The Human Side of Software Development
March 12th, 2009 — Micropreneurship, Startups
We launched version 2.5 of DotNetInvoice (my asp.net billing product) about 2 weeks ago. This release is a milestone because for the first ever we have a C# version (in addition to our standard VB.NET version).
The programming language is important because we provide the source code with every purchase…which created one heck of a mess for us a few weeks back.
February 10th, 2009 — Micropreneurship, Startups
Until a few weeks ago I owned one of the top ranking sites on Google for the search term “beach towels.” This meant I received around 2,000 visitors each month in the fall and winter, and up to 5,000 per month during in the peak summer months.
The problem was that when I’d purchased the site 18 months ago the conversion rate (the rate at which it converted visitors to buyers) was hovering right around 0%.
Correction…it was 0%.
January 7th, 2009 — Micropreneurship, Startups
I ruffled a few feathers with my recent post The Software Product Myth. The unrest surrounded my statement that making $2500/month from your software product wouldn’t allow you to quit your day job.
The comments here and on a few social bookmarking sites mentioned that you could quit your day job if you wanted to, and that you could live on $2500/month just fine in many cities in the world (although in my hypothetical situation I was speaking about a developer based in the hypothetical U.S.).
We could get into a discussion about how much developers make, and how many costs you will take on by quitting your day job, but it’s completely irrelevant.
December 23rd, 2008 — About this Blog, Micropreneurship, Software Development, Startups
Consider this the Year in Review for Software by Rob. Here are my seven most popular posts from 2008:
The Software Product Myth
“A certain percentage of developers become unhappy with salaried development over time (typically it’s shortly after they’re asked to manage people, or maintain legacy code), and they dream of breaking out of the cube walls and running their own show. Some choose consulting, but many more inevitably decide to build a software product.
‘After all,’ they think ‘you code it up and sell it a thousand times - it’s like printing your own money! I build apps all the time, how hard could it be to launch a product?’”
Should You Build or Buy Your Micro-ISV?
“None of the products I’ve built or bought required skills beyond that of a mid-level developer. Let’s be honest, building an invoicing system does not involve insanely complex algorithms and coding chops. Most successful Micro-ISV products (and a lot of not-so-Micro-ISV products) could have been built by a few solid mid-level developers.”
November 18th, 2008 — Micropreneurship, Startups
Most developers start as salaried employees, slogging through code and loving it because they never imagined a job could be challenging, educational, and downright fun. Where else can you learn new things every day, play around with computers, and get paid for it? Aside from working at Best Buy.
A certain percentage of developers become unhappy with salaried development over time (typically it’s shortly after they’re asked to manage people, or maintain legacy code), and they dream of breaking out of the cube walls and running their own show. Some choose consulting, but many more inevitably decide to build a software product.
“After all,” they think “you code it up and sell it a thousand times - it’s like printing your own money! I build apps all the time, how hard could it be to launch a product?”
October 3rd, 2008 — Micropreneurship, Software Development, Startups
Micro-ISVs. I’ve been contemplating the issue of building vs. buying for the past four years.
I’ve been on both sides of the coin: I’ve purchased 10 profit-oriented software products or websites, and built three.
Knowing what it takes to develop the initial version of a non-trivial software product (read: hundreds of hours), I’ve become a fan of buying. This is based on two factors:
As a software consultant I’m booked full-time and I bill a reasonable hourly rate. So to spend 348 hours (2 months) building a product means I’m approaching a mid-five figure investment into a software product. That’s not play money; those are real dollars that don’t wind up in my pocket.
June 26th, 2008 — Micropreneurship, Startups
I’m back from 10-days in L.A. where my wife received her PhD in Psychology after six years of grueling work. Yes, Dr. Walling is now in the house.
I’m launching a decent-sized project tomorrow (about 22 person-months of work), and moving to Boston on Monday - thus the dearth of posts lately. But tonight, instead of doing something important, I’m blogging. Since I don’t have a lot of time I’m going to rattle off a few things I’ve been thinking about:
What’s New
I’m on a kick to increase revenue from a few of my websites. Aside from my ASP.NET Invoicing Application, I run a blog directory submission tool and an e-commerce site.
