Maybe you think that setting up your own software company sounds like a fast route to fabulous wealth. What’s more, if you’re your own boss, life has got to be so much easier - well, hasn’t it? I mean, just think of it: no more commuting, no more rat race; just get up in the morning, have a leisurely breakfast, read the newspaper, take a shower, saunter across to your ‘home office’, write a bit of code if the mood takes you, stroke the cat, walk the dog and then, just by way of light relaxation, count the heaps of money you’re making…
On the other hand, if it was that easy, surely everyone would be doing it! The fact of the matter is that setting up a software company is fraught with problems. For example:
While you are developing the software (and before you are ready to sell it), you won’t have any income. Not a miserable cent, penny or groat. Though you’ll still have all the usual bills to pay…
The there’s all that boring ‘business stuff’. Setting up a company involves a whole lot of red tape, form-filling and baroquely complex accounting procedures…
And finally, after you’ve got everything ready to go - hey, who’s to say that anyone’s going to buy your product anyhow? As bets go, setting up a software company definitely isn’t one of the safe ones.
Software Nightmares…
Then there’s all the tedious, time and money-consuming stuff around the edges: setting up a web site, writing documentation (a lot of companies do their best to forget that bit, until their users come along and remind them!), fixing bugs, getting an eCommerce system set up, advertising and promoting, dealing with the ‘gentlemen’ of the press, dealing with software updates, refunds, customer enquiries and complaints, support, licensing and registration. And after all that who’s to say that someone won’t hack, crack, pirate, steal, rip-off and otherwise mess about with your software…
Hmm, when you start to think about all that stuff, maybe holding down a nice, safe day job with a regular pay-packet at the end of the month doesn’t sound so bad after all.
Only if you are really, really, really dedicated will your great software company dream make its way out of your head and into the real world.
…Or A Dream Come True?
OK, so let me be honest about this. You’re not the only person in the world who’s dreamed of setting up a software company. I have too. In fact, I’ve gone way, way past the “Hmm, sounds like a good idea,” stage. I’ve set up the company, (in partnership with my colleague, Dermot Hogan), I’ve built the web site, I’ve written much (but not yet all) of the documentation, we’ve even got a fully functioning ‘personal edition’ of the product - a Ruby programming IDE, ‘Ruby In Steel’, for Visual Studio.
Even so, after a year of grindingly hard work, neither Dermot nor I have made a single, solitary cent from this project. That’s because the personal edition of Ruby In Steel is free (hey, don’t just read this, go and download a copy). Our hopes of income rely upon the success of the commercial edition which we shall be launching early next year. As I said, this is by no means not a fast way to easy money.
We are, of course, not the first people who’ve been down this route. I decided it was time to talk to some of the people who’ve been there before us: those brave, dedicated souls who’ve already taken the risks we are taking now - and have made a success of it.
In this new series we’ll be finding out about the highs, the lows of becoming an independent software vendor. If this is a dream of yours, be sure to follow this series diligently. It could make all the difference between buying the house of your dreams and losing the one you’ve already got…
More resources for would-be software entrepreneurs:
Eric Sink on The Business of Software
Joel Spolsky’s The Business of Software
Bob Walsh’s book, ‘Micro-ISV: From Vision To Reality’
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