Do you dream of one day starting your own software business/startup? Living the dream? This is what I have been fortunate enough to be doing for the last 6 years.
My name is Diego and I am the co-founder of Mealplana, a meal planning software solution for nutrition professionals. I have also launched NutriAdmin.
I feel a lot of bright minds are drawn to software development. It's a great career! The work is engaging, challenging, and creative, and you are always learning something new.
Software can be a lucrative occupation too. There is an ever-increasing demand for software engineers in companies of all sorts. The job is typically paid quite well.
The above being said, I feel a lot of young developers yearn to start their own business/startup- yet they don't know where to start.
This article is my humble attempt to provide a starting point for younger people.
Are you surrounded by other developers?
Firstly, a bit about my background. I studied Physics at university, starting in Madrid (Spain) and making it to Cambridge University by the time I did my Masters (Scientific Computing).
All along this journey, I met a variety of exceedingly bright people. From students to teachers, intelligence was never in short supply.
Yet, despite all the brilliance surrounding me, nobody was ever talking about business or marketing. These smart brains around me were specialised in science and technology.
It should go without saying that people can have a lot of skills and knowledge in a variety of domains. Some skills are transferrable, others are domain-specific.
Moreover, now that it has been around 8 years since I left university, I can see that I am part of the tiny minority of alumni that has started a business. Most of my peers have gone into research, consulting, banking, teaching, and other occupations.
So, why does this happen? You would imagine that software startups are created by people with technical backgrounds. After all, somebody needs to write the software to create the product.
Turns out, starting a software business requires a variety of skills, including programming- but also extending to sales, marketing, design, etc.
If you are constantly surrounded by developers and other people with similar professional background, you will become really good at programming, but that won't make you better at starting businesses.
Cover your knowledge and skill gaps
I believe that proficiency at a skill is acquired in a logarithmic fashion.
When considering anything of consequence, it is usually quite easy to get started and learn the basics of most skills in a short amount of time; yet hard to become an expert.
Take chess or poker for instance. You can teach someone how to play in an afternoon- yet it will take a lifetime to become an expert.
The same logic applies to business skills. Many young developers are intimidated by what they don't know about business (certainly I was). Talking to strangers (customers) sounds daunting.
Yet, the truth is that you don't need to be the best at sales/marketing to have a viable business. It's just fine with being better than most competitors.
In my case, I consider my most proficient skill to be programming (I have been doing this for 12 years), that's what I specialise in.
But then, I have spent a small amount of time learning some sales, writing, seo, marketing, accounting, and other business-skills. I don't need to be an expert in any of these to make money with my software.
For instance, with accounting, I believe I have read a total of 2 books. That makes me hardly an expert, but I am willing to bet this is more accounting books than 99% of developers have ever read.
When you realise that most developers (your potential competitors for a software business idea) tend to specialise in software alone, this gives you an edge. Just reading a few books on sales/marketing/business already puts you ahead.
So if you want to start a business, you are probably already a good enough developer. Now you need to invest a bit of your time in learning business skills.
The power of intersecting knowledge fields
My product is a meal planning software for professionals. In order to create Mealplana, I had to learn about nutrition.
Turns out, nutritionists, dietitians, personal trainers etc know a lot about nutrition, but hardly anything about programming.
There is a lot of value in someone knowing a skill in-depth (i.e. programming) and then bringing this skill to another field where this knowledge does not exist.
My advice is, try to create a product for a market that doesn't know software. The possibilities are endless:
- accountants
- finance professionals
- healthcare professionals
- construction industry
- etc
What do many developers want to do when thinking of a business idea? Something for other developers.
The problem with building a product for other developers is that you are competing against every other developer in the planet
Not only that, but you will be competing with giants, including Microsoft, Google, and Facebook that give away amazing products for free (i.e. Visual Studio Code).
Since developers know a lot about developing (it's their trade after all) any easy profitable products in the industry have already been exploited.
The only exception would be if you get involved in a really new technology (i.e. web3) where the market hasn't yet had time to capitalise every new opportunity.
My advise would be: either go for a very new technology (i.e. build something that wouldn't have been possible a year ago), or build something for a market of non-developers.
Conclusion
Opportunity lays in discomfort. You need to be able to step out of your comfort zone and learn new business skills that most other developers wouldn't want to do if you are to start a company.
When you learn- even just a little bit- about business skills that are required for a software company, then you are already at the top percentile of people with a combined software-business skillset.
Think about all the people that specialise in business or sales alone. We will likely never be as good as them at sales, but we don't have to. In turn, business people don't know programming, nobody knows everything.
Start by reading some books, one of my all time favourites is Start small, stay small by Rob Walling. I followed this book to start my business back in the day.
Best of luck in your future business adventures!
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