Micro-ISV

micro-ISV? Some of the current characteristics
- One to five people, more likely one
- Figure 1.10: Chart - employees to revenue
- It's a Bootstrap effort
- Figure 1.11: Chart - Micro ISV advantages and disadvantages
- Live or die on the Net
- Probably Not Open Source
- Nothing against Open Source as a programming model, but as a business model, Open Source is extremely hard to make it profitable
- Find an exception
- Figure 1.12: Screen shot -exception
- New rules, new game, new results. [section total 4] The cost of nothing: the Internet makes this possible
- The next big thing is a lot harder now
- Acceptance of self-employed
- The wave of the future: reference to Alvin Toffler
- Show me the money:
Try and nail down what kind of money we are talking about here, chances of success
- Figure 1.13: Chart - various micro-ISV "revenue statements"
- The inner game of micro ISV. [section total 8] Like athletics, the mental side of micro ISV is just as important as coding, tech support and all the rest
- The need for a very high level of commitment
- Obsessive is not a bad thing
- The people in your life
- To succeed, you have to be actively look for ways of leveraging your most valuable resource: your time
- Law 1440: you get 1,440 minutes a day, and not one second more
- The basic elements of Task and Time management
- A way to offload everything you have to do
- A way to focus on just the things you need to do right now
- A way to prioritize
- One approach: MasterList Professional
- Figure 1.14-15: Screen shots - MasterList Professional screen shots (2) Whatever works for you:
Figure 1.16: Chart - micro-ISV Time/Task Management summary
- Who to tell, who not to tell
- One of the things you need to decide early on is who to tell and how much
- What to tell your boss and when
- Getting clear on what your employer can lay claim to
- Figure 1.17: Reprint of either really nasty employee clause or a news story
- Deciding on your transparency level
- Talk is cheap, except to the talker
- Coming up with The Idea: [section total 9] Writing your own commercial application is at least 10 times harder than writing one for your company or client because you have to define it
- Find a problem you understand, and develop a new solution that other people want to pay money for
- Find a problem you understand
- Software, products and services are about solving problems, be it how to process a million transactions an hour, cutting your overgrown lawn or staying connected
- Figure 1.18: Chart - 2 x 2 matrix problem analysis
- Vertical and horizontal problems lead to different types of customers and different kinds of micro-ISVs
- Figure 1.19: Chart - 2 x 2 market analysis
- Copycat doesn't cut it. The world does not care and will not pay you to write Yet Another Anything
- Figure 1.20: Screen shot - typical guru.com copycat posting
- Beware of problems with locked in solutions already: they are battles you are ill-equipped to win
- The difference between positive, neutral and negative lock-in
- Figure 1.21: Chart - Lock in examples by type and micro-ISV opportunity
- Nor is good good enough. To break into a market you need an overwhelming value proposition
- Where to from here. (Chapter wrap-up) [section total 3] Why the Idea is necessary but not sufficient
- A great idea will not make you successful; but a great idea and a lot of hard work will
- Most of the job is just showing up
- What about a business Plan?
- What about a marketing Plan?
- Your micro ISV Plan
- Checklist: Most important bullet points of chapter
- Figure 1.22: Mindmap: Having a Vision
- Micro-ISV Development. [Chapter total 32] Chapter Summary: How to go from Purpose to Product: software development the micro ISV way. Covers the things you need around actual coding, including prototyping, development methodologies, scheduling, iteration, backups, and your all important Beta Testers
- The micro ISV development methodology. [section total 2] Why other methodologies won't work:
A team of one isn't a team
- Figure 2.1: Chart - Various existing programming methodologies - useable bits for micro-ISVs
- The micro ISV development in action. [section total 13] Getting started: Paper Prototyping
- Why paper: it's so retro!
