u/ImpressiveFocus303

hello,

i'm a web developer with an educational background in electrical engineering. Since I don't want to do software development contracting/freelancing anymore - at least not full-time - I'd like to start a one-man band business in eCommerce. However, I don't have yet an exact idea how to approach everything - what to sell, how to sell, should I consider b2b or b2c, should I sell software or hardware, etc...

Regardless, here are some hints, that might limit the scope of the problem:

• since I come from software world professionally, it might make sense to consider selling software-related products, or Value-Added-Reselling (buy a software product at a lower price, modify product / add stuff -> sell at higher price)
• since I have an educational background in electrical engineering, it might make sense to consider selling physical, electronics-related products. But I'm highly skeptical about this route due to all hassle that selling of physical products introduce (the need of warehouse, problems with importing goods at customs, especially if importing stuff from China, warranty, certifications, packaging and dispatching, returns...)
• as I want to operate as one-man band, I'm probably targeting a low volume, high-ticket hardware products, therefore B2B selling. In a case of software, it may be B2B and also B2C since selling of high low software products can be largely automated, therefore manageable by one-man band.

I would appreciate for any ideas how to approach starting an eCommerce business.

thanks

hello,

I'm full-stack software development freelancer/contractor and an electrical engineer by education. The thing is that I hate development and I don't enjoy this process at all, but I like tech industry on a general level. I would like to ditch this lengthy and painful development grind, or at least limit it down to maybe 20-30% of workload. At the same time, I would like to start a one-man band business while mostly working from home, but not sure what could I do, that is not a (full-time) development and that I could manage as solopreneur?

To recap my wishes, and add some:

• a business manageable by one-man band (solopreneur)
• not (full-time) development, especially not programming
• if possible, to leverage my software development skills and a degree in electrical engineering
• if possible, not to deal with physical products, unless low-volume and high-ticket (the need of warehouse, packaging & dispatching, harder to scale, hassle with importing from China, return complications ...)

If I'd be able to pick, I'd do some kind of sales. Something like buy low->sell high, or even better, buy low->modify/add->sell high. Or just buy->sell and make the main money on support and not on a product reselling.

Any suggestions or ideas?

thanks

hello,

i'm full-stack software development contractor/freelancer with an educational background in electrical engineering. I always dreamed about starting my own business, but I'm unsure about what kind of a business could I start so that it's not dead on arrival in the early beginning, and that it also aligns with what I like to do.

I know that I don't want to code full-time anymore, but if I have to do it, I expect that coding wouldn't take more than 20-30% of workload. Instead, I would like to focus on business development, marketing and sales while leveraging my engineering skills. I also know that I'd like to run a business as one man band and predominately working from home office.

I briefly considered going into consumer electronics hardware selling, i.e. buy low from Alibaba, sell high in Western countries, but I'm very skeptic about this route as:

• earning margins are low relative to software products
• competition seems to be high as anybody can do a buy low->sell high approach
• I would need some kind of a warehouse to store physical products
• scaling seems to be way harder and limited compared to software
• I would probably need somebody to employ for packaging, dispatching and costumer support, especially if business would be oriented around selling higher volume of products, therefore likely B2C oriented
• hassle with import/export paperwork

Gut feeling tells me to stay away from physical products, especially when just reselling them without creating any added value, but I may be completely wrong.

Instead, gut feeling tells me to consider something software-related, something like value-added reselling: buy->modify/add->sell, but this is very general, without any specific idea.

Furthermore, I thought about this approach: Firstly I'd do some consulting/services to identify potential clients' problems and get paid at the same time, then I'd offer some productized service and finally I might build some SaaS product. However, I wouldn't jump straight into developing a product, especially not full-time since that sounds as a way too risky behavior (9/10 software products fail while requiring large amount of time and money investment).

So what's your take on this?What kind of tech-related software or hardware business could I start as a one man band?

thanks

hello,

I'm a full-stack software development contractor/freelancer and electrical engineer by education and I would like to start a software selling business as one man band while working from home. The important thing is that I'd like to avoid software development part or at least decrease it it like 20-30% of workload and instead focus on sales. It's also important that business would be scale-able and even better, semi-passive.

I was also considering selling electronics hardware, but I feel that even if such business would succeed at some point, it would be hard to run it as one man band as I'd need to employ somebody just to keep packing and dispatching stuff, along the need of a warehouse and other hassle that comes with physical products, and lastly, low margins compared to software.

What kind of a business could I start? B2B or B2C? Most importantly, what could I sell?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

hello,

I wonder how does starting an indie game development business work out of majority of developers? I see often on this sub mentioned people going into such super risky, if not straight crazy endeavor, and I question do people really know what they're doing or it's just me that's overly pessimistic?

