I've posted this before but I'll repost it here:

Now in terms of the question that you ask in the title - this is what I recommend:

Job Interview Prep

1. Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
   
2. Programming Interviews Exposed: Coding Your Way Through the Interview
   
3. Introduction to Algorithms
   
4. The Algorithm Design Manual
   
5. Effective Java
   
6. Concurrent Programming in Java™: Design Principles and Pattern
   
7. Modern Operating Systems
   
8. Programming Pearls
   
9. Discrete Mathematics for Computer Scientists
   
   

   Junior Software Engineer Reading List
   

   
   

   Read This First
   

   
   

10. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

11. Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
    
12. Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
    
13. Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach
    
14. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
    
15. Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software
    
16. Perfect Software: And Other Illusions about Testing
    
17. Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application
    
    

    Understanding Professional Software Environments
    

    
    

18. Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game
    
19. Software Project Survival Guide
    
20. The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky
    
21. Debugging the Development Process: Practical Strategies for Staying Focused, Hitting Ship Dates, and Building Solid Teams
    
22. Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules
    
23. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

24. Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
    
25. Against Method
    
26. The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
    
    

    History
    

    
    

27. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
    
28. Computing Calamities: Lessons Learned from Products, Projects, and Companies That Failed
    
29. The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management
    
    

    Mid Level Software Engineer Reading List
    

    
    

    Read This First
    

    
    

30. Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

31. The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
    
32. Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
    
33. Solid Code
    
34. Code Craft: The Practice of Writing Excellent Code
    
35. Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative
    
36. Writing Solid Code
    
    

    Software Design
    

    
    

37. Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide
    
38. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
    
39. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
    
40. Domain-Driven Design Distilled
    
41. Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design
    
42. Design Patterns in C# - Even though this is specific to C# the pattern can be used in any OO language.
    
43. Refactoring to Patterns
    
    

    Software Engineering Skill Sets
    

    
    

44. Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems
    
45. Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Models, Frameworks, and Tools
    
46. NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating
    
47. Object-Oriented Software Construction
    
48. The Art of Software Testing
    
49. Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
    
50. Working Effectively with Legacy Code
    
51. Test Driven Development: By Example
    
    

    Databases
    

    
    

52. Database System Concepts
    
53. Database Management Systems
    
54. Foundation for Object / Relational Databases: The Third Manifesto
    
55. Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design
    
56. Data Access Patterns: Database Interactions in Object-Oriented Applications
    
    

    User Experience
    

    
    

57. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
    
58. The Design of Everyday Things
    
59. Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications
    
60. User Interface Design for Programmers
    
61. GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User Interface Design Don'ts and Dos
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

62. The Productive Programmer
    
63. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
    
64. Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
    
65. Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering
    
    

    History
    

    
    

66. Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software
    
67. New Turning Omnibus: 66 Excursions in Computer Science
    
68. Hacker's Delight
    
69. The Alchemist
    
70. Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages
    
71. The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood
    
    

    Specialist Skills
    

    
    In spite of the fact that many of these won't apply to your specific job I still recommend reading them for the insight, they'll give you into programming language and technology design.
    
    

72. Peter Norton's Assembly Language Book for the IBM PC
    
73. Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets
    
74. Enough Rope to Shoot Yourself in the Foot: Rules for C and C++ Programming
    
75. The C++ Programming Language
    
76. Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
77. More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
78. More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#
    
79. CLR via C#
    
80. Mr. Bunny's Big Cup o' Java
    
81. Thinking in Java
    
82. JUnit in Action
    
83. Functional Programming in Scala
    
84. The Art of Prolog: Advanced Programming Techniques
    
85. The Craft of Prolog
    
86. Programming Perl: Unmatched Power for Text Processing and Scripting
    
87. Dive into Python 3
    
88. why's (poignant) guide to Ruby

There's two sides to the Game Designer coin: One is developing a good set of rules which are enjoyable, stable, and of appropriate complexity, while the other is creating a good physical prototype which can reasonably be used for heavy playtesting.

Developing a good set of rules is a vague and nebulous thing, and counterexamples can be found for virtually any advice someone gives you. There are a few constants, however:

• Make sure your game doesn't contain any false choices: If a player is given a choice, there should be strategic value in all possible options. Cake or death? It's not really a choice at all, is it? Similarly, if moving Admiral Reinhardt from his starting position overwhelmingly leads to his demise, there's not really a reason to move him at all, is there?
  
  
• Study some Game Theory, but don't get lost in its ivory towers. Game Theory can quickly transition from discussion of the interaction of game mechanisms and various game types into purely abstract mathematical concepts indistinguishable from a college-level Calculus class.
  
  
• Dabble in computer programming. This may seem completely unrelated, but a games rules are actually a system of logical instructions, and one of the most common problems with amateur game designers is that their game will literally "crash" with unhandled exceptions or edge cases. If you understand how computer programs work, this will help you create a stable ruleset, which you should strive for before you...
  
  
• Playtest. Repeatedly, often, and with a wide variety of people who do not know you personally. Take notes. Try to keep in mind who your target audience is: People who are primarily Monopoly fans aren't going to have favorable things to say about Puerto Rico or Agricola. Listen to your target audience, but do not feel compelled to change your game for every complaint. Try to be objective towards your own ideas.
  
  
• Revise. Playtesting will always highlight problems, from the minor to the game-breaking. Sometimes you can fix things with just a new line of text in the rulebook, the addition or subtraction of some tokens, or changing the specific effect of a card or board space. Sometimes you will have to take the whole thing apart and start from scratch. Try to cast your net as wide as possible: A single rule which catches 12 problems is better than 12 smaller rules that catch 1 problem each.
  
  Keep bouncing back and forth between the playtest and revise stages until your target audience is pleased with the game.
  
  On the physical prototype side of things:
  
  
• Pawns - Don't be afraid to cannibalize existing games, or use off-the-shelf materials from Dollar Tree or similar stores. Shaped erasers, beads, or just cheapo chess pieces colored with magic marker can work fine for virtually any kind of pawn in a prototype.
  
  
• Cards - Thanks to places like ArtsCow, these are now the easiest part to get at factory quality. Failing that, print your cards on standard 8.5"x11" paper, cut to size, and place in a protective card sleeve with a regular playing card to add stiffness.
  
  
• Non-Modular Boards - Typically, boards don't actually require much thickness in order to be functionally playable. I tend to print on multiple 110lb cardstock sheets, trim to size, then use Post-it notes on the underside to hold it together while playing.
  
  
• Modular boards and tiles - This is perhaps the most tedious part, and it gets harder the more complicated your tile shapes are. The quickest way is to print on standard paper, glue to foamcore or chipboard, and trim to shape. For something closer to factory quality, print on 110lb cardstock, then glue the printed cardstock on top of 5 other sheets of cardstock. This will create a tile roughly the thickness of Settlers of Catan tiles. For higher print quality, you can print your graphics through a photo printing service (such as through your local Walgreens or Rite Aid), and use that as the top layer. If you're feeling particularly ambitious, purchase a Xyron Wishblade, and use it to cut shapes out of cardstock. It won't cut things much thicker than 110lb, though, so you'll still have to glue layers together for thicker tiles.
  
  
• Boxes - Strictly speaking, as a game designer, your prototype's box should be purely functional - Large enough to contain the game, and with enough marking to clearly identify the game within your collection. Tackle boxes and bead craft storage boxes are often good candidates for game prototype storage. If you have lots of playing cards, check the sports cards/collectible cards section of your local Wal-Mart type store: They should have multi-compartment card storage cases.
  
  As for actually getting your game published, that's a whole other matter.
  
  Some recommended reading: Sid Sackson's A Gamut of Games is not only a good collection of simple games designed by one of America's most innovative game designers, but also a fascinating look into the thoughts and methods behind the creation of those games. The Game Inventor's Guidebook is also good reading, and contains interviews with industry people - it's not completely up to date, however, and some of the interviews are more about a game as a product (A fast-selling game is "better" than a slow selling game), rather than concepts regarding balance, strategy, complexity, or innovation. Similarly, Paid to Play: The Business of Game Design gives some good insight into the industry in general.

