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Comment by henning | Hacker News Reader

This makes a lot of sense, but for a lot of developers they might think of developer tools, since they're developers and developers use and like tools, which is an area that seems hard to sell in.

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Hrm, that's true. I should add a caveat that it's hard to compete directly with open source software. You can build things for developers (e.g. Heroku), just so long as there's something you can charge for.

Edit: did.

I have sometimes wondered if I could sell sysprof (http://www.sysprof.com). It's an open source profiler for Linux, and as such anyone can just download it for free.

However, I could see embedded shops being willing to pay for it just so that (a) they have someone to call for support, and (b) it will continue to be developed.

A lot of open source software go down the route of having the software free, and paying for guaranteed support and/or funding developers directly in order to get their specific bugs and needs met faster. That's definitely a viable path; the question is, can you make more than just a salary on it? Some companies do, but then you have to get into hiring, managing people, which most hackers don't really have any interest in.

That's a great point. There's a good income to be made by developing tools for developers, just not the type of stellar growth that gets you mentioned on TV (unless you switch from developing for developers to developing for everyone, like Bill Gates and Paul Allen)

Github is a good example of this as well.

Perhaps that's a reason to have a non-technical (or at least non-programmer) co-founder; different perspectives, different life histories, different work histories.

Maybe the answer is to focus on the non-developer side of your life? What else do you do? Play games? Fly kites? What kind of things do you do socially? What about family? Do you have kids? Aging parents to care for? All of those might be areas to explore for ideas.

I know I am late to this thread, but building development tools for closed source products (.NET, etc.) is an easy way to make a living. Developers are easy to reach, don't demand glossy marketing and have a good sense of the time they can save with your tool. Two of my early startups were both development tools companies and they were both quickly profitable.

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