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Unemployed? Why Not Start a Software Company?
"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."
I started this when I was 16. I designed programs to teach kids arithmetic. Now I'm 18, have a steady job that brings me about $10/day for all of the work of listing my programs on eBay, and every once in a while, I'll get lucky and a school will want to purchase 50 or 100 copies of my program on floppies for their computers. The programs took about 3 days to write, and they were the best 3 days of my life.
Find a dedicated concept or conceptual area to exploit. How to do this? Simply ask folks what areas they are having problems with software needs.
Interesting site can be found here.
Is anybody really NOT doing this?
I mean, every unemployed software developer I know still freelance codes to make ends meet (at least once unemployment runs out).
But making ends meet and having a strong business where you're honestly "getting ahead in the world" are two very distinct things. Of all the people I know trying this, few were able to come up with more than $10,000 over the last 12 months, and some of us considerably less than that.
Finding paying customers for software isn't easy (at least those willing to pay what the software is worth). I often go 3-4 weeks without anything profitable to do... and get called by someone who wants a 20-30 hour job to cost them like $50.
....and failed. It is not easy. You can't just throw clever programming at the problem and get money out the other end. For one, it takes a hell of a lot of marketing knowhow, something that most geeks should have known they were crappy at when the prettiest girls went to the fast-talking football players. There is much more to making a company than clever tech. Tech ability is becoming a cheap commodity. That is life in the new mellenium. The sun is setting on us geeks and there are fewer and fewer escapes.
Table-ized A.I.
The lead time before your software dreams start generating cash flow is immense. Sometimes it never happens.
I've seen self-employment work best as a service business. Can you do networking and software support? Do you think these jobs are beneath you? Do you have skills in dealing with customers? You know software development inevitably turns into support in successful projects?
Support pays the bills and generates the cash flow needed to fund you development efforts. The problem is most developers think they're going to develop a successful product and let someone else worry about the support problems. Never happens. Might as well bite the support bullet now. You will find it is not beneath you. It is hard even for the technically skilled. It will pays the bills and give you the time for pure development.
Here are the reasons why felt absolutely compelled to start a company:
- Ever since being laid off from a seniour level job at a large ISP in 2001 I have been unable to find anything that would match my level of expertise. I have not been unemployed a single day since, but I've changed jobs 3 times already and have been frustrated with the level (or lack thereof) of technological advancement, at least in my general area - Washington, DC.
- I know for a fact that the survivors of the dot bomb are plagued with all kinds of moral and managerial problems. I am convinced that this will not pass, and that the only way to find an interesting project is to make one yourself. Sure it's easier to "get a job", but the management of today's companies who have the money to hire lack the vision and creativity to provide you with a dream job, so you have to do it yourself. I also see this as a competitive advantage - I can have my prices very low because I don't have the overhead of loans, layoffs, chapter 11, etc.
- I do not think I can make a living by simply being a developer or system administrator. The offshoring thing is very real, and unless you insert yourself into the IT chain not just as a programmer, but as a manager and steakholder, don't expect anything other than a mediocre living.
The bright side is that it is still much easier to start a business in the US than most anywhere else. Really, why not take advantage of it?What do you need investor money for? You own a PC, or you wouldn't be on slashdot... Compilers are a dime a dozen... The biggest expense for many companies is R&D... It's not like you have to stop looking for a job while you're coding - you keep your skills current... The cost to enter the software development business is pretty much nil for someone who isn't working...
I guess before there were investors, there were no companies, and all companies have required investor money to get going...
Those of you interested should check out the Association of Shareware Professionals ... Lots of good info here...
Platform independent bug tracking software
I started my own company back in college, and thanks to an unexpectedly successful product by graduation time I was making enough money so I didn't even need to look for another job. But even if you're unemployed, depending on your credit history and other factors you may be able to get startup financing, or failing that you can try to find a low-paying low-stress part-time job that'll pay you just enough to keep you going until your first product release.
I design/write/sell software for Palm OS, and for what it's worth, PDA's and embedded devices are a *great* opportunity for small developers now - the size and expectations are low enough so that one programmer in a couple of months can create a top-tier PDA product. The only problem is that the programming tends to be a more frustrating than for Windows - Palm OS in particular can be very perplexing for someone who isn't familiar with event loops and 80's style application coding, and even Pocket PC is fraught with weird compatibility issues. And the development tools for both platforms kind of suck. I'm not exactly a brilliant programmer, though, so it's more a question of patience than anything else, and if you've got the stomach for it it can be quite rewarding.
