Sugar Maple Software

Recently, a couple independent software developers have shared their stories. Paul Kafasis presented the Rogue Amoeba story, “The Full-Time Gap.” Encouraged by this, Daniel Jalkut recently commented on his path to become an independent software developer in his post “The Road Less Traveled” and invited others to shared their experiences. These are both in the same vein as Gus Mueller’s story from last year, “How to become an independent programmer in just 1068 days.” Encouraged by Daniel’s post, I’ll share my story.

A couple of weeks ago, I left National Instruments after ten years as a software engineer. It’s hard to leave a company that is as great to work for as NI. While I loved what I was doing, I decided that I had other passions to explore and I wasn’t getting any younger. One of these passions is independent software development for the Mac. So, I founded Sugar Maple Software.

But wait, one of the lessons from Gus is “Don’t quit your day job.” I think that is great advice and if you have the bandwidth to start down the path as an independent software developer after working your day job, you should do that. However, you should make sure that your contract with your employer allows such activities. Technically, mine didn’t but, regardless, I didn’t have the time. So, wanting to be able to pursue my passions, I left my day job. However, I’m in a very fortunate situation. I have a wife with an excellent job with benefits that covers our family. Despite this, since we live in an expensive Chicago suburb and have two kids, Sugar Maple Software better bear some fruit or, rather, syrup.

I’m currently working on a software application which I’ll talk more about as my ideas solidify. Since I don’t expect to make any money selling software for a while, I’m also pursuing consulting work, which is one of Daniel’s lessons: “Consulting makes an excellent back-up plan.” Please check out my consulting services to see if I may be able to help you.

While I’m developing this software application and, hopefully, consulting, I’ll share my experiences and insights as I start down the path as an independent software developer in the hope that this information will be useful to other independent software developers. I plan to comment on my experience starting and running the business, resources for the independent Mac software developer, and my thoughts on Cocoa as I learn it.

Yes, that’s right, learn Cocoa. I haven’t made the time or had the need to learn Cocoa. For the last ten years, I’ve developed system software, frameworks, drivers. Technically, the only GUI application that I developed while at NI was a configuration utility written in MFC and ported from Windows with the Microsoft Visual C++ Cross Compiler for the Mac. Yes, such a thing really existed. The last time I developed a native Mac application, I used CodeWarrior and PowerPlant. Before that, I was using MPW, MacApp, and IcePick. At some point, I used Symantec C++ and its THINK Class Library. I’m looking forward to exploring Xcode and Cocoa.

Time to get to work….

This entry was posted Thursday, 14th September, 2006 at 1:06 pm and is filed under business, general. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.