- You may want to consider keeping your day job and while trying to drum up initial business. This is relatively low risk, and I'll keep you from running out of cash when you finally (almost) have reached the momentum. 2) Realize that you'll go from 100% developer to 10% developer and the rest being sales rep, book keeper, office manager, janitor, support engineer, receptionist and 20 other titles. Make sure you have a finished product to sell before you throw yourself into this. If you are going to be even moderately successful, it is 100% certain that you will overcommit yourself and you will be overworked within 3 months of starting your business. 3) Talk to a few potential customers and get a feel for how much they would need the product, how much they would be willing to *really* pay for it, how much support they would need and if they want to pay for that (very important!), whether they need customization, and how this all translates to your business model. 4) Be professional but keep your overhead minimial. 5) Make sure you write a busines plan and continously check all the assumptions in your business plan against your initial experiences and feedback from potential customers. Don't fall into multiplication traps (ie: 300,000 bicycle shops * 2% of them buy my product * $400) but try to focus on real revenue opportunities that are within close reach. 6) Put profitability before growth. If you're profitable, it's easy to grow if you choose to do so. If you're not profitable, everything is going to be a struggle. 7) Keep in mind that almost any business takes a while to take off. The good news about a software or consulting company is that you generally need very little capital investment. But an alternative stream of income that doesn't threaten your ability to run your business is a major strength in the beginning. 8) Good luck!
Mike Sax
Sax Software Corp.
Rock Solid Components™
http://www.saxsoft.com
1-800-645-3729