Here are all the books with amazon links, Alphabetical order :)

---

• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591396190
  
• Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh et al. Link: http://amzn.com/160941280X
  
• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown Link: http://amzn.com/0804137382
  
• Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston Link: http://amzn.com/1590597141
  
• How Google Works by Eric Schmidt et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1455582344
  
• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk Link: http://amzn.com/006227306X
  
• Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson Link: http://amzn.com/0307720748
  
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1400064287
  
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Link: http://amzn.com/0345472322
  
• Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time by Keith Ferrazzi et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0385346654
  
• Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim S. Grover et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1476714207
  
• Rework by Jason Fried et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0307463745
  
• Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin Link: http://amzn.com/1591842948
  
• The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss Link: http://amzn.com/0307465357
  
• The Choose Yourself Guide To Wealth by James Altucher Link: http://amzn.com/150100994X
  
• The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison by Mike Wilson Link: http://amzn.com/0060008768
  
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Link: http://amzn.com/0062273205
  
• The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen Link: http://amzn.com/0062060244
  
• The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries Link: http://amzn.com/0307887898
  
• The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco Link: http://amzn.com/B004BDOUAI
  
• The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday Link: http://amzn.com/1591846358
  
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1885167776
  
• The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company by Steve Blank et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0984999302
  
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell Link: http://amzn.com/0316346624
  
• Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth by Gabriel Weinberg et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1591848369
  
• Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out by Marc Ecko Link: http://amzn.com/1451685319
  
• Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel et al. Link: http://amzn.com/0804139296

Hey,

I'm kind of on the same boat as you (starting a software/media company with strong technical skills and some concern for the business side of things)

​

Few things I've learned and realized these past few years of coding and trying to make my side-projects into businesses:

- Create a high-level overview / design doc based on these principles to align your vision, technical requirements and business objectives.

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/disciplined-entrepreneurship-24/9781118692288/images/p01-f001.jpg (taken for an MIT entrepreneurship course taught by Bill Aulet. I highly recommend you buy his book: https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284)

​

- Learn how to create an effective marketing plan including an end-user profile, persona, market research, advertising on Youtube, Google Ads and Instagram/Facebook, Google Analytics, re-targeting with custom audiences, creating funnels in Google Analytics to see what parts of your app may be causing churn. Here's a good course for this: https://www.udemy.com/learn-digital-marketing-course/ (does not include churn detecting with funnels in GA, you can find more about this on youtube)

​

- For everything else there's Slidebean's CEO, FounderHub and Patrick from Valuetainment to help you out tremendously:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz9n-2W33WY&list=PLnhdsL4kFmVYMNq6F8k8UiFkc6fwIdk3o

- https://founderhub.io/

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB442EchOTY

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfLLcqC-D7Y

​

- On the technical side of things, I recommend you start with a stack that's easy to work with, can scale without significant effort on your part / without growing your team, and ultimately that gets you to an MVP as fast as possible with minimal trade-offs. For this I recommend Firebase and Cloud Functions to get you up and running quickly without worrying about making an entire API or running servers.

​

Most important of all, DO NOT build a monolithic app thinking that every feature you're building will be something your users will enjoy or that what you'll build may useful in the future. Your goal is to build the most minimal version of your key value proposition. From there, establish an effective means of communicating with beta testers / first customers to determine what features to build out. Think of your product as a psychology / design experiment. You need to establish a baseline problem / solution / theory. Then test that theory through small iterations of changes with QA processes / feedback loops to measure the impact of these changes. Eventually you'll have a product that's centered around your user / problem and not your idea of what's best for them (which is rarely ever going to be perfect). Check out Jobs Theory for a better grasp on how to predict and understand your customer's needs: https://medium.com/frameplay/pt-3-defining-the-job-in-jobs-to-be-done-838087696490

I also recommend looking at successful competitors as their platforms have undergone this extensive process of understanding their customer needs. Don't be afraid to emulate what's successful in the market in terms of design, business model and value propositions / mission. Look at their growth over time and old versions of their site with Wayback machine to get a feel for how they re-aligned their vision to target their customer's true needs.

> For those who prefer video lectures, Skiena generously provides his online. We also really like Tim Roughgarden’s course, available from Stanford’s MOOC platform Lagunita, or on Coursera. Whether you prefer Skiena’s or Roughgarden’s lecture style will be a matter of personal preference.
>
> For practice, our preferred approach is for students to solve problems on Leetcode. These tend to be interesting problems with decent accompanying solutions and discussions. They also help you test progress against questions that are commonly used in technical interviews at the more competitive software companies. We suggest solving around 100 random leetcode problems as part of your studies.
>
> Finally, we strongly recommend How to Solve It as an excellent and unique guide to general problem solving; it’s as applicable to computer science as it is to mathematics.
>
>
>
> [The Algorithm Design Manual](https://teachyourselfcs.com//skiena.jpg) [How to Solve It](https://teachyourselfcs.com//polya.jpg)> I have only one method that I recommend extensively—it’s called think before you write.
>
> — Richard Hamming
>
>
>
> ### Mathematics for Computer Science
>
> In some ways, computer science is an overgrown branch of applied mathematics. While many software engineers try—and to varying degrees succeed—at ignoring this, we encourage you to embrace it with direct study. Doing so successfully will give you an enormous competitive advantage over those who don’t.
>
> The most relevant area of math for CS is broadly called “discrete mathematics”, where “discrete” is the opposite of “continuous” and is loosely a collection of interesting applied math topics outside of calculus. Given the vague definition, it’s not meaningful to try to cover the entire breadth of “discrete mathematics”. A more realistic goal is to build a working understanding of logic, combinatorics and probability, set theory, graph theory, and a little of the number theory informing cryptography. Linear algebra is an additional worthwhile area of study, given its importance in computer graphics and machine learning.
>
> Our suggested starting point for discrete mathematics is the set of lecture notes by László Lovász. Professor Lovász did a good job of making the content approachable and intuitive, so this serves as a better starting point than more formal texts.
>
> For a more advanced treatment, we suggest Mathematics for Computer Science, the book-length lecture notes for the MIT course of the same name. That course’s video lectures are also freely available, and are our recommended video lectures for discrete math.
>
> For linear algebra, we suggest starting with the Essence of linear algebra video series, followed by Gilbert Strang’s book and video lectures.
>
>
>
> > If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
>
> — John von Neumann
>
>
>
> ### Operating Systems
>
> Operating System Concepts (the “Dinosaur book”) and Modern Operating Systems are the “classic” books on operating systems. Both have attracted criticism for their writing styles, and for being the 1000-page-long type of textbook that gets bits bolted onto it every few years to encourage purchasing of the “latest edition”.
>
> Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces is a good alternative that’s freely available online. We particularly like the structure of the book and feel that the exercises are well worth doing.
>
> After OSTEP, we encourage you to explore the design decisions of specific operating systems, through “{OS name} Internals” style books such as Lion's commentary on Unix, The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System, and Mac OS X Internals.
>
> A great way to consolidate your understanding of operating systems is to read the code of a small kernel and add features. A great choice is xv6, a port of Unix V6 to ANSI C and x86 maintained for a course at MIT. OSTEP has an appendix of potential xv6 labs full of great ideas for potential projects.
>
>
>
> [Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces](https://teachyourselfcs.com//ostep.jpeg)
>
>
>
> ### Computer Networking
>
> Given that so much of software engineering is on web servers and clients, one of the most immediately valuable areas of computer science is computer networking. Our self-taught students who methodically study networking find that they finally understand terms, concepts and protocols they’d been surrounded by for years.
>
> Our favorite book on the topic is Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach. The small projects and exercises in the book are well worth doing, and we particularly like the “Wireshark labs”, which they have generously provided online.
>
> For those who prefer video lectures, we suggest Stanford’s Introduction to Computer Networking course available on their MOOC platform Lagunita.
>
> The study of networking benefits more from projects than it does from small exercises. Some possible projects are: an HTTP server, a UDP-based chat app, a mini TCP stack, a proxy or load balancer, and a distributed hash table.
>
>
>
> > You can’t gaze in the crystal ball and see the future. What the Internet is going to be in the future is what society makes it.
>
> — Bob Kahn
>
> [Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach](https://teachyourselfcs.com//top-down.jpg)
>
>
>
> ### Databases
>
> It takes more work to self-learn about database systems than it does with most other topics. It’s a relatively new (i.e. post 1970s) field of study with strong commercial incentives for ideas to stay behind closed doors. Additionally, many potentially excellent textbook authors have preferred to join or start companies instead.
>
> Given the circumstances, we encourage self-learners to generally avoid textbooks and start with the Spring 2015 recording of CS 186, Joe Hellerstein’s databases course at Berkeley, and to progress to reading papers after.
>
> One paper particularly worth mentioning for new students is “Architecture of a Database System”, which uniquely provides a high-level view of how relational database management systems (RDBMS) work. This will serve as a useful skeleton for further study.
>
> Readings in Database Systems, better known as the databases “Red Book”, is a collection of papers compiled and edited by Peter Bailis, Joe Hellerstein and Michael Stonebreaker. For those who have progressed beyond the level of the CS 186 content, the Red Book should be your next stop.
>
> If you insist on using an introductory textbook, we suggest Database Management Systems by Ramakrishnan and Gehrke. For more advanced students, Jim Gray’s classic Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques is worthwhile, but we don’t encourage using this as a first resource.
>