Really it all boils down to ideas; the key to early success as an independent software developer is making something that's sufficiently innovative/exciting that your customers will basically sell it for you, because even with Google et al big advertising campaigns are still the domain of big companies. One great way to get started is to find a small niche market with few competitors, create a well-polished new product for it with some innovative ideas, and back it up with a friendly attitude and impeccable support - at $99 a pop you can make a perfectly decent living with a few dozen orders a month.
I like the way the poster arbitrarily suggests, "Why not start a software company?" as if this is something you can casually do because you're bored or something.
The truth is, even if you had a good application to address, whether you could write a viable piece of software that was marketable is an entirely different matter. Even if you get to that point where you have a good market, and a good product, it's only then that the real tough work begins...
I "accidently" started a software company many years ago when I wrote utilities to help clients in my computer consulting business. The products turned out to be so useful that everyone suggested I start selling them, which I eventually did. It took me almost three years, living in a crappy 1BR apartment that didn't even have working plumbing, making some months, not enough money to pay the rent, but eventually word got out and my product received Editor's Choice in PC Mag. Ok, now I've made it? No. Another problem -- distribution. Even though I had the best product in its market, my competition was in bed with the 1-2 major distributors and put pressure on them to not carry my product. I was in a catch-22 as I couldn't afford to spend money on advertising unless I had distribution, but the distributors wouldn't carry my product unless I was advertising, but I didn't want to put a $20k+ ad in PC Magazine (the major pub at the time) when the product wasn't on store shelves. Eventually we picked up distribution, but it was through a lot of hard work, travelling around doing promotions, exhibiting at Comdex (which at the time was an uber-expensive mafia setup where you'd pay a fortune for a crappy location and then find out when you arrive IG moved your both to the middle of nowhere). I won't even go into the nightmares of trying to deal with venture capital firms -- let's just say I'm still on medication from the rash those people gave us.
Before Windows, the economics of the industry was bad enough. Now it's even worse. You don't have to worry about distribution; you have to worry about some other company with more resources and a desire to envelop every market they can copying your product or bundling it with their existing products and destroying your market. Whereas a great product would eventually be found out, nowadays, most of the industry is hype/advertising driven and those with the most resources, not the best product, rule.
That's not to say it can't be done. But starting a successful software company has more to do with having a realistic idea of exactly what you need to do, and a *tremendous* amount of perserverance. There are lots of shortcuts you can take to offload responsibilities to exploitive partners and publishing companies, but you might as well get a 9-to-5 if you do that because you'll end up getting taken advantage of and losing control of your work.
Second, I said niche for a a specific reason. Its amazing how often you find small niches with needs that are not met, or poorly met. You can find opportunities where the programming effort required is minimal, but the value to that customer is immense. Nobody is saying you should take on Microsoft - in fact its because you're small that you can successfully address these niches. Your local, you know the problem, you know the culture. You can also target your marketing cheaply.
About 5 months ago, I quit my full time, decently paying, software development job to start working for myself.
Personally, I don't see what all the whining is about ("waah! my boss fired me to offshore his work to india!"). I've experienced offshoring code first hand on two seperate projects and both times, niether of them understood what was requested. And several tens of thousands of dollars later, they were canned. I find it rather easy to convince people that offshoring is one of the biggest wastes of time and money, and becuase of that, I found it rather easy to go on my own.
I'm hardly what you'd call a people person, but the contracts still keep rolling in. And although I'm currently making less than I was full-time, I'm the happiest I've ever been....I make my own hours, I program in whatever language I want, and I set my own wage. And now I have time to do a morning exercise, to try to lose all this weight I gained working in a cube for 3 years.
How could I say to men: "Speak louder, shout! For I am deaf!"? -Ludwig van Beethoven
That sounds great, but it is worthless. When you are unemployed the state (might differ if you are not in the US) pays you to spend 40 hours a week looking for a job. I know that almost nobody actually spends all 40 hours a week looking for a job, but that is what you should do.
