We kind of got lucky, it all started because about 5 of us left IBM together and went to work for a smaller company with less corporate crap, it turned out they were not intered in projects that were under $10k for consulting, so any project that was under $10k, we started doing on our own, suddenly a 2-day contract turned into a full year so we all quit and started our business, 3 of us. We still had lot of contacts for the various companies we worked for in the past and they send us any EDI business that they can't do themselves. And that 2 -day contract...been 3 years and they still have 8 of our employess working for them, including myself full time. Be sure at least one of your partners has alot of business savy and all must be good balance of sales and talking to people as well as techie skills. There's a ton of folks that are real techie or real sales people, but don't have both skills. And make sure all of you have the same work ethic...otherwise you'll get discouraged of your partners real quick, it requires lots of overtime hours...full time with clients...and then off time to manage/run the business.