Comments on: Selling your own software vs working for the man

By: Andy Brice

Andy Brice — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:12:08 +0000

jb,

You are correct. But, as I say in the article, I am making a lot of simplifications and assumptions.

By: jb

jb — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 13:07:26 +0000

The difference between the two lines should somehow account for the time value of money. If you have enough money in the bank to house and feed yourself up until T1, you are losing money that you could make investing that money in the stock market up until T2. If not, then you are borrowing money that you will need to pay back with interest. All other things equal (and assuming that investments would perform well, you’re still behind at T2 by taking the microISV route.

I don’t say this to discourage anyone from taking the microISV route at all, just to point out a factor that is not accounted for above.

By: maria

maria — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:36:26 +0000

You forgot to mention that you will have no colleagues anymore. You will be pretty much isolated. And you completely miss out the product lifetime cycle affected by competition, big players stepping on your feet, etc.

And v1 is before v2, before v3. It is not a one shot work. And your boss pays you always while a loser program earns nothing.

Take all this into consideration.

maria

By: Me

Me — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:18:21 +0000

There is also the chance when starting a “Micro” ISV that it won’t be that Micro. The “Become The Man” possibility Or at least the “Become Quite Wealthy” one!

By: Andy Brice

Andy Brice — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 07:39:08 +0000

>Why not work on your mISV *while* at work.

Because then your employer almost certainly owns all the rights to your mISV. You might also find yourself without a day job, if you get caught.

By: cubicle monkey

cubicle monkey — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 06:49:16 +0000

Why not work on your mISV *while* at work. I don’t spend more than 4 hours of actual work in my cubicle. This is pretty typical of most companies I’ve worked at.

Use the other 4 hours to built your own product.

By: Andy Brice

Andy Brice — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:25:27 +0000

You can always normalise the graph so that WFTM does stay a constant value. It just means T1 is going to take longer.

By: Selling your own software vs working for the man « Je pense en Java, Java is fun

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:41:31 +0000

[...] for the man Posted by funjava under Software Development An interesting article: Selling your own software vs working for the man [...]

By: James

James — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:19:07 +0000

I stayed in my job for 5 years too long, during which time my ISV was earning more than my employment.

Silly.

But I just couldn’t give up that civil service pension, until, I realised that working 40 hours a week just for that made no sense.

By: Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:15:32 +0000

Of course, another simplication here is making the WFTM line flat. For a highly competent young software developer, if the line is anywhere near flat, you’ve been at the same company too long. Switching companies or going into contract work would be other alternatives to becoming a microISV.