Ian Jones has decided to leave his day job to work on his Case Detective software full time (it's a desktop app to access the mighty FogBugz).

That's really great and apparently I was a little bit of inspiration, which is very cool! He's definitely doing it right by having a year of money saved. I think that's soooooo important, because you need to give your software time to be successful. I see so many new ISV's who appear to be dependent on their software making money from day 1. Of course you want that, but if you've dedicated a year of your life to building your software you owe it at least another year to be successful. It takes time for word to spread, etc.

In regards to his note on my beta release cycle I will say that even doing it full time it did practically kill me! However, since I wanted to keep the beta to 5-6 weeks I really needed to get new builds out fast. Most companies seemed to download every other one, which I think worked out fine. I really do need a vacation though :-)

Good luck Ian!