As an individual who works in the software industry there are two main paths you can choose to move on.
1) Working as an employee.
2) Doing your own business.
As an employee, your only responsibility is doing the tasks in your job description and bringing the results of the company's expectations. You and the company both agree on the contract, and, if there are some additional things you need to do later depending on the project requirements or unexpected issues, it can slightly change. But there's a company that supports and covers you and they can provide you with the tools and the things you need to perform the tasks and the job you need to deliver. You mostly work in a team, you don't do everything yourself even in a project. You can do only a single part of the entire project and, that could be your only job.
I always thought doing your own software business would require a huge amount of investment but you only realize the reality once you start getting involved.
I would never imagine moving with the second option would bring extra challenges. I would like to share my experience when I decided to move on the 2nd path, doing my own business.
First of all, coding itself is hard work, doing a project takes time, effort, organizing, thinking and planning every detail, coding, testing, fixing bugs, putting your code into production, delivering it to your client(s)... It takes a lot of time and it's just the essential part of the business whether you work for a company or you run your own business.
You have great plans for your business; everyone has. But as a startup, without a million-dollar investment, you have to set your goals realistically and do things according to priorities.
Before starting: I had lots of things to do in my mind.
When I started doing my own business: I found myself having long-term milestones for up to 5 years.
Coding all the time?
I love coding and solving problems. When you work in a company this is basically what you do most of the time. This is why companies hire software engineers. But if you're coding and want to run your own business, you still code, but there are other things you need to deal with that bring you extra challenges and increase your workload.
If you spend money and pay for someone to do most of the things, it's way faster, easier and hassle-free. But I share my own experience and I don't have loaded money in the bank to pay for everything and I believe doing my own business is not a dream or a millionaire's job.
You ought to start somewhere to achieve your dreams.
I always think of my dreams as a mountain. They always look enormous and hard to reach. They will always look like that. Until you start climbing. With each step you take toward the top, the mountain will look smaller. If you never start climbing, it will always look big and it will scare you. Regardless of the situation, I don't let fear stop me from moving forward.
This article is for the ones who make a business without angel investors, for the ones without having loaded money in the bank and spending from their pocket. If this is the case, you may want to keep your expenses minimum, and you need to do most of the stuff by yourself as a developer.
A simple example would be;
I am not a web developer; I work with cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. But I made my website. I saved money on spending on my website. I could pay for a web developer to make my website thus I wouldn't lose time making it. Wouldn't I like to pay someone to do it so I don't lose time on that and focus on other things? Of course. It would make my life easier. But when you have a tight budget, you want to spend on other things, and ultimately you are a developer, you can do your stuff. You understand how things work regardless of your specified area in the software industry. Therefore, I couldn't see a reason to spend a couple of thousand dollars on it.
You need to create your company structure and prepare a system for how your organization will work. Set up your database, you also think about the legal part of the software you do, copyrights, certificates, policies, agreements, partnerships, patents, paperwork for government registration etc.
Big companies have lawyers to do all of that stuff. Small companies work with external lawyers... I was looking for a lawyer, but I probably won't work with a lawyer unless I need a lawyer, doing my research helped me to manage the legal part for now.
Doing all of this takes time. Often time, I found myself having less time for coding and doing the actual development part of the job.
You might do your startup idea with your fellow developers, I'm sure it would be a different scenario, in my case I'm all alone.
Time management is quite important to overcome this. You need to manage your time well and take care of your sleeping cycle. You will eventually find yourself overworking. At some point, you treat your business as if it was your kid, I got into that rabbit hole until I found out overworking kills productivity plus, it also takes the joyful part of doing your own business.
You need quality time for your family. Your family comes first, not your business.
If you manage your time well, you stop overworking. Once you find your balance, everything flows like a river.
Great things take time and effort. You need to manage your time wisely. Use your efforts on doing the right thing at the right time otherwise you spend your energy and time on nonsense.
What I learned by deciding to do my own business and stop spending my life working for a random company that doesn't care about you as much as you do, is that there are a lot of factors you need to deal with if you decide to follow this path. You have to go out of your comfort zone by all means.
Nothing happens in the comfort zone. Once you start getting fruits from your efforts, the sensation you get is priceless.
If you have an idea, do it.
Don't wait for any excuse.
Nothing will change if you don't take action for your dreams. No one will take you from your hand; no miracle will happen if you keep waiting at the edge of your Everest and looking at it from the surface.
Take action, and start doing with whatever you have. The rest will come as you keep climbing toward your dreams.
Top comments (2)
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