Started a company, without specific goal. Need direction. :)

The first thing to do is figure out what you want to do. If you don't have a concept in mind, you will be wandering for a long time, wasting both money and time. It's OK to be a consultant for a while until you really know what you want to do. Doing anything else, at this point, will be a waste of your time.

So, find what you are passionate about and see if you can build a business from there. Once you have the idea, then you can work on the mechanics.

If you are in a three-month contract now, my first advice would be to find another contract job to start after your current one is over. I've found that keeping the pipeline full of paying work needs to be a primary focus for contract programmers.

I've made my transition from bill-by-the-hour contract programming to building a software development start-up through creating products that meet similar needs to the projects I had previously worked on for particular clients. In my contracting work I built complete systems by myself, in most cases with me having favorable IP, so this was a natural transition for me.

For those doing contract programming as part of a larger team where you're not building systems by yourself, another route could be converting tools you've built for your own use into products you can re-sale to other programmers. (And since your potential customers would be like you, that will help with the marketing as well.)

Again, manage and negotiate the IP on the contracting work you do carefully. I saw a contract once that basically said whatever ideas I dreamed about at night were theirs, not to mention any code that I wrote whether on the clock with them or not. That's not conducive to product creation.

As for the business/marketing side of things, read The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber and Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch and you'll be well on your way.

I agree with Bonnie. Put together a plan first. It can be very simple but you need to have an idea of where you want to go and how you'll get there. Even if it's a couple pages, put it down on paper, think through it, research the pieces you can't answer.

What is the product/service you want to create? Who are you going to sell it to? How big is that market? How much can you potentially sell? Who are the competitors and how will you differentiate from them? What are the market trends that will impact your success - positively or negatively? What time and cost will it take to develop it? How will you promote / market / sell it? Do some basic back of the envelop forecasts with revenue and costs - even extremely simple - to get an idea. I'd include the income you need to survive and factor in consulting revenue as income you need, offset by potential income from your business over time.

You can find a complete outline of a great plan either from Bonnie's link or elsewhere. But again, even if it's a couple pages, figure out the answers.

Best of luck,

If I were in your shoes, I'd do consulting. I'd go into the consulting world knowing that it is my goal to fill a need. Then build software around it to fill that need. That's the trick, filling a need or a problem. If you're not passionate about technology and don't like programming, I'd take time to reflect on what you are passionate about... and run with it.

If you want to learn the business side of things, you can do that, using the Internet. If you don't want to bother with that stuff, possibly look into bringing on a partner (when the time is right) who does understand the business stuff (or wants to learn it more).