The first version of Dashman didn’t have a centralized configuration system to control a lot of displays at once. It was a one time fee software to run in one computer. Its price was $10.

I started networking, going to events, trying to find customers. I’m a techie, but I cleaned up, trimmed my beard, combed my hair, put on a suit (well, most of one… I still have issues with ties) and off I went, looking like this:

Techies stopped identifying me as part of their crowd which was enlightening. I was the target of so much condescension. It was funny. I still remember the face of a coder that told me he was building his application on Lisp and I asked “Which one?”. His face lit up when we discussed Common Lisp vs others, or SBCL vs other Common Lisp compilers. We became friends, but I digress.

One of my most enlightening discussions was with a developer that told me that he didn’t need my product because he could hack something together in a weekend. Let’s assume this is correct. He preferred to work for a weekend over spending $10. Or put in a different way, his weekend rate was $0.42 per hour. “Excuse me, can I hire you?”

Building something because it’s fun or educational is obviously a very rewarding activity and everybody that wants to do it should do it. When it comes to business, the equation of whether to build or buy should be a financial one.