Small business software. There's an endless supply of problems suitable for bootstrapped software businesses.

React had a wonderful core concept of blow-away and re-render the world. I'm less enamored by the rest of the flow and I'm positively revolted by Flux/Redux, but the base idea is solid.

You bet! We used to do all that stuff. It wasn't until, I think, 2009 that we hired an office manager. Jason and I have done all of it. From setting up insurance or typing in expenses for accounting. It might seem daunting, but be reassured that there are millions and millions of small business owners that figure it out every year. So why wouldn't you be able to? Also, you can use freelance accountants and insurance brokers to help you.

I worked as a sole developer creating Basecamp and Ruby on Rails. So you can certainly get started that way. But it's good to be connected with other developers either at work or through open source communities. There's no merit badge for being a hermit.

At such a high level, the answer is bound to be pretty vague: Keep striving. Don't think you're learning by repeating the same lesson 10 times. You need new lessons. You need to stretch.

You have to build an audience who cares about what you have to say and you have to solve problems that people actually have. I don't think there are any shortcuts in that regard. It took years and years before Rails took off as well.

I worked as contract developer, mostly doing PHP.

I think most web development tooling has a lot of inherent productivity benefits over native development, so as web apps become more capable, they'll win back terrain originally given up because you simply couldn't do certain things or it wasn't fast enough before. At Basecamp, our native apps are mostly navigation shells around web content. But we do level-up some key interactions to native. Mix'n'match is where it's at.

"Proper agile" has the same connotations to me as "Real Programmer". It's not something I worry or care much about, as a certification. Look at open source. How many projects have all their contributors meet in the same room every week to do work? Almost none of them. Yet some of the most impressive achievements in programming were done like this. Being present in the same room is clearly not necessary. I find that it's less a matter of technical necessity and more one of social needs. Some people just need/like to hang out with other humans for work often. Totally fine. You should find a work setup that makes you happen. Just easier to do so if you're honest why you need the things you do.

Absolutely not. Becoming really good at the craft is an honorable pursuit and can be very lucrative too. The worst thing you can do is start doing work you don't really like just because you think that's what you're supposed to do.