- Figure 2.2: Photo - Various MasterList Professional paper prototypes
- Seeing it from the Customer's view point: The ecstatic Customer narrative and how to write one
- Figure 2.3: Photo - MasterList Professional happy customer narrative
- Refining the problem domain
- You don't know what you don't know until you know that you don't know it: get used to it
- Inevitably, as you work further into your big idea, you are going to find that you will need to restructure, reorganize and re-plan your app more than a few times
- UML bits that work:
Use Use Cases to describe how your Customers will use your application
- Figure 2.4: Chart - a micro-ISV Use Case
- Use Activity Diagrams to model what your application does for the Customer
- Figure 2.5: Chart - a micro-ISV Activity Diagram
- Test driven development = less pain
- Figure 2.6: Chart - Tenets of test driven development
- Programming Journal: keep track of your decisions
- Figure 2.7: Photo or screen shot - a page from a micro-ISV programming journal
- The Schedule. Even without a boss, the value of having deadlines
- Plan for the first three releases
- First release: the guts of your value proposition
- Second release: cool but secondary features, smooth out the rough spots
- Third release: what has your market told you?
- Platform dynamics: [section total 3] The least important part of this book is which language you program in for which OS
- Web or desktop or both?
- Third party controls. Arguments for and against
- Figure 2.8: Chart - The buy or build decision
- Source Code Control and Backup. [section total 5] Cover the concepts of Source Code Control and why for micro-ISV it needs to be supplemented with a life preserving dose of backup methodology
- The basics of Source Code Control for micro-ISVs
- Figure 2.9: Chart - Source Code Control terminology
- The basics of a Backup methodology
- Redundancy is good
- A trip to the bank
- Online alternatives
- Figure 2.10: Screen shot - Online Storage Vendor X
- The Beta Advantage. [section total 6] Serious beta testers are the secret weapon of micro-ISVs who want to succeed. Used well, and they can improve your product, find your shortcomings and sing your praises. Misused, and you will not succeed
- Figure 2.11: Screen shot - Fogbugz beta discussion group
- Figure 2.12: Screen shot - Another micro-ISV beta discussion group
- Inevitably, as you dig deeper into the problem you are trying to solve and the interface your customers will use, you will need to rewrite some or all of your application more than a few times. Plan for it
- Listening to your beta testers. How to get them talking to you
- Getting beta testers. You will need ten times more than you think
- Figure 2.13: Screen shot - Beta.com
- Reality check time: Do people care about the problem you are solving?
- Your extended support network
- Figure 2.14: Box - Sampling of supportive postings during beta
- Configuration testing on the cheap
- Leverage, Leverage, leverage. [section total 3] Because you are a micro-ISV, you must furiously leverage your time if you are ever going to get to market. This means doing things differently than companies you've worked for
- Test cases into documentation
- Documentation into FAQ and product information
- Figure 2.15: Chart - Repurposing content for micro-ISVs
- Where to from here. (Chapter wrap-up) [section total 3] Why most development methodologies don't fit
- The importance of test-driven development for micro-ISVs
- Protecting your investment: Source Code Control and multiple backups
- The Beta Advantage recapped
- Your micro ISV Plan: Part 2 Checklist: Most important bullet points of chapter
- Figure 2.16: Mindmap: micro-ISV Development
- The Product. [Chapter total 45] Chapter Summary: Your application is not your product. Your application, plus your web site, blog, documentation, installer, license, graphics, collaterals, payment processing, customer experience and USP is your product. The new Waterfall Lifecycle Theory, Part 1
- Figure 3.1: Chart - Identifying your revenue Waterfall steps
- Your USP; like UML for marketing. [section total 3] What is a Unique Selling Proposition?
- "Acme is a blank that unlike other blanks does blank. Its main value to you is that it blanks."
- Unique: The need to differentiate your products from similar products
- Selling: What is the problem your software solves?
- Proposition: What are you offering customers and what do they have to pay for it in terms of money, time, effort and product lock-in?
- Figure 3.2: Screen shot - online USP maker
- Your web site. [section total 12] The right domain name. Short is better
- Figure 3.3: Flowchart - From domain to web site
- The moving parts you need: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How and How Much
- Who are you, don't be coy
- Figure 3.4: Screen shot - Micro-ISV who we are and how to contact us
- What are you selling; state the price up front
- Figure 3.5: Screen shot - Micro-ISV product definition
- Where can they get it and under what conditions? Clearly state differences between trial and paid for versions
- Figure 3.6: Screen shot - Micro-ISV trial description example
- When do they have to decide if they want to own your app? The value of a good trial version
- Providing value to your customer up front
- Solving tech support problems before they become refund problems
- Trial version tech support is not an afterthought
- Why should they trust you? The value of testimonials, guarantees and pictures of happy people
- Figure 3.7: Screen shot - A micro-ISV testimonial page
- How much does it cost? And what do they get?
