Ideas

My latest Codesnipers post is about choosing your idea. In summary form, don't let all the execution is everything talk convince you that the basic idea doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be a great idea, it probably doesn't have to be a secret, and you do have to execute it well, but you still need to choose a sound business idea and build something that somebody wants.

A quick dig around the Digest archives turned up a few useful idea links:-

• Bugninja's IdeaScore site.
• Ian Landsman's The Practical Entrepreneur.
• John Osher in Entrepreneur magazine: What not to do.

And one I missed from Will Schroter, you can't protect a good idea.

Tags: micro isv choosing ideas

Micro ISV Digest

My pick of the weeks Micro ISV news and blog posts.

News and Announcements

• Leroy Clark announced Active Last Logon. More here.
• John Gunning is another Micro ISV blogger, The Small ISV.
• Denis Krukovsky is trying to build a better forum with Talkinghub.
• James Newton-King launched his Micro ISV blog for Newtonsoft, his latest product WebDialog is now available for download.
• John C is going full time with his Taxi Reservation service.
• Wesner Moise posted a walkthrough of his NStatic software, and a summary of his plans for it's direction.
• A new version of DBDesc was released.
• A new TurboGears release.
• Axosoft ran an interesting social marketing promotion on their OnTime bug tracker. Hamid Shojaee said he would be talking about it on his personal blog, so it might be worth keeping an eye on.

Relevant blog posts and articles

• Christopher Hawkins on how to fix your scheduling.
• Eric Sink on the Micro ISV Show.
• Is it the clueless who change the world? Kathy Sierra's clueless manifesto.
• Weblications, Netlications & Decklications from Matt Breckon: an analysis of different types of product/development, with advantages and disadvantages of each.
• A Shareware Life ponders the perils of Oversupply, on the back of a gapingvoid post: 100 Suits. Thomas also recommended Small Giants, a book about small companies.
• Dennis Forbes realizes that simple ideas work too.
• John Cox on Working in Serial, or don't try to multi-task.
• Aytekin Tank on his JotForm launch, which featured in last week's news section.
• WorkHappy reported back on the Carson Workshops summit, podcasts from the seminars are available.
• The myth of building a software business on Adsense revenue, from OnStartups.com.
• A great post from Bob Walsh, Picking your micro-ISV niche. Also on MyMicroISV, There's a business in your pocket by Karl Traunmüller.
• Glenn Rice's Helpdesk software round up moved onto the commercial contenders.
• Short but sweet from Seth Godin: The Last Time.

Anything else?

• I built some sliders in Flash for comparing products or ideas, here's Chalk vs Cheese.
• Completely off topic, but I had fun with Fastr, a browser game where you have to guess the tags for random Flickr images.

Tags: micro isv links microisv digest

But these go to eleven

I've just uploaded a little Flash widget based on the EQ Sliders from an old Creating Passionate Users article. A brief summary of the article is that you can use graphic equalizer style sliders to map out the strengths and weaknesses of competing ideas or products, and that the best ideas usually happen when someone effectively invents a new slider to differentiate their offering.

Ever since I read the article I thought it would be something fun to build, and I finally got around to it. I think it's fairly easy to use, but just in case: Label the sliders or the series to activate them, and then click and drag to set each value. To save the layout, just click the "how do I save?" caption, then you can use the URL shown if you ever want to restore all the values and labels.

Any bug reports, comments or suggestions for improvements will be greeted with open arms. It's my first real attempt at building anything in Flash, so be gentle!

Tags: flash toy eq slider choosing ideas micro isv

Tiny Pacman

This is just plain weird, but as a classic gaming fan I can't help but be impressed by the simplicity. An entire site in 18x18 pixels. It has links, search, and primarily, a large collection of games.

