Code Soloist #7: Take the shortcut

A few years ago a good friend of mine used a quote from a stupid movie to change how I thought about hard work.

It was from Road Trip: “It’s supposed to be a challenge, that’s why they call it a shortcut. If it was easy it would just be the way.”

If it was really possible to join some paid subscription site, or read this or that book, or outsource everything to foreign countries, and then you would launch your business faster, it would just be the way.

But it’s not.

The way is a seemingly endless ritual of focusing on a single point of failure, correcting it, and moving on to the next point.

The way is an inexhaustible supply of “todo” lists, built on a web site or scratched in pencil on a growing pile of crumpled printer painter next to your keyboard.

The way is having days when you throw up your hands and announce that you’re out of the software business forever, only to come back the next day renewed.

Every amazing and miserable moment is part of the process. Rather than waste time looking for a happy path approach to avoiding hard work, take the shortcut instead. The shortcut to launching is just the way; no wasted time, just hard work, fully embraced.

Code Soloist is for single-person software development companies that are trying to start something big with their bare hands. In it, I try to impart whatever I’ve learned, for better or worse, doing the same thing badly.


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  1. danielcrenna posted this

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