You could try a hybrid approach - develop client software, but negotiate to own the intellectual property to parts of the software that are just "utility" and n

You could try a hybrid approach - develop client software, but negotiate to own the intellectual property to parts of the software that are just "utility" and not specific to their needs. I think Matt Raible once wrote a blog post along those lines, but I don't have a link handy. Edit: Clarification, the reason for this is that you would still make some headway developing tools to aid you in your own software development. If there is no overlap at all though, I think it's up to you to decide which is more important at this point in time. You can always come back to client work later, or always come back to your own product later. It is hard to do both at the same time though, and it may not be feasible when crunch time comes - what do you pick, your product, or theirs?