I am back from the First STC India Summit in Bangalore and I attended a few interesting sessions. Here, I shall share my own presentation that I gave on Starting a Technical Documentation Services Company. My objective was not to present or discuss how to run a technical documentation company, or how to write a business plan, or how to prepare balance sheets or cash-flow statements. The basic objective was to deal with the confused state of mind–whether to start your own company, when it is the right time for it, and when it is not.

As I shared the contents of this presentation in my previous blog post, the basic outline of what I talked is as below.

• Starting a new technical documentation (or any business for that matter) is a lot like raising a child.
• We meet an entrepreneur who is a successful businessman in 2013, and is a happy and proud father.
• The reasons of NOT planning a child, and for NOT starting your own technical documentation company can be very similar (slide 5 and 6). It was four years back, in 2009.
• Two years later, the reasons for saying YES to both–the baby and own company, are again similar.
• How it is different for an employee as compared to a freelancer (slide 13).
• How the approach of raising a baby corresponds to running your business in initial years.
• And few other points on starting your own technical documentation company.

I have shared it on slideshare, please access it at: http://www.slideshare.net/vingar/starting-a-technical-documentation-company.

This presentation will also be added to STC India’s portal in a few days, Please see it at: http://www.stc-india.org/stc-india-presentations/ in few days.

At the end of presentation. I conducted a short QUIZ of ten questions on technical writing. This was part of STC India’s initiative to hold a technical writing quiz every month, started in February 2011. The questions sheets were distributed and the lady who had most correct entries is Priya, from National Instruments, Bangalore. She won a Mug of Joy.

I shall welcome your thoughts on my presentation on ‘Starting Your Technical Documentation Company’.