For comparison, starting a non-game software development business in terms of developing and selling a software product is a huge gamble. Statistically, 9/10 software dev startups - if not more - don't reach sustainable profitability over 5 year period, and one is actually trying to solve some problem for somebody. There are hundreds of thousands, or millions companies around the globe that need something, so there is plenty of local and small markets that need to be served. And in a case of games? Well, games from whole globe end being sold only in few places, that being mostly steam, but also itch for desktop platforms. Then there is a platform for xbox games, a platform for playstation, and play store and apple app store for ios games. That's pretty much it. So in short, there are a dozen market places for overwhelming majority of games. The result is that you get a ultra competitive, an overly overcrowded space with tiny less-than-1% chances to financially succeed with your game product, and that's assuming you have a decent budget to market your game, which majority of devs don't have. Without marketing, you're probably in less than 0.5% of chance of recouping your game development costs, assuming you also value your time.

It's also worth to mention that development of non-game software product takes a fraction of time relative to game development, so one can deliver multiple software products in a year and learn, and improve and finally succeed in this time frame. And i case of games? You need half of a year to a year just to spit out something that might be only remotely interesting for some gamers. Yet, assuming a good game is made, one can still fail due to no proper marketing done.

Then there is a need of multidisciplinary skills in game development - from programming, to math, to game design, to art, to sound engineering, to marketing and probably a few other disciplines as well. On the other hand, in non-game software development a solid knowledge of full-stack development and business development is normally sufficient.

I could go on with more stuff, like deploying a bug in b2b saas app and no one will care about it, and deploying a bug in a game, followed by a crucifixion by gaming community, and getting a significant drop in sales and churn as a reward.

So at this point I wonder what people are thinking when they straight quit their jobs, possibly with a family and a mortgage on their shoulders, to start a game development business and even worse - without any saved crisis found, without any marketing budget, and without any real gaming industry experience? This is not risky business, it's insanity.

hello,

I'm an android developer and electrical engineer. I would like to develop an application for smartwatches for improving safety of lone workers and construction workers. The main feature of the smartwatch application is that when a worker is in distress, one presses a dedicated hardware SOS button for 3 seconds and an alert is sent to security dispatch center via all available communication channels - cellular call, SMS, wifi..etc. The app must be extremely reliable and must be rock solid as it's supposed to save people's lives. The app would be used in a small pilot project first, later it would be expanded for production use at a larger scale.

While the app is conceptually simple, I've encountered problems with implementation, at least on older Samsung galaxy watches. The problem is that when smartwatch goes in inactive states such doze mode, sleep mode, power saving mode, or when app goes in foreground/background, or when screen goes off and so on, the SOS app stops working or stops receiving hardware button press events. Such behavior is unacceptable for a safety critical application.

1. Is it even possible to implement such extremely reliable lone worker application on android-based consumer smartwatches such as Samsung galaxy smartwatches without any workarounds and hacking?
2. Is it possible to implement what I need on the application (android) level at all, or would I need to consider modifying firmware?
3. If modification of firmware is necessary for my needs, should I partner with manufacturer of some OEM/ODM smartwatches? Would it be somehow possible to avoid this and just use off-the-shelf smartwatches, even if they're not android-based, such as RTOS-based?

thanks

hello,

I'm an android developer and electrical engineer. I would like to develop an application for smartwatches for improving safety of lone workers and construction workers. The main feature of the smartwatch application is that when a worker is in distress, one presses a dedicated hardware SOS button for 3 seconds and an alert is sent to security dispatch center via all available communication channels - cellular call, SMS, wifi..etc. The app must be extremely reliable and must be rock solid as it's supposed to save people's lives. The app would be used in a small pilot project first, later it would be expanded for production use at a larger scale.

While the app is conceptually simple, I've encountered problems with implementation, at least on older Samsung galaxy watches. The problem is that when smartwatch goes in inactive states such doze mode, sleep mode, power saving mode, or when app goes in foreground/background, or when screen goes off and so on, the SOS app stops working or stops receiving hardware button press events. Such behavior is unacceptable for a safety critical application.

1. Is it even possible to implement such extremely reliable lone worker application on android-based consumer smartwatches such as Samsung galaxy smartwatches without any workarounds and hacking?
2. Is it possible to implement what I need on the application (android) level at all, or would I need to consider modifying firmware?
3. If modification of firmware is necessary for my needs, should I partner with manufacturer of some OEM/ODM smartwatches? Would it be somehow possible to avoid this and just use off-the-shelf smartwatches, even if they're not android-based, such as RTOS-based?

thanks