Re:“Me-too” products are fine
by edanm on Monday September 03, 2012 @05:16AM
(#4469719)
My current advice for people going into Software Entrepreneurship is to create the simplest, easiest to build me-too company of all time - a Software Consultancy / Freelancing company. Nothing is as easy as having a product people want (programmer time) and just selling that directly. You'll learn a lot more about business than you would have learned by trying to start a failed product company, and you'll do it while getting actual money and real networking done.
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It can be very difficult to start building projects when you already do freelance work though. It can be very distracting plus it's probably going to be a while before what you could earn from a product gets anywhere near what you are earning as a freelancer.
That said I don't necessarily think your advice is bad, it just depends what you want.
I say this as a freelancer currently working on some products as well.
I hear people talk about this, and oDesk exists, but I never met someone who ever hired a general software freelancer. The closest is MSFT hiring a contractor, but that is just paperwork over flextime/short-term regular employment.
Maybe I just haven't been exposed to the self-selling side of this consulting.