- Figure 3.8: Screen shot - Prominent and multiple ways to buy
- Server my server. Why this should be someone else's headache
- Your blog. [section total 6] No, this is not an option
- Turning being small into an advantage
- Making a brand the old fashioned way
- Welcome to Blogo Journalism
- What it should have, what it should not: this is your public face
- Figure 3.9: Chart - What to include, what to exclude
- Buy or build? Its leverage time again!
- Figure 3.10: Screen shot - Typepad inner workings for a blogger
- Figure 3.11: Screen shot - Google Blogger
- The installer. [section total 8] Technical requirements: do like others do
- Uninstaller
- The value of an Auto Update feature
- Figure 3.12: Screen shot - Astrum Installwizard Auto Update
- Planning ahead for version 1.01, 1.02, 1.1 and other headaches
- EULA this and EULA that
- Figure 3.13: Screen shot - EULA boilerplate site
- No one reads the read me
- The trial version: micro ISV secret weapon or the kiss of death
- Figure 3.14: Chart - Trial version do's and don'ts
- Protecting your app without making potential customers hate you
- Your license and what it means
- Settle what it is your customers are buying
- Updates
- Upgrades
- Nobody likes the nickel and dime routine
- How many users/computers?
- Figure 3.15: Screen shot - A micro-ISV's sample
- Fun with multiple licenses
- Graphics for linear people. [section total 5] Do you look professional or not?
- 80 percent of the buying decision
- Look like real software
- A picture is worth a thousand words and why screenshots are a must
- Avoid flash for Flash's sake
- Big enough to read, not big enough to cripple
- Figure 3.16: Screen shot - Another micro-ISV's sample
- Annotate with benefits, not features
- Figure 3.17: Screen shot - Still another micro-ISV's sample
- Don't steal
- When in doubt, buy your art
- Figure 3.18: Screen shot - GlyphFX
- Payment processing: nuts, bolts and bucks. [section total 7] Why not do it yourself?
- What you are looking for
- Without a merchant account
- PayPal
- Figure 3.19: Screen shot - You've got money!
- Box: Mini-interview with PayPal flack
- 2Checkout.com
- Box: Mini-interview with 2checkout.com
- Figure 3.20: Screen shot - MLP purchase screen
- VeriSign.com
- Box: Mini-interview with VeriSign flack
- With a merchant account
- ASP Shopping Cart
- Wells Fargo Internet Merchant Account
- Box: Mini-interview with Wells Fargo flack
- Where to from here. (Chapter wrap-up) [section total 3] The center of your universe: your web site
- Making sure the Money runs where you want it to: you
- Small does not mean unprofessional
- Your micro ISV Plan: Part 3
- Checklist: Most important bullet points of chapter Figure 3.21: Mindmap: The Product
- Business is Business. [Chapter total 33] Chapter Summary: The mechanics of doing business. The rudiments of the law you need to know, handling real money, why death is preferable to taxes, the makings of a real business and why you don't need to rent an office
- Legal structures 101. [section total 6] Why this matters
- Sole proprietorship/DBA
- Box: Nico Mak Computing, WinZip
- Figure 4.1: Photo - A DBA statement
- Do you need more?
- Partnerships
- The legal side
- Shared responsibility, shared liability, shared profits
- If you and one or two other people are going to start a micro ISV, you need to decide up front how the pie and the pain gets split
- Who's in charge here?
- When good partnerships go bad: planning ahead
- Inc. Yourself: Subchapter S corporations and LLC's
- What's a corporation and why should I be one?
- A more businesslike business
- The mechanics of incorporating
- When you need a lawyer, when you don't
- Taking minutes, keeping records
- The LLC thing
- Figure 4.2: Chart - pros/cons of DBA, Partnership, Sub S, LLC
- Getting real with real money. [section total 6] Of bank accounts and credit cards
- Types of accounts, what your bank won't do (loans), what your bank will do (merchant accounts, wire transfers)
- Business Credit Cards. Check back in 3 years
- The importance of keeping records
- Are you making money or not: the metrics you need to track
- Records you need and why
- Expenses - so you can write them off
- Income - so you know who you are obliged to
- Figure 4.3: Chart - Recordkeeping retention chart
- Taxes
- Planning ahead: automate your recordkeeping, automate your taxes
- When you need help filing, and when you don't
- Getting your Tax ID(s)
- What about Reseller's Permit and Sales Tax?
