There was an interesting post I saw just the other day over on the 37 Signals blog about Tapbots, creators of a couple pretty poplualr iPhone applications. The post was not about the applications, rather how Tapbots was created with almost ZERO capital with friends working evenings and weekends and how they have gone on to quit their day jobs to pursue Tapbots full time and doing quite well.
This was interesting to me for two reasons, I was recently writing the post about Ignite DC, where I mentioned a talk I gave at the first Ignite Baltimore titled “Have a great idea? What are you gonna do about it” where I said it was important just to take the first step. The other reason being a panel I saw at the recent Bootstrap MD conference where there was some debate from the panelists if it was possible to start a successful company in your “spare time”.
I am of the opinion that you can absolutely start a company in your spare time. Obviously if we look at the Tapbots example this is true and there are some friends in the area here that are doing some cool stuff, about to be released, all in their spare time. Now I by no means built a successful product, depending on who you ask their definition of success. But I did succeed on many levels by just taking the time and energy to devote to building out my vision. To me this was a success. And I did it with no real capital. I drew up the “wireframe” and a slide deck with the backend design and front end design concepts after work or while traveling for work. and submitted theses to sites like Elance for developers to bid on the work. So you might be asking, “I thought you said you started with no money …”. I did. So how did I pay for the development costs ? I did some other side work. I am not a developer by trade, so I took my strengths and got some work doing it, all out side of a full time job. With the money I earned on this side work, I was able to pay for the development of the product I was building. Essentially it was a wash. So don’t be deterred and think that you need a lot of money. You can probably do a lot of the work yourself, and if you cannot, outsource your weaknesses. Just be smart in who you choose and also try to cover your costs by doing other work. Its not all or nothing.
In the end, the product I built really went nowhere per se, so it probably cant be considered a success. However, in my eyes I got off my ass and did something. I learned a great deal and overall it was a great experience for me. I met so many people along the way, all of whom I consider good friends to this day.
Success.