> (continues in next comment)

Hey, DE here with lots of experience, and I was self taught. I can be pretty specific about the subfield and what is necessary to know and not know. In an inversion of the normal path I did a mid career M.Sc in CS so it was kind of amusing to see what was and was not relevant in traditional CS. Prestigious C.S. programs prepare you for an academic career in C.S. theory but the down and dirty of moving and processing data use only a specific subset. You can also get a lot done without the theory for a while.

If I had to transition now, I'd look into a bootcamp program like Insight Data Engineering. At least look at their syllabus. In terms of CS fundamentals... https://teachyourselfcs.com/ offers a list of resources you can use over the years to fill in the blanks. They put you in front of employers, force you to finish a demo project.

Data Engineering is more fundamentally operational in nature that most software engineering You care a lot about things happening reliably across multiple systems, and when using many systems the fragility increases a lot. A typical pipeline can cross a hundred actual computers and 3 or 4 different frameworks.doesn't need a lot of it. (Also I'm doing the inverse transition as you... trying to understand multivariate time series right now)

I have trained jr coders to be come data engineers and I focus a lot on Operating System fundamentals: network, memory, processes. Debugging systems is a different skill set than debugging code, it's often much more I/O centric. It's very useful to be quick on the command line too as you are often shelling in to diagnose what's happening on this computer or that. Checking 'top', 'netstat', grepping through logs. Distributed systems are a pain. Data Eng in production is like 1/4 linux sysadmin.

It's good to be a language polyglot. (python, bash commands, SQL, Java)

Those massive java stack traces are less intimidating when you know that Java's design encourages lots of deep class hierarchies, and every library you import introduces a few layers to the stack trace. But usually the meat and potatoes method you need to look at is at the top of a given thread. Scala is only useful because of Spark, and the level of Scala you need to know for Spark is small compared to the full extent of the language. Mostly you are programatically configuring a computation graph.

Kleppman's book is a great way to skip to relevant things in large system design.

https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications-Reliable-Maintainable/dp/1449373321

It's very worth understanding how relational databases work because all the big distributed systems are basically subsets of relational database functionality, compromised for the sake of the distributed-ness. The fundamental concepts of how the data is partitioned, written to disk, caching, indexing, query optimization and transaction handling all apply. Whether the input is SQL or Spark, you are usually generate the same few fundamental operations (google Relational Algebra) and asking the system to execute it the best way it knows how. We face the same data issues now we did in the 70s but at a larger scale.

Keeping up with the framework or storage product fashion show is a lot easier when you have these fundamentals. I used Ramakrishnan, Database Management Systems. But anything that puts you in the position of asking how database systems work from the inside is extremely relevant even for "big data" distributed systems.

https://www.amazon.com/Database-Management-Systems-Raghu-Ramakrishnan/dp/0072465638

I also saw this recently and by the ToC it covers lots of stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/Database-Internals-Deep-Distributed-Systems-ebook/dp/B07XW76VHZ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=database+internals&qid=1568739274&s=gateway&sr=8-1

But to keep in mind... the designers of these big data systems all had a thorough grounding in the issues of single node relational databases systems. It's very clarifying to see things through that lens.

First off check out this video.

So to me it sounds like you are looking for purpose from your work. You want your work life to be meaningful in some way and actually have an impact.

Are you looking for general impact or more charity/EA "doing good" type of stuff?

I don't really know much about EA stuff so I'll speak to the "general impact".

First off, you don't really need a credential if you want to be an entrepreneur. Do you have some specific business ideas that drove you down the tech start up route in the first place? If yes, this is the best road map I've found on starting your own business.

You should take a look at a bunch of start ups (or established firms) and make a list of 10-20 ones that if they offered you a job today then you'd wake up at 5:00 AM tomorrow to start working there. What problems are they trying to solve? Are they things that in 5,10,15 years you'd look back on and say "wow"?

Check out what type of roles these places are looking for then figure out if those roles are something you can already jump into. If you can't jump in directly then go to linkedin or google and reverse engineer the role to figure out what these people's resumes look like & what background do these people have who are already working in the field. Contact some of them off linkedin. Check out the schools, or online classes or certifications these people have etc. Take online classes on Edx, udemy etc, check out the relevant subreddits etc just to try and get a taste for the role(s). Try to jump into the new role as far as you can to see if you like it & if it's something that you really want to pursue further. Obviously start easy and progress naturally...for example if your math skills are OK but you've never taken a calc class then maybe stay away from differential equations.

I mention start ups because this is where you will most likely have maximum impact & responsibility considering you will be helping a firm grow or die. Though, some established firms also have impactful roles too. Start ups can sometimes be hard to find but I guess one way to do it is to check out VCs & look at their portfolios. Those start ups will at least have funding.

Another way to try and answer the "what should I do question" is if you were independently wealthy what would a year in your life look like? What types of stuff would you ideally like to be working on? What type of stuff would you be learning?

As far as the anxiety about the application process goes, & this might sound harsh, but to me it sounds like you're afraid of failure/rejection & so you are using your uncertainty about establishing a priority in what you should be doing career wise as an excuse for not actually filling out apps thus avoiding the possibility of rejection. So, the question I have is would you still be anxious about filling out the app if you bumped into a CEO who really liked you and the perfect job landed in your lap you basically just had to give them a resume/fill out some forms to show you're "real" and the job was yours?

I feel you the uncertainty sucks about whether or not you'll actually get hired. Taking a hard look at yourself in order to market yourself also sucks. But IMO the best way to think about it is to just play the lottery...apply to as many places as possible & eventually you'll land something good. It's only hard at the beginning once you get experience then recruiters will be breathing down your neck & the tables will be flipped. So shotgun that resume. Maybe write a little python script to help you apply?

Good luck & feel free to DM me if you wanna chat.

I felt the same way, so I went and found a bunch. Here they are:

Start Your Business is the single greatest book on starting a business. It is a pretty comprehensive overview of all aspects. I would definitely recommend it.

Finance:

Financial Accounting is a decent text. The usefulness of financial accounting in general is quite limited for an entrepreneur though. The techniques are mainly used by outside parties to evaluate companies, whether for investing or lending. But it can be useful in that it gives a metric for how your company is doing.

