Passionate about Startups and MicroISVs

Photo by Daquella Manera

This post is an adaptation of a portion of my 2010 Business of Software talk. Special thanks to Zuly at Light Point security for her detailed post that helped fill some of the gaps in my memory.

What’s the #1 goal of your website? Ask this of 10 software entrepreneurs and you’ll hear the same answer 10 times: the #1 goal is to sell software.

It’s a nice guess…but it’s wrong.

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Christmas is coming and you have no idea what to get the startup founder in your life? Even if that founder is you? Well, look no further.

The following is a list of startup-related stuff that I own, or have a desire to own, this holiday season. And yep, it’s mostly books. Is that surprising, or just sad?

Instructions for Use

1. “Accidentally” leave this URL open on your significant other’s computer with a sticky note that says: I heart everything on this page.
2. Tweet it or Facebook it to let your social graph know what you’re looking for. Amazon didn’t recently add the ability to gift Kindle books for nothing.
3. Buy something for yourself.

Note: Some of the links below are affiliate links. All of these products are things that I have experience with or a genuine desire to own. I am recommending them because they will either improve your ability to grow your company, or they’re just plain fun to have around, not because of the commissions.
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Photo by Francisco

A month ago I received a sales inquiry via email for my invoicing software package. The prospect asked if we could complete the questions he had attached in a spreadsheet:

I will need the attached questions answered in order to proceed as I can’t get them all answered off your website.

There were nearly 80 questions, at least half of which could be answered from our website.

In addition, he mentioned doing a flat-file exchange of data between our software and a custom piece his colleague had written. I mentioned that we have a .NET API or a web service layer, and that passing flat files back and forth would not be an optimal approach for a few reasons.

And that’s when it started to get good.

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Photo by stevendepolo

This post is an accusation. A call to arms. A sharp stick that says “get off your ass and make something happen.”

But I didn’t write it for you; I wrote it for myself. Every one of these reasons has haunted me at one time or another over the past 10 years. Many a moon ago I thought I was the only person who struggled with them. Now I have several conversations a week that indicate otherwise.

These reasons will come to life every time you start something new, be it an application, a website, a book or a presentation. Excuses don’t discriminate based on what you’re creating.

So with that, here are five reasons you (and I) haven’t launched…

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Top Startup Blogs – A real-time blog ranking tool by Dharmesh Shah based on his blog grader. I must have made a wrong-turn at some point because I think I’m the only blogger in the top 20 who isn’t a millionaire.

All Traffic Does Not Convert the Same – Along the lines of my post Nine Levels of Traffic Quality (though he ranks traffic sources in a different order), this is an in-depth look at one marketer’s experience looking at conversion rates from various sources (press release, social bookmarking, SEO, PPC and direct), as well as A/B testing landing pages for huge improvements.

Time Tracking Without Timers – Runs on your Mac and “figures out” what you’re working on so there’s no need for timers or manual entry. Launched this week from Micropreneur John Gallagher.

Skorks (An Underrated Developer Blog) – Good topics. Good writing. Check it out if you’re into the craft of software.

Finding Joy in the Terror of Starting Something New – Good advice from Pamela Slim on how to get over your terror and make things happen.

An Excellent WordPress Shopping Cart – I used PHPurchase on a recent site and it’s fantastic. Highly recommended if you need to sell physical or digital goods using WordPress.

The title of this post comes from the book Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life, Steve Martin’s memoir about his days of stand-up comedy. It’s a crazy startup-like story that details his 14 year ascent to the top of comedy, followed by 4 years of wild success playing sold-out arenas; an unprecedented feat at that time.

Among the sage-like insight Steve imparts in the book is the observation that many performers have outstanding shows now and again. But very, very few are able to consistently nail their performance. Steve proposes that it’s consistency that makes someone successful in the long run, not having a great show now and then.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with your startup.

So let’s get to that part.

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Photo by mpclemens

The following is a guest article by Dave Rodenbaugh of Lessons of Failure.

Shortly after the Millennium dawned, I was itching for something new to sink my teeth into.  Software development wasn’t giving me the satisfaction I craved from working, and I had recently been part of a startup that was now a smoking crater after the Dot Com crash.

While attending a local art show, I walked along perusing all the photography booths, as nature and landscape photography has always been a passion of mine.  Most of the photographers had similar kinds of work but there was one guy whose booth stood out from the others.  I stopped in and started up a conversation with him about his photos.  They weren’t just beautiful, they were striking.  To the point where people would audibly gasp walking by, “Oh wow, look at THAT”.  Knowing a little about the subject, I probed him a bit for his secrets.

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Photo by DeclanTM

This article is #7 in a series about startup marketing. The first 6 (not required before you read this one) are available here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6.

I’ve gone on and on about the subject of pre-launch marketing on my podcast, made mention of it in my book, went into detail on TechZing, and again on a recent Micropreneur Academy conference call.

And after talking about this subject at length, I found myself again evangelizing it last week at the Business of Software conference. That’s when I realized I needed to sit down and create a permanent written resource for the topic. Then you don’t have to listen to me tell you about it – you can just ask for the URL.

So the intention of this post is to lay out the key details of why you should start marketing your startup (or product, or book, or anything else you will launch) months before launch day. [tweet this]

This may sound obvious, but given the number of times I’ve been asked about it (and the number of times I’ve seen people do it poorly) it’s apparent it needs further examination.

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The Business of Software 2010 was last week in Boston. This is without a doubt my favorite conference every year.

I had a great time and met a ton of new people (including finally meeting Jason Cohen and Patrick McKenzie after exchanging many emails over the past year or two). The whirlwind of the conference was such that it took me about 48 hours before I could hold a conversation about anything but starting a software company.

My talk was titled The #1 Goal of Your Website and I promised I would post my slides (and here they are).

There is a well-organized (and detailed) look at each talk here.