It seems today that many people across the internet are infatuated with the idea of making it big – fair enough, surely that’s what we all want right? But what is worrying is that may of these people are operating under the mis-conception that doing so will be easy. They read the stories of some of the biggest names in the web design industry and set about trying to become one of them. Now that’s all well and good, but I find that so many of these hopefuls are attempting to make a large amount of money by usually replicating what others have created. It is important that such people understand that creating a new social networking site won’t work – unless that is they have a new and really good idea. To make it big you have to have a totally original idea, and be able to implement it well. Many people have blogs (I am one of those people!), but few make it to the big time (I ain’t one of them :(). Many people think they will be able to create the next best selling iPhone app, but few recognize the many difficulties they will face if they are poorly equipped.
The worst kind of person like this is a young student who thinks they know it all about website design. Unfortunately their websites are usually painfully recognizable because they were made from a tutorial. What many of these people fail to understand, is that without a proper education and experience in the field, they won’t really be able to design great websites.
There are of course those who do make it big with little work. But usually they are one in a million. What I am trying to say is this: don’t go about life thinking you will be able to pick up the skills you will need to create the next killer iPhone app; don’t go around in life expecting ideas to simply flow into your mind. If you want to make it to the big time you are going to have to work hard and come up with something that solves a problem and that people like. For instance CSS Tricks, a website by Chris Coyier is very successful because the guy behind it is incredibly skillful at what he does, and people care about his opinion because they can see that he is as skilled as he is.
I don’t mean to dampen your dreams or anything – just to make you have a more realistic outlook on life. Keep smilin’! 😉