Managerial Accounting is a good book. The subject matter is extremely important and should definitely be learned. Get a book on managerial accounting.

Marketing:

Marketing Management is a really good text for an overview of marketing. One of the best.

Most marketing texts are smaller and not textbooks like you're looking for. There are some detailed texts that go into complicated calculations related to marketing decisions. Go check them out. It's like marketing science or something like that.

Business Law:

Business law is not really worth going into extreme detail. So a good book is The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law .


Final Note: It's important to note that it makes way more sense to just get into business and learn as you go. You could spend years learning from every text possible and get nowhere.

u/CosmicTransmutation - I agree with most folks here - you should get a CPA - but you should also increase your own level of knowledge so you're not 100% reliant on your tax professional.

For that, I recommend "The Confident Indie - A Simple Guide to Deductions, Income and Taxes for The Creatively Self-Employed" by CPA June Walker.

June advises self-employed "creatives" on taxes and how not to cheat themselves on deductions.

Great interview with her here.

You can get her book right now for $9.99 on Kindle.

I also recommend you get some kind of organizer for your paper records. I use this $9.49 spiral bound notebook with categorized and labeled pockets for just about every category [Referrals].

Hope this is helpful and good luck!

I don't know exactly how you put your ideas on paper, but I suggest putting it into a framework to better assess whether it can work. Business canvas model is a strong tool for that purpose. Not only you need to fill out all the blanks in the model, you need to make sure they create a feasible, coherent plan when standing together. It also eliminates too-visionary things that may sound pretty cool but not really needed when you first start build up your business.

I also suggest you spend time reading Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet. It will give you very clear instruction on how to proceed from an idea to a fully-grown company.

Good luck!

I strongly recommend Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet. It's become the de facto textbook on entrepreneurship at MIT, I think for good reason.

It breaks the process of validating a business down to 24 specific steps which each have concrete deliverables. Some steps require you to go back to previous ones if your prior assumptions turn out to be incorrect. The book itself is a quick read, but the legwork it asks you to do can seem a little daunting. I think that makes sense, though, because successfully starting a business is hard and this become is trying to take the guesswork out of it. If you follow the steps, then before you even build product, you will have validated:

• That customers really want what you've got.
  
• That they've got the money to pay for it.
  
• That your cost of acquiring a customer works out with your customer lifetime value to produce a financially sustainable business.
  
• That you know your ideal user/customer well enough to understand their motivations and whether you're appealing correctly to their needs.
  
• That you know where to find more of "your customer".
  
• That you're starting in the optimal industry for your idea.
  
• And more...
  
  All in all, it's a great way to double check your business idea and make sure it's airtight before throwing serious time or capital at it.

I think you should consider reading a copy of this book https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/dp/1492180742/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 because imo you're asking the wrong questions.

That said, my job is quite literally to decide what tools a development team should be building for a VFX house (though I am internal and not trying to sell software/solutions/etc to other parties) and I can say with total confidence that the things people ask us to make are not the things that would actually be most beneficial to the business.

In your original question you asked "what would be your dream pipeline helper in terms of versioning, file format exchange, etc.?" but I can guarantee you that artists and even studios in general don't give a flying fuck about any of that - artists care about making cool images and studios care about throughput and profitability. File versioning, backups, dailies, whatever are all just various ways that we facilitate that and remove friction from the process. Can you build a product/service/business that increases my studio's throughput without us having to dedicate development resources to integrate it?

Also if you can't see how Shotgun helps a VFX facility work in a streamlined manner, you probably have no business developing artist/production facing software solutions for this space. I don't mean that in a super offensive way, I'm just genuinely surprised you'd write that since other than RV, Shotgun is one of the very few non-DCC products in the last decade that has come out and been widely adopted by studios of all sizes. So... it clearly solved a problem.

Asking people's feedback is a first step but it's not enough and somewhat misleading, because many people will either :

• Say they will "definitely buy" and don't actually when you present it to them.
  
• Will say nice things, biased answers not to hurt your feelings (even if they don't realize it).
  
  What I advise :
  
  

1. Read this, it will help you define your customer need and products. Best 10$ you'll ever spend if you plan to launch a product and you are collecting feedback.
   https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/dp/1492180742
   (NB : There might be other alternatives, @UX guys out there if you have another book to suggest)
   
   
   
2. Launch a quick dummy store.
   Woocommerce, shopify,etc... are options to do so. Do a quick store setup with a them and few products and images and explanation, then add google analytics and track your funnel. Then do some fb and/or adwords campaigns to bring traffic in.
   Do everything like you were selling the actual product and once people reached the checkout and are ready to pay redirect them to a page saying "Sorry we are not open yet, enter your email adress here and we'll let you know as soon we are ready to ship"
   
   
   Once it's done, check the number of people that interacted, added your product to the cart, proceeded to checkout. You'll have an accurate view of the potential of your business.
   
   
   I can tell you, best shit you can ever do. I've done it myself to test an idea. It's better than any business plan and you'll learn a ton of stuff in the process.

To hell with the Career! Identify a problem you learned in the years you have put in so far, design a solution and build it up while helping your son grow too!

The ugly truth is - careers are an illusion used to convince people to use up their most precious years. So they can retire at 70, die a few years later with no time to use the money they saved.

Please do not look at this change as a negative thing! Join a group of entrepreneurs (real ones - not some MLM bs), learn how to a) find a problem to solve, b) create a solution c) listen to your customers d) maintain control.

Takes about three years to take a viable idea to reality - your son will still be young, and you will not have missed the chance to spend time with him. And if you succeed, you'll make more money than your husband :D

Surround yourself with people who do the things you need to succeed with your new focus

Evidence:

https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284

https://www.amazon.com/UNSCRIPTED-Life-Liberty-Pursuit-Entrepreneurship/dp/0984358161

https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-Wealth-Lifetime/dp/0984358102

https://www.startupschool.org

Stay-At-Home Parenting is not a prison sentence! It is an opportunity to break free!

Read stories of success, surround yourself with cheesy inspiration to keep moving forward. Whatever it takes - it's a process, start now and make this your "Eff this! I want a second house in the Cayman Islands" moment.

Write down your dreams, how much they cost, list the steps you need to obtain that money, and put dates on them. Then, go!

And good luck! You will fail at least once - regroup and do it again.

Unlike most things in life where one bad apple spoils the bunch - with entrepreneurship, one good crop feeds you for life.

So the things you're pointing out are completely normal for any business owner, particularly a startup. That doesn't make them feel less painful -- I empathize with you and I'm sure this feels discouraging.

Let's hit on a few key points:

• Right now you're in the process of validating your offer. Your figuring out if you're really offering something that people want.
  
• You've also recognized the disconnect between people who fawn over your product and actual users/buyers.
  
• Plenty of people will tell you your product is a good idea and that they will use it... very few actually will.
  
• What this means for your sake is being able to filter feedback and really understand who your users are and what they think of your product so that you can revise/adapt your offer to convert them.
  
  Some next steps for you:
  
  
• Go back to your niche. Who are you trying to acquire as users?
  
• What reason do they have to use your app?
  
• For those who moved on, why didn't they stay?
  
  To the latter point, you really need to get into the mind of your user and remove any excitement you're feeling around your app. What I mean by this is that the answer to the question isn't, "Because the app's amazing and it does so much for them!" That's what you think. It's clearly not what your users think. So how do you figure out what your users are thinking? A lot of times this means simply asking them for their honest feedback. This can be direct communication or as you scale, it can be something as simple as a survey that gets sent out to users who haven't used the app in X days. I always prefer the former, but that's also my communication style.
  
  A book was recommended here a while back -- I've since read it and appreciate it's perspective. It's called The Mom Test, take a look at it here: https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/dp/1492180742
  
  I also have a podcast episode on this topic. I don't self promote but if you want it let me know and I'll DM you where you can find it.
  
