BackupBrain: My MicroISV Venture

Ian hits the nail on the head with his post, MicroISV or Startup:

“A big part of which is which is determining your goals. Do you want to run a business with an office, a secretary, 10+ employees? If so that’s a startup. It may just be you in the beginning, but if you envision that environment as your endgame then it’s a startup. A MicroISV is a very different thing. It’s a lifestyle as much as anything else. Are you content making enough money to have a high standard of living, but not enough to have an office of employees? Would you rather run your business than be a manager in it? Are you content sacrificing a higher probability of success for a lower probability of getting rich? If so then you’re starting a MicroISV.”

Most people I have talked to about my business plans assume that my goal is to eventually grow the business to a nice office and numerous staff. They always give me puzzled looks when I explain to them that that is not my goal and I am embarking on this endeavour for both the challenges and the lifestyle.

As I’ve been reviewing some of my old feeds and links, I’ve been surprised by the number of ISV blogs and domains that are non-existent. Wow! Has reality really hit that many people that hard? I realise starting any business on your own is hard, but I thought the dreams and ideas of people would be enough motivation to keep slogging away at this. Apparently not.

That is sad, as Ian Landsman was referring to recently regarding how different things seem to be among Micro-ISVs…

“I guess this goes to show you that starting a MicroISV is still starting a business. It still takes incredible persistence. The barrier to entry may be lower, but only a small percentage actually make it the entire way.”

Very true. Even more so when you’re bootstrapping! Although, I may not be as far along as I expected by now, I’m still here, the dream is still alive and I am still determined to succeed.

To keep things moving, it’s time to set my first monthly goal, even if I have missed the first week already.

By the end of the month, I want to have a functioning Customer Portal/Payments Gateway up on my site. It does not have to be “finished” in terms of complete functionality but it has to be ready to create customer accounts and accept payments via at least one gateway (e.g. Paypal).

Why have I chosen this as my first goal? Well, I have one small customer with the possibility of a second one and this facility in place would be useful for them as well as myself. Also, being able to use & fine-tune it with a few actual customers will be helpful.

I made a decision tonight that I hope will help really get things going around here: each month I will pick one thing to do with my business and then I will have four weeks to research, develop/purchase and then implement a solution to that goal.
This came about as I was thinking again about payment processing and customer portals, etc and I realised that I’ve looked at this stuff before, yet still haven’t implemented anything!

From here on I’m going to (attempt to) discipline myself and proceed in a more structured way, including at least one post for each goal to be made here.

I think this should help me to focus my efforts and achieve real results.

Speaking of the offline side of business… I recently got my first set of business cards printed; And I’ve already passed out quite a few of them around town. So far, I’ve had positive reactions from those who have shown an interest in what I am doing and planning.

And, apart from the obvious benefits of beginning to get my name out and about in my local area, there is something to be said for having a physical item that can be picked up and held. Also, the act of actually spending money on something helped me to stop and consider how serious I am in this.

Somehow it confirms that this Micro-ISV thing is real - that it’s not just a business name, number and website. This is real! This is the next chapter of my career and life. I am really doing this.

It has reignited my enthusiasm and excitement levels!

So my recommendation is, if you too are starting a Micro-ISV and are serious about it (eventually) being a full-time gig, get some professional business cards printed and start talking about your ISV with the people around you that are interested. You may just be surprised at how much that can enthuse and motivate you.

When one, such as myself, is starting a business on the side while keeping a day job it can be hard to define your professional identity. What do I do? Am I my day profession? Or, am I my fledgling, slow-moving, yet-to-make-money side-business?

Which brings me to: How do you introduce yourself?, from the Escape from Cubicle Nation blog:

“If you are in the go-between stage from employee to entrepreneur, you may find yourself frazzled when asked the question “So, what do you do for a living?” at parties, networking events and neighborhood gatherings.”

Hmm… perhaps I need to think of a good “elevator pitch” for myself?

For awhile there, I was posting quite regularly, but then I started getting into initial development work. Actually, I’ve done a lot less coding than I’d have liked but I now have a lot more of my ideas and direction sorted out. For instance, I now know that ThoughtFiler needs to be a desktop product first, and a web service second. I still believe the web service would be unique and innovative enough to succeed, but it needs to go on the back burner while I concentrate on getting a 1.0 desktop version out there.

With all the thinking I have been doing about how to structure the product and the user interfaces required, I am once again excited by it and can see the benefits that it will provide. Heck, I want to start using myself NOW!

Matt Cornell’s article, Where’s the IDE for personal information?, has been quite helpful in finetuning some of my own ideas for ThoughtFiler.

The downside is that I’m no longer sure exactly how to code all this, the upside is that I have now confirmed in which direction I need to go.

——–

Workflow…

I’ve also been thinking a lot about workflow at the moment… What types of information do people deal with in their daily lives? How do they keep it for later referral?

How do people use paper? What areas are best handled by PIM software? And what, if anything, is best left to paper? Some things are just better done in physical form (or paper first, then digital).

——–

It is quite a challenge to find the right balance between advancing my product/company, retaining enough energy to give my day-job my best (after all, it is through that salary everything else is being accomplished), and maintaining a healthy social life so as not to become some kind of hacker hermit!

Ever onward!

Gavin Bowman’s written a food-for-thought post about good ideas versus execution:

If I believe everything I read: ideas are cheap; it’s all about execution. Developers are sitting on dozens of great ideas for products or services, if they only had enough time and funding. It wouldn’t matter which idea they chose, as long as the execution was right.

It’s a thought-provoking post, but one simple suggestion in particular jumped out at me:

Build a website or some basic product literature. Do you still think you can build it as quickly as you thought? Do you still think you can sell it? Is it still something you want to work on?

Interesting idea! I may do just that. I don’t think I’d worry too much about final layouts or anything, but the idea of writing up at least part of a product website describing the features as I envision them may be a useful way of seeing how realistic my plan is. As well, it’ll give me something to show to people when describing my idea.

There’s a good post over at MyMicroISV on Picking your micro-ISV niche.

He gave a useful link to a Squidoo lens about the long tail. If, like me, you’ve often heard reference to the long tail concept, but weren’t sure exactly what it is, that lens contains some good links to help clarify things.

In my own case, about to develop a web service, I don’t think I’m following the hype cycle, as I’ve been thinking about the concept for the last 4 years or so and discussing ideas with others as opportunity arose.

My service fits roughly in the online PIM marketplace, alongside the likes of BackPackit, RememberTheMilk, and one or two others which escape me at the moment. On discovering these services I almost thought of abandoning my ideas for the reason that others are getting close to my way of thinking and I wouldn’t have to wait long until I could just use their offerings myself. Which would have been fine, ’cause I have other ideas I could develop. However, their services are more narrowly focussed than mine and their emphasis is a bit different to what I am aiming for.

When will I go live? Not sure, but I feel good having picked a niche and made a start… now to just keep forging ahead!