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You make it sound almost easy 
Now all I need is a killer idea, and the free time to write it.
Do you write your software alone, or have you reached a stage when you have hired additional developers to help? What kind of software do you sell?
Simon
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Simon Stevens wrote: You make it sound almost easy
Whups, sorry, it's not, it was *damned* hard. You have to either hire someone to deal with a lot of stuff that is not programming or become the sort of person interested in dealing with trademarks, incorporation, license lawyers etc but most of all you need to become a marketing expert.
You don't need a killer idea you just need to find a market that has a *LOT* of potential paying customers spread out globally and is badly served by the current software out there, write something better and market the hell out of it online by ensuring you have a perfectly designed website for natural search engine result first page ranking and paying for per click advertising. It helps tremendously if it's software related to something you have personal experience and an interest in the first place.
Spend a lot of time communicating with your customers and trial users, find out what works, what needs to be added, make it super easy for them to make suggestions and *implement* the most common ones continually.
We make work order and service management software and I write all code that can't be bought as a 3rd party component library. Aside from the writing of the code the other 75% of the work of the business, i.e. support, documentation, accounting and business issues, marketing is now done by others. When I started I did it all myself.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."
-Sam Levenson
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Now you are encouraging me.
It is Good to be Important but!
it is more Important to be Good
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John C wrote: trademarks, incorporation, license lawyers etc but most of all you need to become a marketing expert.
Marketing is interesting, I'll learn about that, the rest I'll need help with.
So the available market, and existing competitors are more important that the product itself.
How do you deal with the problem of competition from huge companies like MS? They seem to have a finger in so many industries these days. Or do you just hope they don't choose to target your market.
Do you have any unique innovations in your products and do you have them protected by patents? How early did you have to get those patents? before the first sale?
When you started out, was it a 'spare time' project, while you continued with normal employment, or did you write it all without a job and hope you could sell it at the end. Or did you have investment backing? Or did you have customers lined up from the beginning that you worked with as you developed it?
How old were you when you first started out? I'm still too young to have a huge amount of experience in any particular area. How many years did it take to grow from the initial concept to where you are now?
Sorry if I'm asking lots of questions, but I'm just very interested in how you started things.
Simon
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Simon Stevens wrote: So the available market, and existing competitors are more important that the product itself.
Well the thing is you can have the best product in the world but if you can't market it properly you will go no where fast. It's a lot easier to market a truly good product than a sh*tty one but either way...
Simon Stevens wrote: How do you deal with the problem of competition from huge companies like MS?
We have a *lot* of competition in our market segment. When we started 11 years ago there was much less that was targetted at small business as ours is so we filled an empty niche, now everyone and his dog has an application in our market segment but ours is the best and we market it better than anyone else. If Microsoft jumped in it would be out of character for them as it's a pretty specialized market but it wouldn't bother me any because we have experience in completely saturated markets as well, one of our little side projects is an address book and we still sell a *lot* of it even though you can't shake a stick without hitting someone publishing address book software and it practically comes with most operating systems and applications. You just need to differentiate yourself in key ways that no one else is.
Simon Stevens wrote: When you started out, was it a 'spare time' project, while you continued with normal employment
Yes, it's the only sane way to do it. Also avoid the temptation to seek investment at all costs. Money people will tell you that if you aren't growing by fantastic percentages each year you're going backwards but that way lies driving a business into the ground, not building a sustainable risk free one.
Simon Stevens wrote: How old were you when you first started out?
When I *first* had my own business I was about 12 years old.  I used to buy frozen bread dough at the grocery store, bake it at home and sell it as "home made bread" at the local farmers market. But when I first started doing what I do now I was 29. There's no age that is relevant for this, just interest and willingness to do hard work and not take shortcuts.
Simon Stevens wrote: How many years did it take to grow from the initial concept to where you are now?
It took about a year from initial concept and starting development to having enough sales that I could do this full time while my partner and wife still ran the computer networking side of our business. We used to both do it then it was enough for me to draw back entirely from that and focus on software. 4 years later it was enough for her to quit the networking side of it and work full time on our software business. We sold our house, moved back to where we wanted to be and haven't worked for anyone else since.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."
