I'm not sure how long this is going to be, I might have to break it into several parts. Here's my story of invention that is part success, part failure.
A tool is created
A little over a decade ago, I was working for a small company doing IT support and programming. It was a good job where my programming skills could finally be used. I was happy that I was no longer driving from place to place cleaning viruses out of PCs and re-installing Windows all day long. We had a major project to replace their aging accounting system, and I was given total control of the project. It was fun.
Once that project was completed, things started slowing down and I found my mind wandering again. I had a personal project that occupied my thoughts, and I was working on this project at night and on the weekends. I was in contact with a couple of people on the internet that worked with a similar kind of software as my project, but I did not think there was any demand for such a thing - it was something I was doing for fun, in my spare time.
Eventually, somebody found out about this project on a forum I belonged to. They asked some questions, and I arranged to demonstrate it to them. It was unfinished at the time, with a lot of bugs. But it was complete enough to demonstrate. The software completed the task without error, many times faster than similar tools. I was told a small market existed for this kind of tool. The fire was lit, and I would go on to spend many late nights and weekends debugging and completing the software.
The partnership that wasn't
During this time I worked at my IT job. Unfortunately, the pay was low - it was a small, struggling company and since the major project was done, I was doing support tasks only. There was no room for advancement or increase in pay. Winter came, and I struggled to pay the bills. I wasn't going to take on a second job because I wanted the time to work on my software.
After many meetings and demonstrations, the friend from the forum and some others had contacted some companies that were interested in using the software. They talked about starting a business, and offered to buy my software. I would take a position in the company to continue development, and support the software product. Being constantly broke, I accepted the offer - it was a huge increase in salary along with some cash that would get me out of the hole I was in. Unfortunately, I was young and had no experience, and nobody to guide me through this kind of event - I come from a family of slowlaners with no business experience.
I'll continue this later...
A tool is created
A little over a decade ago, I was working for a small company doing IT support and programming. It was a good job where my programming skills could finally be used. I was happy that I was no longer driving from place to place cleaning viruses out of PCs and re-installing Windows all day long. We had a major project to replace their aging accounting system, and I was given total control of the project. It was fun.
Once that project was completed, things started slowing down and I found my mind wandering again. I had a personal project that occupied my thoughts, and I was working on this project at night and on the weekends. I was in contact with a couple of people on the internet that worked with a similar kind of software as my project, but I did not think there was any demand for such a thing - it was something I was doing for fun, in my spare time.
Eventually, somebody found out about this project on a forum I belonged to. They asked some questions, and I arranged to demonstrate it to them. It was unfinished at the time, with a lot of bugs. But it was complete enough to demonstrate. The software completed the task without error, many times faster than similar tools. I was told a small market existed for this kind of tool. The fire was lit, and I would go on to spend many late nights and weekends debugging and completing the software.
The partnership that wasn't
During this time I worked at my IT job. Unfortunately, the pay was low - it was a small, struggling company and since the major project was done, I was doing support tasks only. There was no room for advancement or increase in pay. Winter came, and I struggled to pay the bills. I wasn't going to take on a second job because I wanted the time to work on my software.
After many meetings and demonstrations, the friend from the forum and some others had contacted some companies that were interested in using the software. They talked about starting a business, and offered to buy my software. I would take a position in the company to continue development, and support the software product. Being constantly broke, I accepted the offer - it was a huge increase in salary along with some cash that would get me out of the hole I was in. Unfortunately, I was young and had no experience, and nobody to guide me through this kind of event - I come from a family of slowlaners with no business experience.
I'll continue this later...
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