These days if you run a software company, you have to have a Blog. This is mine.
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Bob Walsh, Cambridge, NovemberPosted by Gavin Bowman on Wednesday, August 30, 2006 at 8:56 AM In case you missed the forum thread, Bob Walsh will be the keynote speaker at the European Shareware Conference in Cambridge, November 4th & 5th. I'll be there, as will Andy Brice of Perfect Table Plan fame, and Michael Lehman, the brains behind Project Glidepath and host of the Micro ISV show on Channel9. You have one day left for the early bird registration. Two Business BlogsPosted by Gavin Bowman at 8:49 AM I just wanted to share a couple of small business blogs/resources that just hit my radar recently.
Google MP3 PlayerPosted by Gavin Bowman at 8:43 AM I found this post about Google's neat little embedded MP3 player via Google Blogoscoped. So, if KC wants to embed his latest interview in a blog post, it will be a very simple job. Amazon EC2Posted by Gavin Bowman on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 at 9:03 AM Last week, Amazon launched Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) as a limited Beta service. I read a few blogs which mentioned the launch, and they seemed pretty excited about the whole thing, but so far I haven't seen the definitive explanation of why it's exciting, or who it's for. As far as I can tell, it's a virtual server service to complement S3. So, instead of hosting your own servers or paying for dedicated hosting, you can upload a server image to Amazon's service, and pay for your processing by the hour. That's where my understanding ends. Exactly who, how, and why are still a mystery to me. Don't get me wrong, I do feel a general sense of excitement and surprise about this service, but it's kind of vague. If you've read any good articles about it, or if you understand it and want to write one, please send me a link. I'm specifically interested in hearing how, if at all, this might relate to the Micro ISV space (I'm looking at you, Bob, you had plenty to say about S3 ;)). If I don't find a bitesized, spoon-fed explanation by the weekend I'll try to get out and do my own research... Update: The first link is in, Walter has a blog category for EC2, and started it rolling by configuring an application on a virtual server. Update 2: Max Ischenko directs us to Maluke's EC2 summary. That makes it pretty clear, and quite frankly it sounds like an awesome game-changer... Any more? Dragon's DenPosted by Gavin Bowman at 8:57 AM If you've been following my blog, you'll have noticed that I've been posting some feedback on the BBC's entrepreneurial show, Dragon's Den. My attention was elsewhere last Friday, so I didn't get around to writing about Episode 4, despite there being a couple of interesting moments. First though, an update from episode 2. Lee Wood, of Kardoctor, writes in the comments:- Nice to think there's a happy ending. The first interesting pitch in last week's show was from a Yoga teaching network. For a subscription fee, they taught yoga teachers how to make it interesting to kids, and let them use their branding. It sounded like a promising business, and they definitely had plans for the money they needed, but some of the investors were a little sceptical about whether they needed the money. Eventually they turned down a 200K investment for 30% of the company. The offer valued their business at a little under $1 million, but they thought it was worth more. Takeaways:-
The most interesting part of the show was the pitch for a music site called Mix Album. The guy had developed software to seamlessly mix tracks, and it was a solid protected idea, so there was no problem getting investment of 150K for 40%. There were two offers, but they differed in strategy. One high tech investor reasoned that rather than trying to take a percentage of the music sales market from iTunes and having to deal with all the infrastructure issues and handling small payments, it would be better to try and license the core technology to the existing big boys. The second offer would go with the entrepreneur's plan of building a niche music store for dance music fans. He took the second offer. As I watched, I felt like it was a mistake. Firstly, because the two investors who made up the second offer had more of a retail/leisure background (and there was two of them) whereas the other came from a single investor with a high risk/high tech background. The idea to sell the technology to existing sites also appealed to me, whereas I wouldn't really be interested in the day to day running of an online music store. As I write now, I'm closer to the fence, but I know for sure I would have gone the other way in the heat of the moment. It's actually a good Micro ISV example, this guy loves music, so he's building himself a nice niche in that industry. In any case, they've launched, and they have a summary of their Dragon's Den experience up on their website. In future, I'll only be posting about the show if there's something that really catches my eye. Competitive ProgrammingPosted by Gavin Bowman at 7:51 AM Now that Benji has changed his mind about the whole AI Coder idea, and written a typically great explanation of his reasoning, there must be some competitive types out there looking for options. Fortunately, Jonas posted just the other day about his experiences with TopCoder. Right now I find this competitive programming stuff is fascinating, but I think I'm exactly the opposite to Jonas, I'm prone to developing a passing interest in just about anything. Next week I'll be fascinated by something completely different... Micro ISV DigestPosted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, August 28, 2006 at 8:32 AM A weekly roundup of Micro ISV news, announcements and relevant blog posts. News and Announcements
