I hope "company with a product" stands for revenue stream. Hopefully, one that surpasses costs, so that company is profitable and can reinvest into new projects, hire people, grow, etc.
That is ultimately the goal of most developers, even the indie ones. We all like to be able to pay our bills, and maybe make a little on top of that. If you can cover your expenses, that means you can cover your salary. And that means that you can afford to continue working on indie development full time. That's the dream!
Growing the company is a bonus, but is not strictly necessary in my opinion. Too many people focus on growth and expansion, without considering the consequences. There are clear benefits to keeping things smaller. Investing surplus revenue in quality as opposed to quantity could be a better approach.
And one of the best ways to insure a net profit is to cut your costs. Thankfully enough, there are plenty of options available right now. The most obvious platform choice for cutting costs is the PC. Whether Windows, Mac, or Linux, there are development and publishing options that won't hurt your wallet. All three OS options provide free tools for developing software. The cost for assembling one of these boxes is the cost of the hardware plus the cost of the OS itself. If you are proficient at assembling your own rig, you could build a Windows box or a Linux box for less than $500. Add to that $200 - $400 for a copy of Windows, or $0 for a copy of Linux. (I'd recommend Ubuntu) For a Mac, you could probably get a used Mac for around $500 - $600, or a new MacMini for $700. All Macs come with the OS pre-installed, so no extra expense there.
If you want to develop for the iPhone or Android, you will still need a computer. For the iPhone you will need a Mac, for the Android I'm pretty sure you can use any box.
Another cost-cutting measure is in the game's graphics. Tailoring your game's visuals for a budget is a popular and effective strategy. Pixel art and Programmer art are two common options. Both reduce the cost of graphics considerably. The only other option is hiring an artist, and that is always pricey. A student or intern is the most affordable, but will give you the least amount of polish and will require the greatest amount of training. Unless you already have a substantial budget to throw around, I would stick to basic pixel art or programmer art.
Then there are the expenses related to software tools. Thankfully, we have advanced to the point where there are plenty of low-cost or free options. For graphics, there are programs like InkScape, GIMP, and Blender. (available for all platforms) For audio you have tools like Audacity for basic editing and cutting, and Musagi for basic mixing and music composition. For programming there are Express editions of Visual Basic, XNA, XCode, (for Mac) and numerous IDEs on Linux. If you want to get into some web game coding you can develop for Flash using the Flex SDK on any platform, and you can use the FlashDevelop IDE on Windows. The options when it comes to game engines are too numerous to list here. Some cost-effective indie options include Irrlicht, Blender Game Engine, XNA framework, Cocos2D, Unity, and now even the Unreal Development Kit. Find the right combination for the scope of your project and start learning.
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