Hi,

I’m a programmer with a bunch of years in IT and currently I’m trying to build my own project that can bring me enough revenue so I can leave my full-time job and focus on my projects only and eventually start my own business.

The main struggle right now is that I have too little time to work on my projects (around 3 hours per week) and I estimate it will take me at least 2 more years to start earning anything (not talking about real money so I can leave my full time job). I don’t want to create any sort of scam just to grab some cash, but building a real complex software is a time consuming process, not speaking about that I must handle other stuff than programming (which I enjoy but this means I have even more work to do).

I’m wondering if anybody can give me any advice how to speed up that process or where I can get money to be able to focus on my ideas full time? Or maybe somebody tried to do the same and failed and can share what lessons they learned from their mistakes?

I’m looking for a real solutions, so please cut out generic advices like “just keep working” or “just find an angel investor”. I understand that starting your own business is hard and requires to take a risk, but I’m looking for practical advices and not advices based on luck or having a huge start capital.

Thanks

  • fonix232@fedia.io
    7·
    13 hours ago

    It’s not just hard to start your own business nowadays but nigh impossible.

    You have three options:

    • the easiest, contractor way. You basically employ people, then “rent” them out to third parties as workforce with domain specific knowledge. This usually only works if/when a company lays off a big chunk of their workforce, in an attempt to cut costs by offloading the work to a similar company in a much cheaper country (e.g. India, Philippines). Since such ventures have an astonishing failure ratio within 6-12 months, the old employees can bank on the company crawling back for their knowledge etc., and as contractors can ask for a much higher fee. But I don’t think this will be relevant for you.
    • the easier, “software house” way. You get the engineers, designers, team managers etc., employ them, and take on contract work where you supply the entire pipeline from building requirements to delivering software and testing and maintaining it. This can be either super fun or super soul crushing, depending on the client and the project. But for this you better have at least one client lined up OR a superb marketing-sales guy who can get clients quick.
    • the hardest is when you roll your own product. It’s not enough to have a good idea anymore, even though venture capitalists would want you to believe that fairy tale. No, you need a solid plan going in, viability studies etc. on hand, to even start working on an idea - because that software has no buyer at that moment. You need your own design and marketing team, sales, as well as the engineering AND a clear idea of what you’re going to make. B2C, you’ll need massive investments to get off the ground as each client will provide minimal revenue and you’ll need to bank on large numbers of them. B2B is easier to manage but is a much harder sell most of the time, especially on the volume you need to keep things afloat.

    Since you’re leaning towards option 3… as I said you need to see if your project is even viable. If it’s truly a novel solution for a problem, not just A solution but something people will want to pick over competitors. Then you need a proper business plan, on how you plan not just finishing its various stages, but how you plan on monetising it, when you expect to turn a profit, all supported with professional analyses, calculations, facts, numbers.

    Once you have that you need to find investors. Angel investor will be your first stop - people who don’t mind throwing around money that to them is chump change, but to a new business, it’s make or break amount. Their terms are usually pretty lax and they go in with the knowledge that they might lose everything, and most angel investors don’t really want to influence your product too much either. In return their investments are usually pretty small ($10-25k at most), so you’ll need to court a number of them to get that starting seed fund going.

    Venture capitalists are a bit different - they can offer BIG money, $200k and upwards, pledge continued support, but they also ask for a lot in return, lots of share options, guaranteed say in the processes, etc., they’re basically your first shareholders. The money might be good but you’re selling off your company, your project, before it even starts out.

    There are other kinds of investment rounds too but for those you’ll definitely need a finance guy so they’re not even worth mentioning as any discussion would lead to the conclusion “get a finance guy and ask them”.