I want to be an entrepeneur software developer! Where do I start?

Question

Only problem is that I'm still kind of confused about finding a good business model and such. I know for a fact that I hate creating things for other people and that passion is to come up with my own ideas and bring them to reality. The problem is that I will be able to do so much more if I could do this for a career instead of out hours hobby.

So should I go back to school and take some business classes? I would like to be a one man shop, but hire a graphic designer when needed.

Are there any good books that can help me to avoid going back to school?

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

I would recommend reading some of paul grahams essays http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

He's a venture capitalist/entrepreneur who writes a lot about tech startups.

Answer 2

Move to a hotbed of start-up activity, such as the bay area, join a start-up and learn what you can. Then join another. Work on your plan while you're doing it, meet the right people, see what leads to failure and what to success, then get some funding.

School won't help you. But it probably won't hurt.

Answer 3

Hi,

Self-Learning may be a bit hard, but it's cheaper and if you really like what you do, you'll learn fast for sure.

Answer 4

If you don't like bringing other people's ideas into reality I have to ask, do you have any ideas of your own that are going to be worth anything financially to anyone else? I think that's going to be your biggest hurdle right there.

I think a dream of every developer is to develop software of their own design and find a demand for it. Very few of us will ever get to that point. Very few of us will even find a demand a personal project we offer for free!

If I were you, I would start out as a consultant writing apps for people in a field that is close to your interest. Work with enough clients and you'll be able to create a generalized product that they all would be interested in.

Answer 5

This may be a "wrong" answer, and I'm glad to take downvotes on it because I think this needs to be said.

There's nothing a business class can tell you other than how to keep books, keep up to tax code, and all of those little things. Those are important, don't get me wrong. They are well worth the money in taking a class.

But the rest of it is crap. There only way to consistently succeed in what you do is to offer something that people want. If that something already exists, it has to be either less expensive or else better quality than the other guys'.

If i were you, I wouldn't waste my time in the business classes just yet. Think of a solid idea. Examine the market. A business "strategy" should never be difficult to develop; it should flow naturally. If it doesn't flow naturally, then you're doing something you aren't meant to do yet.

Answer 6

Try the The Business of Software forum, the Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality book, and the Business of Software Forum FAQ wiki.

Answer 7

Give up on the one-man shop idea. Creating a software product, selling it, supporting it and continuing to develop it is far too much work for one person. Either go to work for a good company that will let you develop cool stuff, or get a business-oriented girlfriend who is willing to do all the grunt work for you (and I didn't mean that to sound like it just did).

The only exception to this would be writing iPhone apps, since Apple has essentially already done all the sales and marketing work for you, and created a drop-in channel for your software. However, probably even this isn't really a viable option, since there's a hell of a lot of competition on the iPhone, and I doubt that many developers are making making-a-living-type money off iPhone software.

Answer 8

It's quite simple actually. You come up with an idea and you try it out. You do it until one flies. There will be many failures that will teach you how to do better next time. One day it will take off. There is no magic component to how to come up with a million-dollar idea. Often you think of a great idea and it turns to be unviable in practice. And sometimes a joke can suddenly spin out and turn into a real project.

Whatever you do in this already crowded market, to succeed you need to focus on two things:

• Give people what they need instead of coming up with something you very much like and then desperately trying to sell it
• Whatever you do, make it in some aspect better than competition. Actually, there are numerous opportunities out there, many well established service just suck.

Business classes won't give you great ideas. They might give you a network of people for future use, but that's all. Someone of them might give you an idea and invite you to join, but if you wish to start yourself, you will need your own idea.

So just go out there and try and try and try again.

Answer 9

This is my take.

I want to be a software entrepreneur myself. I spend a lot of personal time working on little ideas, that for the most part don't pay off. That's fine because that is part of the journey; failures are only a bad thing if you don't learn from them.

There are some upsides to this:

• you learn a lots technically
• you [can] learn lots about networking
• you [can] learn lots about the business of software and entrepreneurship

Nothing gets wasted. Your technical skills can help you make the jump to contracting. Networking and business skills readily supplement your contracting and customer skills.

Along the way you can stumble upon a great idea or great networks. I subscribe to the trial and error approach which equates to experience.

So, after my long winded preamble, just dive in and get building software that you think someone will like. Keep your day job for now and leverage that to help you along the way. Read everything you can on the Internet before giving your money to a bookshop.

Check out the podcasts from Stanford Tech Ventures

Try ad revenue ideas, subscription models, paid-for software, porting software. Find some poor software out there and make it better. Find some expensive software out there and make it cheaper. Find an OS product and specialise in it and sell your skills/experience; you can easily build a company around this alone.