My wife and I were in a similar situation when we graduated college - she had a degree in agriculture development and I had a degree in information systems. Back in 1999, we couldn't have had two farther apart career paths - agriculture in small towns and technology in the major cities.
Instead, we decided to create our own jobs and blend our skills together. The result was several agriculture software programs that have been sold in over 55 countries. This business has been our main source of income for the last 10 years and allowed us both to work from home and raise our family.
Living near College Station, TX (home of Texas A&M University), I volunteer to work with students often and am seeing more and more students that want a financially rewarding and satisfying career while maintaining a lifestyle balance. In many cases, entrepreneurship offers the best chance of achieving this goal as you are in a position to decide which opportunities you pursue and which you pass.
Today it's primarily my wife (support & some marketing) and me (development & marketing) running the business and we have two home-based support reps. Our main product is a cattle software program that lets ranchers keep track of their cattle including information such as breeding, calving, purchases & sales, medical treatments, pedigree/lineage, etc. Once they have recorded this information, it helps them make management decisions so they can be more profitable. Our website is at http://www.CattleMax.com.
A rancher once attempted to hire me to develop a replacement for CattleMax. He wanted to pay me the cost of a CattleMax install. You are safe from competition (from me).
Comments
My wife and I were in a similar situation when we graduated college - she had a degree in agriculture development and I had a degree in information systems. Back in 1999, we couldn't have had two farther apart career paths - agriculture in small towns and technology in the major cities.
Instead, we decided to create our own jobs and blend our skills together. The result was several agriculture software programs that have been sold in over 55 countries. This business has been our main source of income for the last 10 years and allowed us both to work from home and raise our family.
Living near College Station, TX (home of Texas A&M University), I volunteer to work with students often and am seeing more and more students that want a financially rewarding and satisfying career while maintaining a lifestyle balance. In many cases, entrepreneurship offers the best chance of achieving this goal as you are in a position to decide which opportunities you pursue and which you pass.
Very encouraging story and congratulations. Just out of curiosity, what does agriculture software do?
Thanks for the compliments.
Today it's primarily my wife (support & some marketing) and me (development & marketing) running the business and we have two home-based support reps. Our main product is a cattle software program that lets ranchers keep track of their cattle including information such as breeding, calving, purchases & sales, medical treatments, pedigree/lineage, etc. Once they have recorded this information, it helps them make management decisions so they can be more profitable. Our website is at http://www.CattleMax.com.
A rancher once attempted to hire me to develop a replacement for CattleMax. He wanted to pay me the cost of a CattleMax install. You are safe from competition (from me).
A rancher once attempted to hire me to build additional things on top of CattleMax, so that he could implement performance based pay for his milkers.