Seeing games still functional on such a scale made me wonder if something similar on a slightly larger scale would make a good banner replacement. Plenty of banner advertisers use simple point and click games to grab attention, but how about a low key banner that contained a top quality playable game? Aside from it being genuinely fun to play, my requirements would be that the inactive color scheme be customizable, that it not be heavily animated until the user chooses to use it, and that it look subtle enough to fit with most site designs (anything in the style of Tony Pa would be great). If it was linked to an affiliate program (maybe for a gaming portal?), that would be cool, but for me that wouldn't be necessary if it provided an entertaining alternative to adverts.

Not too long ago Ian Landsman proposed a Micro ISV community marketing network, maybe something like this combined with rotating links to members sites would be a good idea. The fun element might help the banner spread.

Back on topic, the main reason I decided to start this blog entry was because deep inside the 18x18 site I found a link to Rory Hamilton's Everything I Know. Aside from looking good, it has some nice articles on design with a definite Micro ISV getting started/getting things done slant.

In other unrelated news...

In case you missed it elsewhere: Ontime's small team issue tracking software (up to five users) is available for a $5 donation to the Red Cross, until 24th February. Normal price is $495, although the single user version is always free. Thanks to Dennis via JoS.

Tags: links micro isv flash games bug tracking software marketing

Digest Extra: Web/Ajax

The second of the two extra digest posts this week: good web development/Ajax links.

• First up, Web Development 2.0 is an attempt to identify new software development practices that are springing up to fuel the bubble, or a look at practices the latest startups have in common.
• A discussion of those Ajax start page websites, and what their impact and future might be.
• Pageflakes is another one of those Ajax start pages, but it's one of the best ones I've seen.
• Glenn Rice posted a list of all the Ajax libraries he wants to check out.
• Brett McLaughlin has been running a great, in-depth series on Ajax development over on the IBM site; part 3 just went up last week.

Tags: links ajax

Digest Extra: Blogging

I had a few surplus links left over after yesterdays Micro ISV Digest post. They weren't 100% Micro ISV related, and the links section was already well stocked, so I decided to have a couple of focused Extra posts this week. This is the first, all the blog related links I picked up last week.

• I'm sure you were all shocked by the lack of a Guy Kawasaki link this week, so I'll start with the excellent How to suck up to a blogger. You might also like to read about how Guy writes his blog posts. Also via Guy's blog, a great article from New York Magazine: Blogs to Riches. Be sure to check out some of the related stories for more blogging articles on that site.
• Next up, on one of the new Micro ISV blogs, I found the following post: Why start blogging?
• Rajesh Setty has a great Squidoo lens on starting a blog.
• Problogger have a new series on Blogging for Beginners.
• Part 2 of the state of the blogosphere.
• Finally, I wrapped up my Micro ISV Blogging series on codesnipers.

Tags: links blogging

Micro ISV Digest

My pick of the weeks Micro ISV news, announcements and articles.

News and Announcements

• Review Often, a web based peer review service are looking for beta testers.
• Ian Ozsvald is blogging about bootstrapping ShowMeDo, a new portal for demonstration videos.
• Aytekin launched JotForm, a web based AJAX form builder.
• Andrey Butov launched Printer Friendly, a cool new product to automatically produce printer friendly versions of web pages.
• End of the line for Haja. Best of luck with whatever you do next Mike.
• 37signals launched Campfire, a chat solution aimed at business collaboration.
• Yahoo launched an open source UI library and a blog to go with it.

Relevant Articles and Blog Posts

• A free IT sales manual. It's aimed at selling enterprise software, but it's free, and there must be something in there for us MicroISV'ers.
• Writing tips for non writers who don't want to work at writing. Great title!
• Glenn Rice is comparing Helpdesk software from a Micro ISV perspective.
• Matt Breckon's write up of the JoS London meet. Also from Matt, a convenient reproduction of Big Picture Guy's rules for life.
• From A Shareware Life, the story of a modestly successful game. It's a great case study of the life of a simple software product.
• Ian Landsman on piracy and source code protection for web apps.
• Jose's visit to Kinko's helped me understand what his Procx software is for.
• Ben from BRK on starting up on the cheap.
• Dennis Forbes: 5 Tips for enjoying the software development profession.
• Feel free to take game producer out of 21 differences between good and bad game producers and replace it with something more Micro ISV. Either way, it feels relevant.
• From Reddit, How to feed a startup. It probably wasn't the desired effect, but this just reminded me that I miss Krispy Kreme.
• Software development's evolution towards product design.
• 37signals' product design 101: It doesn't matter.
• A very thorough guide to Web Analytics options from Conversion Rater.

