Goal
Create an automation platform that has scripts on it and companies will have the ability to buy scripts. The code itself can be run on our servers or on-premises. The code itself will be encrypted so we can make sure the code is not just copied somewhere and it loses it value.
Reality
There are many scripts you can already google or can find on github or stackoverflow, but the issue we found was that even though most people just blatantly copy paste from these websites without really checking the code themselves. We wanted to become a trusted organization that when you would need a script that did something specific, you could get one as a service from a trusted source that has no backdoors in it.
Options
- Github
- Stackoverflow
- Serverstack
They all lack the part that there is no real accountability, which most enterprises would want. Yes, the code is validated by multiple people but that didn’t guarantee anything. What I have learned over the years is that most enterprises want to get rid of certain accountability / responsibility (excluding approvals) and will pay for this.
Willingness
We really wanted this project to go of the ground. We were more focused on infrastructure like code as most of this code stays the same. Automatically create a windows user, automatically create a VM in X environment, … There were enough scripts that could be integrated for enterprises to update their code with best practices.
EVENTUAL OUTCOME
At the current time there were 2 big issues that needed resolved and we stopped looking for the solutions because of 1 of them. The first biggest issue was that no company was ever going to run encrypted code on their own environment and a company needed to know what actual code was running. This was a huge blocked for us because once the code would be “leaked” there is no point in selling it anymore. The second issue, which caused us to drop the project, was that I was living in a social house together with my parents at the time. Belgian law forbid someone living in a social housing to have a member in the house that owns a business AND has the seat of the business located on the social housing. After trying to figure out what I could do with the budget that I had at the time, we had to throw the towel in the ring because there was not a way for me go around it without trying to rent a house, myself. As most of my budget would then instead go to rent / furniture / … I would have no money left for the business. Taking a loan was no option as I was a student and did not have a job.
6 months later, after trying to still achieve success with the business. I had to cut my losses and I started looking for a job so in the future I might be able to start a project and actually succeed with it.
I learned from this experience, no matter how hard you work, no matter if you even have potential clients believing in your idea, no matter if you have a working project, the legal system will screw you over somehow and if you continue anyway without listening to them you will live a financial dead which I think is even worse than the actual event of passing away. It made me learn that the only way to get rich individually, is to be in a richer / midclass environment in the first place.
I learned there is a lot of people telling you how easy it is to do stuff, but as long as no-one is in your exact position and went through your exact struggles those opinions do not matter much and you could compare them to “though guy pub conversations”.