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Some people may simply enjoy the process of development moreso than the process of building a business. I've been at this crossroads for a a while now, and as a local startup guy in the area has posited, "consulting is like crack". From a financial standpoint, it's pretty hard to give up - even moreso if you're not really passionately on fire for one idea, which I do think you really need to be to focus on that one idea/service/product for a long time (years). Additionally, just because you've got an idea about what people are willing to pay for because you've done consulting for some clients, doesn't mean that you can (easily). Much of what you've learned working for, say, 3 clients, may need to be validated with a larger group. The few clients you worked with may have extremely focused needs, and what you've built for them has limited value outside of those handful of orgs. Finding the other orgs that could also benefit from a similar service/product may simply be too much work (and it's not guaranteed to find anyone at all). On top of that, some of what you've built may have been predicated on confidential information/processes which you can't replicate. You can often whiteroom something, but again, is it worth it? It may surprise you, but many companies are willing to pay a lot of money for a solution that ties in with existing systems and matches their business process 100%, rather than use a genericized system which they'd have to adapt to (and which some of their competition might be using as well). In my case, I've not yet found an idea that I'm really passionate about pursuing as a full-time venture. Until that time comes, I consult (and do things like indieconf.com - conference for freelancers like myself!), getting to the point where, should an idea strike me, I can self-fund the venture if need be. |