www.BPODigest.com i-Vortal

Getting Started with Your Own Software Company

Eric Sink writes Getting Started with Your Own Software Company

A very interesting artilce for all aspiring entreprenuers. The quotes I loved from the article:

When you start running your own company, you will probably have good days and bad days. If your bad days are anything like mine, somebody will eventually catch you whining about "how great the company would be if we could just get rid of all the customers and the employees." :-)

And

Like I said, there are no easy answers. Ideally, you would start your company using cash you've already got. But that's not often possible.

As unappealing as these options are, you will want your initial cash investment to be as small as possible. For an ISV, this can be really tough. It's going to take several months at least to build the 1.0 release of whatever your product is. It is quite likely that your spreadsheet doesn't show product revenue for 6-12 months even though it shows expenses in the very first month. Life is so unfair. :-)

My favorite solution to this problem is to start out as a consulting company and evolve into an ISV later. SourceGear was built this way. The concept is simple:

• In your first 40 hours per week, build custom software or websites for other companies. Charge them enough money to pay your expenses.
• In your other 40 hours per week, work on building your product. After the product is released and its revenues start to grow, you can gradually stop taking contracting gigs.

If this sounds like a lot of hard work, you are absolutely right. If that sounds unappealing, keep your job.

The article got links to various concepts on which Eric has written, a very good read indeed.

Posted by Ramdhan Yadav at January 30, 2004 11:37 AM Perma Link