If you write software and have made it your career and maybe you have thought about becoming your own boss, leaving your job, and writing your own stuff. There seems to be two big troughs of fear that hold people back. One being the technical fear trough and the other being the lifestyle fear trough. I think of them as troughs because they are almost always full. There is always a ton of fear in each trough for you to come and gobble some up whenever you want if you choose to.
In the technical trough you have problems like; I’m just one person, I don’t have enough muscle to compete with Excel. There are no new ideas. I need a new idea to succeed. Facebook, Google, and YouTube are already created there is nothing else needed. Everybody hates software anyway (Amen to that!). Updates have soured sofware for everyone. Art is so expensive. Webdev is so expensive. Etc, etc.
On the lifestyle fear trough you have I’m older than 15 therefore my time is passed. I’m older than 25 my time is passed. I’m older than … you get the picture. I would be wasting all that money trying to “make” it. I would go broke. I won’t have a “job.” I won’t have a “real job.” I won’t have a “steady job.” I will look like an idiot saying “I run my own software business.” Etc, etc.
The thing that I love about software though is right now we have a tremendous amount of resources as software people to create anything we want. There is very little barrier to entry to put your software up for sale in a variety of different marketplaces. You have the ability to practice your craft and build a business out of it for very little capital. It is still an uphill climb and will always be that way. The failure rate for businesses is tough but that’s part of the allure. It has never stopped anyone in the past from trying, why should it stop you. No one says it will be easy, no one says you’ll be doing all the fun stuff all the time. I’m “writing” right now and this is not fun.