andr3w321

I'm 29. I have a moderately successful lifestyle business. One day I'd like to either start a startup or become an angel investor. I'd like some advice on how best to get there. These jobs require either

1. Talent/experience 2. Money 3. A good network

And ideally all three. Right now I have sales experience with some self taught programming experience and a modest amount of money. I work alone so my network is pretty bad.

My business makes ~75k per year, but ties up $150k in equipment and inventory. It's a small business that will not scale too well. An increase in revenue requires an increase in capital and an increase in my time which I cannot outsource. I could probably double or triple the business max. Through my business I rarely meet interesting people to grow my network or grow much in terms of marketable skills besides sales.

I struggle a lot with how to spend my time. Maintaining my current level of income only takes ~10 hrs/week. Should I keep growing my business and just try to save and make as much money as possible or try to get more work experience and programming skills? Possibly go to grad school or a bootcamp code school and get a job programming for a few years?

I have a decent amount of money saved up, but not nearly accredited investor level($1M liquid). I have a BS in Industrial Engineering from a big ten school. I did not get a degree in CS. I've done a fair bit of self taught programming and side projects but that can only take you so far imo. I've never had a corporate job.

A prospective employer had me solve a rather difficult(for me anyways) algorithm problem. In their instructions they say it should only take a couple hours and if you spend more than that just submit what you have. It ended up taking me more like 6-8 hours to find a solution. I think someone would be pretty much auto-rejected if they submitted a non complete solution. Anyways, I passed their first round and then they give me a 30 minute phone interview which consisted of a 10 minute code in a browser over the phone section which I did not pass and was given a rejection e-mail soon thereafter.

I then shared my solution to the algorithm problem on github. I'm still looking for a job on and off and it's my only project in c++. A couple months later someone from the company e-mails me saying other people have submitted my solution to their problem and asking me to take it down.

Should I comply? I feel like I don't owe them anything after I spent 10 hours for them and never even got to meet anyone face to face. I think they should create a new problem instead of re-using the same one. It's a lot of work on their end every time, but I don't think they really realize how many hours of prospective employees time they are wasting and I should be able to use it in my portfolio.