- Figure 4.4: Screen shot - CA's FTB Internet Sales Statement
- You and the Government. [section total 5] The Bad: Zoning and Local Shakedowns
- Why you don't want to live next to a car repair shop
- Place of Business definitions applied to micro-ISV
- Figure 4.5: Screen shot - A sample Zoning Ordinance web site
- Shaking down small business: San Anselmo, CA
- The Good: Small Business Programs
- SBA: more for the expertise, not the money
- Figure 4.6: Screen shot - either SBA or a State SBA
- The Govenator wants you! So does Virginia
- Box: mini-interview with somebody in CA government
- Figure 4.7: Screen shot - A State-run startup business center
- Managing People. [section total 6] Why you don't hire your friends
- Vendors, Contractor and Employees
- What to look for from your vendors
- Figure 4.8:Chart - A sample Vendor Matrix
- How to hire a Contractor
- Guru.com and the like
- Figure 4.9: Screen shot - Typical guru.com posting
- Brokers: the good and bad
- Why Outsourcing does not work for micro-ISVs
- Employees: Your most critical business decision
- Mini-interview: Joel S. on hiring
- Common sense guide to managing people
- Set clear expectations
- Don't micro-manage
- The learning curve
- When things go wrong: getting to right
- Figure 4.10: Chart - Managing people summary
- Accessorizing your Business Outfit. [section total 7] Overhead is evil, but there are some things you need
- Do you need an Office?
- Figure 4.11: Chart - When you do and don't need an office
- Business Phone - absolutely
- Business cards mean business
- Figure 4.12: Screen shot - online business card maker X
- A Business Address - a good idea
- Business Credit Card - forget it
- Small business friendly vendors
- Best Buy
- Dell
- Microsoft
- Empower ISV
- Where to from here. (Chapter wrap-up) [section total 3] Getting the legal and financial plumbing handled
- Money: handle with care
- Taxes. Pay them
- Government and Business
- Your micro ISV Plan: Part 4
- Checklist: Most important bullet points of chapter
- Figure 4.13: Mindmap: The Product
- Focus on the Customer. [Chapter total 45] Chapter Summary: The more you understand, connect with and provide value to your customers, the more successful you will be. Why tech support is a strategic micro ISV advantage. Making it possible, easy and preferable for customers to find you on the web and in the real world. The new Waterfall Lifecycle Theory, Part 2
- Figure 5.1: Chart - Identifying your revenue Waterfall steps, part 2
- Understanding your customer. [section total 8] Who is your market and why you need to know this
- Who has the problem you set out to solve? Where do they live, work, surf and hang out?
