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Involuntary exactitude is involuntary servitude.

February 23, 2010
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Maybe because we’ve all been burned at one time or another by a boss or client who didn’t spec out the software we ended up trying to build. Or maybe it’s because we live in a world where everything that matters is true or false, none of this messy in-between stuff that’s impossible to code. [...]

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Disrupting the Law with a Lending Tree for Startups

January 25, 2010
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It’s been an axiom of mine for a long time: everybody wants justice, but you’ve have to have the money to buy it. And for bootstrapping startups and microISVs, lawyering up even when you desperately need to has been too damn expensive.
Legal River, a new Washington D.C based startup is standing that on its head. Instead of [...]

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Lean Startups and mental productivity

December 11, 2009
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Ash Maurya has a great post out this week, Achieving Flow in a Lean Startup, that I would take a break and read right now if I were you.
Now keep in mind I that I “drank the Koolaide” of lean startups at the beginning of this week as I started digging into this topic for [...]

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Martin Kleppmann’s Go Test It makes the finish line.

November 30, 2009
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About 2 hours ago Martin Kleppmann announced that Red Gate Software is acquiring his startup, Go Test It, for an undisclosed amount. Go Test It is an automated cross browser functional testing service. Here’s the details of the acquisition and Martin’s good-to-read reflection on it.
It’s always good to see someone in the startup/microISV world succeed; [...]

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Is Twitter the Spawn of the Devil?

August 6, 2009
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If you judged by the reaction of some microISVs, absolutely. But Twitter is neither the Spawn of the Devil or a magic wand once waved producing millions of dollars. It’s a new communication medium, and like blogging did it will take some time before the naysayers stop grumbling and the spam artists move on.
That said, [...]

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Google Chrome OS – it’s about paid content.

July 8, 2009

Late last night Google announced it would build Google Chrome OS – a new operating system initially for netbooks. The online tech media immediately did its version of over-the-top Michael Jackson-like coverage: TechCrunch’s “Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome” was typical.
The announcement’s timing is strange: At 9:37 pm PT [...]

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Finding the right business partner.

May 31, 2009

As some of you know, I’ve spent the last six months writing The Web Startup Success Guide. One giant – and personally uncomfortable – lesson learned in all those interviews was the finding the right partner or two could make a huge difference in whether your small software company will succeed.
It’s not about getting funding [...]

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To Partner or not to Partner, that is the question.

May 22, 2009

Corey Maass, the creator of DubFiler, sent me an email he’s allowing me to share with you:
If you have a minute, here’s a quick question I’m putting to the start-up people I know. I’m going this alone. I’ve asked a few people to get involved but haven’t found the right fit. I’m wondering if you [...]

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How to pull the trigger.

April 30, 2009

I wish I had a time machine. Over the years I’ve talked to scores of people who would wistfully start the conversation, “I really want to start my own company, but…” The “but” would be any one or combination (if they’d really been agonizing over it) of financial, emotional, psychological self-justifications for not making the [...]

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Sold microISV; on to startuptodo.com.

April 27, 2009

It took a while to get to done, but I’ve now sold my first microISV product – MasterList Professional – to Shohn Trojacek of SixTree for an undisclosed sum. Its new home is http://masterlistpro.com.
The two reasons I sold MLP were a) I’ve done a lousy job of updating it and wanted to pass MLP on [...]

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Why should you do Twitter?

April 23, 2009

A friend of mine, Dave Collins (Shareware Promotions) has been trying to wrap his head around just what value Twitter offers for about the last month.
“I’ve been asking this question so long that my throat’s starting to hurt. So this time I’m going to throw in a reward,” Dave said in this BOS post. “How [...]

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Why robo email selling is a waste of time.

January 8, 2009

An email I got today:
Last month I sent you an email about selling your hats through our stores. I think they’d be a great fit.
We work hand in hand with thousands of department stores, specialty shops, large chains, mail-order catalog companies and internet shopping sites. We look for products we think will sell [...]

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Yes, You really should read this free book.

January 6, 2009

What do you do when you’ve launched a startup and you want to get some attention on it? If you’re Amy Hoy, who’s made a hell of a good name for herself in the Ruby/Rails community, you and your team put together a killer free ebook that every other startup should read on credit card [...]

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One Day – today – 50% sale. Times two!

December 4, 2008

Jeff Schoolcraft was kind enough to post this morning at The Business of Software Forum that my publisher Apress is doing today a one day ebook sale on my first book, Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality. You can get it here for $10 instead of $20.
Interestingly enough, Jeff using a Twitterbot to track one day [...]

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