Have you ever had one of those ideas you thought could launch a startup? Or perhaps wanted to start working for yourself but weren’t sure where to start?
For those of us who have had these ideas, or been bold enough to dare to dream, what stopped you? What was it that triggered hesitation? I think for many of us, what would help us to start might be to see how it’s done. But if someone does your idea first, or similar to how you were thinking, then is the urge to still make that leap the same? If others are walking that path then perhaps it isn’t unique enough to be a success? How do we start in a way that makes it a sustainable option worthy of our time and effort?
I too, have felt this hesitation; the mental debate and all the reasons why and why not…
Perhaps if someone clearly demonstrated the steps, and clearly outlined the potential…
For as long as I can remember, I have always had a vision of creating and selling my own software.
When I was a kid, I wanted to program games and sell them. And educational games. And then training software. Office task automation. Game engine and rendering tools. Entertainment and visual FX applications. There was no limit to what I wanted to create, I just wanted to create things.
I spent a lot of time after I graduated, making sure that I continued to learn and develop my skills further, and keep them up-to-date even though I was continuing to be employed in Business Analyst and IT Support roles due to the availability and work experience. The vision I had to be a full-time developer never left me.
I continued to explore rendering project examples, physics API integrations, graphics tool development, web applications and web API integrations, all outside of continuing the full-time work roles in the IT and Business environments.
These roles gave me a lot of exposure to IT requirements in the corporate environment, the gaps in standardised solutions and the availability of custom solutions. There were so many ideas always bubbling to the surface, crafting themselves into viable products in the back of my mind as I continued with the ‘other’ main duties I was already focusing on.
There were many challenges with taking these ideas from the form of an idea to a produced solution; and even more challenges surfacing once I may have these products developed – how can I distribute them? How can I turn them from produced solution to profitable income? How can I continue to support my family?
At some point, I just had to try. If I didn’t ever try, I wouldn’t ever do it. To try would mean finalising the products, which often were left at a prototype stage “until there was a platform or means for distribution.” To try would mean finding that platform, the right distribution stream, and the right business model. To try would mean to implement not just the software product, but the business platform – not just a bit at a time – but the entirety of it available all at once. If there wasn’t a platform for the products, they would sit idle. If there weren’t products for the platform, then the platform would be without products.
But if I didn’t ever try, I wouldn’t ever do it.
So here I am.
Brent McEwan