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I have been a professional software developer since the late 80s. I was getting a bit jaded and set up my own 1-man software business in 2005. I do all the prog

I have been a professional software developer since the late 80s. I was getting a bit jaded and set up my own 1-man software business in 2005. I do all the programming, testing, documentation, support, marketing and sales. The variety of work, the freedom to do what I want and the fact that the financial rewards are directly linked to my work all help to keep me engaged. Interacting directly with my customers also helps. I have stuck with the same basic toolset (Qt and C++) which have grown with me.

fsloth 4y ago
Sounds cool! What market is your product serving?
- hermitcrab 4y ago
  I have 3 products now: PerfectTablePlan: Event seating plans. Hyper Plan: Visual task planner. Easy Data Transform: Data wrangling.
  - tomr75 4y ago
    can you make me the perfect rostering app :)
    - WJW 4y ago
      Not the person you replied to, but have been studying rostering the last few months out of curiosity. What does the rostering app you currently use (if any) do wrong and what would make it better for you?
    - hermitcrab 4y ago
      I did consider writing a rostering/scheduling app as a follow on to PerfectTablePlan. But it seems to me that the constraints vary wildly from one organization/market to the next. Making it very hard to create an 'off the shelf' package that is general enough to be useful while simple enough to be useable.
lagrange77 4y ago
I'm about to start such a business as well for the same reasons, but i'm a little scared. Would you do it again nowadays?
- hermitcrab 4y ago
  I don't regret my decision. Of course every path has it's plusses and minuses. It was very hard work for very uncertain returns at the start and I have to take a laptop on holiday. And working on your own can be a bit socially isolating. But the upsides (for me) are much bigger than the downsides. I've written quite a bit about what it is like to run a small software business on my blog, if you are interested. Maybe start with: https://successfulsoftware.net/starting-a-microisv/ https://successfulsoftware.net/starting-a-microisv/
  - lagrange77 4y ago
    Nice, thank you! Your whole blog looks really interesting.
- antoniojtorres 4y ago
  It will take time to find the right balance of clients and work, nurture opportunities and give them time to mature. You will probably slog through a lot of one offs for a bit, it’s possible to endure if you become dependable for a couple of SMEs that aren’t large enough to in-house yet.
  - lagrange77 4y ago
    Thank you for your valuable tips.
unity1001 4y ago
> Interacting directly with my customers also helps That does help a LOT. Interacting with actual people who are going to use the software puts everything into perspective like nothing else can. It doesnt matter whether those people are end-user customers or stakeholders inside the organization or another team. People make it worthwhile.

fsloth 4y ago

Sounds cool! What market is your product serving?

hermitcrab 4y ago
I have 3 products now: PerfectTablePlan: Event seating plans. Hyper Plan: Visual task planner. Easy Data Transform: Data wrangling.
- tomr75 4y ago
  can you make me the perfect rostering app :)
  - WJW 4y ago
    Not the person you replied to, but have been studying rostering the last few months out of curiosity. What does the rostering app you currently use (if any) do wrong and what would make it better for you?
  - hermitcrab 4y ago
    I did consider writing a rostering/scheduling app as a follow on to PerfectTablePlan. But it seems to me that the constraints vary wildly from one organization/market to the next. Making it very hard to create an 'off the shelf' package that is general enough to be useful while simple enough to be useable.

lagrange77 4y ago

I'm about to start such a business as well for the same reasons, but i'm a little scared. Would you do it again nowadays?

hermitcrab 4y ago
I don't regret my decision. Of course every path has it's plusses and minuses. It was very hard work for very uncertain returns at the start and I have to take a laptop on holiday. And working on your own can be a bit socially isolating. But the upsides (for me) are much bigger than the downsides. I've written quite a bit about what it is like to run a small software business on my blog, if you are interested. Maybe start with: https://successfulsoftware.net/starting-a-microisv/ https://successfulsoftware.net/starting-a-microisv/
- lagrange77 4y ago
  Nice, thank you! Your whole blog looks really interesting.
antoniojtorres 4y ago
It will take time to find the right balance of clients and work, nurture opportunities and give them time to mature. You will probably slog through a lot of one offs for a bit, it’s possible to endure if you become dependable for a couple of SMEs that aren’t large enough to in-house yet.
- lagrange77 4y ago
  Thank you for your valuable tips.

unity1001 4y ago

> Interacting directly with my customers also helps That does help a LOT. Interacting with actual people who are going to use the software puts everything into perspective like nothing else can. It doesnt matter whether those people are end-user customers or stakeholders inside the organization or another team. People make it worthwhile.