Software is a superpower

We tend to belittle everything we already know: “since we know it, everyone should also know about this”.

But there’s one thing I’d never give for granted, and it’s the power that software gives us.

Not just the ability to write software: also simply having software we can use. No-code tools are so advanced you can do a whole lot of things with them, and they give the power of software to everyone that’s not a coder, but rather a prosumer.

I’m a developer and I also rely on low-code or no-code tools. They give you the keys to automation, bringing this power to a much wider audience.

Whenever I do something multiple times, I try to think about creating a system, so I do not have to repeat that task manually myself.

I am a one-person business, and I can do so only because I have an army of little robots, running 24 hours a day 7 days a week, doing stuff for me. Don’t think they do complicated things.. they actually perform little tasks. But the little tasks that take energy and time on my end.

Since they do it for me, I can focus on the bigger picture.

Thinking in systems is also one big ability linked to this: building a system of interconnected automations that work for you while you sleep, while you are on vacation, while you are out running.

For thousands of years, people could only dream about this possibility. Instead, they had to employ people. Paid, or slaves. They had to build or buy expensive and fragile machines. Since a few years, not too many, we have access to an incredible set of tooling to bring this thousands-year-long dream to reality. We have incredibly powerful computers in our pockets and wrists.

And we should 100% take advantage of this possibility.

If you realize there’s this opportunity you’re already on the good track. This is not something you are born with. You can learn it. It takes time, and a lot of study.

I depend on various platforms to do so. I like my systems to be lean and small. Microservices, if you like. An event is triggered, information is sent to my automated service, and it does its job.

If the job fails, there aren’t a lot of things to look out for the cause of this failure. And my centralized logging platform tells me what happened, when and why.

That’s the thing that allows me to be a solopreneur in the first place, in the digital space.