Gus Mueller, who is famous for the Mac app VoodooPad, talked about his route on how to become an independent programmer in just 1068 days .
Lots of people out there are doing it: either as an independent programmer, or a small group of people forming a micro ISV. It ain’t easy. David St Lawrence has a series of posts of Don’t give up your day job (part 2, part 3).
Speaking of multi-sources income, should you keep your day job to pay the daily expense, and digging the other income in the rest of the day? Many people are doing it this way to head for financial literacy or just wanted to become richer. In general you could do that with some jobs which doesn’t really required plenty focus and time. If you have gotten some connection and certain trading could be done via your connection, that’s fine and that type of jobs help growing your income. The other scenario is if you already having certain skill which could open the other channel to earn money, e.g. singing in a pub/cafe, teaching/tutors…etc. But if you gonna develop some products out of the rest of the days isn’t that optimistic as it seem. For tasks required highly concentration and long hours of pondering (including the time to prepare to move into the zone), like coding for your own product, or writing a book, it’d be tough if you are going to dig as much time as you can out of your office hours. It’s still a good start from the hobby and part time anyway. It’s the reason some go straight to full time for him/herself though.
Chris Campbell wrote about how to start your own business. 37Signal has a series of Small Biz 101 - how to get started, cash flow. An indie game developer’s experience on Forming an LLC in Illinois. Well, if you imagine it’d be cool and having plenty of freedom when you are working from home, read Working at Home Isn’t The Day at the Beach Office Mates Imagine. That’s it for now.