I have some news to share, I have procrastinated but today I have decided to bootstrap a software shop that would essentially roll out some great products, I hope to document it here in case others would or might want to do same, I'd try to share my experience hiring and shopping for co-founders and everything until we make our first sale. I hope this helps someone out there.
Company X would be a weird company here, with unique values that you don’t find in a lot of other companies. That’s why we’ll be so successful, and hopefully that’s why developers would love working here. Our products over the next couple of years would birth other companies and solutions. I'd take some time off to think of a name, settle a location and do a little bit of setup and I'd come back to share with you all. Cheers Nairalanders

BinaryMonk:
I have some news to share, I have procrastinated but today I have decided to bootstrap a software shop that would essentially roll out some great products, I hope to document it here in case others would or might want to do same, I'd try to share my experience hiring and shopping for co-founders and everything until we make our first sale. I hope this helps someone out there.
Company X would be a weird company here, with unique values that you don’t find in a lot of other companies. That’s why we’ll be so successful, and hopefully that’s why developers would love working here. Our products over the next couple of years would birth other companies and solutions. I'd take some time off to think of a name, settle a location and do a little bit of setup and I'd come back to share with you all. Cheers Nairalanders

Wishing you the best.

Your greatest enemy would be procrastination and not having deadlines to stick to.

So we should expect a feedback when?

Happy elections day to Nigerians. I'm here with feedback on what I've done so far, I have settled for a space hope to pay for it on Monday the price was good I would like to fit in 10 workstations for developers to build, next week would shop for core-i3 to core-i5 desktops then we can look for maybe the first set of developers we would start with. Cheers I also got a name on CAC portal payment for the name was successful

truthCoder:


Wishing you the best.

Your greatest enemy would be procrastination and not having deadlines to stick to.

So we should expect a feedback when?

I'd try to provide daily feedback the frequency might reduce overtime

BinaryMonk:
Happy elections day to Nigerians. I'm here with feedback on what I've done so far, I have settled for a space hope to pay for it on Monday the price was good I would like to fit in 10 workstations for developers to build, next week would shop for core-i3 to core-i5 desktops then we can look for maybe the first set of developers we would start with. Cheers I also got a name on CAC portal payment for the name was successful

I would suggest laptops over desktops.

First, laptops consume less power so you can easily deploy a small inverter system for the whole space. A 2kva inverter with 2 tubular batteries would give more than adequate power to take you through the day.

Secondly, during meetings, laptops are mobile. Your team members can unplug their system and bring it into another space faster than a desktop.

Thirdly, if anything happens and you all need to work remotely, everyone can take laptops home.

If you are looking at costs, consider a Lenovo T540p core i7. The difference in price with the i5 is less than 5k to 10k each. Dont buy a core i3.

I would recommended you buy 5 systems first and use the balance for the inverter. Total is around 1m. Including SSD and memory upgrades.

You can always buy extra laptops once the need arises.

Also, consider rechargeable fans.

Following. Please do seek professional advice too.

Thanks guys I'm here with some updates, got the keys to a space I just paid for, got it painted it's basically not big for now but I guess we can start here, until we can get a bigger space; now I have a problem of the chicken or the egg which comes first; should a product come first or the company, I decided let the company(chicken) come first then the products(eggs) would follow,
@truthcoder thanks for the feedback, I would have gone your route if I got the space maybe in a residential area or an apartment to use as the company, this I would do later maybe when expansion comes, for now I am locating this very close to an interstate express road for easy access, subsequently we can move into a three bedroom apartment where the parlour could serve as the main work area some rooms maybe for interns and kitchen would always be kitchen for quick snacks. Having laptops here could be dangerous the plaza complex I paid for has security but laptops would be too tempting for criminals that's why I'd do these desktops, definitely would replace them later, for the energy saving suggestions.
Today I would get a furniture maker to wrap up cubicles then the next thing would be developers I'm a developer my self but faced with the challenge of the nature of developers to first bring on board, I want to onboard very good devs but this path requires patience and I know developers who know their onions might prefer the quick buck to this that might pay in the long run through equity and other benefits the other options I'm weighing is I have access to a lot of computer science students from some universities as our location is not too far from some, challenge with this is these young guys seem heavily distracted I see guys who have had powerful machines for sometime almost wrapping school but can barely do anything tech/C's coding. Something says I can salvage this bring them up into well rounded devs and they work for us(with us) but how do I ensure they don't jump ship the moment they pick up some good skills, I am in a smaller city in Nigeria I believe these guys might prefer going to Lagos after they pick up than staying back to code here. Does anyone have any experience with hiring developers for a startup and doing this well?, I have an amount I don't intend to go above. This is my savings, I want this to serve as an experiment so let's say I'm on a lean budget for now I don't want partners maybe until the structure is somewhat straight.

