How to decide what to do?
Most people appear to decide they want to start a company, then figure out what to do. Some people even seem to start a company without having any idea, then hope an idea will fall out of the sky.
I’m not quite that bad. Instead, for about five years now, I’ve maintained an “ideas list” of things I could do. Some of them are entirely hare-brained, for example, designing certain kinds of swimming pool whirlpools that I thought would be fun, then trying to sell the ideas to swimming pool designers. (No, I haven’t tried to do that).
At any given time I’ve vaguely been aware of the top-most idea: “this is what I’ll do if I have to become self-employed”.
So, for me, there wasn’t really a decision-making process about what idea to pursue – it was already sitting at the top of my list.
And that idea is debugging tools for Symbian OS. It’s much more specific than that, but I won’t go into the details. (Symbian OS, for those who aren’t techies, is the most popular open Operating System for mobile phones – the equivalent of Microsoft Windows. Debugging tools, meanwhile, are bits of software to help identify the cause of software problems – bugs).
This idea has some merits:
- I know roughly what I’m doing in this area
- There’s possibilities for consulting in this field, possibly retaining some of the software I develop, for future sales
- It gives me a theoretical way to move away from Symbian and into other areas, as the tools I have in mind can be applicable elsewhere
- There are exit strategies of selling the whole thing lock, stock and barrel, if I produce anything worth selling but can’t myself sell it
But some big downsides:
- Symbian themselves, and Nokia, already produce a selection of software tools and could trample me at a moment’s notice. The good news is that they aren’t doing what I’ve got in mind (hopefully that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth doing!)
- There aren’t a lot of customers. Really, the only customers with enough money to spend on extra tools are the phone manufacturers who use Symbian OS. That means – it’ll be a few big sales of my product or none at all.
- At least to begin with, I’ll be lurking in the shadow of Symbian. I’ll rely on their co-operation and help, or it will be literally impossible to do what I want.
- The tools I’ve got in mind may not be technically possible. Ha! How crazy am I?
Anyway, we’ll see how it goes!