8 ms·

I think it's getting harder, now the world is getting more developers and more fully funded startups.

by UK-AL 10y ago

devoply 10y ago
Why do you think it's getting harder? I think it's always been hard and will continue to be hard. There are a few opportunities and it takes lots of time to exploit them if you get to them at the right time.
- UK-AL 10y ago
  Simply because all the niche's for software are getting filled. Leaving only opportunities with huge hurdles to get over, which is hard for one man companies. In the early days micro isv's were fairly common, and well known. I don't hear much about them anymore.
  - mrweasel 10y ago
    >Simply because all the niche's for software are getting filled There's also a ton of new niches opening up, but you need to be aware of them and they don't happen in a vacuum. You can't just sit in your home office that imagine a new niche, you need to surround yourself with people doing other stuff.
    - devoply 10y ago
      Even if you surround yourself don't expect to actually understand. Lots of niches, probably most of them, require expert knowledge of the domain that's not easily acquired unless you are actually working in the niche and dealing with that stuff hands-on. The alternative is if someone with expert tells you their problems and then actually help you understand their domain, because they are willing to do that for you. But it's often not easy finding people that will actually help you acquire enough domain knowledge to be able to implement the solution to a problem.
  - torgeek 10y ago
    I earn 1200-1700$ monthly without doing anything with a site i made in 48 hours. I agree its not easy. But with some luck its not impossible
    - kd22 10y ago
      Can you share more details about your site ?
grow91 10y ago
Over the past year I've grown my own software company from 0 - $1250/mo in revenue in a highly competitive space (lots of VC-funded startups). It's not enough to do full-time yet, but there are distinct advantages I have that VC-funded startups don't. For example, I can serve SMBs/smaller companies, but for a VC-backed company these organizations aren't worth their time. Clearly they have advantages I don't have either (time, headcount, etc), but the presence of a market is a great thing, because I don't have to guess if companies are willing to pay for it.
- alex_hitchins 10y ago
  Do you have a link for your product/service/offering? I'm very keen to learn more about the sorts of products that work out and also how you happened to work on that idea.
patio11 10y ago
A developer isn't a software company in the same sense that a kid good with numbers isn't a bookkeeping firm. Software companies don't compete with developers; they hire their services. Small software shops don't meaningfully compete with funded startups, because funded startups have to have some plausible path to growing massive, and the types of things small software shops ship just have to have a plausible path to generating $1k to $25k MRR. "A spreadsheet software better than MS Excel" is a fundable startup; a single program better than a single Excel spreadsheet is, very plausibly, a piece of software that can be sold in a manner successful for a small shop. I'm personally and professionally involved in the small-software-shop community, and my anecdotal impression is that it's the best time ever. The same sources of leverage which make starting a startup attractive help out small shops, too. You can achieve global distribution on the App Store, Google, Facebook, etc. You can charge businesses tens of thousands of dollars on the SaaS model for software which is plausibly within the reach of a single developer. You can take advantage of infrastructure like AWS, Heroku, etc to get your product to market at a fraction of the complexity and expense of doing a print run of 1,000 CDs. You can take advantage of frameworks which make producing business value far, far easier than it was with more archaic tools. Your customers are disproportionately likely to consume software already (a plus!), including software which you can integrate with or expand, giving you a built-in market with levered upside to your own coding efforts.
- UK-AL 10y ago
  More developers = more people looking small mISV opportunities. Starting a mISV is a dream for most developers. I used remember a large community that has now disappeared. There used to be a lot of mISV conferences, I only know a few now. I know people who used to be mISVs, and they aren't anymore. Even hacker news's favourite patio11 isn't anymore.
- adamqureshi 10y ago
  small software shop too. Damn straight. I have a TINY software shop in NYC. It pays the bills and food for me and my nuclear family. I can't complain. I have friends who make 2X as me , who work in a box within a bigger box on a grid. They have NO time todo JACK and SHIT. Wealth is discretionary time. You can ALWAYS make anotha dolla, but you'll NEVA make anotha min.

