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Firstly, it's worth understanding that building a software business today is hard. There's lots of competition, and most customers are already using something

Firstly, it's worth understanding that building a software business today is hard. There's lots of competition, and most customers are already using something to help with their problem. What worked for me 25 years ago is not going to work as well today. Well it will, but its much harder to stand out from the crowd. Some things don't change though. You need to find customers before you find (ie build) product. Ideally you get a deposit before you start writing. Getting customers is harder than writing code, so do that first. Finding customers is hard. You need to get close enough to see their pain. You need to make that pain go away. It's seldom as easy as you expect to make pain go away (the devil is in the details.) The good news is that it is possible. And it's hard enough that it keeps the competition away. Do it well, carve out a niche, and you can build something good. And always remember- customer service is what you are really selling, not software.

fakedang 2y ago
> Some things don't change though. You need to find customers before you find (ie build) product. Ideally you get a deposit before you start writing. Getting customers is harder than writing code, so do that first. To add to this, there's always a catch 22 problem - how can I show something to customers to sell to, when I don't even have a product to sell? It's expected in a sales meeting or often any meeting, that you have a demo that would show your product concept for them. I can't state this enough, but literally build on the shoulders of giants. Build on existing tools, and I don't mean open source, but existing products. Best advice I got from watching one of those AI fad-chasing YouTubers. Is it an online store idea? Build on Shopify first. Is it a chatbot? Use KoreAI or DialogCX. Is it a CRUD app? Use Glide + Google Sheets. Customer Service? Maybe they just need a Hubspot/Zendesk with some custom integrations. Most customers are looking to buy a functionality, not a "product" . Oftentimes your MVP will be enough to carry them for a long time. You wouldn't even need to write a single line of code yourself for quite a bit of time. Like you said, the hard part is actually meeting the potential prospect and ensuring that they will pay you for the product. In my (very limited) experience, I've had 60k-employee billion dollar companies outright refuse to buy (instead hiring 2000 underpaid fresh graduates in India to build a worse product), while a 250-employee million dollar company being super-enthusiastic about paying a premium price for it (even though they have their own dev team). If I had gone by the views of the billion dollar company, I wouldn't have found a market niche for my product, but fortunately I stubbed my toe (literally!) and found the actual customer instead.
- justmarc 2y ago
  I agree. The only thing is that 250 employees can't be a million dollar company, as then each employee would be making $333 a month.
  - ozim 2y ago
    Maybe a million in profit not revenue:)
  - fakedang 2y ago
    Well it's a nine-figure insurance company, but I've also built for their competition which is a mid-eight figures company. Both are non-US publicly traded entities. The other 60k employee company is a company that does as much in net profit as the market cap of the first company.

fakedang 2y ago

> Some things don't change though. You need to find customers before you find (ie build) product. Ideally you get a deposit before you start writing. Getting customers is harder than writing code, so do that first. To add to this, there's always a catch 22 problem - how can I show something to customers to sell to, when I don't even have a product to sell? It's expected in a sales meeting or often any meeting, that you have a demo that would show your product concept for them. I can't state this enough, but literally build on the shoulders of giants. Build on existing tools, and I don't mean open source, but existing products. Best advice I got from watching one of those AI fad-chasing YouTubers. Is it an online store idea? Build on Shopify first. Is it a chatbot? Use KoreAI or DialogCX. Is it a CRUD app? Use Glide + Google Sheets. Customer Service? Maybe they just need a Hubspot/Zendesk with some custom integrations. Most customers are looking to buy a functionality, not a "product" . Oftentimes your MVP will be enough to carry them for a long time. You wouldn't even need to write a single line of code yourself for quite a bit of time. Like you said, the hard part is actually meeting the potential prospect and ensuring that they will pay you for the product. In my (very limited) experience, I've had 60k-employee billion dollar companies outright refuse to buy (instead hiring 2000 underpaid fresh graduates in India to build a worse product), while a 250-employee million dollar company being super-enthusiastic about paying a premium price for it (even though they have their own dev team). If I had gone by the views of the billion dollar company, I wouldn't have found a market niche for my product, but fortunately I stubbed my toe (literally!) and found the actual customer instead.

justmarc 2y ago
I agree. The only thing is that 250 employees can't be a million dollar company, as then each employee would be making $333 a month.
- ozim 2y ago
  Maybe a million in profit not revenue:)
- fakedang 2y ago
  Well it's a nine-figure insurance company, but I've also built for their competition which is a mid-eight figures company. Both are non-US publicly traded entities. The other 60k employee company is a company that does as much in net profit as the market cap of the first company.