I cannot start a company and remain on unemplyment, it is against the rules. Lookup OddTodd one time, he created a successfull cartoon, and the state wanted to take his unemplyment benifits back, he only won that case because he was able to show that he didn't expect his cartoons (which are funny) to make money. If you start a software company can you really expect me to belive that you do not expect to make money?
One of the unstated advantages of an open source project is that it can serve as an online resume. Employers can only guess at how real your resume is. You may say that you're a hot-shot programmer, but how can an employer really know? Answer, they can download, compile and run your project from SourceForge. If they cannot do this, maybe you don't want to be employed by them anyway.
If you release you code under the GPL, there is nothing to stop you (as the copyright holder) from re-releasing the code under a more commercial license if your open source project is popular or you find a market for it.
Starting your project off as open source is a great idea. Even if it does not take off, your code is out there and other people (and future employers) can see what your programming ability is like without having to take your word for it.
It certainly works for me. I have two project on SourceForge that helped me land two $100k+ jobs.
> if you can swallow your pride and deliver pizza, you could
> just as easily swallow someone else's pride and do gay porn.
Wow, in your mind those two professions are equivalent?
(And I thought *I* was a huge moral relativist...)
The apparent nonexistance of a line between legal and illegal actions should leave you admirably suited to a job in almost any large corporate legal department. Blimey, you're set for life, dude!
Personally, I delivered pizza 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 slice - the best kind of pizza 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 my clothes stay on. 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 pizza places 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!
Perfectly Normal Industries
You seriously overrate some IT managers and corporations judge of talent.
I'll give you a random example from my own past experience.
Several years ago (like 6-7, I don't even think I'm under an NDA anymore, ancient times really) I worked for a lesser known corporation called Sony Electronics.
I started off at this Sony Electronics place, in Tech Support. I went there expecting they would be interested in knowledgable people. I walked in and they first did a lie detector test for security clearance and drug testing. Then they gave you a technical test, where they would ask you questions and you'd have to describe how to perform various tasks off the top of your head and explain technologies in certain areas etc (architectures you've worked with etc.). Fair enough, after all a customer isn't generally going to call and give you a multiple choice question.
It wasn't long before the interviewer was starting to scribble on the back of the sheet when writting down the processors I'd worked with (3rd question, after name and date of birth) before he simply sat it down and started quizzing me. All of it fairly easy windows stuff (only setback was that he said it was windows 98se and asked about system resources, I started explaining how to get to the system monitor and he got very confused, he wanted the overall rating in system properties).
So I go through the rigerous Sony 1 month training course and another month on the floor. And then I discover the magic which is numbers. That is all sony cares about. My (now wife) worked there with me, she is of a knowledge level where she knows there is this cd command and a vague idea of how it works, if you ask her how to move to the root of the C drive she will advise to type "cd C:".
She didn't know shit, probably fixed about 3 customers problems for real. It's a fair bet that every customer she handled called back 3 or 4 times. Needless to say she was the Star of our entire shift, 94-96% of her time was spent on the phone or available ready for a call to come in. Her average call time was about 6 minutes. If you checked her calls (easy to do) there was ALWAYS a callback but Sony neither noticed nor cared.
Me, I rated about 85% spending alot of my time in unavailable (mostly spent on call documentation), my average call time was more like 15min. I had an average of 5 or 6 kb updates (solutions that were wrong or had no solution in the sony knowledgebase, wife had zero in the year we worked there) a day. If you looked through my calls you would always see almost nobody I worked with had to call back for the same problem and the only reason I escalated a call was because it required a solution that wasn't within my authority (certain types of repairs) and even then I usually walked over and got authorization rather than bumping up the call.
I have several letters in the Sony book (where customers wrote to the president of the company because they were so pleased with my work) and had one customer try to send me home baked chocolate chip cookies (nazi security gorillas examined and proded them for 3 months and finally handed me a bag full of cookie pieces, seriously).
Now with all that, I was at barely acceptable performance and got lectures on my numbers fairly routinely (course they'd never fire me, that takes a 6month process at sony and they wouldn't start it with my star employee girlfriend as part of the package).
My wife is an accountant by trade by the way, and her poor performance as a phone tech really doesn't reflect on her work in the subject she actually knows something about.
In any case, that is an example of the way Corporate America works, I could give you dozens of other examples. It's much like the government, there are rules and guidelines and reality rarely intrudes on the way things work there.