BinaryMonk:
Thanks guys I'm here with some updates, got the keys to a space I just paid for, got it painted it's basically not big for now but I guess we can start here, until we can get a bigger space; now I have a problem of the chicken or the egg which comes first; should a product come first or the company, I decided let the company(chicken) come first then the products(eggs) would follow,
@truthcoder thanks for the feedback, I would have gone your route if I got the space maybe in a residential area or an apartment to use as the company, this I would do later maybe when expansion comes, for now I am locating this very close to an interstate express road for easy access, subsequently we can move into a three bedroom apartment where the parlour could serve as the main work area some rooms maybe for interns and kitchen would always be kitchen for quick snacks. Having laptops here could be dangerous the plaza complex I paid for has security but laptops would be too tempting for criminals that's why I'd do these desktops, definitely would replace them later, for the energy saving suggestions.
Today I would get a furniture maker to wrap up cubicles then the next thing would be developers I'm a developer my self but faced with the challenge of the nature of developers to first bring on board, I want to onboard very good devs but this path requires patience and I know developers who know their onions might prefer the quick buck to this that might pay in the long run through equity and other benefits the other options I'm weighing is I have access to a lot of computer science students from some universities as our location is not too far from some, challenge with this is these young guys seem heavily distracted I see guys who have had powerful machines for sometime almost wrapping school but can barely do anything tech/C's coding. Something says I can salvage this bring them up into well rounded devs and they work for us(with us) but how do I ensure they don't jump ship the moment they pick up some good skills, I am in a smaller city in Nigeria I believe these guys might prefer going to Lagos after they pick up than staying back to code here. Does anyone have any experience with hiring developers for a startup and doing this well?, I have an amount I don't intend to go above. This is my savings, I want this to serve as an experiment so let's say I'm on a lean budget for now I don't want partners maybe until the structure is somewhat straight.

Congrats on the new space

Hello world today on my journey to building a dev shop or company I have brought some early morning report on some of the activities from yesterday so, obviously I settled on the name approval was gotten for the name; as much as I want to share the name with everyone for now I'd keep it secret please understand with me, but we're now a legally recognized entity and I also started the process of opening corporate accounts in terms of speed I was told to go for FCMB and access bank their process is quicker and straight forward no redtapes or "corners" I got this after surveying people around, it might be so around here but not so around your location; so we have settled on this to ad our banks for now hopefully we can interface with payment gateways and some other business transactions using this for now. Furniture work is still ongoing hopefully would be done tomorrow painting, what are your thoughts on strategies for getting developers I believe having developers who share the vision of the company is priceless I'm still weighing my options have not concluded on this yet but I guess hopefully before the weekend I should have this figured out.

Recruiting good developers might be an issue for you. As good developers would probably have already own a workstation and prefer working indoors at their own comfort, compared to coming to your office everyday to get things done.
Programmers brainstorm most at night for problem solving, when everything is calm. So they might struggle getting used to the environment.

If you’re really willing to go for the catch, best I’ll suggest for you is to start a bootcamp and retain the dedicated/committed ones for a period of time. Then they can complete your tasks and gradually grow into an employee.
This is the usual route start ups take. Start small.