Anything Else

• Anything you want to do with Web 2.0.
• Do dogs know calculus?

Tags: micro isv links microisv digest

Game: Words

It's been a while since I posted a fun game link here, so it felt great to find Words.

It's a simple typing game, you have to type the words as they appear on the screen, before they make it all the way over to the left. Found via Jayisgames.

Tags: flash games typing

Heisenstats

Is it just me, or is there an inverse relationship between statistic trends and how closely you monitor them?

I've consistently found that any statistics I have access to are guaranteed to go up if I ignore them, but start to slow down when I start paying attention to them again. I guess it could just be perception, like how I only seem to get important email when I'm away from my PC. Or, how I can have long periods of complete radio silence, but as soon as I pick up the landline for an important call, my mobile phone and skype number will both start to ring too.

But, I think the stats thing is different, it's probably more indicative of my productivity... if I'm wasting too much time checking on various stats, I must be neglecting something more important. I usually have it under control, I keep all my stats sites at arms length, I only check in occasionally. Sometimes I just can't help myself though, and that almost always seems to coincide with a slump in both the stats and my general feeling of getting things done.

If you have any stats that you really want to see increase, and that you monitor closely, try leaving them alone for a month and just focus on getting more done; you might be surprised when you check back.

Tag: productivity

Micro ISV Digest

A round-up of the best Micro ISV news, updates and blog posts.

News and Announcements

• Michael H Pryor started the Fogbugz weblog.
• Cade Fasset launched a new Micro ISV blog, the ISV Diaries. Thanks to Ian M. Jones.
• 90 days of BzzAgent, a blogger inside a startup, via Seth Godin.
• SkyXoft announced an updated version of Procx, their workflow system.
• Neville announced a new version of Surfulator.
• VMWare Server is now free.
• Borland is selling off it's IDE business, what now for Delphi?
• CoComment is a new service for keeping track of blog comments you make. Atariboy posted some screenshots and opinions.
• Overview software announced a plan to build a re-usable framework of components for ISVs.

Relevant Blog Posts and Articles

• Sales fixes everything: Guy Kawasaki on the Art of Rainmaking.
• Small is Beautiful from CNET.
• From Creating Passionate Users, Mediocrity by Area's of Improvement.
• Dimitris posted about Creating an Online Shop.
• The Micro ISV Show continued, this week's interview was with Bob Walsh.
• Ian Landsman guest posted on Bob's MyMicroISV.com: How to run a successful beta program. And, Dharmesh dug deeper in his Building it Well series.
• Yahoo! really want you to make them your default search engine.
• The State of the Blogosphere.
• Via Alex, the startup book "Go It Alone" is now available free via Bruce Judson's web site.
• 37signals have been building up to the launch of Campfire with screenshots and some public testing. This post about deciding what's essential was well worth reading.
• An interesting business strategy article.
• Dennis Forbes explores the Wiki.
• JAG pointed out a cool feature in Google Analytics, who are now running an invitation-only system. Join the list.
• Joe Indie does a pretty good job of explaining why so many of us were trying to marginalize email in our new years resolutions: Email Addiction.

From the Forums

• All about patents.
• JD highlighted a great example of a product tour.
• Doug launched a forum for Server monitoring software developers.

Anything Else?

• On Follow Steph, aerial photography with radio controlled helicopters.
• Lost Horizon found, and more photos.
• Do you need the troll cap for your site?

