Unemployed? Why Not Start a Software Company?

R.S.D. asks: "I see all these Ask Slashdot articles about unemployment these days. Why don't a few of you guys get together and start a software company? Out there in the world, there is still a lot of software that needs to be written, and people are still pumping lots of money into software (and biotech). In fact, the software sector is still described as the enduring leader in raising venture capital, though apparently in Silicon Valley more money is going out of the maturing software industry and into things that are still high-tech like biopharm and nano. Is anyone else trying this? If so, how's it going? If not, why not?" This is easier suggested, than implemented. For those who have gone this route, what suggestions would you give to those who may follow?

"Every time I see a group of 5-10 self-described 'great but unlucky' IT workers looking for a job, and how their previous company had to lay them off because their former employer had this 'stupid idea' it was to move all the jobs to Elbonia, I have to ask myself -- why don't these guys get together and start a software company. If you don't make these 'mistakes' of outsourcing development to Elbonia, couldn't you compete pretty well?

Best of all if you ever did need to grow, in this job market, you can get highly educated and experience software engineers even more inexpensively than China or India -- I've heard some internships are unpayed these days.:-)

Yes, I am taking my own advice, and trying this, even though I was not unemployed."

Comments

Start a company?

[ellem]

Pfft! If I had that kind of drive I wouldn't be unemployed now would I?

Yes, but which coder works while the other 9

[Anonymous Coward]

post on slashdot?

Start a Software Company

[danknight]

I'm Going to call it ... MikeRoweSoft !!!

slashdot problem

[havaloc]

The problem with starting your own company and gathering a bunch of unemployed slashdot readers is that they will be reading slashdot from 'work', looking for the elusive FP!

Software company? Great idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about making a word processing or spreadsheet program for Windows? You're practically guaranteed success!

I'm available

[Abm0raz]

I'm not much of a manager. I owned my own company before. My partner stole a bunch of stuff and there is currently litigation against him pendinf. If someone wants to start a software system, I'll code. I'm not much for free coding (so don't suggest sourceforge) seeing as I need to pay rent and stuff. I currently do freelance coding for various people as well as work full time running mail servers and anti-spam software for a large Architectural and Telecommunications firm.

-Ab

Umemployed? Why not start a software company?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can they DO that?

Re:Personal experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you live in India?

I am a hardcore Linux admin, have been using Slackware, Linux From Scratch, and Gentwo all on the same box with unlimited uptime, one user, and a 0.0,0.0,0.0 load average for over 10 years.

I know all about security, adminsitration, and bourne shells. I refuse to work on Windoze boxen because they get virii and are evil monoploists with no understanding of personal comittment fortitude, or wht I can afford living in my mom's basement.

So you are lying, and the IT market is hard for us pros who won't work on inferior M$ Winblows products.

Thanks for the advice!
--A proud Slashbot

Re:a little project for inspiration

[Anonymous Coward]

Counter example:
BSD-Lites

Re:The challenge of financing

[wwest4]

why settle for pizza tips? fuck that - if you can swallow your pride and deliver pizza, you could just as easily swallow someone else's pride and do gay porn. it pays ~$300 a scene. come on, for $300, you'd take a shot in the jaw, right?

Bubble burst, or champagne still bubbling?

[ron_ivi]

Yesterday's SJ Mercury news article has stats that VC funding is way up (22% over last quarter), and that software is the big winner with $415 million in the bay area this quarter.

Sure one bubble may have burst, but looking at the glass as a whole, the champagne is still sparkling.

(or the beer's still got a nice head of foam)

Re:I did this.

[Anonymous Coward]

> it's pretty much impossible to write 30 useful
> programs with an average beginning-to-end time
> of 3 days. If you could do that, you'd be giving
> Bill Gates a run for his money...

Windows _was_ written in three days.

Its just taken 15 years to debug it.

Re:The challenge of financing

[wwest4]

i'm implying that pride is a negative emotion in the context of how one eeks out a living.

and now for some more funny:

Personally, I did gay porn for 2 years - even while I was earning $75/hr as an at-home programmer. It was a nice break from the keyboard, getting me out of the house on a regular basis, and I got the not-so-occasional free piece of ass - the best kind of ass is free, after all! So where's the pride-swallowing, I ask you? I'm not begging for change, I'm not representing scumbags in court, I'm not calling people during dinner to sell them siding, and I don't have to deliver pizza. It can be dangerous work if you're not in a nice area, but otherwise it's enough to live on and you'd be surprised how many computer-y types I've known through the years who used porn studios as a nice little moonlight position... especially computer techs - I think it's just a nice change of pace to have a job where people are happy to see you! ... amen to that!

Re:The challenge of financing

[El]

You don't get a net connection for free. I do! Thanks to my neighbor neglecting to enable WEP encryption on his Linksys wireless router...