Business
The Day the MicroISV Movement Died
In September of 2004, Eric Sink, Founder and CEO of SourceGear coined the word “MicroISV”. He set out on a quest to explore the world of MicroISV’s and learn for himself what they were all about. In the process, he built a fan-base and following of MicroISV’s who wanted to follow in his footsteps. Just 16 months later, with a keyboard and a blog entry, he effectively killed the entire MicroISV movement.
Read MoreRe-branding Products, Services and Companies
The past several weeks I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the work associated with and the consequences of rebranding something. In part, I’m talking about my Blog but also some of the products that I have developed and some of my services offerings through my consulting company. The process made me sit down, think about re-branding in general, and do some research. Here’s what I learned.
Read MoreHow to Sell Enterprise Software
One of the biggest differences between selling software to small businesses versus selling into the Enterprise space is the price. Most people think that it has to do with how well the software scales and it’s ability to do its job on an “Enterprise” level, whatever that it supposed to mean. Others will say it has to do with the feature sets and whether you bought the Micro-ISV edition or the Enterprise Edition. Simply not true.
The one and only difference is the total price on the bottom of the bill. And it is this total price that dictates whether or not you need sales reps to sell your software.
Read MoreA lesson in economics for the CFO of Microsoft
Chris Liddle, the CFO of Microsoft is hoping/expecting that the next corporate hardware refresh is just around the corner. Microsoft is pinning their hopes on the next hardware refresh to turn around their stock price and boost profits. It’s probably going to happen, but next time it won’t. Here’s why.
Read MoreThe Widescreen Laptop Conspiracy
For the past six to eight weeks, I’ve been on the lookout for a new laptop. Now, I know that I have high standards, but I can’t believe that some of the things that I really want in a laptop are no longer available. About a year ago, my old Dell Inspiron 8100 was about…
Read MoreHow to get any job you want
“Peter, most people don’t like their jobs. But you go out there and try to find something that makes you happy.” – Joanne, from the movie Office Space Look where you will, and there are statistics showing that anywhere from 50% – 87% of people are unhappy with their jobs. No matter how you decide…
Read MoreThe Single Founder Myth
My previous article, Startup Myths Debunked, seemed to attract quite a bit of attention in the developer community. In particular, people who left comments seemed to agree with “Myth#3: I need a partner”. Paul Graham who is one of the more influential voices in the startup community recently wrote an article titled “The 18 Mistakes…
Read MoreHow to avoid losing $40,000
Let me tell you a little story When I started working for Moon River Software full time I thought my first consulting job was unbeatable. I was doing subcontracting for a local consulting company (referred to hereafter as “ The Company “) and they needed help for 3-6 months for a specific client (referred to…
Read MoreHow to bootstrap a consulting business
In my previous article, I received a question in response to “Myth #1: I need to get VC funding to make my company successful.” I was asked to explain what it really takes to get a consulting company off the ground. How much money does it take to start a consulting company? How much constitutes a…
Read MoreStartups for the rest of us
Like thousands of other software developers, I have read the majority of Paul Graham’s blog both past and present. He’s a fantastic writer. He has great insights into software startups and building a startup software company. I even went to one of the Startup School presentations that he helped organize at Harvard last October, and…
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