Tags: micro isv microisv digest links

Get Tutorialized

These two links slipped through my "share" net, and have been hovering around in my bookmarks for the last few weeks. They're left over from the start of the year, when I was playing with Flash and looking around for good sites to learn more.

Tutorialized is full of links to various tutorials. Photoshop and Flash are the biggest categories, but there's plenty of variety there too.

The Light Reading category of Max Design is another great resource. They put out a post every week or so in this category, each filled with useful or interesting web design links.

Tags: web design links

The Tin Foil Hat

Don't you just love paranoia?

I've been having one of those mornings. I read a blog post from Seth Godin about making your numbers, or about neglecting your real goals and focusing on trying to cheat some random metric instead. It's a good post, you should check it out.

My TFH moment came towards the end, when I read this:-

Saw a blog post today in which the author mentioned the name of ten or fifteen bloggers, ostensibly in context, with links to each, all in an attempt to game the system. But what's his real goal? When increasing the metric doesn't increase the benefit, then you have the wrong metric.

Now, I don't really believe it was directed at me, but that's exactly what I do with the Micro ISV Digest posts, so I did take some time to stop and think. What is the goal of those posts? Is there something subversive going on here?

Primarily, I'm just trying to provide a useful summary of anything that's likely to be of interest to our Micro ISV niche, along with some cool relevant links if I can find any. It helps me keep track of what's happening in and around the community, and there are a lot of links I'd otherwise end up dedicating entire blog posts to. I spend a lot of time reading, researching, and putting the posts together, but I haven't had to pay attention to anything I wasn't already interested in following.

I have seen an increase in traffic to my blog in the 3 months since I started posting the digests, but that seems to be because those posts are popular. I'm not under any illusion that I'm increasing my customer base with this traffic, or that this metric tallys with any business goals. In fact, many of the digest posts have included links to competitors. What can I say: basically, it makes me feels really good to put something together that is well read and useful. I also like being able to draw attention to all those Micro ISVs who have just announced their products and who might really benefit from some extra traffic or feedback.

Which brings me nicely to the other possibility, am I trying to game the system? Unless I've completely misunderstood something, the links will benefit the recipient, not me, and my fairly static PageRank seems to confirm that. Trackbacks might have given me some residual benefit from those links, but I'm using Blogger here, so there are no trackbacks. While I have received some generous links in return from bloggers I've linked to, and I really appreciate every one, I like to think they've linked back because they liked the posts, not out of some sense of obligation.

I will be keeping the digest posts coming, this little rant was just about exploring my own motivation, and making sure I'm confident that what I do is right and acceptable. If you made it this far, you might also like to read KC's musings yesterday on how fine the line between spamming and providing a valuable service can be... He thinks it's all about intent, and I'm inclined to agree.

So, thanks to Seth for making me think, and thank you for reading. Keep watching the skies ;).

Tags: blogging paranoid rants

Micro ISV Digest

A round-up of the weeks Micro ISV news and articles.

News and Announcements

• Matt Breckon is blogging the development of PageTrack, a service to help manage bookmarks.
• Ben's isvManage developments inspired a product for interacting with Authorize.net.
• SpoiltChild had been dropping hints, but this week they announced their new online wedding planner.
• Some new information on 37signals' Campfire; it's a chat/collaboration tool.
• Spongecell is a new online calendar service.
• The Micro ISV show on MSDN started, and they interviewed me. I also released my first software update of the year, a new version of Oriador.
• Phillip Schumann has been very open about his experiences with Sudoku Pro on the JoS forums, and he's just started a blog: Smart Up.
• Andy Brice has organized a UK Joel on Software meet in London next weekend.
• Glenn Rice launched his blog and Micro ISV: Backup Brain.
• Doug announced (updated?) his product, ServerMonitor.

