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On Starting a Software Business

stephaniehurlburt.com

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Re: On Starting a Software Business

#81

Post by semperdark »

chubot wrote: post #46
siliconc0w wrote: post #41

Consulting doesn't scale, software does. One pragmatic strategy to find product/customers: 1) Pick an industry 2) Ask someone in that industry what they use spreadsheets for 3) Build something better There is a lot of 'cybernetic' processes that are a mix of humans with domain knowledge and machines with spreadsheets for schemaless storage and querying. Generally the move is to encode the domain knowledge into code a…

I've heard this before, but part of the appeal of the spreadsheet is that Patty from accounting or Joe from HR can modify it without having to ask any IT staff, including you. So I don't think it's a foolproof scheme, unless your solution is also programmable/customizable, which is a lot of work.

This is actually largely what we're trying to do at Sonadier.com. The basic idea is that you can build most enterprise CRUD applications with drag-and-drop forms.

While we realized it before starting, we didn't fully grasp how much you need people with "computer literacy" to build these things, for lack of a better term. Just thinking about the schema of the application you need is something a lot of people can't really do yet.

As far as I can tell it's got very little to do software intuitiveness, as I've noticed the same effect on phone calls with prospective customers.

Even as enterprise moves towards managed SaaS platforms, there'll always be a huge place for power-users. Much of the time, even just defining the problem that needs to be solved takes one.

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#83

Post by jwildeboer »

k__ wrote: post #82

So basically she got much skills and happened to meet someone who was a well known player in the game industry. Most people have neither or just the first one.

So basically she worked hard on her skills and invested a lot of time and effort to talk to a lot of people to meet the persons that allowed her to grow her business. Most people don't do that and complain. ;-)

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#84

Post by sogen »

chubot wrote: post #46
siliconc0w wrote: post #41

Consulting doesn't scale, software does. One pragmatic strategy to find product/customers: 1) Pick an industry 2) Ask someone in that industry what they use spreadsheets for 3) Build something better There is a lot of 'cybernetic' processes that are a mix of humans with domain knowledge and machines with spreadsheets for schemaless storage and querying. Generally the move is to encode the domain knowledge into code a…

I've heard this before, but part of the appeal of the spreadsheet is that Patty from accounting or Joe from HR can modify it without having to ask any IT staff, including you. So I don't think it's a foolproof scheme, unless your solution is also programmable/customizable, which is a lot of work.

Ever heard of Zapier?

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#85

Post by k__ »

jwildeboer wrote: post #83
k__ wrote: post #82

So basically she got much skills and happened to meet someone who was a well known player in the game industry. Most people have neither or just the first one.

So basically she worked hard on her skills and invested a lot of time and effort to talk to a lot of people to meet the persons that allowed her to grow her business. Most people don't do that and complain. ;-)

For me the point here was, that the meeting of that person the most crucial step and also pure luck.

Writing about "Starting a Software Business" which boils down to "just know the right people" is a bit demotivating :\

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#86

Post by valuearb »

sethev wrote: post #49
siliconc0w wrote: post #41

Consulting doesn't scale, software does. One pragmatic strategy to find product/customers: 1) Pick an industry 2) Ask someone in that industry what they use spreadsheets for 3) Build something better There is a lot of 'cybernetic' processes that are a mix of humans with domain knowledge and machines with spreadsheets for schemaless storage and querying. Generally the move is to encode the domain knowledge into code a…

Accenture revenue in 2016, $32.9 billion. Consulting definitely scales.

It's a great business if you can profitably hire other engineers and skim the difference in what you charge for them and what you pay them.

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#87

Post by stephenboyd »

shubhamjain wrote: post #6

There is a bit of detail missing that I would like to understand. How to just 'talk' and give help? Do you approach people/businesses and ask if they are having any problems? Or, your aim is to just get the conversation ball rolling, hoping that it leads to the problem part without deliberation?

She and her cofounder were already in an an industry niche before then as graphics and compression experts, so I'd assume they already had a lot of contacts from former co-workers, meetups, conferences, etc. If you're an expert in something and you meet someone in a related corner of the industry to yours, they'll usually be eager to talk about what they're working on and recommend you to their contacts.

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#88

Post by stephenboyd »

bluedino wrote: post #33
skybrian wrote: post #3

I'm wondering about how they draw the line between "give first, take later" and "don't do work unless you're getting paid for it."

I'd like to hear more specific experiences on switching from working for free to $CONSULTING_RATE for the same client I helped a local business group with their website, their previous host shut down and all they had was an archive on CD, they had some quotes for 10-20 hours to get it back up and running (and then everyone wanted to charge them hosting/domain registration). I did the work for free. A couple hours imp…

Never do commercial work for free. You won't be able to turn them into paying clients. If you're under-utilized, make an impressive portfolio piece on your own time. That will be better marketing than free work.

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#89

Post by FLUX-YOU »

chubot wrote: post #46
siliconc0w wrote: post #41

Consulting doesn't scale, software does. One pragmatic strategy to find product/customers: 1) Pick an industry 2) Ask someone in that industry what they use spreadsheets for 3) Build something better There is a lot of 'cybernetic' processes that are a mix of humans with domain knowledge and machines with spreadsheets for schemaless storage and querying. Generally the move is to encode the domain knowledge into code a…

I've heard this before, but part of the appeal of the spreadsheet is that Patty from accounting or Joe from HR can modify it without having to ask any IT staff, including you. So I don't think it's a foolproof scheme, unless your solution is also programmable/customizable, which is a lot of work.

>So I don't think it's a foolproof scheme, unless your solution is also programmable/customizable, which is a lot of work.

Yep, almost everyone you casually talk to about a problem domain is only casually talking about it. They'll dream, but won't let you know about the pitfalls.

After you build something, the next questions are usually, "Can you change this just for us?", which is a fun task if you have 9 other customers that won't want that change.

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#90

Post by rozenmd »

chii wrote: post #11
shubhamjain wrote: post #6

There is a bit of detail missing that I would like to understand. How to just 'talk' and give help? Do you approach people/businesses and ask if they are having any problems? Or, your aim is to just get the conversation ball rolling, hoping that it leads to the problem part without deliberation?

i have a friend who is a construction contractor, and one of the tasks they needed to do is inspection of a property, and take pictures of problematic areas with notes. Currently, this is a manual process, paper driven with digital photos, and after wards, somebody back in the office would transcribe the hand written notes into an excel spreadsheet along with pics. This process could be made easier with an automated…

There are several apps that do this - Infrasis (if it's still around), iAuditor, etc
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