I just finished listening to the Venture Voice podcast show #20, which featured Joel Spolsky of Fog Creek Software. Joel is known for his popular blog on software, aptly named Joel on Software. In the podcast, Joel presents his views on why it's wise to bootstrap a company and avoid the venture capital route.

To paraphrase his no-nonsense approach, starting a software (or any) company involves asking the questions:

1. What pain are people having?
2. Are people willing to pay for the solution I can provide?

Common sense I guess, but sometimes forgotten especially lately as we seem to be approaching another Internet boom with all of the Web 2.0 hype. Anyway, it's motivating to hear the voice of someone who has "been in the trenches" and survived.

For easy access, you can hear the interview on Odeo here.

Ken Dyck is local programmer and blogger. I check his blog on a fairly regular basis because he reads some websites that I don't usually get to, and filters out the good stuff. A posting of Ken's from June 2005 however, was much more than a pointer to another website. Ken interviewed a local businessman, Phil Rittenhouse owner of Laurel Creek Software. Here's a few snippets...

I have always wanted to have my own company but I've never been willing to take a big gamble to make it happen. Precision Tile offered the opportunity to start small and still keep my day job. As fate would have it, when I was just about to hit the point where I had to decide between the two, my employer was bought out, and I was given a nice severance package. It was the perfect opportunity to get Laurel Creek Software off the ground.

I find the freedom to make decisions very rewarding. I don't have to worry about any red tape or bureaucracy. If I think something needs to be done, I do it. I also get to make mistakes, which I have found is not such a bad thing. I get to learn from my mistakes, but even more important it means I can also take risks. Taking a calculated risk and having it pay-off is very gratifying.

There are a lot of ways to be an entrepreneur, so don't be afraid to choose a path other than the "big idea-big venture capital-big IPO" path that you always hear about.

I don't want to steal Ken's thunder, so go to his site and read the interview yourself.

BTW Ken... interviewing local business people. What a great idea!