Dear devranters,

Recently, i stopped liking the job that I used to love. not because i got bored of the work, but because of the company politics and drama.

All in all i feel very disrespected and treated as just a pawn to do whatever management feels like. I am tired of being promised things and management going back on them.

I have decided to try to make my own software company. as small as it would be. just anything where I am not anyone's slave or "employee". I want to be the boss for once... and not wait for someone to give me my salary and telling me to be thankful for it.

my main concern is gathering clients. If you can suggest a few ways in the comments id be grateful

If you don't know how to get customers/clients then it's probably not the brightest idea to start your own company.

If you want to start an agency of some sort, then you should already know at least 1 client that would hire you/your company to do their project, otherwise it's gonna be really tough.

@skylord i have one or two clients i got from personal connections, but im interested in knowing how to get more projects / clients to at least guarantee i make as much or more than what i make as an employee. I would definitely not quit my job until i accomplish that. until then i hope to start an agency on the side, hire a dev or two and start getting a few projects.

This is the main issue those who wants to come out and started by own. Well Good Luck. I am also searching for good clients, still no luck, Yeah creating side by side some of my projects. As @skylord said, not brightest idea if you are not sure about the clients

I love the spirit but I worked for small software shops before you better have some capital up front and I wouldn’t quit what you do now at first

As far as the sales part I dunno how they pound pavement anymore

One used to just get ones documentation in order and stop in at companies and or cold call and ask about their needs

This leads to a lot of rejection
A LOT of rejection

Seems like the internet ad and email campaign is mostly ignored
There is mail marketing but that mostly involves tricking the customer into opening the mail piece and needs to have a personal feel to it or people discard it thinking it’s form mail and that’s pre recession methodology who knows if this works at all anymore it certainly does require a budget

As far as I can tell networking helps the most, but it's tough out there. Good luck and keep hanging in there.

@tunneler where’s does one meet people nowadays though ? Chamber of commerce or LinkedIn whee they ban you for adding people you don’t know ?

They used to have firms that would cultivate clients for small businesses and in other industries they had brokerages

@MadMadMadMrMim yeah, that's a good question, I guess digital events could still be the way to go and being active on social media, at least that seems to work for most people I know.
Didn't know that it was that bad with LinkedIn though, I constantly get added by people I don't know, but I don't mind.

@tunneler ‘tis like job fairs
A quota of real jobs and everyone else is a criminal or gives good head lol

@ostream same here and I pick my end customers based on their beneficial work to the world and everything living in it.

My price policy: 66666,66€ per hour. If you are any of the following: social impact business, ecological positive, non profit, government agency in health, education, environment mgmt, innovation and transition to clean energy: only 0.1% of the price per hour (66,66€)

Natural selection by price demand.

For me it works.

@NeatNerdPrime prohibitive pricing ?

@MadMadMadMrMim only for assholes :-)

@NeatNerdPrime I apply a similar strategy myself to avoid people thinking I'm in a business I'm not, it costs them an arm and a leg lol

Do you really want to be the boss? Or do you want to be in control of your daily/weekly/monthly job(s)? That's a big difference, you know. Running a (small) business is nothing like just being a software developer. Marketing, sales, account management, research, design and if all goes well HR to hire more people, and whatnot... Is that all really what you want to do yourself?

Of course, at first it will be tech focused, but all that business crap will come your way one day.

My point is: consider a different employer where your first question is: how much am I in control of my own job? Where does work normally come from? Can I lead projects, or will management drop tickets on my desk to be fixed by yesterday?

@eeee My thoughts exactly.

I've been experiencing the same feelings as OP recently so I asked around about starting my own company with people who actually did it, with varying degrees of success. Pretty much came to the same conclusion - in the beginning, it's all fun, but it's a lot of responsibility, uncertainty and dealing with people you didn't knew you had to deal with.

I don't think it's worth it unless you already have an idea that's gaining some traction (and with traction, I mean people willing to pay for it). I once read; "A product that's not generating any revenue isn't a product, it's a hobby". It opened my eyes: software development is a very specific skill, running a company is something else entirely.

Not sure whats you plans are but I think untill you get good way of getti g clients, you can start making small products and try to sell them. Eventually selling is the last thing you will need to get more customer

Starting your company without putting a lot of effort and thought into it (spending weeks is borderline not enough) will most likely lead you to regret doing that, especially if you care more about your craft and doing what you love than all the stuff that comes with owning and managing a company (speaking from experience).

Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic being your boss and owning your working hours and stuff, but that comes with a lot of tedious and annoying paperwork, legal/finance stuff and having to manage everything (unless you hire someone, which comes with new responsibilities, paperwork and such).

And as you alluded to, you now need to be able to market your company to get clients and have projects and contracts in place to afford to live.