Hi, I'm Richard Terry

I’ve been lurking for a few days, so thought I should introduce myself. I’ve been an independent web developer for about 12 years now, but lately realised I wasn’t enjoying the sort of work I was getting, and decided I wanted to focus more on the programming side. I had a few ideas for products, so bootstrapping a software business seemed like a natural progression.

I tried to work on the two side by side, but found the client work was too demanding, so have now burnt my bridges by handing most of the sites to others. I am now working on a couple of products which I’m going to try to sell and turn into a business - but I’m also working on a few smaller open source projects which I hope will bolster my CV in the likely event I’ll need to find additional sources of income.

Although I’m reasonably confident in my product ideas, I’m new to a lot of this, so am quite nervous about whether I’ll be able to make a success of it. Which is why I’m here - I’m hoping I can pick up some tips on what does and doesn’t work, before I find out the hard way! Thanks in advance!

Hi Richard. Welcome to the forums, and congratulations on “taking the leap”.

Hi Richard! I’m new to this too, so we can learn together! One thing that I’m slowly awakening to, though, is that it’s difficult to “focus more on the programming side”. When I first started I thought advice that solo-founder hackers should spend half their time hustling were inflated… now I’m not so sure.