-Sam Levenson
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When I was "my own man" I was doing both 1) and 2), and while 1) was much more fun, most of the money I made was from 2)
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The Dogcow Farmer wrote: Chuck Norris has the greatest Poker-Face of all time. He won the 1983 World Series of Poker, despite holding only a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoloy card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green #4 card from the game UNO.
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More than anything else, the worst nightmare is the dirty politics. I really don't know why people succumb to base and mean-minded pleasures to satisfy their bestial instincts to satisfy their selfish personal chores. They fabricate stories on other poor scape goats just to advance thier prospects and have thier asses securely glued to the seats. 
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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Man you need to change employers, if that is your environment get out and get out now. No amount of money or opportunity can compensate for such an environment.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Sometimes it is a cheap ploy deployed by base-minded skunks in isolated parts of this region wherein, they would prefer getting a newer cheap resource on whom they have more control than the one which has more control on the current established enviroment.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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I enjoy taking the CodeProject polls and reviewing the results of the assembly, but I think this poll was very short-sighted.
Many of us are employees of an IT department that is integrated into an industry not traditionally technology-integrated. The position I hold with a Financial Advisement company (not handling financial transactions, but prescribing portfolio recommendations) is considerably more volatile in a bear market than in a bull market and has almost nothing to do with performance.
(Sometimes I miss working in a programming shop where it really was performance-based.)
--Taf
P.E.B.C.A.K.
(Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard)
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Taf Greenstreet wrote: Many of us are employees of an IT department that is integrated into an industry not traditionally technology-integrated. The position I hold with a Financial Advisement company (not handling financial transactions, but prescribing portfolio recommendations) is considerably more volatile in a bear market than in a bull market and has almost nothing to do with performance.
"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good." For the same reasons, we have customers that are extending their service with us (we provide subaccounting back-end services for mutual fund administrators), such that they are making up for other clients we've lost who no longer see our services as affordable. Plus, our department is making inroads on some of our biggest costs without requiring us to cut personnel, and our programming staff (me and one other guy) are the reasons why...which, in our company which seems to be run by hard-headed realists who can be convinced by hard data, means we've survived three rounds of layoffs without losing any of our people (instead, we've expanded). Sometimes it works  .
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That is what it takes. It will give you the security to quit any bad job without hesitation and the comfort to know that even a good job that turns sour can't ruin your disposition.
Can any one donate $49,999.99 to my job security fund
Need software developed? Offering C# development all over the United States, ERL GLOBAL, Inc is the only call you will have to make.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway
Most of this sig is for Google, not ego.
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If you lend it to me. I fell pry to evil credit cards. (My fault). So now my savings is gone.
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Hello,
I was in a position for 15 years and got terminated. I was in a position 13 years and got riffed. I now keep looking for a "permanent" position.
Stress is not helping the health, but what are you to do?
djj
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Quit working for someone else and start your own company.
Is the glass half full, half empty... or twice as large as it needs to be?
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Be diversified, have skills that keep you employable. No job lasts forever anymore...
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Well my degree is in Mechanical Engineering but I am now employed as a DBA. I have worked in material testing, database programming (FoxPro), database programming (Oracle/SQL), VB .NET programmer and now the MS SQL DBA.
I try to go with the flow but seem to be on the short end of the stick.
I have too low self esteem to start my own company. Hey that is probably why I get let go. 
djj
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As Don Lancaster put it, it is foolish to be getting all, or even the majority of, your income from a single source. Better to have lots of small sources of income than one big one. When you have lots of small sources, when things start to go bad (e.g., customers stop coming back), you can analyze what's going wrong and fix it before it gets really bad.
In the software biz, that's a bit tough to accomplish, but I have found a couple of alternative businesses that I can pursue that minimize the impact of losing my main day-job. Which I will lose anyway in at most about 8 more years.
I already make about $15K/year teaching violin lessons, and I have to turn away students despite my recent rate increase. I also made about $12K/year teaching another class (for a state license), and I currently have to limit the number of students I have for that, too, simply because I only have time enough to teach the class once per month. Plus, I still do small programming projects on the side, which is currently not a major money source. Since my wife also works (she is a CPA), when I lose my current job as a programmer, that will be the loss of a little over 1/3rd my total family income -- bad, but not catastrophic. I should be able to make up most of that in 3-4 months by expanding my violin and other teaching schedules, and by starting other businesses.
