So, I was wondering what have I actually spent my time on and was it wisely spent ?

• About of month writing software to simulate forex trading. Downloaded and cleaned years of 15 minute resolution forex data – put it all in a database (sqlite) created software in C++ to test various plug-in algorithms (in Lua) to try and predict market trends. Looked really cool but number of products in this space caused me to abandon it. No, I didn’t find an algorithm that would miraculously guess the forex trends.

• Joined a cyber-security startup for four months. Great founder, great idea. I know I’ll be hearing of them in the news, but my path goes elsewhere…

• Another two months – Created a system for automating work assignments. Created a working solution for two hospitals (on call/on duty posts for Doctors) but realized that at least in the departments I was working with, there are other considerations in addition to efficiency and correctness of the solution, such as “now the computer will be in control – this is bad…”. In addition, here too I noticed that the competition has established itself in this market and the investment was just not worth it.

• Another two months writing a blazing fast, unbeatable, multilingual Scrabble game against the computer with animations, drag & drop and other cool stuff entirely running on JavaScript in the browser – was about to market it in various ways when…

• Now three months into a new startup with 3 other great founders.

Conclusions:
I had hoped to have had some revenue streams by this time based on various products. As it stands, time really goes by quickly and I could have probably have spent the time more wisely by sticking to some carefully selected e-commerce applications and following through – but at this point I still have no regrets – it is fun, educating and still far from over 🙂