Engineering can be a lifelong profession, but the longer you spend trying to be a good engineer the more likely you are to work for someone who just Doesn't Get It. Once a company gets to be a certain size, especially if the people in charge aren't technically skilled, politics and perception trumps physical laws; an engineer who can't make the case for a solution on technical grounds (this is the cleanest way to solve the problem) or on business grounds (this is the cheapest way to solve the problem, and we save $200K a year by doing it this way over the way we originally thought of) but on political grounds (this is neither clean nor cheap, but it uses this buzzword-compliant tech and will increase your budget by $1.5M and require 2 people to support) is not likely to be a happy engineer.
Isn't plan B start another company? Are you sure you want to be an entrepreneur in the first place or just getting caught up in startups school hype. Ask yourself if this is what you want to do for the rest of your life and don't dabble in it if your heart says otherwise..
I prefer the lawfirm model of business: steady growth, repeat business over the years. Of course, no one becomes a billionaire this way but one can do pretty well. Would this qualify as a startup, as defined by startup school?
Doubtful, this is your traditional consulting model. I've been in consulting now for 10+ years. It's a good business and definitely beats the pants out of a corporate job, but it's no software startup. Consulting is essentially a relationship business, not a technology business.
I'm cool with consulting. As you point out, it's relationship-based, which means that it probably doesn't obsolete as quickly as a business based solely on technology.
In your business, have you been able to take the IP you developed and create your own product?
I learned a couple things from a few similar projects, and realized there was a gap in the market for a particular product. The firm I was with (and some others who approach it in a similar fashion) all did custom development for this particular business problem.
Nothing in the world wrong with consulting, that's for sure. It's just not scalable. I'm still completely amazed at how big the Big 4, Sapient, and a few others have gotten.
I'm reminded of the quote that goes something like "don't let your schooling get in the way of your education."
The reason I think this applies is because engineering isn't really like what is taught in schools. It's probably the best you can do with 1 professor for 200 students.
But to answer the question, I would definitely be interested in doing engineering as a profession. Really I want to always be doing what interests me.
I like how Woz described it in his interview from "Founders at Work". He says that he loved working at HP and he wanted to work there for life. I'd want to find something like that.
I certainly view hacking as a lifelong profession. The reason I started a startup was not so I didn't have to work, but so I could work on what I wanted-- particularly unprofitable stuff like programming languages.
What I wonder is if Bell Labs were still in its heyday, would you have been an entrepreneur? When AT&T was a monopoly, they provided exactly the kind of unprofitable environment that geeks love (and they had the spare cash for them to buy toys, too!). Think of the programming languages you could have developed!
Google has some of its spirit and has hired some of their best, but I don't think anything today is the same sigh
I believe in their hearts of hearts geeks would prefer a Bell Labs environment over a startup any day. The kids who are starting web-based companies are only entrepreneurs due to the misfortune of not having such opportunities.