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djj55 wrote: I was in a position for 15 years and got terminated. I was in a position 13 years and got riffed. I now keep looking for a "permanent" position.
Stress is not helping the health, but what are you to do?
My sympathies. The longest I've worked for one company was 5-1/2 years, and I think I'd still have that job if I'd stayed (not certain, but I did get calls once or twice from them asking what I was doing a year or two ago).
In the American market, someone who stays that long with a company without changing positions is often seen to be lacking in ambition or in competence by a casual observer. This is part of the reason why so many developers in America job-hop regularly.
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"In the American market, someone who stays that long with a company without changing positions is often seen to be lacking in ambition or in competence by a casual observer."
Ahhh.... that's not superflicious at all is it? Reading something into nothing, typical Freudien Bullshit. Obviously the company has become the mother "Ersatz" 
In my professional carrer I have worked for four companies (not including my time as a soldier). I have always been happy at all of them, only having to change because of the finicial situation of the company (twice) and because of my health problems (once, slipped disc). At the company I am now at I have reached the posistion of a Principal Consultant, not because I have wanted to, but because of the work I have put in and my skills that I have developed over the years, but to be completly honest, I'd rather be sitting at my desk, hacking away at the keyboard. It is far more satisfing than creating processes, or developing solutions, does that mean I lack ambition? Or perhaps I'm lacking in competence? I do a job because I want to do it, I do a job because I enjoy it.
As for secure, noone is indispensible, noone. If for whatever reason you have to go, you will be put out, full stop. So, what's the definition of a rock solid job? Be your own boss.
Who the f*** is General Failure, and why is he reading my harddisk?
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Phil.Benson wrote: Ahhh.... that's not superflicious at all is it? Reading something into nothing, typical Freudien bullsh*t. Obviously the company has become the mother "Ersatz"
*JOKE*
No, government's Mom, work's Dad. ) 's OK, they're not married yet and a lot of us kids are pulling for them to stay that way.
*END JOKE*
Phil.Benson wrote: In my professional carrer I have worked for four companies (not including my time as a soldier). I have always been happy at all of them, only having to change because of the finicial situation of the company (twice) and because of my health problems (once, slipped disc). At the company I am now at I have reached the posistion of a Principal Consultant, not because I have wanted to, but because of the work I have put in and my skills that I have developed over the years, but to be completly honest, I'd rather be sitting at my desk, hacking away at the keyboard. It is far more satisfing than creating processes, or developing solutions, does that mean I lack ambition? Or perhaps I'm lacking in competence? I do a job because I want to do it, I do a job because I enjoy it.
Yah, tell me about it. My one and only guaranteed shot at management (offer was on the table and everything, refused 'cause I thought my sick wife would make me less effective than the next guy...biggest mistake of my life ) included the opportunity to cherry-pick what I'd let the juniors write and what I'd write myself. Years and two layoffs later, I'm a happy developer again. I say "developer" because I do everything but business requirements and final user interface approval (my boss likes to do that); "coding" just doesn't allow the same freedom (in one job, I spent 60% of my time writing technical specifications for "coders", and being the "coder" for the more abstruse problems...if the problems hadn't become boring to the point of ego annihilation, I might still be there.)
But nothing is rock solid. This position is close, though
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My main job is a tech company, the whole company runs around software written by me and a couple of others. In any case, I get job offers most weeks, there's 3-4 people who chase me regularly to see if I've become available, as well as things that appear here and there. I'm not worried at all. I really just want to find a way to take a month off.....
Christian Graus
No longer a Microsoft MVP, but still happy to answer your questions.
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Been There. Done That. Got Let Go because they thought a new programmer was that Grass Is Always Greener Solution.
Laugh is on them - they said the new guy could do in a year what took me two years. After he, and a string of others (including two to replace just me), they finally have a new-ish version of their (only) product - just short of 4 years later. (Did I hear someone say 'oops' ?)
But - I wrote the code for their only product and was the only programmer - and was still just plain let go (and deliberately without warning).
Moral of the story? It's never too late to start worrying.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"How do you find out if you're unwanted if everyone you try to ask tells you to go away?" - Balboos HaGadol
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Balboos wrote: Grass Is Always Greener Solution.
Don't you mean; Graus Is Always Greener Solution.
*ducks*
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