  Best of luck. Hang in there!

I really liked the Built to Sell and All In Startup. They're both set up as narratives, so they're very easy to read. I actually like the E-Myth as well--at least the first half of it. The Compound Effect had an impact on me and my thinking, but YMMV there.

I've been fortunate to read a lot of books that have helped me and guided my thinking when I was at an impasse. Reading books is like having a mentor, someone who has gone before you and who has taken the time to outline his/her real thoughts and strategies on what worked and didn't work in his/her experience

Contrary to the (somewhat surprising) sentiment of some in this thread, books can be VERY helpful in creating shortcuts and building a plan of your own.

Oh, I might also check out Crush It if I were you. I think Vaynerchuk is a kind of polarizing character, but I do think he's genuine, and for a book that's five years old, it has a lot of resonance and validity in our present climate.

Read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Fastlane-Wealth-Lifetime-ebook/dp/B004BDOUAI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380613408&sr=8-1&keywords=millionaire+fastlane

Then this one: http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Work-Week-Anywhere-ebook/dp/B006X0M2TS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380613398&sr=8-1&keywords=four+hour+work+week

Don't be put off by the titles. These are both excellent books. By this point you're going to struggle to ever want to get a job xD. These books are great overviews that give you a solid mindset shift in what's possible and what's required.

Once you've done that, resources like Mixergy, Smart Passive Income, etc will give you a lot of ideas for different approaches (there are heaps more, find the best and listen to what's relevant to you).

Break what you want to do into sections. You'll need to get clients, sell them the idea, have them pay you and be able to deliver the product. So figure out what you need to do to achieve each of those objectives.

Tons of stuff here but I will tackle a few:

1. The vast majority of businesses get no outside funding and are self funded so start building up your credit limits.
   
2. I suggest you take a class in finance because if you can't do a Profit-Loss statement or a balance sheet you are flying blind. You can also take classes in drafting a business plan.
   
3. Think bigger. If you start out with a goal just to make enough money to live on what you are really doing is buying yourself a job. You need to build a business that grows and can eventually take on employees.
   
4. Wanna be entrepreneurs spend a lot of time worried someone is going to steal their "awesome idea". There are 7 Billion people in the world, many people have had your idea. There is probably someone doing your business somewhere right now. The question is can you provide that product or service better than anyone else, that is the key to success. As soon as you launch and have any market someone can and will copy you so just concentrate on being the best and building a customer base. Never try to compete on having a monopoly unless you have a patent for a unique item and never compete on price unless you have huge economies of scale.
   
   If you want to go into business for yourself I highly recommend you read these 2 books first:
   
   The Illusions of Entrepreneurship
   
   The Millionaire Fastlane

A few books that, while more geared towards finding a publisher than what you need to do to publish games yourself, probably still have some good information about the business for you, especially the first one:

• The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook
  
  
• Paid to Play: The Business of Game Design
  
  
• The Game Inventor's Guidebook
  
  You could also try contacting someone who had a successful and shipped Kickstarter. They're probably more approachable than a major company, and they probably do things on a more budget-conscious level than some of the larger companies, which should make their advice pretty valuable for you.
  
  Good luck!

Just to build on this:

I couldn't make up my mind either, so I searched for these on the Amazon US site since I don't use Goodreads to see how reviews looked, etc. The resulting links, with the smile. prefix for charity aspect in case you make a purchase, are below. YMMV.


The Other F Word: 3.4

Business Development for Dummies: 3.5

Startup Mixology: 4.27

Starting a Tech Business: 2.67

The 4 Lenses of Innovation: 3.62

StartupLand: 4.01

All in Startup: 4.18

The Customer Funded Business: 3.73

Trend Driven Innovation: 4.38

Monetizing Innovation: 4.20

The Ways to New: 3.84

Startup Checklist: 4.10

The Art of Startup Fundraising: 4.11

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 4.26

.

Not in the original list:

The Art of Opportunity: How to Build Growth and Ventures Through Strategic Innovation and Visual Thinking

>Could you define "business"? It seems like a pretty ultra-broad subject to me.

OK then. If you know absolutely zippo about business (that is, no knowledge of what these terms mean: double-entry accounting, profit margin, loaded cost, unloaded cost, COGS, etc., get this book and don't be insulted.

>What markets are good for reselling for a beginner in the counter-economy

Drugs.

Kidding.

Anything that can be bought over the counter with no paperwork for cash. Tools and computer equipment are a good one. Cars probably not. However, the reseller market has very thin profit margins. It's not a good place to make a lot of money due to the Internet empowering buyers.

Here's a good book. Here's another.

Building on what you've said, runvnc, I want to add that people have an enduring but likely incorrect idea that humans will reject robots with the artful appearance of human-like intelligence and emotion, let alone the supposedly genuine intelligence and emotions speculated about in character-types like Kara here. Humans have loved artificial objects on much, much less humanization than this character.

MIT already studies robot/human interaction, and their research finds that people almost compulsively personify their robots as having human feelings and characteristics, and from there, they give them names, hats, and clothes. (It's not unlike how we interact with our pets honestly.) Elderly people living with prototype robot caretakers consider the robots their friends---when they don't have anywhere near this level of humanized features. (This book here details some more of these and other studies if anyone's interested.)

From there, I'm gonna argue that this video is an unintentional demonstration of that compulsion to personify. People would be much more uncomfortable if she really had no emotion or humanity. A robot who shows this level of human-like emotion but does not resist deconstruction would be much more strange and surreal. Kara appears human because we're more comfortable with that.

TL;DR: Robots aren't going to be oppressed for being 'too human'. People are going to love their robots like they love their dogs.

It's a funny thing, being able to see needs.

I've been developing for the past 6 or so years and finding needs is a task I only recently discovered. It seems like such a simple concept, but being able to see a need and fill it without being too complicated, loosing touch with the motivation of the need, and actually finishing the solution is tough.

I recently read a great book called, Start Small Stay Small, and it was comforting knowing that marketing of your product is way, way more important than it's feature set. That has been my credo the past few months.

Technically you're supposed to pay yourself a market based wage....not just for tax reasons (like mentioned by another commenter), but also because you should be replaceable and your salary should be able to pay a replacement for yourself. Otherwise you're just earning "sweat equity" that you hope to cash out with later on.

I'd recommend getting the book "Simple Numbers". It's just $10 for a Kindle version. It talks about the financial parts of a business in a way that makes sense and it discusses the concepts and ideas behind profitability, paying yourself a a wage, ad how to track it correctly from an accounting standpoint

Many of us entrepreneurs purposely underpay ourselves. And most of us are interested in growing our business's top line numbers. This book explains the rest.

https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Numbers-Straight-Talk-Profits/dp/1608320561

I've been in business for 10 years and just finished reading this book last week. It's the type of book I wish I would have read five years ago.

If you or anybody wants to read this book but cannot afford the 10 bucks, PM me.

The answer to your question is: Yes!

There are a lot of people who do freelance creative work. The key is to differentiate yourself from the $3/hr Fivvers.

Do you have a portfolio? What sort of things do you do?


The typical strategy would be:

1. Branding. You are a graphic artist, UI designer, etc., not just 'someone who has years of experience with Photoshop.'
   
2. Put together a portfolio that shows the different kinds of things you can do. Put this online somewhere so you can post links to it.
   
3. Google for remote work/freelance job sources. There are quite a few, and some have work for graphic artists.
   
4. Reach out to all the local graphic artist freelancers to see if they have overflow work. Do the same with some of the boutique creative shops.
   
5. Send emails to everyone - friends, previous employers, family - letting them know you're in business for yourself and would appreciate if they know of any work. (They might not employ you, but they might know of someone)
   
6. Start promoting yourself - blog post about things that demonstrate your expertise without being salesy. Your posts should be designed to help people.
   
