If you'd start a company, what would it be?

[1204]

Well is there any entrepeneurs or entrepeneur-minded folks? Even if not, what is your dream? Would it rely on open source or just whatever is highly profitable?

[joco1500]

I would start a computer company.

And yes it would be open source stuff.

[Old_Grey_Wolf]

I have thought about doing laptop/desktop repair, refurbishing, or re-purposing after I retire in order to get some extra income. Due to demand, 95% of the work would probably not be an open source operating system; however, open source might play as much as a 50% role in applications. If you look at my signature below, then you will see that I am OK with that.

[LillyDragon]

If I had the chance, I would start a costume creature shop, personally, and have all the office computers built from used parts and running Ubuntu or Redhat exclusively. =P I also want to get into refurbishing old game consoles, even replacing aging electronic components in their MOBOs with fresh ones, and reselling them at a reasonable price for consumers with a love for anything retro.

[1204]

I also have a bigger dream which can conquer the world (seriously). I only have to hire qualified workers/partners and get some investor's money. It's superb but not completely unique idea from what i've learned -it's in use on some part of world but those have quite poor outcome compared to my ideas.

It's still worth a try. Even if many things goes wrong, it's worth couple millions revenue in here where I live. It also completely relies on open source software so everybody wins. Only problem is we are in recession right now so start would be too risky, as business always is, but you don't want extra risk straight from the beginning. In a year or two I'll be an entrepeneur.

[1204]

If I had the chance, I would start a costume creature shop, personally, and have all the office computers built from used parts and running Ubuntu or Redhat exclusively. =P I also want to get into refurbishing old game consoles, even replacing aging electronic components in their MOBOs with fresh ones, and reselling them at a reasonable price for consumers with a love for anything retro.

I also had a daydream about this. Only six options to customers

AMD A4, A6 or A10
Intel i3, i5 or i7

with Ubuntu 12.04. Also couple of HP printers, RAM options and one or two different AMD/Nvidia GPUs if customers want more processing power. Also Steam pre-installed for gamers. Advantage would be that you don't need big warehouse for these. I think this would work on a bigger city but not in a small town where I live; Microsoft Windows is still a synonym to Operating System. I've done my best to make a change from windows to linux, but it's difficult. 27 PCs so far from Vista/7 -> Ubuntu 12.04.

[Jakin]

I know it is probably assumed to be the answer of most-

I would really created a company aimed at linux support. (of course i would definatly need to take some type of professional class on UNIX first because i sure do not know everything- but like to think have great experience) Whereby i would build custom computers that run linux and set the customer up with the linux OS of their choice- after a conversation on the types of distros out there they might like to tryout, and if need be basic help of how to get started. I would also allow customers to bring in retail machines that i deem to be compatible with Linux. I will of course freely back up their windows/OS X partitions- from there they can decide to ditch the preinstalled OS or dual-boot, eitherway i would have a backup of the machines original state for them.

The other option, is leasing skills to developers to help make their games cross platform.

[Mikeb85]

Well is there any entrepeneurs or entrepeneur-minded folks? Even if not, what is your dream? Would it rely on open source or just whatever is highly profitable?

First dream I've always had is to open up a high-end pastry shop. It was my first career, one I was very good at, but one I had to put on hold because I wasn't making enough money to pay for my dream.

Second is to create a proprietary trading company. Apart from cooking and pastries, finance/economics is a passion of mine (and I've devoted alot of time, effort and money into trading in the last several years - I've also gone back to University, funded by my trading activities).

If that's slightly too ambitious (which is most likely is, as I have nowhere close to enough capital) then I'd like to create a web app and a company based around it which provides up to date worldwide economic and financial data that could help businesses plan their operations based on market conditions (I've found alot of business managers, especially in small businesses, are ignorant of macro issues).

As for open source technology in my potential business plans, I definitely would incorporate it. Not because I care about the FSF or even freedom, but because it's a great pragmatic choice - for building a system from the ground up Linux and open source tools are the best.

[QIII]

I'm not sure what the business itself would be, but it would have to be one where I made obscene amounts of money, did very little and got to yell at people a lot.

[mastablasta]

I'm not sure what the business itself would be, but it would have to be one where I made obscene amounts of money, did very little and got to yell at people a lot.

i would onyl be the owner of succesfull business while others would work for me. i would just count the money/profits at the end of each month.

but seriously i think consulting is preety good.