Hi folks, I’m a software engineer and I’ve been building AI related products for the last five years.<p>I’ve been looking to start my own business and here are now two possibilities to pursue that goal:<p>1) Partner with an already in motion software consultancy.<p>I had a meeting with the company owner (ex work colleague) some days ago, the company has like 30 employees and they develop traditional software products. He asked me if I was willing to join the company as a partner in order to build an AI division inside the company, focused on building AI products. None of their current employees have experience with this type of technologies.<p>I’m interested but I’m not quite sure that the company will be able to focus on two different lines of work, with different life cycles and different development metodologies.<p>Do you think that the proposal makes sense?<p>Do you have experience doing something like that or know a similar case from the web?<p>What would you do if you were in my position to approach this kind of job?<p>2) Build my own AI company.<p>I’ve also been talking with a potential (and also technical) partner about the possibility to build an AI company from the ground. The idea would be to sell end-to-end products, but starting as a consulting company to bootstrap and gain different industries use cases seems to be a logic decision.<p>I’m thinking that we can work together with the company described on (1) where my potential company builds the AI product and (1) builds the mobile/web app, consuming our product through an API.<p>Does that sounds feasible or is there a major flaw that I’m not considering?<p>Do you think it could be a good approach or is there a better way?