My blog directory submission service receives 900 organic visitors per month without fail, and has for 3+ years, but only makes around $60 a month. The same goes for my e-com site, except that gets around 5,000 organic visitors (it’s on the first page of google for some generic keywords), and closes only 3-5 orders per month.
Those numbers are despicable, so I’m on a quest to improve the conversion rate of both sites, and will be sharing that process with you in the coming months.
Looking for Suggestions
I’m looking for a term to describe something I’ve been thinking about: a software/web developer who uses his (or her) talents to build, buy, and leverage websites and software applications to create multiple recurring income streams. Sort of a cross between a webmaster, a Micro-ISV and a website flipper.
It’s like a Micro-ISV in that it’s one person, but the “products” he makes money from are not limited to downloadable software. The “products” can be software as a service (SaaS) applications, e-commerce sites, interactive learning environments…anything you would need technical skills to implement that provides real value for a group of people (i.e., not these crappy Adsense sites that clutter search results with poorly-written ESL content). This developer would typically have a portfolio of sites/apps he’s working on to stave off boredom and ensure a stable, recurring income.
I’m trying to describe that in less than the two paragraphs used above, and here’s what I’ve come up:
Yes, this is a somewhat random question, but I think I’m going somewhere with it.
Any suggestions?
June 5th, 2008 — Startups
A comment from Warren on my recent post Lessons Learned “Selling” My Micro-ISV (about my ASP.NET billing product, DotNetInvoice) brought up an important issue and a common misconception about NDAs:
Is an NDA even worth the time of writing it up?
Unless what you’re selling is worth the better part of a million USD, all you’re going hear from a lawyer is “it’s not worth taking it to court” (i.e. legal fees will eat everything before you get a bite)
A wise man once told me “We don’t write contracts for when we go to court, we write them to keep us out of court.”
June 4th, 2008 — Micropreneurship, Startups
Those of you following the chronicles of my ASP.NET billing product know that I purchased it about 16 months ago and after putting in hundreds of hours cleaning up the code and growing revenue, I offered it for sale to free up time for this blog and pursue another potential opportunity (that has since gone by the wayside, as these things are apt to do).
Within a week of my “for sale” post I received 20 email inquiries, sent out nearly that many NDAs, distributed 13 sales packets (including a detailed description of the product with all the relevant data, and a Google Analytics PDF) to those who returned signed NDAs, and spent about 10 hours answering questions via email. I set a deadline for offers to keep the process from dragging on, and by the time the deadline passed I had three suitable offers on my desk. Two of them were nearly identical, with a down payment and monthly payments.
The third was something I hadn’t expected.
May 18th, 2008 — Becoming a Better Developer, Software Development, Startups
By the time I was 13 I had been selling candy and comic books to my classmates for almost 3 years. Though I did quite well, I was itching to try something bigger, and that meant extending my reach beyond the walls of Math class.
This was the late 80s, so resources were limited for a 13 year old living in the country. I ordered all of the free information available in the work at home section of the Penny Saver (a free newspaper consisting entirely of ads), and started going to the library twice a week to read up on entrepreneurship. I was searching for a business idea that I could pull off at 13, and after literally hundreds of books, booklets, and information packets I decided to publish my own booklet on comic book collecting.
“Smart”
Since I was seven years old I’ve been an avid reader. I consumed 2 or 3 books a week during my childhood, including a large collection of “crazy facts” books and the Guinness Book of World’s Records (every year). By the time I was 13 I’d been reading 2-3 books a week for 6 years, and the breadth of my knowledge was astonishing for someone my age.
I knew how the stock market worked, why Beta had lost to VHS, why Apple was losing market share to the PC, and how double-entry accounting worked (although I couldn’t do double-entry accounting). But I had no idea how to start a business. With all of my book knowledge about the business world, I had no clue how to execute an idea.