- MasterList Professional example
- Fogbugz example
- Other example
- How to do market research on the cheap
- Google
- Clusty Search Tool
- Figure 5.2: Screen shot Clusty
- SIC codes and why you care
- Figure 5.3: Screen Shot - U.S. Department of Labor
- Ask your Beta Testers
- Email: retail and wholesale. [section total 7] Email is the primary way you will talk to customers one to one. You need two strategies: how to handle individual emails (think leverage) and how to communicate with more than one customer without being righteously being burned at the stake as a spammer
- Retail: You want to leverage your email first by coming up with good answers to questions frequently asked and then second, being able to deploy those answers whenever needed
- An Outlook only solution
- See writing sample #39, Rally around the Outlook Flag
- How FogBugz does it
- Figure 5.4: Screen Shot - Fogbugz email handling
- Wholesale: The right way to do a mailing list
- What the mailing list is for: less is refreshingly more
- The CAN-SPAM act and you
- Do it yourself requirements
- Services: the mailermailer.com example
- Figure 5.5-6: Screen shot - mailermailer.com email creation (2)
- Search engines, directories and connections. [section total 11] Submission tools and why you need them
- IBP 8.0
- Figure 5.7: Screen shot - IBP 8.0
- Example 2
- Figure 5.8: Screen shot - Example 2
- Example 3
- Figure 5.9: Screen shot - Example 3
- The more vertical your solution the more discrete the market and the more valuable directories, listings and targeted newsgroups are
- Specialized sites
- About http://www.chemindustry.com
- Figure 5.10: Screen shot - http://www.chemindustry.com/ About http://www.saferpak.com
- Figure 5.11: Screen shot - http://www.saferpak.com
- Connecting to your customer
- Google Adwords and MSN Search and the search for relevance
- Figure 5.12: Screen shot - Google Adwords
- Keyword market research tools
- Figure 5.13: Screen shot - a non-Google keyword suggestion tool
- Getting noticed the old fashioned way: press releases
- Box: What reporters want. Mini-interview with Leslie Brooks Suzukamo, Telecom and Technology Reporter, St. Paul Pioneer Press
- Figure 5.14: Screen shot - P.R. Wizard
- Discussion boards. [section total 7] What you need and want from your discussion boards
- Another forum for tech support
- Listen to your Customers
- Software choices abound: what to look for
- Don't make your customers jump through hoops
- Simple is good
- Figure 5.15: Table - Must haves, bells and whistles
- From forum to your tech support system
- Three ways to go:
Make it yourself
- Example at a micro-ISV
- Figure 5.16: Screen shot - a micro-ISV custom discussion group
- phpBB and variations
- Figure 5.17: Screen shot - Typical InVision Discussion Board
- Fogbugz
- Figure 5.18: Screen shot - Fogbugz Discussion board at Safari Software, Inc
- Where's the advertising Chapter? You, the Brand. [section total 2] Forget traditional advertising, and don't even think of banner ads. Micro-ISV market, they influence, they brand, but they do not advertise
- The advertising proposition
- The cost
- Making a brand you can market
- What is a "brand"? It's a company with a product with an identifiable personality customers can identify with
- The micro-ISV branding advantage: there is a real you behind your product
- Plan the work, work the plan: Your Marketing and Business Plans. [section total 2] Why you really, really do need a Marketing Plan
- The three reasons to do a Marketing Plan:
Understanding what you are selling
- Defining who you are selling to
- Determining specifics of how you are going to sell to them
- The key parts of a Marketing Plan Your Unique Selling Proposition SWOT Competitive Analysis
- Market Action Planner
- Tech support is critical to your success. [section total 5] With customers comes tech support. Handling tech support quickly, comprehensively and effectively will largely determine whether your micro-ISV succeeds
- Surviving your first tech support crisis
- Figure 5.19: Screen shot - MasterList Professional 1.02 Fogbugz
- What you need to have: a comprehensive, scalable, leverageable system which can set and meet industry standards of responsiveness on a global scale. Or get FogBugz
- Figure 5.20: Screen shot - Safarihelp Fogbugz screen
- The goal of tech support is not to fix the problem, but to make the customer happy. But to make the customer happy, you need three things from each bug report episode:
How to reproduce the problem
- Figure 5.21: Screen shot - Google's autoresponder email re: Google Desktop Search Tool
- An automatic bug reports mean automatic tech support
- What the customer expects to happen is how it is supposed to work
- A thick skin helps. When its time to fire a customer
- Where to from here. (Chapter wrap-up) [section total 3] Understanding and connecting to your Customer is the key success trait of micro-ISVs
- Not even close to spam
- High tech, high touch, hi Brand!
- Great tech support is a must. Here's how
- Your micro ISV Plan: Part 5
- Checklist: Most important bullet points of chapter
- Figure 5.22: Mindmap: The Customer
- Welcome to your Industry. [Chapter total 28] Chapter Summary: You've created your application, shipped your product, started your fledging business and found your first customers. Now, you get to play with others, and they are bigger than you
- What about Microsoft? [section total 5] The Good:
Empower Program
- Box: mini-interview with MS somebody
- MSDN
- Figure 6.1: Screen shot - MSDN
- Microsoft Office Marketplace
- Box: Microsoft wants you to succeed. Really! Interview with Michael G. Lehman, Microsoft micro-ISV Evangelist
- The Bad:
- This is a Microsoft World
- The 900 pound gorilla