From the category archives:

Starting

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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Get up, get out, get moving

June 2, 2008

Just back from Tokyo with a ton of new ideas/insights, a cold (thanks Marshall! – just kidding) and some great reads to catch up with on the net. First up: Want more clients? Get out of your mental ghetto, by one of my all time favs, Pam Slim.
Pam nailed microISVs dead to rights. [...]

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StartupAgents might be for you.

May 7, 2008

I came across a new job board exclusively for startups and people who want to work for them today – StartupAgents.com. Very cleanly executed, attractive, well thought out. Depending on your needs and wants you can either use it to shop for talent to expand your microISV or flesh out your startup or stop wasting [...]

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Microfunding for MicroISVs: YCombinator.

March 26, 2008

By Tony Wright
founder of http://rescuetime.com
http://blog.rescuetime.com (company blog)
[Tony Wright is the CEO of RescueTime, a web service that allows people and businesses to understand exactly how they spend their time with functionally zero data entry. RescueTime was funded by Ycombinator and is currently engaged in raising a seed round. Tony sincerely apologizes if this [...]

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A checklist for your microISV site.

November 14, 2007

Here’s a good starter list for making sure your microISV web site has the basics down in terms of ease of use: Scientific Web Design: 23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies
Again, nothing startling in this list, but if your site is breaking any of these best-practices, you’d better have a good reason why.
Here’s the gist [...]

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Playing it safe isn’t safe.

October 2, 2007

Here’s an anti-pattern all too often seen: a good programmer, sick unto death of being a corporate codemonkey, starts a microISV and immediately do the wrong thing: they build a safe product.
It might be a software library or component, or a CMS system not unlike all the other CMS systems out there, only better. It [...]

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Coming up with a microISV product idea.

August 31, 2007

This final 47hats.com tip for microISVs for the month of August has to do with a question that gets asked often at the Business of Software Forum: How do I come up with an idea for my microISV?
It’s damn hard, no doubt about it.
In some ways, the answer to the question “What product should I [...]

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What’s your privacy policy?

July 30, 2007

Here’s one of the lesser known hats you need to wear as a microISV: Privacy protector.
Your customers want and need your assurance that any information they provide you will not get sold to someone else. Further, they want to know what – if any – cookies you put on their machine. Most of all, [...]

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A double dose of what I need.

July 26, 2007

Launching 47hats as a consulting firm is a lot like launching my business, only scarier. So happening across Pam Slim’s double dose of fortitude for startups was just what I needed to steady my nerves, stiffen the upper lip and march on.
If you don’t know who Pamela Slim is, you should. Her blog, Escape from [...]

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47hats.com is launched.

July 12, 2007

By Bob Walsh
Managing Partner, 47hats.com

As of today, mymicroISV.com becomes 47hats.com – my new consulting firm helping microISVs succeed. Ever since writing my first book, Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality, I’ve been working informally with a number of microISVs – helping them find their markets, define their unique selling propositions, improve their blogging and find ways [...]

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Rule the web with this book

July 9, 2007

I usually don’t mark up a book this much, but Rule the Web by Mark Frauenfelder (founder of BoingBoing.net) just begs for it.
I picked up this book expecting that since I’m already web savvy I’d fine a few things new that would be good, a few items to pass on to family and friends [...]

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Office Live might be for you.

June 12, 2007

I spent the day yesterday getting the lowdown on Microsoft Office Live from Don Campbell, Microsoft’s OL evangelist – there’s definitely two potential opportunities there for microISVs. Office Live has nothing whatsoever to do with Excel and Word online – it’s Microsoft’s play to be an ISP for reluctant adopter small businesses who are now [...]

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Bill and Steve – the Desktop Duo

May 31, 2007

There’s a great joint appearance of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at the D Conference you can watch at the D5 Site. The short version is the highlights reel, but don’t neglect the Prologue video. Me? I’m going to try and get through all seven parts of the full session.
Steve and Bill have a lot [...]

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Lower Literacy Website Visitors

May 25, 2007

By Dave CollinsFounder, Shareware Promotions

Let’s start with an obvious statement: if you’re reading this article, you know how to read. The question is: how well? The scale between reading fluently and being completely illiterate is wide and fluctuating, and much more complicated than you might have thought. For example, did you know that 48% [...]

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Independent Innovators have a new resource

April 25, 2007

I’ve gotten to know Michael Lehman pretty well the past year or so, so when he launched Independent Innovators today, I was pretty excited.

The world is changing. Micro-ISVs are selling world class software. Indie bands are firing their predatory record labels. People are escaping their cubicles. And Michael, well here’s his mission:

“On this blog and [...]

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