What are perspective fields and options for self-employed, one-man team developer? [closed]

Question

Closed. This question is off-topic. It is not currently accepting answers.

---

Want to improve this question? Update the question so it's on-topic for Software Engineering Stack Exchange.

Closed 5 years ago.

Improve this question

my wish is to get self-employed as one-men team, being a part of IT industry, not bound to anything, anyone and being able to work from anywhere, anytime...kinda freelancer job. However, making this happen doesn't seem to be that easy. I have just graduated as electrical engineer and I'm also employed in software developing company which is creating tools for engineers, and I'm mostly doing API programming in .net. It's an OK job, but it's not a long term stuff that I would see some personal interest and satisfation in it. As I said, I want to go self-employed route and I want to do something different.

[rant] I was thinking to try with game developing as this used to be one of my former hobbies. I created some stuff for flash portals and android market, but those were one of the worst projects ever had in the means of time invested and money generated. In previous years I invested a lot of time to learn programming, art,game design and also some audio engineering, but all this has to be done, just to create an application, which technically can be called a game and is still light years away from a state of finished product. Then I had to learn how to make polished art (in my case vector graphics),so that my product looks proffessional and that can be taken seriously (yes, yes I know, there are successfull games with shitty graphics, but they are exceptions), a game market, which is almost definition for oversaturation. It turned out that on game market 90% of developers doesn't make a dime, while others take almost all income and they're more or less all teams. Me as a lone wolf, couldn't stand a chance against highly skilled and professional teams. Some people even told me: "If your primary concern is money, just don't bother with game developing where multiple needed skills are just a ticket into an oversaturated market, where success is based on luck" [/rant]

So what could I try as well?Web page design and web tech seem to be also out of question, since there are so many developers who do that, and I'm not into web tech that much. The idea is that projects are small and managable by one person and that market is not full of this profession. I don't know, just give some ideas.. [yeah I know, I sound like a semi-frustrated college boy, who just graduated and this actually is true] What are some specific jobs, that they may not b

Answer 1

Hard to answer, because I do not know you, your skillset or your location. Generally, I don't think its wise to go self-employed "out of the blue", just because "I feel to".

I am a normal employer, also graduation not too long ago. I work with some freelancers, and those started their career mostly in small steps. They built up their network of companies and persons when they were employers. And someday (maybe a little luck involved), they got some project over that network. Just resigning your job and change your door bell nameplate to "freelancer" may not work.

Maybe you could persuade your employer in allowing you to have a small business beside your normal fulltime job (check that you do not work in the same field as your employer/steal him cusomers!). When you get more contracts and things start to go straight up for your business, you can switch your emphasis on that.

As I understand you, you tried to write and distribute your own software. I can not cover that topic, as I do not know much about that. But If you try to sell your stuff by yourself, you also have to evaluate if you feel up to the task of being your own marketing department. Engineers like me mostly look down on marketing, but without it, even the best software is nothing.