(You can add an adjective or an adverb later on, depending on when and where you went to school.) What would happen if you had to go private yourself? Ever thought about it?
Could you leave your current working environment, you and a couple of colleagues you get on within your office, take a good customer or three with you, find someone to do the books, and set up a business?
Maybe a grant from the council, or some redundancy money.....sure you're clever enough. Why not ?
Let's get horny about hardware first. This is a computer mag after all. First thing on anyone's to do list is buy a Mac. As many as possible, in fact. Let's see. You're certainly going to need a top-end laptop to flash during customer visits. One each, that is. With a decent printer - each. Time to actually buy rather than ..er 'borrow' software. Time to make it all happen, yeah get up get down punch the air punch the ground strut your funky stuff gonna be your own boss. At last control over your own software budget! Yes! At last, money to spend on lots of luvverly goodies, aerodynamic office chairs with sub-woofers, 1000 mouse mats, bumper stickers, letterheads, .....wallop. All your money's gone gone gone. Oooo-er and crikey, as Billy Bunter would have said.
Part Two - Think Sensible.
Two choices here.
Choice 1. Earn while you learn by your own mistakes, or
Choice 2. Get a Finance Director (FD) straight away.
If you get a FD you'll be able to do what you wanted to do, but you'll never be quite sure where 'your' money is, or was, or will be. If you don't get a FD, you learn by yourself and you'll always know how much you haven't got YET! Becoming an FD yourself is not a wise option. Personally, I'd recommend all fledgling entrepreneurs to get the best Mac possible for the FD, but only train him (a FD is always a chap) to use software you approve of. (i.e stuff you can hack when he's playing golf.) You no longer buy MacUser, because you are now a Mac Buyer. Not that there's a magazine for you.
Don't panic. Without really knowing what you're doing, you've become an intensive user of the Mac's inbuilt advantage.
Well done to think sensible. Your hardware budget is going to expand, and within the gestation period of an average mammal, it will have mutated to at least 8 times more than you imagined. Sort of reverse Moore's Law. Soon, someone, somewhere, is going to ask you why a Mac?
You're going to have to defend your bloated hardware expenditure at Mac-u-Like to
(1) your Finance Director
(2) a banking bloke who always seems to get his oar in, and
(3) a customer who's seen an iMac but who, with good reason, is still doubtful about using Apple.
(For some reason you never meet ladies doing these money interviews, just like you never meet ladies at Apple, except secretaries....why not? I'd really like to know.) None of the three aforementioned men has ever used the Internet, although the potential customer might stretch to having an e-mail account checked weekly by one of his flunkies. Chaps like that are going to want to look at the figures. That's all. The munnneee!!! Where it goes. Where it comes from. They ask a lot of awkward questions. You would if you were paying. Chances are this PC (potential customer) has asked some other wide boys in your market niche to quote, and he's already got a pile of equally outrageous offers as yours in his desk drawer.
(Note to anyone from Apple reading this; a "niche market" is a sub-section of a market in which it's possible to make a great deal of money and sell a bagload of computers by developing specialist software products before they become mainstream. Only trying to help...)
For some reason the PC has chosen you to appear on his parquet. You explain your bright idea wonderful product, muck about with a laptop for half an hour or so doing a prez, then the customer says, "yeah, all right mate now let's have a look at the costs." Oooo-er and crikey time again.
"Why a Mac?" he says, shrewd beady eyes watching you closely.
"Because Macs are cheaper." you say. There we go again.
Money. What you haven't got, but you'd like to have. Visualise yourself as Tom Cruise up against the evil empire here.......winning smile....confident Colgate grin...
You probably can take a Mac to pieces or at least make it work, but business?
Can you defend why you use a Mac instead of a PC? I hadn't the foggiest idea the first time I was asked. It was so obvious. To me. It wasn't obvious to the three wise men, who perfect reasonable (if you can think different you can also reason perfect no?) threw me and my partner out on our ears.
