I am a newbie web developer. and a wannabe entrepreneur . I am confused about a lot of things .like grad school , to focus on studies or some idea. I am asking for some advice you got for me as an developer or entrepreneur.
I am not much older than you and started working professionally when I was your age, tho I did toy with programming since I was a kid. There is one quote I like that really makes the huge difference in everything.<p>"No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up".<p>Go to meetups. Considering another language? Go to their meetups. No meetups for your field of interest? Start one. Join slack communities. Join local facebook groups.
Help others. Like, if you know someone who wants to learn development, needs help finding a job, needs advice or similar - as long as they aren't a leach/asshole, help them, it will come back to you. Reputation matters.
Learn from older developers around you. Ask questions, be polite, if you think they won't help, try their ego: "Hey, I know you're an expert on X...". As people below said, learn about marketing and sales, learn people skills, knowing that stuff is a ticket to be more than a code monkey and will make you a better entrepreneur. Speak at as many conferences, panels, talks as you can. Don't tie your identity to the company you work for. Read books by people smarter than you.
Don't argue with people on the Internet, it's useless, especially on social networks.
Do everything you do, with a sense of passion. Don't half ass anything. This isn't limited to learning web development or starting a company as an entrepreneur. Have passion in your personal relationships, your health, your fun, your downtime. Enjoy the ride and execute, don't be afraid to make mistakes and don't get stuck "thinking" about what you need to do, you're better off "doing".
Read the book "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport. It's not about web dev or entrepreneurship, but it's well worth the read. (I'm a web dev turned entrepreneur, so I know it suits your situation). I'm finally reading it and it is eye-opening.
In short: Become really good at what you do through deliberate practice. This will open doors and get you where you want to go.
Learn about marketing and sales. Talk to and connect with people. More importantly, listen to them first.<p>Don't try to focus on ideas, rather train your mind to be aware of problems - big and small - around you. Take notes about problems you noticed and review those notes from time to time.<p>Talking to people and noticing things will let you discover true opportunities while thinking about ideas for yourself is more like a gamble: You might fluke it but it'll really be down to sheer luck.<p>A word about passion: Doing something you love is essential but don't limit yourself to something that you've determined to be passionate about early on. As with problems around you rather be open-minded and let passion come to you. There can be passion in the most unlikely places (I for one am quite passionate about creating boring enterprise software because there's plenty of improvement to be made in that area, particularly in terms of usability and UX)
Happy birthday. Go to this site, and read through this article - <a href="http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/" rel="nofollow">http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-...</a>.<p>Focus on saving. As a developer, you can save a lot of money by the time you're thirty, likely enough that you won't ever need to work again. I'm not saying you'd have to, but you can give yourself the ability to choose when you work, how often you work, and what you work on.
Work less. Smile more. :)<p>Seriously, this is one of the best times of your life...unless you take a job that squeezes every bit of energy and life out of you. Achieving work-life balance early in your career will make this profession sustainable for you in the long run; so I'd focus on that.<p>Beyond that: do whatever jobs interest you at the time, live on less than you make, and don't forget to backup your work.
entrepreneurship is about sales. Even the SV hype machine is doing a major sales job on people. If you don't like to sell or know some one that does that you like to work with. Find a hobby you'll be happier.
Don't seek trophies. Nearly every endeavor in our modern world is some form of gamification. Degrees are gamification, or traveling is gamification (Think of those stamps they put on your passport. Did you really travel just to get a little stamp, or learn something new?).<p>Build on strengths. We all have weaknesses and it is worthwhile finding these weaknesses early so that you're not hung up about them later. You can only build on strength. Don't waste a thousand lifetimes fixing weakness.<p>Get a routine. The secret of success is invariably found in daily routine. Everyone has their own routine. The key is to make progress with the routine and have an 'upper hand' over others.
Just start - build things - don't stop. Don't fear failure. Make big bets starting yesterday - because at 20 you have nothing to lose - no wife, no kids.
First of all,happy birthday to you.
My advice to you is to avoid distraction at all cost.When you set goals to achieve something meaningful in life,you will almost always come to face distraction at some point.Distraction can come in different shades and shapes.
I encourage you to learn how to separate signal from noise.
I wish you well.
Just Two things:<p>1) Always be writing code to build things.<p>2) Be selling what you build.<p>Without (1) you won't grow professionally.<p>Without (2) you won't survive.
try to identify patterns of things that work for you. No one likes taking advice, but if you can figure out some good shortcuts, you can focus on creating value.<p>I am just finishing up an audio book of Linchpin by Seth Godin. It has some great ideas in there in regards to being a remarkable artist instead of being a cog in the machine. I think this is important, especially as we are moving away from a manufacturing based economy.