>>Hi. I see you are convinced that you need a partner to do the marketing, sales, client meetings, etc. I just want you to be aware that you might be able to learn these skills over time. There are books, tapes, videos, and seminars that are available to teach you marketing/sales/people skills. And if you are good enough to be an independent programmer, you will gain more confidence.
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>Being introverted and nervous for 27 years is a hard habit to overcome. There's also medical problems that affect it. I'm not saying it's impossible, I just think it's more likely I'd find a partner I can work with than me becomming the assertive, confident being that I'd need to be.
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>>I say this because a partner can also introduce more problems when starting a business. Unless your roles are clearly defined and not overlapping, there is a chance that you will have conflicting views about different subject. If you have someone who just does marketing, I think you will need more than one programmer. If you both program, I would suggest thinking of a good method to resolve conflicts (is there one with 2 people?).
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>As long as I was in charge of the programming, I'd be happy to let a partner do the rest. :)
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>>The suggestion of starting some contracts on the side is an excellent one. It will give you experience in many aspects of the business. Also, if and when you decide to go full-time, you will have some established clients and some good referals. Quite often a client will be able to point you in the right direction for some other contracts as they will have contacts in their business that have mentioned that they have a need for custom software of some type.
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>>Just my two cents.
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>Yeah, part-time contracts is sounding like a really good idea. So far my only professional programming experience has been at one job with one product. It would be nice to get some other experience without having to quit.
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>Thanks,
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>-Michelle

Part-time jobs are nice because they usually assume well-defined responsibilities and deadlines (not necessarily time). Other things depends on personality: you have to skip from one thing to another, handling few real projects at a time, i.e. it may get nervous and definitely time-consuming. I used to have part-time, and when I have it, I dream to quit, when I don't have it, I dream to start :).