   Grab a copy of Stop Thinking Like a Freelancer:
   https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Thinking-Like-Freelancer-Evolution-ebook/dp/B00PJIDO9C
   
   Check out some of the articles on: https://doubleyourfreelancing.com/ (it's not my site)
   
   Check out r/freelancing
   
   
   
   

As always, the best advice is to consult a lawyer and CPA. I am neither, but I can share my personal experience.

As a solo-founder, setting up an LLC will involve less paperwork up front, less paperwork annually (C Corps have extra requirements, such as quarterly meetings/filings), and less cost. It also makes taxes much simpler, as in an LLC you can do owner withdrawals with passthrough taxation (i.e., you just do your personal taxes with a Schedule C) instead of dealing with salaries, W2s, dividends, double taxation, etc in a C Corp (which has to file its own taxes). If you find a co-founder, you can easily amend your LLC documents to give them part ownership. The C Corp only becomes advantageous when you want to hand out ownership of the company to non-founders. That is, if you want to raise money from investors, take on a board of directors, or give employees equity, then you can convert your LLC to a C Corp. For a good intro to these topics, check out The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law.

\>with the accounting books, Accounting was still the only course I have ever failed. What ones you ready?

Not so much straight accounting - more like "I need a CFO, but am not going to hire one, so that's me now."

The best one I've found - that really is blowing my mind - is:

https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Numbers-Straight-Talk-Profits/dp/1608320561

I am way into anything that gives you a manageable load of metrics and tells you when to watch out.

"The Ultimate Blueprint for an Insanely Successful Business" by Keith J. Cunningham is another good intro to reading financial reports and getting something out of them.

> I'm starting to think sound and/or image processing will come out on top though.

Oddly, that is what my day job is too. DSP for vibrational analysis, just no imaging or AI.

ML = machine learning, yes.

I based my ideas on original research done by Rosalind Picard at the MIT Media Lab. Her work was covered in a few pages in the book The Sorcerer's and their Apprentices, where they discuss later versions of the original device. My plan is to take this basic idea and roll it into a usable product, based on Android OS.

I'd been blogging about this for a few years, but nobody ever seemed interested. I'm currently thinking about going public with my project via an alternative route: a podcast for people on the autism spectrum where we discuss the fun parts about who we are, our special interests, etc. I'm in the pre-production stage and plan to have this out within a few months, and I'll post the info on it to Reddit when it's live.

oh friend, there are dozens of us. DOZENS!

But seriously, YES! You can be a farmer. Yes, you. The sustainable agriculture movement is happening all over the US. Check out Acres USA, and if you have time, an apprenticeship is a great way to get started. The most inspiring book I've read on the subject is You Can Farm by Joel Salatin. PM me if you want to chat!

Advice: if the database server is at all important, make frequent and automated backups. On a different machine from where the database server lives. Offline, too. Honestly, best practices as to how for your specific software can better be found on sites like StackOverflow (maybe ServerFault), or perhaps /r/sysadmin archives. The important thing is that you make them (and verify that you can restore from them).

Also, have multiple databases for testing: a development setup, "UAT" (user acceptance testing) which can be used for verification outside the development team, and then production (maybe more if it's a large enough setup). Roll changes out to each in order and know how you can go back to the previous version (of the database and code) if anything goes wrong. It shouldn't need to be said, but don't let people develop directly on production; roll out a planned and tested code revision/schema change script.

If you have backups and decent testing, that insulates you from most accidents and you can get better at query-writing and such as you go.

My databases textbook was Database Management Systems by Ramakrishnan and Gehrke, but it's a bit abstract for administration. Something in O'Reilly's lineup for the database you're using would probably be a better fit for picking up general management and use.

MRR is short for "monthly recurring revenue", and ARR is for "annual recurring revenue." It's how much money your company makes each month / year before any expenses, and that's typically how people come up with a price when they want to sell their company (plus other factors like how fast you are growing, etc.)

"SaaS" also means "software as a service", where people pay you a monthly fee to use software hosted on a website. Before that was popular, you would usually pay a one-time license fee to install the software on your own computer. The SaaS model is much better because people keep paying you each month, and eventually a lot of that income becomes "passive" if you don't have to spend too much time on customer support.

I've learned a lot from these:

• https://www.indiehackers.com
  
• https://news.ycombinator.com
  
• https://stripe.com/en-US/atlas
  
  • They have a private forum for Stripe Atlas members, which has been really good.
    
• https://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/dp/0615373968
  
• https://thisweekinstartups.com
  
• https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com
  
  But the best way is to just start building something, try to find paying customers, and make lots of mistakes.

>I'm loyal and I can get work done.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but you've gotta look at it from an outside perspective. What "work" have you done in the past? From the sounds of it, this is your first venture of any kind.

From your other comment :

>Well now that I'm thinking about it I can arms deal ammo and guns

Holy shit hold up. Do you know anything about the regulations that revolve around dealing guns online?

Your target market can't just be "adults." I'm gonna stop there. What I'd suggest you do is take a step back from the "I want to be a millionaire" mindset, and spend some time learning.

I appreciate the hustle, but you're not going to become a millionaire overnight. It's gonna take years of luck, perseverance, and differentiation to get where you want to go- and even that's a stretch. You're competing with literally every other twenty-something out there, and only a handful of us are gonna make it.

I recommend The Millionaire Fastlane to any budding entrepreneur. It'll give you a no-bullshit look at building up a business, without any of that preachy stuff many authors are fond of now. It's the only business book I've ever read, and it's a great first step.

I've read a lot of the books recommended so far in the comments, and IMO a lot of them wouldn't really apply to OP and what he's looking for.

For the financial analysis stuff you're looking for, I would recommend ["Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits"] (http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Numbers-Straight-Talk-Profits/dp/1608320561/ref=pd_sim_b_52?ie=UTF8&refRID=1S8HGR7A61EGGQWPC28R).

I would also second "The Personal MBA" as someone already posted here. I also liked ["E-Myth Mastery"] (http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Mastery-Michael-E-Gerber-ebook/dp/B000RO9VIQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419395662&sr=1-1&keywords=e-myth+mastery) for the company structure and organization that you're looking for -- if you can get past the waffling and storytelling crap Gerber is so fond of, there's actually good information within those pages.

Lastly, "Street Smarts" is also a great book on business strategy for those with more experience like you.

/r/homesteading/ would be a good resource for you.

Check out the book You Can Farm by Joel Salatin

Check out ATTRA

I takes a lot of work and lots of skills to farm. It takes even more to break even at it. The odds of success are very low. But people can succeed.

Good Luck!

*edit
subtracted a picture of a delicious cookie. :(

Here is one problem I see with every game store I walk into (and all but a few are no closed in our area). It's how do you get people to buy merchandise to keep the business running. I have been to many a game store that are PACKED on a Friday night with kids playing games. Problem is they aren't buying that much merchandise, especially if their parents aren't there.

The last one I grew familiar with (which is now closed) used to bring in 30 or so people for Friday nights. Say that each one comes in with $5, and you sell packs of Magic for $3.99, and have a good assortment of snacks for under a back. You have a total sales for the night of $150, your net on that is going to be roughly $1.50 meaning you will be netting $45 (not even including rent, staff, and taxes yet). And this is on your BEST night!

I don't want to dissuade you from doing this, but you need to have a REALLY good hook in order to get people to both come, and drop cash!

Also not sure of the size of your town, but 3 gaming stores sound like A LOT. Are you ready to get into a price war (meaning you are cutting your margins which are thin already).

Again, not saying this to sound mean. I started my own business not too long ago and these are all things I had to think of before I signed the dotted line on the incorporation paperwork. You need to study the business you are getting into, see the weakness that you can fill or do better, then build your business around that point. A lot of things I can't see about your plan from this point.

If you want some good advice about whether you should start a business, before spending a lot of cash on classes start with a book. Here is the first one I read before I started my company and it helped a lot!

