Hi, Late reply - I hope you must be convinced by many replies. Here are my thoughts hoping that they might help you:
**Warning: Its a lengthy reply** > I am a final year BE student. While most of my mates are > sincerely searching for a spot in the corporates, me and two > of my friends cherish a dream of creating a business for > ourselves. That's good news. But, choosing to be an entrepreneur means that there could be a lot of sacrifices that you should be ready to make when compared to getting a job in a company. The reason most people shy away from getting in to entrepreneurship or self-employment and instead find themselves a job in an established company in my opinion/experience are as below: 1. Family/peer pressure. One must sometimes be a rebel and not succumb to family/peer pressure, but instead believe in self and strive hard to accomplish his/her goal. The same family/peers will realize the true value of the decision that you made (of course, much later when you stand tall on the success ladder). 2. Job/Career/Financial stability. Most BE/B.Tech students that I have come across these days have taken up the field of engineering (especially computer science) for only one reason - to get a high-paying job and the opportunity to fly abroad. Getting a job in a good company assure their family that they can get married soon and "settle" in life :-D To most of them - life becomes simpler at this level. So they don't have to worry about starting a company, "manage" business and hunt for projects - it simply not worth the trouble for most of them. 3. Lack of ideas/business acumen. Lets face this - you simply cant run a software company today while there are so many of them already, and a lot of them (however small or big) compete with each other in many ways - not without an idea that would translate to business and the dedication and effort that translates business to growth. 4. Lack of passion. Most entrepreneurs that I know (both by books and personally) are extreme workaholics. At-least during the inception of a company, they dedicate almost all their time in building their business (be it technology, team building, client contacts, etc). I know at-least 5 entrepreneurs personally who sleep for less than 4 hours a day on average. Their passion for what they do - make them lose sleep. YMMV, but if you are not passionate about what you do, then you simply can't make it to success in the long run. 5. Lack of skills. Most people are simply not confident about their skills and their potential - not at-least when they are out of college. Some of these people take up a job to gain experience and expertise and then step into business much later. If you are not competent enough nor confident about your skills or what you can do, its best not to burn your fingers by starting up a business. 6. Fear of failing. Most of us have been groomed since child-hood by being punished in some way or the other for failing! This fear alone deters most of them from becoming entrepreneurs. If you want to be an entrepreneur, be bold and be prepared to face failure staring right at you many times. It should only make stronger and more wiser in the long run. > We got something like a few website development offers and that > has motivated us further. But we are not really going to stick to > web development as such and want to get into customized > application development and software deployment. There are way too many website development companies. But, the good news today is, you can still get a project for doing a website more easily - though it might not pay really great when you start off. Eventually, when you focus of building high-quality websites that impress more clients, you can survive as a good website firm. Keeping yourself/company updated with the latest trends and technologies, constant up-gradation of your technology skills and business avenues will help in surviving as a website company. Note that web is gradually becoming your application platform. Most native applications are now becoming web applications (using web services with web-based or mobile device front-ends and so on). The market for web-based applications is only growing more rapidly. Of course, there are still applications that are not web based (like banking systems, software/firmware for embedded devices, large enterprise applications, network and telecom-related software frameworks and monitoring tools, data mining/warehousing applications, and so on). > I recently saw a message in the "NCR Python Users Group India" > discussing Data Mining tool for collecting data from Excel > Documents and displaying them on web pages. I think these are > some untapped areas of software deployment, at least here in > India. As of today - such requirements are very few and niche (when compared to web applications and website related projects). And yes, there are a couple of dedicated companies who cater to such requirements. So, the market in this area is not untapped. > 1. Can we really survive as a company creating application > specific or customized software for situations like the one I > have mentioned above? Yes, you can. But be prepared to be more diversified, unless you know of a couple of dedicated clients who can feed you with regular requirements in this area. > 2. Is there really market for such software and services in > India? Yes, but not to a very large scale. > Kindly keep in mind FOSS. For many of such requirements, whether you use FOSS or not really doesn't matter to the client. Client wants results that he can use, and for a justified price-point - unless of course, the client is aware of FOSS and knows the benefit. IMO, you must prioritize on client's needs and come up with a viable solution without having to lecture the client with "benefits of FOSS". If you are passionate about FOSS (like me), you would simply opt out of any project that demands/requires using a proprietary framework/application/tool (maybe with an exception of proprietary to FOSS migration). > 3. If there is a possibility to survive. Are we going to be > judged by the work we do or by the industry experience we have > or supposed to have? (Remember I am still at college) Let me tell you this: getting your first project/business deal can be the toughest. If you get through this and come up with great results and make your client happy, you will get more projects eventually. After the first 4 to 5 successful projects and client's testimonials, you will be judged by your work and accomplishment. Of course, you might not be able to crack the multi-million dollar enterprise project deal to begin with - not without strong founded industry experience and proven credentials. But you will be able to survive and sustain on projects from smaller clients (who wouldn't pay more than 4 to 5 figures in Indian rupees) during the initial stage (at-least for an year or two). But this should be good enough for most to plan and focus on further expansion. Stable companies grow gradually till they reach critical mass and then rapidly expand. Remember the golden rule of business: Steep growth = Painfully steep fall! > 4. At last, how much are we going to be paid for these kind of > jobs? > Keeping in mind that depends on the quality of work we do and our > ability to negotiate, I would like to know the scale where I > would be starting. To begin with, you start small - to gain confidence in yourself, your deliver-ability and also in building the client base. How small can be very subjective - lets say as good as "free" but yet the client doesn't get a feeling that you are not serious about your work. The idea here is to plan your personal expense, operational costs and the gradual growth-plan of your company and then set your price accordingly. For example, there are companies who would build a website for you for Rs. 5000/- and there are companies who would charge you Rs. 5,00,000/- for the same (just like there are film stars who cost almost nothing to act and there are some who cost the earth - you get the picture). I hope you had patience reading my lengthy reply. Lastly, all of the above are based my *personal* opinion. Good luck! -- Chandrashekar Babu. http://www.chandrashekar.info/ http://www.slashprog.com/ _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
