Profitable use for DB skills?
Discussion
Hi all,
With an Engineering degree, multiple small contracts for SME's (mostly web stuff) and my current role as a programmer for an investment bank, I've built up a reasonable level of expertise with stuff like ASP.NET, PHP, SQL, XHTML, CSS, etc [insert acronyms here..].
Thing is, what I really enjoy is doing something entrepreneurial - I've successfully started a (Speed Dating) company previously, and sold that on last Summer. Since then, I've been coding for the bank, and although I enjoy anything technical, I want more of a challenge and more freedom.
My main idea to date has been to set up SME database systems, linked to their e-commerce site, so that they have one unified system for processing web and telephone orders. If implemented on a Linux box, it could also contain a file server, firewall, broadband hub, Intranet, etc.
The idea to provide a box (rather than a hosted solution) comes from the 40% grant the government will give SME's in my area to purchase computer hardware - a physical box would be easier to justify than an abstract hosting account.
I'm thinking about companies with 1-20 exployees, so relatively small/simple systems, perhaps with a support/training contact included. More details on a previous thread here.
But... what other uses could I put this expertise to? Any more thoughts on the SME database idea?
I have a few friends with some marketing/technical expertise, who may sooner or later be interested in joining up if the thing takes off.
Any thoughts/ideas much appreciated.
With an Engineering degree, multiple small contracts for SME's (mostly web stuff) and my current role as a programmer for an investment bank, I've built up a reasonable level of expertise with stuff like ASP.NET, PHP, SQL, XHTML, CSS, etc [insert acronyms here..].
Thing is, what I really enjoy is doing something entrepreneurial - I've successfully started a (Speed Dating) company previously, and sold that on last Summer. Since then, I've been coding for the bank, and although I enjoy anything technical, I want more of a challenge and more freedom.
My main idea to date has been to set up SME database systems, linked to their e-commerce site, so that they have one unified system for processing web and telephone orders. If implemented on a Linux box, it could also contain a file server, firewall, broadband hub, Intranet, etc.
The idea to provide a box (rather than a hosted solution) comes from the 40% grant the government will give SME's in my area to purchase computer hardware - a physical box would be easier to justify than an abstract hosting account.
I'm thinking about companies with 1-20 exployees, so relatively small/simple systems, perhaps with a support/training contact included. More details on a previous thread here.
But... what other uses could I put this expertise to? Any more thoughts on the SME database idea?
I have a few friends with some marketing/technical expertise, who may sooner or later be interested in joining up if the thing takes off.
Any thoughts/ideas much appreciated.
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