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Business-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1118083725/ref=pd_sim_b_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0BSSTE4Y08KSAC4B1QQR

I think it is key, especially if they are "great". It is actually in a company's best interest. The more vested a person is, the more likely they will work hard to create a great product. A salary isn't a great tool to get people to really commit. They get a salary whether the company succeeds or not.

I can't think of situation where you wouldn't want to give a great employee equity. It is just a bad business practice and shortsighted. That said, there is a great book called Slicing Pie: http://www.amazon.com/Slicing-Pie-Company-Without-Funds-ebook/dp/B0096EFHBI which details how allocate equity in super fair way without just "guessing" or using word of mouth estimates on industry standards. It is like vesting but without a predetermined allocation, which is hard to determine when a person just starts.

The amazing book Slicing Pie outlines ways to deal with almost your exact situation in the fairest way possible. It's short, sweet, and I highly recommend it. It has ways to value everything you mentioned, including time invested, money invested, his ownership of the LLC, etc. Using their formulas, you can figure out fair ways to represent all that time and money in your equity splits.

This book is fantastic and not even that long of a read:

http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Thinking-Like-Freelancer-Evolution-ebook/dp/B00PJIDO9C/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 (not an affiliate link)

Covers everything one needs to know about growing a freelance business into a million dollar company.

I promise if you read it you will make back the $10 you spent to buy it. I'm not an affiliate or anything – I just think it's a great book.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is any one link that will help you with that. Let me recommend some books to you that might help:

The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult is one of the most helpful tomes you will ever read. There is an entire section of "Chemognosis," which is to say real knowledge gained through this sort of experience.

There are two books by Daniel Pinchbeck I would recommend reading:

Breaking Open the Head

and

2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

There is a clinical study on DMT, called DMT: The Spirit Molecule that is worth reading. There is a movie version of it on Netflix, but don't watch the movie over the book. Do both, but if you only do one, read the book.

There is also a documentary I would recommend watching on Ayahuasca. Watch this documentary.

Good to know that having to stay on the company timezone gets to you. That's what I was worried about with my previous job and why I left before doing a year abroad with We Roam. Now I'm a freelancer and don't need to really be on anyone else's watch but my own.

I'm reading a good book right now that walks you through the steps of making a good bit of money as a freelancer: https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Thinking-Like-Freelancer-Evolution-ebook/dp/B00PJIDO9C

If you are looking to rate alternative solutions to a particular problem, you can use the Pugh Matrix method. Where I work, we've used this to compare multiple options and while it doesn't make the decision for you, it provides some good perspective. Here's an Excel spreadsheet setup for this approach.

By idea, I'm assuming you mean an idea for a new product (or service). Evaluating the viability of a product is more challenging. I would suggest the most important questions to ask are as follows:

• "Does a market exist for this product?"
  
• "How big is the market?"
  
• "How competitive is this market already?"
  
• "Do I have a means of reaching this market?"
  
• "Do know anything about this market?"
  
• "Am I passionate about this market?"
  
  I'm working my way through Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling and Mike Taber and they emphasize that market is the most important consideration. If you don't have a market, or if you can't reach into that market, it doesn't matter how great your product is.

Honestly the best book on this stuff is a textbook if you're interested.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Entrepreneurs-Guide-Business-Law/dp/0538466464

Thanks for your response!

Unfortunately, I do not think the business has much opportunity to grow (aside from opening another location). It is a retail store, so there isn't a lot of equipment or machinery.

Just the fact that I needed to ask this question means that I need to read up on small business finances. Just went to the library and checked out this book. I think it will help me to break everything down and figure everything out! Thanks again!

Besides Lean startup, I would go for:

Business Model Generation - to layout your ideas first and have a feeling of your to be business model (on their site you can get a sneak peek for free https://strategyzer.com/books/business-model-generation)

The startup owner's manual, from Steve Blank (https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Step-Step-Building-Company/dp/0984999302)

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: (https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284)


good luck

You don't need to have a lot of money to start your business. What you need as was already mentioned is the right mindset and a solution to a problem that people are willing to pay for. I love some of these websites and books and recommend giving them a look.

Smart Passive Income

Tropical MBA

The Lean Startup

Tim Ferriss' 4-hour Work Week

The Suitcase Entrepreneur

$100 Startup

I wonder if you've ever read this book? The author is very much focused on the concepts of synchronicity and shamanism. At one point he travels to Africa where he takes Ibogaine with a native tribe there. He describes the same tree spirit.

I've not journeyed quite as far as yourself, but your description was enthralling, and many parts of your experience directly match many of the conclusions I've come to during my own moments of introspection. I, like you, am skeptical and tend to question everything, but I think as long as you don't take yourself too seriously, which you don't seem to do, you've got alot of things figured out. Anyway, thanks for sharing.

Edit: Correct link

Hm. That's tough. Are you in law school, or is this some sort of survey class? If it's a survey, the stuff on wikipedia is actually pretty good. Also, there's a book called "The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law" that is very very useful: http://www.amazon.com/The-Entrepreneurs-Guide-Business-Law/dp/0324204930

I would recommend Small Time Operator. It is a great resource that touches on a variety of important items and issues.

I wouldn't try to value the company at this point. No track record of revenue or customer base makes it so subjective.

Recommend using an equity calculator like this:

http://foundrs.com

only as a starting point for discussion, then talk about likelihood of things that would change your situation.

From here:

• Set periodic time to review equity (e.g. every 3 months) and see if still valid.
  
• Put in Cliffing
  
• Put in Vesting
  
• Get this in writing (e.g. shareholder agreement) & signed by both of you
  
• talk to a local startup lawyer to vet the wonderful legal advice I'm giving you over the Internet
  
  While having it in writing is important. Remember a piece of paper is useless, unless you have inherent trust to begin with - think of it like pre-nuptial and how many of them actually hold up in court.
  
  For more detail, read:
  
  
• 18 mistakes that kill startups by PG
  
• Slicing Pie if you want a more comprehensive equity split model
  
  Let me know if any questions

Sole proprietor here. You do not have to pay any extra taxes for having a DBA. As far as the IRS is concerned, they don't care what your business name is. Unless you are starting an LLC or something like that, you will be a sole proprietor and pay taxes under your name and SSN. You'll use Schedule C.

Check out this book for some good advice: The Confident Indie by June Walker

I recommend reading http://www.amazon.com/Slicing-Pie-Company-Without-Funds-ebook/dp/B0096EFHBI

It advocates against fixed equity splits, rather allowing you to calculate a dynamic ratio of equity that should feel fair at all times.

There are a lot of books out there and some of them are pretty heavy duty. The Startup Owners Manual is, as it describes, a manual. I've found this book lighter weight and easy to digest. Disciplined Entrepreneurship

Static splitting of shares when nothing has been done by anyone is absolutely insane. I absolutely recommend reading Slicing Pie by Mike Moyer. It gives you a dynamic way to split shares within a startup company based around your actual measurable contribution to the project.

http://www.amazon.com/Slicing-Pie-Company-Without-Funds-ebook/dp/B0096EFHBI

Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet

The approach outlined in this book is a large part of why MIT is known for creating successful startups.

There are a number of good books. One I found helpful is this one. available on amazon

Focus on point 1) only first. Read the Mom Test and preferably some more literature (/blogposts/listen to podcasts/etc.) on idea validation. Do the interviews.

For 2) after: do a competitor analysis on a wide range of competitor & substitute products, preferably look at a similar product line where similar need & trends showed up. Draft up your first idea of a business model (e.g. with Business Model Canvas).

Return here after with a better idea and understanding in your mind and better questions.

I don't think this is true. The original proprietor is still on the hook for all the debts incurred while he was the owner of the business as these are personal debts. The new owner would only be liable if he agrees to take on the liabilities. This process would involve sitting down with the original owner's creditors to work out some kind of deal to transfer those debts.

