building it on top of .NET means development costs are much reduced but still massive
- They are using overly complicated and not very usable tools/libraries on .NET
> I'm saying this because you have said "not made it big". If you are after just making a living doing what you like, maybe the success of Clojure in that regard can be encouraging.
Yes I would be happy with something like that too, but if I have something that improves someones productivity by 10% that provides a lot of value; I'd like to turn this value into a financial success too ;)
> Have you considered tapping the non-technical audience? Maybe many non-technical users would be delighted to be able to customize their environment. If you are looking for a challenging intellectual task, don't underestimate the difficulty of designing simple tools.
The problem with this is that I have zero ideas in that space...that said it's definitely an interesting space. Making some of the things you can do by programming available to a non-technical audience seems very hard though.