I fear that I am not going fast enough in my current role, and this market is stagnant, like really stagnant, so I was thinking of starting a Software Firm where we push out specifically proofs of concept, scripts, automated bots, etc The goal is to eventually ship out full systems, but currently at my skill level, that is what I can offer. I have about $10k ish in the bank, no debt, and would really prefer a place to invest my money in some way YOE: 1 yr at Maxar, TC: 95K
Youre best off building stuff for retail and selling it.
Honestly I wouldn't expect that to call in much business. You're offering consulting work for prototypes of pretty small tasks. I wouldn't personally expect that to gain any traction on an offering that narrow. If you can bill yourself as consultant of backend engineering who can and will deliver finished results on time, then you are at least on parity with existing firms, and merely have to start from scratch.
Thats fine with me, a place to grow at least yknow? Do you know of any other vertical bossiness that I can throw 10k and my skills at?
Hard to say given I don't know you well. But my advice is that probably within your skill set there is, or could be, a more well defined niche. For example, maybe play with chat bots and offer chat bot implementation services. Do you think there's anything which is a more clearly defined niche that you currently do (or could) master?