Other Articles and Blog Posts

• Phil from Seartech came back from a conference having learned one of those great geek lessons: often the features you think are the coolest are the least desired by customers.
• Wired article on The New Boom.
• Guy Kawasaki link of the week: The Art of Execution.
• 37signals: Product Roadmaps are dangerous.
• Joel Spolsky rounded off the introduction to his Great Design with What makes it Great?
• Kathy Sierra on Death by Risk Aversion.
• Also via Creating Passionate Users: Bloggers don't have sex on the first date.
• Face Time and Free Stuff from Christopher Hawkins. Great.
• Flipping the Funnel, a new free eBook from Seth Godin; maybe a bit heavy on the Squidooing, but a good read all the same.
• J's cheesy post of the year.
• Joe Indie on the effects of cutting his Adwords budget.
• Dharmesh Shah guest blogging on Bob Walsh's mymicroisv.com: Building It Well.
• 9 must reads for startups. You've probably seen some of these before, but they're all good enough to justify the repetition.
• Eric Sink's Yours Mine Ours.
• Stephan Grenier posted his Do's and Don'ts of requesting links, along with a nice list of business/SEO marketing resources (plus real estate, if you're into that too).
• Tom Peters: 111 Ridiculously Obvious Thoughts on Selling, via Guerilla Consulting.

From the Forum

• Ian Landsman is trying to mobilize a Micro ISV army! Some great ideas in both his initial and follow up threads. This roll call thread followed.
• J dragged up an old thread about finding start-up ideas, well worth a read, especially Bob's post.
• A discussion of the pros and cons of the Micro ISV business model.

Anything Else

The operations Haiku:-

max out revenue
within production constraints
and supply demand

Jeremy Showalter, via KC.

Tags: micro isv links microisv digest

Me-Ware

Eric Sink has just posted a great new article: Yours, Mine and Ours

It's an exploration of the differences between developing software for yourself (Me-Ware), for others (Them-Ware), and for yourself and others (Us-Ware). It highlights some of the challenges of each, along with some typically honest anecdotes from Eric's own software, and an eye-opening dogfooding story.

Definitely a must read, even though there's (obviously) no ultimate pearl of wisdom to make all the troubles go away.

As much as I hate to admit it, the first versions of one of my products, Web Helper Browser, are probably a good example of what can happen when you try to turn Me-Ware into Us-Ware. It works perfectly for me (I'm using it right now, as I do all day everyday), and it's full of useful features, but I know I underestimated the canyon between what I want and what everyone else wants. I still believe it can be dragged across that canyon, or at least that I can tap into some previously hidden market of people exactly like me!

Tags: micro isv software development

Could you do this?

I just read an email regarding a firewall product:-

Worm is a new and potentially destructive Internet worm currently making its way around the globe. It is infecting users via e-mail and is scheduled to destroy all Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, PSD and ZIP files on Feb. 3.

If you upgrade before Feb. 3, we will detect and remove existing Worm infections and prevent future infections.

Then the kicker:-

Free firewall will not protect you from Worm. Only premium products will protect against the Worm.

Is it just me, or does that seem unfair and irresponsible? Even threatening?

Surely if you're going to have a free product line, it should be differentiated by usage type, license restrictions, or power features. I just can't see the justification for deliberately devaluing or holding back on such a core requirement, especially from a product which is already restricted to non-business use.

Back to my question: if you're starting out with a free service, could you ever imagine yourself taking such a step to encourage migration to your paid premium version?

I think it raises important questions about ethically running free product lines or services. It also reminds me of something I noticed on WordPress.com when I was researching last week's codesnipers post. They are holding back on all premium features until they know what and how they're going to charge for them. In their own words, "What is free now will remain free".

Tags: micro isv ethical business

Off-By-2

Last week I said that the latest Oriador update might still make January. It missed by 2 days, but I'm sure they were worth it.

Based on the list of new features on my announcements blog, it looks like one of the biggest single updates, so I'm looking forward to getting some feedback. Also, I owe some serious thanks to the customers who suggested or requested all the best of the new features.

It feels good to see my first release of the new year out of the door.

Tags: staff scheduling oriador