My desire to build the music marketplace was so great that I started to build it.

If I could generate a minimum sustainable revenue in less than a year with this startup, that would be a huge success. I don’t really know what’s going to happen, but I do intend to forge the future as I have a grand aspiration to fulfill. So, I’m going to return to making startups, focusing on this particular one. And I guess I could still try to look for a job while I’m at it as my runway is not infinite. I don’t believe that it’s impossible for me to find a job in my shitty local socioeconomic area, even if these low-class employers are lacking. But if they’re lacking, then I can’t really depend on them or trust them. I can only depend on my own strength, hence I’m more inclined to go all-in on this startup now.

If I do devote all my efforts (and yes, I’m aware of thinking in absolutes) to starting up a startup again–an exciting prospect–I would be assuming the risks and rewards of doing so. I could get rewarded for my efforts should I succeed. I don’t believe that it’s impossible for me to succeed. And I could be severely punished for having taken the risk should I fail. That’s the nature of entrepreneurship. A very honorable thing. And I wouldn’t have it any other way as I too am honorable.

It’s possible that I failed in the last phase. Maybe because I didn’t focus on one startup or focus well. Maybe because I stopped building. Or maybe because I didn’t believe in my strength. A whole multitude of things, really, and that is okay as I shall forgive the younger, inexperienced entrepreneur that I was who wasn’t aware of how to successfully be wise in that situation. So, that means, then, that focus is important. That building and not giving up is essential. And that believing in your own strength is necessary.

But I can focus better now. I can resume building a startup without pause. And I can believe in my strength more. These things are possible now because of my recent efforts. My efforts in adopting a superior paradigm. One that is superior to that of lesser men’s and my old one that is now fading away. A superior paradigm that cultivates sharp focus, fiery passion, and excellent faith.

And fear not, for all my present efforts in acquiring this divine paradigm will yield the reward of bearing it in years time.

A romantic paradigm of entrepreneurship

It seems that tech entrepreneurship is like space travel where you decide to assume the risks and rewards associated with it by venturing out to new worlds. Problems will occur and you have to solve them to at least survive.

Well, well. I never would’ve thought that I would ever discover a whole new space right here on Earth.

And I choose to believe that I can solve any problem that occurs. That I can successfully overcome any challenge in this new space that I found myself in.

Introducing Uta.io

I feel like I’m rolling a new toon (making and leveling up a new character in the Aion MMORPG game). Like a new toon, the startup will be initially ugly and weak.

Quite disappointing.

But as time progresses, as the long grind unfolds, it will blossom into something great. It will become adorned in trinkets born from experience and it will possess many great and dazzling effects.

Oh, and that long grind is very painful, but my great love shall drive me.

Target definition

I changed what I want the Initial Product Release (IPR) for the music marketplace to be so that I can have an IPR period. The IPR will now just consist of a service that allows musicians to sell their music and not consist of a music player. Or, I could do the opposite and make a music player service that will evolve into a music marketplace. And the word evolve is important here as the startup will eventually evolve into something greater as time progresses. I want to minimize the development time and cost of the IPR. Should I alter the firm’s aspiration in order to solve that optimization problem? Passion also has a hand in this. How passionate am I about establishing a music marketplace that allows musicians to choose how much revenue they want to share?

What should I build in order to minimize my development time? To help solve such problems, choosing to build small and simple firms or startups would be a feasible solution as that would help to minimize development time due to not having a lot of complexities to manage.

The safer bet would be to initially develop a music player service as that involves more simple implementations than developing a marketplace which would involve payments. I do believe in my strength and I can eventually fulfill the firm’s original aspiration. Choosing the safer bet would only be delaying the inevitable, but only if I continue to be passionate about the aspiration.

Development

I’m currently building the infrastructure for allowing musicians to sell music with optional revenue sharing choices. Slowly, but surely. Little by little. Much like how leveling up a character in Aion was.

I was going to learn and use Python’s Django because of how much I disagree with Javascript, but I decided to stick with Node/Express.js, especially as I’m limited by time. I’ll need a database for this startup, so I started learning and using MongoDB.

What I’m specifically doing now is creating and designing the frontend user interface while coupling it with the backend so that a minimum viable version can be developed and iterated on. The business logic simply goes: The musician puts up for sale songs that they would like for potential customers to buy and the musician has a choice of how much revenue to share with the service.

It’s kinda hard for me right now to design and implement the entire infrastructure, like how songs will be stored and accessed in the eventual database. That’s an example of an unexpected problem, but I can endure and succeed in this endeavor. In fact, on the second day of development, I solved an unexpected problem that dealt with file uploading, with my strength and commitment.

But after three days of work…

A pivot occurred.

I realized that it would be a better long-term investment if I focused on something else, namely machine learning. At least I learned and used the MongoDB database system. I got the Angular frontend to allow the user to create an account in the MongoDB database.

And this pivoting is okay, because my aspiration involves a firm (startup) instead of the firm.

The source code that shows my progress can be found here on my GitHub.

Focusing on machine learning

So, now I’m going to build a machine learning startup.

My aspiration involves making a machine learning-as-a-service product that lives in the cloud and a complementary open source machine learning framework. I want to implement all the algorithms myself so that I can be benefited in the long-term from such an ambitious investment.

I can do this easily as this is not a full-stack space, but more of a pure machine learning space. For example, the service would provide offerings such as an API for performing k-means clustering. As such, the advantage of having such a problem space (at least initially) is not being concerned with development issues such as coupling front-end graphical user interfaces with inner core services. I would only have to primarily concentrate on implementing machine learning concepts, which itself is still a challenging effort.

This endeavor is not concerned with directly creating a machine learning solution to a real-world problem. Instead, it is concerned with better enabling those who already use machine learning in whatever domains they work in. So, I would be targeting business customers instead of everyday consumers. And that is lucrative as fuck.

Now, my goal is to focus on this machine learning startup. My new hardcore startup lifestyle will involve doing that and it will take years to reap the benefits.

…to the detriment of resolving my lack of income problem and literally running out of savings. That’s the cost, though, of all this fortune that I’ll gain. That’s the downside of this hardcore startup founder lifestyle.

I know one thing about that problem, though, and it’s that I deserve a whole lot better than working a low-class job since I’m doing things like writing this blog and implementing a k-means clustering algorithm. And I’ll get that which I deserve with my strength and heart.

What I want to become–what webdva intends to become

But, actually, I may not focus on doing such a startup, at least for now, even though it would coincide with my new aspiration: I want to become a mini tech giant, a mini or one-man Google/Amazon/Facebook. An independent hacker whose portfolio and capabilities are almost akin to that of such powerful corporations’ own portfolio of success and influence. The power and wealth of such a prospect…

A hint of gratitude and a positive mental attitude

I’m not entirely fucked as I have technology skills and I’m passionately using them to build startups.

Also, startups don’t really die. They may run out of money, funding, etc. or they may be abandoned, and yeah, they could be considered dead then. But, they can also be revived. They only die when they are never returned to, i.e., when their founders ultimately give up on them entirely.

So, all of my startups that I abandoned, I can revive them. I can return to them.

Because they all have the potential to grow into something much more. So I’ll return to uta.io, the automated news service, and some of the others.