Furthermore, if the business is organized as a sole proprietor, I would set up the business as an LLC to avoid unlimited personal liability especially considering the nature of a gym (people getting injured).


To OP: This is a great beginner's guide to starting/running a business. The book is called "Small Time Operator".

https://www.amazon.com/Small-Time-Operator-Business-Yourbooks/dp/158979799X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1485891222&sr=8-2&keywords=small+time+operator

It doesn't. If there was an economic meltdown then gold & silver would be as worthless as paper money, people can't eat or shoot with gold. If you are buying gold for an investment then wonderful but if you are looking to survive an economic colapse your money is much better spent on property and guns. Learn how to farm, Learn Bushcraft and buy a few months of food reserves.

I am also a developer, and wrote this post about how I generate tech business ideas.

Another recommendation is to read Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup. It has a lot of good advice on how to validate ideas once you have a few ones that sound plausible, and it is written for developers.

Well, fundamentally, a database is just a bunch of data. Different database management systems sort and store this data in different ways, and have different ways of interacting with the data. Probably the most important type of database management system right now is the RDBMS. SQL is the language used to interact with most RDBMS. NoSQL DBMS are the big competitor to RDBMS currently.

Try learning about the difference between the two and you'll probably find a million other things you want to read about. As a programmer, you'll probably be interacting with RDBMS rather than manipulating databases yourself.

If you want a more straightforward way to learn about databases, the first chapter or two on a textbook about DBMS is probably a good read.

This is a great process for dividing equity and a quick read: Slicing Pie

I am new to this, but here is one book that has been very helpful so far - The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law.

Disciplined Entrepreneurship: https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538665255&sr=8-1&keywords=disciplined+entrepreneurship

​

Its a fantastic overview that covers all the major steps for "successfully" launching a business. I've bought it for employees every Christmas.

I don't know where you're doing your research, but these things should be easy to find. Pick up a copy of Small Time Operator - that will give you the basics of bookkeeping and the sort of issues you'll need to cover.

Then check with your county office, and the secretary of state - they'll tell you about applicable tax requirements. Check with your city or village to see if there are specific licenses they require, or ordinances you have to comply with.

Not sure if you've seen this but it might be of interest.

Not affiliated with OP - here's a link to the book.

Stop Thinking Like a Freelancer: The Evolution of a $1M Web Designer

Yes, it's certainly possible, but as mentioned, it's difficult. I'd highly recommend looking into the following resources:

Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup

Patrick McKenzie's blog -- Kalzumeus Software. Read everything!

The Lean Startup

Also do searches for "micro ISV" and read anything you get your hands on.

Hi Jawilson2, here's a few books I've read in the past that helped prime me. I guess at the minimum these books helped me understand who was a bullshitter and who wasn't when they claimed they "knew the business side."

Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur - Fund raising basics. Key if you ever plan to raise money. You'd be stupid to try without reading this first.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071496025/

Business Model Generation - This book helps you think through the business model issues most "hacker" type entrepreneurs skip. Makes you think more holistically.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470876417/

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law - Basics about legal issues you should be aware exist. I haven't read through it all at once, but it's a good guide when I run up against areas I'm murky on.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Entrepreneurs-Guide-Business-Law/dp/0324204930/

In the 1890's the Hopi Indians prophesied that in 130 years the U.S. government will slaughter millions of its own citizens. Every prophecy that the Hopis predicted has come true. That includes WW1, WW2, the Great Depression, and others. This was discussed by Daniel Pinchbeck, who lived for almost a year with the Hopis.

https://www.amazon.com/2012-Return-Quetzalcoatl-Daniel-Pinchbeck/dp/1585425923

i am an american planning on backpacking in AUS. a lot of these jobs are targeted directly at backpackers on gumtree since they know most urban dwellers wouldn't want to do work this hard, fickle, or seasonal. they're sort of taking advantage of our lack of choice and therefore able to offer very low pay, or none at all in exchange for room and board, with the ability to stay in the country.

You could also try looking for farms around you by woofing.

If you want to get into business for yourself (basically all farming is) I'd pick up some books by Joel Salatin which give realistic expectations of farming life and some semi-realistic ideas for starting out for yourself.

Most farmers have bits of excess land that they can find no use for and will rent to you for super cheap. This is a good way to do some tunnel house chicken coops and such and to learn for yourself.

You'll find an infinite amount of fragmented resources for your question. I found one book that centralizes and summarizes that information into a process. Disciplined Entrepreneurship. https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284. If you're serious about succeeding, pick up this book and follow the steps.

Slicing Pie

Have a read, it's about a hundred pages and it will give you some good insight on this. I'll let others chime in from here.

Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup by Rob Walling.



Great book!!



Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615373968

Hi. We're a company developing management systems for fraternities and sororities. We're looking for a developer proficient in PHP and JavaScript to join our team in exchange for equity (fairly).

The equity would be split in accordance with what I've learned from: Slicing Pie.

We are a team of two CEO's (one learning to code) and one developer right now.

Major, major plus if you were part of Greek Life.

https://www.amazon.com/Database-Management-Systems-Raghu-Ramakrishnan/dp/0072465638/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318489725&sr=1-2

Thee are millions of books around.
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Time-Operator-Business-Yourbooks/dp/158979799X/ref=pd_bxgy_14_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0S7XN6A43GPJE4X8JWBS

You aren't going to make a living doing computer repair unless you are servicing many business accounts

http://www.amazon.com/2012-Return-Quetzalcoatl-Daniel-Pinchbeck/dp/1585425923

https://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurs-Guide-Business-Law-4th/dp/0538466464

I'm an attorney. This book is incredible.

Start with this book and you’ll be ahead of the game. Small Time Operator.

Also familiarize yourself with the IRS publications for starting a business.
https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/starting-a-business


https://www.amazon.com/Small-Time-Operator-Business-Yourbooks/dp/158979799X

check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284

Nađi ljude koje smatraš svojom ciljnom grupom, 5-10 njih. Za početak pročitaj Mom Test i probaj iz tih ljudi da izvučeš da li je to nekome uopšte potrebno.

​

>jer uglavnom ljudi to procenjuju iskustveno što je sasvim dovoljno

Ovo je nešto jako važno, da li su ti ljudi spremni instalirati tvoju app kako bi ona obavljala posao umesto njih?

​

Postavljaj pitanja poput

• Koliko koristite računar dok radite?
  
• Kada ste poslednji put koristili neku aplikaciju za proračune itd...
  
• Kako Vi trenutno računate te proračune?
  
• Koliko vremena/novca Vam to oduzima?
  
• Da li ste zadovoljni tim rešenjem?
  
• Koji je Vaš najgori deo dana?
  
  Ovim ćeš videti da li to pije vodu uopšte. Poslednje pitanje može da ti da neku drugu ideju/problem koji treba rešiti.
  
  ​
  
  Držim ti fige
  
  ​
  
  EDIT: Mislim da imam pdf na srpskom, ako ti bude trebalo dm-aj.
  
  ​
  
  EDIT 2: Samo sam ovo našao: Summary of 'The Mom Test'

Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco

Disciplined Entrepreneurship is a step-by-step guide to starting a business and here's a [PDF summary] (http://www.disciplinedentrepreneurship.com/downloads/Disciplined_Entrepreneurship_Poster_Aulet.pdf)

here ya go

OP read this first

http://www.amazon.com/Slicing-Pie-Company-Without-Funds-ebook/dp/B0096EFHBI

Slicing pie

D'oh! Was not 100% sober when writing that. Correction, the book is "Slicing Pie". Site, Equity Split Calculator, Amazon (not-affiliate).

Two books come immediately to mind for me:

1. "Start Small, Stay Small" by Rob Walling (https://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/dp/0615373968/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1480963865&sr=8-2&keywords=star+small+stay+small)
   
   
2. "Single Founder Handbook" by Mike Taber (http://www.singlefounder.com/)
   
   Both host a podcast at http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/