I know one guy who actually succeeded. He ran a hard-mode outsourcing shop for like, 15 years, for many years making 100-150K/month net in his pocket, but with AI, it went to zero by about end of 2024, so he was left with no income and lost all his (rather large) team. He started experimenting with products and after about 3-4 failed tries, landed a successful one which nearly replicates his old income, it is a mixed (live women and AI) porn webcam app. Took more than $2M sunk into dev and marketing costs before he hit PMF. He still spends almost everything he makes on research into new niches - fintech, trading, various scam niches, and more porn, but so far nothing else sticks.
Yet, he is delighted to not have to run outsourcing shop anymore, and make same income with much smaller team and much more ethical line of business than outsourcing.
Morality aside: To be fair, having ran many legitimate businesses and knowing few people that did the opposite, I must admit that the difficulty level in running "elaborated grey activity" is actually quite complex, people have this belief that it's actually "easier" but I doubt it's the case, many many more guardrails (accounts, anonymity, money where it goes, how can it be sustained...)
That's right. That shit is hard. But it's the only possible niche for someone who's an outsider and doesn't have a Valley network: do something legit companies can't do for regulatory reasons. Otherwise, well-funded companies with deeply networked founders where both funding and actual sales are done between people who knew each other from school or are relatives, they will just eat your market and will never even notice you.
I work with a company that outsources to a foreign IT firm. They are slow, expensive, and the quality of work is poor. They often hire subcontractors that are kids just out of school, now doing everything with AI. I've seen their prompts and often they are little more than "fix the tests." They charge $200+ hour or more for this in some cases. Insane.
And here's the trick: they use insiders to negotiate these deals, give massive kickbacks, and sometimes literally take over and destroy their victim (and i literally heard this term for a 'client' in outsourcer chats - 'victim')
Yep. I'm pretty sure the people who negotiated this "deal" did it for their own self interest, since they later went to work for the contractor directly. Too bad. We could've hired some solid independent developers.
I wasn't judging nor disputing that, just think it's a sad commentary on the current state of the world when outsourcing is considered as dirty as scam and cam girl operations.
There's a major difference: scam and cam girls work and make money, outsourcing these days... not so much. Even top outsourcers who have armies of lawyers and can afford to play harder than others, are in a sorry state: EPAM stock is 5x down from peak while rest of the stock market is 2x up from same point.
Yet, he is delighted to not have to run outsourcing shop anymore, and make same income with much smaller team and much more ethical line of business than outsourcing.