I think it's getting harder, now the world is getting more developers and more fully funded startups.

by UK-AL 10y ago

I think it's getting harder, now the world is getting more developers and more fully funded startups.

Why do you think it's getting harder? I think it's always been hard and will continue to be hard. There are a few opportunities and it takes lots of time to exploit them if you get to them at the right time.

UK-AL 10y ago
Simply because all the niche's for software are getting filled. Leaving only opportunities with huge hurdles to get over, which is hard for one man companies. In the early days micro isv's were fairly common, and well known. I don't hear much about them anymore.
- mrweasel 10y ago
  >Simply because all the niche's for software are getting filled There's also a ton of new niches opening up, but you need to be aware of them and they don't happen in a vacuum. You can't just sit in your home office that imagine a new niche, you need to surround yourself with people doing other stuff.
  - devoply 10y ago
    Even if you surround yourself don't expect to actually understand. Lots of niches, probably most of them, require expert knowledge of the domain that's not easily acquired unless you are actually working in the niche and dealing with that stuff hands-on. The alternative is if someone with expert tells you their problems and then actually help you understand their domain, because they are willing to do that for you. But it's often not easy finding people that will actually help you acquire enough domain knowledge to be able to implement the solution to a problem.
- torgeek 10y ago
  I earn 1200-1700$ monthly without doing anything with a site i made in 48 hours. I agree its not easy. But with some luck its not impossible
  - kd22 10y ago
    Can you share more details about your site ?

grow91 10y ago

Over the past year I've grown my own software company from 0 - $1250/mo in revenue in a highly competitive space (lots of VC-funded startups). It's not enough to do full-time yet, but there are distinct advantages I have that VC-funded startups don't. For example, I can serve SMBs/smaller companies, but for a VC-backed company these organizations aren't worth their time. Clearly they have advantages I don't have either (time, headcount, etc), but the presence of a market is a great thing, because I don't have to guess if companies are willing to pay for it.

alex_hitchins 10y ago
Do you have a link for your product/service/offering? I'm very keen to learn more about the sorts of products that work out and also how you happened to work on that idea.

patio11 10y ago

A developer isn't a software company in the same sense that a kid good with numbers isn't a bookkeeping firm. Software companies don't compete with developers; they hire their services. Small software shops don't meaningfully compete with funded startups, because funded startups have to have some plausible path to growing massive, and the types of things small software shops ship just have to have a plausible path to generating $1k to $25k MRR. "A spreadsheet software better than MS Excel" is a fundable startup; a single program better than a single Excel spreadsheet is, very plausibly, a piece of software that can be sold in a manner successful for a small shop. I'm personally and professionally involved in the small-software-shop community, and my anecdotal impression is that it's the best time ever. The same sources of leverage which make starting a startup attractive help out small shops, too. You can achieve global distribution on the App Store, Google, Facebook, etc. You can charge businesses tens of thousands of dollars on the SaaS model for software which is plausibly within the reach of a single developer. You can take advantage of infrastructure like AWS, Heroku, etc to get your product to market at a fraction of the complexity and expense of doing a print run of 1,000 CDs. You can take advantage of frameworks which make producing business value far, far easier than it was with more archaic tools. Your customers are disproportionately likely to consume software already (a plus!), including software which you can integrate with or expand, giving you a built-in market with levered upside to your own coding efforts.

UK-AL 10y ago
More developers = more people looking small mISV opportunities. Starting a mISV is a dream for most developers. I used remember a large community that has now disappeared. There used to be a lot of mISV conferences, I only know a few now. I know people who used to be mISVs, and they aren't anymore. Even hacker news's favourite patio11 isn't anymore.
adamqureshi 10y ago
small software shop too. Damn straight. I have a TINY software shop in NYC. It pays the bills and food for me and my nuclear family. I can't complain. I have friends who make 2X as me , who work in a box within a bigger box on a grid. They have NO time todo JACK and SHIT. Wealth is discretionary time. You can ALWAYS make anotha dolla, but you'll NEVA make anotha min.