Business ideas, how to get started 1

[PatrickIRL]

Hi all, I've recently joined this forum and I must say it knocked my socks off. I've been working as a contractor for the past 3 years, always employed through agencies.
Lately I've been thinking of really going out on my own, developing a product that someone, somewhere can use. Thing is, I've no idea where to get started, how does one go about this ????? I've got plenty of experience in development and confident that I have the skills I need to do this. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Patrick

 

[CajunCenturion]

Let's just that I've been around long enough to know that there are more languages and different machines than I could ever hope of knowing about, much less being proficient with.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[chiph]

My first boss left IBM mainframes for the (then new) IBM PC, as he figured it was a smaller box, and he could know everything there was to know about it.

Within 2 years he admitted defeat.

Chip H.


If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ222-2244 first

 

[dilettante]

The biggest problem with the "killer app" idea (beside conceiving the thing in the first place) is competing with the mega-resources of the large software houses.

I don't know how many times I have had to explain this to people who want some custom programming done. Within a realistic budget you just are not going to get the bells and whistles of a commercial word processor, major web browser, or what have you. It's tough enough given a small feature set to have a program that is solid, has a decent user interface, useful online help, written documentation, etc.

I'm doing some custom embedded development work right now for example. Nothing especially innovative, just making use of modern technology to handle an old task a lot more cheaply. I am spending a tremendous amount of time on research into things I would have assumed were well known and well documented:
[ul][li]quirks of various embedded OSs[/li]
[li]even bigger quirks of embedded developer libraries and prebuilt applets[/li]
[li]odd characteristics of various flash memory devices[/li]
[li]unexpected cost trade-offs[/li]
[li]trying to find matches between embedded OSs and hardware devices (driver support and so on)[/li]
[li]frustrating licensing restrictions[/li]
[li]the general poor quality of open-source code (though some is excellent)[/li][/ul]And the list goes on...

Getting the main application converted to portable code took a chunk of time. Separating out the user-interface logic took another (there are few true portable UI libraries even in the Java world - and I'm not using Java).

I hate to think how many printed pages my lab notes would probably fill. Staving off feature-creep while I do all that other stuff is a huge challenge for this one-man band. The only saving grace is I get to keep everything I learn and develop except the final hardware/software design and documentation. That's a rare thing these days. But I digress...


My point is that a "killer app" (or killer hardware/software product) can be a ton of work. Then you have to slick it up for mass-market consumption after you bullet-proof it to avoid going broke on returns or support calls. At least my project above doesn't need market appeal, the specs are (yeah right) in stone.