Very good advice, Charles.

I've been a self employed software developer/consultant for twenty years and see no end to the demand for my skills in VFP....and, I do business in a small town with an appr. population of 20K.

Existing and potential clients have no idea, nor care, what programming languages I use. All they want are solutions to their problems:

Small municipalities and private developments need water/sewer/trash billing/receivables programs. Some want/need Personal and Real Estate tax billing programs.

Lake Development Associations need dues billing to the membership, septic tank cleanout billing, lots for sale, etc.

Small Mom and Pop stores that offer credit (the old fashioned way) need to keep track of their customers purchases, payments, balances (billing and receivables).

Real Estate offices have mountains of paper work for every sell. Most brokers, that I've been in contact with, don't like to part with their commissions though. They would rather pay minimum wage to a secretary. The same is true for Doctors and Lawyers. There are probably some exceptions out there, but, for the most part, I wouldn't approach any of them as a potential client.

Court Reporters need to keep track of scheduling individuals to take depositons; determine costs; payments to reporters; charges to client attornies; billing and receivables.

Small to medium sized Manufacturing - You could end up making a career out of just one of these types of clients.

Small trucking companies. Scheduling driver and loads. Billing.

The list of opportunities is endless.

Most of them are disorganized, using old pencil and paper methods. People owe them money they have long forgotten. One, a fuel oil dealer, had over 1 million in outstanding receivables. Too late for him, he went bankrupt.

Computerizing a small town (water billing) and putting in two years history resulted in identifying a crime (embezzlement). The CPA got the credit, but my program helped to identify the culprit.

CPA - Develope an association with one. These guys know the businesses that are having problems so they can give you pretty good leads. Just don't try to compete with them. They seem to want the payables and general ledger work. Some of them also resell the "big bucks" accounting packages to their clients. Stay away from these guys.

The nice thing about all the above is they're all based on a basic Accounts Receivable framework and you customize it based on the client requirements. "I never sell/give away rights to my code".

If you have a framework like Visual FoxExpress, after you've taken time to learn to use it, you can crank out an application in a couple days that you can charge 2-3K for. That's hard to beat!

The WEB. If you know VFP and you haven't downloaded Ricks Web Connection, you're really missing out on a golden opportunity. I've played with the trial version and am really impressed with it. I know, within the next year, I will be developing and selling WEB programs that are based on it.

If you're not into HTML yet.........it's easy! Look at www.pagetutor.com and the beginner tutorial.

There is a lot of money to be made from the Home Office. You just have to go look for it. After a few successes, word of mouth advertising can keep you as busy as you want to be.

Dale

>If you have good VFP skills you have a tool. The question is what can you use it for to generate income. So much emphasis is placed here on the corporate IT world that it amazes me how people are willing to work for what IT departments pay when a sklled programmer/business consultant can make three times that. 50k - 75k a year on salary is $25 - $37.50 an hour without a lot of write-offs, even assuming you only have to work a 40 hour week.
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>There are so many small businesses who need database applications. They are just starting to computerize their businesses. That was what we all did back in the dBase days, before everybody had networks, much less wanted web enabled apps. Now people are freaking out over dot NET and the future of VFP and wondering if that means they are going to starve.
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>Meanwhile, my clients are just becoming aware there is such a thing as windows 2000 and are starting to realize DSL lines are in their future. They aren't interested in computers as cool technology and they don't care if I write their app in VFP, Quickbasic or Urdu, as long as it solves their business problem.
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>They are interested in making money running parking lots or building homes or serving customers. But they are making money. Lots of money. They can afford a good consultant. They have a couple dozen employees, a small network to manage their customer information and mailings. Maybe they need to off-load the business rules from the owner's head into a computer system so he can go play golf - or sell a business that is making money but is worthless if he's not there 60 hours a week to run it. The apps they need are worth $25k - $100k to them. That money isn't worth bending down to pick up for a big programming shop. But if you have a couple of guys like that and you get put all the money in your own pocket, it's not bad. If you have four or five, it's real good. Some of the apps can be written in a month or two. The relationship becomes friendship and is ongoing and leads to referrals. There is an unlimited amount of this work. And there is so little competition you can be
>choosy.
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>Maybe this isn't the model for you, but do know that it is there. It sure isn't a bad part time job, even if you have other employment.
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>It's very cool to work for Fortune 100 companies on cutting edge enterprise applications and wow other programmers with what cool stuff you're doing. And if you own your own programming shop and are doing that kind of work on contract it's also a good way to get rich. (especially if you are paying a bunch of programmers on salary and farming them out at $150 an hour)
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>But salary jobs have limits. When I see salary surveys I often wonder why such talented people are willing to work so hard and settle for so little.
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>Just another perspective. VFP is a great tool for the kind of stuff I'm talking about. And that doesn't depend on what IT managers think. And if you only have to work 1000 hours a year to make a six figure income, it leaves you a little time for learning and expanding the skill set.
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>Don't sell short the skills you already have. There may be small businesses in your area who couldn't even imagine having an in-house IT department and are ignored by big consulting outfits as small potatoes - but who need computer solutions to their business problems and would be a lot of fun to work with. And who would pay better - and more promptly - than corporate America.
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>In any event, best of luck - and do take advantage of JVP's advice and offer of his new framework. He's not only a very bright lad, but he also can be a very helpful person and a good friend.
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>I'll go back to lurking now, and leave the thread to the gurus.