Cumbrian Savile RowPosted by Gavin Bowman on Friday, August 25, 2006 at 11:27 AM Via gapingvoid, a nice post about English Cut's plans for what sounds a lot like a tailoring incubator in Cumbria. It sounds great, and it makes perfect sense, just like it makes sense for me to write software here instead of in a higher profile, more expensive city. It's great to see others embracing geographical independence, and I guess moving yourself to a more affordable area is one way to respond to outsourcing... Blogging Jobs BoardsPosted by Gavin Bowman at 9:00 AM There's a post on Copyblogger about blogging growing up, and linking to a couple of new blogging jobs boards. There was also some discussion of blogging for hire on the BoS forums. I agree with the view that hiring bloggers is probably for larger companies, or for those looking to build a blog network, I don't think there's a lot for Micro ISVs there... unless you run a Micro ISV, have a lot to say, and don't necessarily want to associate it all with your business. Or, maybe you have a hobby you'd like to be paid to blog about. The volume/quality aspect of blogging for hire is interesting. As well as this blog, I've been blogging on Codesnipers for a year now. A lot of the time I've found it difficult to guarantee one article per week, most of the adverts I saw on the jobs boards were looking for at least 5 or 6. I guess it depends on the length and nature of the article... and I guess that if you are being paid to blog, you feel more comfortable allocating a big chunk of your working day to picking a hot topic and writing a diggable top 10 list on it. Also, Nick Hebb (the flow chart king) mentions in the forum thread that doesn't have time for interesting blogs, he now uses them as a resource for his business, to me that means he skims through his feed reader looking for useful articles or links. Bonus link: Chartreuse, the Death of Content. All this probably explains why the Micro ISV digest turned out to be popular, essentially it became the resource element of this blog. I'm doing the scanning of dozens of feeds and providing a human filtered picture of the week, if you go away on holiday for a week, you should be able to scan the digest when you get back and feel reasonably comfortable that you didn't miss anything. If all of this is correct, all I'm doing right now is diluting my resource. I'll shut up. NetworkingPosted by Gavin Bowman at 8:19 AM One of the linked articles on Monday was Ben's list of entrepreneurial mistakes, #1 of which was not networking enough in his own back yard. I'm terrible at this too, though in place of back yard you could just read "real world". I've focused so much on the business in the online world that I've tended to ignore everything else. Part of it has to do with my situation after the flood, it was harder to get around, and we were seriously considering moving to the US. I'd probably started retreating into virtual worlds about six months earlier, around the time we first launched Oriador Rota, but that whole situation definitely didn't help me come back out. This is something I'm going to work on in the future. This week I went along to a local networking event, and it was a lot of fun. Many of the conversations I had were about blogging, but there were a couple of potential software users. I wasn't really expecting to find direct customers, it's just great to be out talking to people and learning about their businesses. A good reason I can see for Micro ISVs to network, despite the possible lack of a local market for their product, is that real people have real problems... if you're looking for new product ideas, meeting other businesses seems like a great way to find out what's needed. I'm also planning to go to the European Shareware conference in Cambridge in November. If you're going to be there too, drop me an email. The Big 3-0-0Posted by Gavin Bowman at 8:00 AM This is my 300th post, and since I've posted reflections and intentions on each of my previous hundreds, I feel like I should keep it up. The Micro ISV Digest is still going strong. I started summarizing the week's popular entrepreneurial links and announcements from the Micro ISV community on a whim last November, and it's been here every Monday morning since. I'll keep it going as long as all you small software companies keep writing great articles and launching new products. There must be about 40 of the things in the site archive by now if you ever feel like digging around for some good small business reading you might have missed. My contribution to Codesnipers may have been a bit patchy lately, but we've just recently passed our first birthday, and KC is running a contest to celebrate. I've found it useful to have another forum for longer, more on-topic pieces, but I've also realised that it's hard to come up with something interesting on a fixed schedule for a long period of time. In general, I found the third hundred posts harder to come by than the second, but I think that was largely down to my long period of downtime while I moved back home. I also think I've all but eliminated the personal rants and managed to stay on topic most of the time (though opinions may vary on the relevance of the dragon's den and gaming posts). Traffic here has kept growing in a nice organic way, and links from Bob and others have provided a nice boost now and again. My blogging schedule might be affected later in the year when I spend a few weeks in the US, but to be honest it's been so random lately that you probably won't notice until I start ranting about how much I'd been missing Krispy Kreme, Auntie Anne's pretzels, and RedVines (and my in-laws, obviously, I'm looking forward to seeing them too...). Thanks to everyone reading or linking here, I really appreciate it. Micro ISV DigestPosted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, August 21, 2006 at 8:00 AM A weekly roundup of Micro ISV news, announcements and relevant blog posts. Too many links, not enough announcements this week... News and Announcements
From the Dragon's Den (ep3)Posted by Gavin Bowman on Friday, August 18, 2006 at 4:45 PM No time for a full rundown this week, but I think that got a little bit out of hand last week anyway. Here are my main observations from the show last night. The first idea was a premium rate phone line for directions in London. The demo didn't work, and they hadn't been able to generate any interest despite already doing some significant marketing. The next major idea was a beach towel with pockets, and it folded up as a bag to carry away. I thought this was a pretty neat product, and they seemed to have the right idea in marketing to cruise lines, their sales so far sounded healthy. There were two big problems here, the valuation of the company (250K for 20%), the entrepreneur's attitude (every answer started with a simple business lesson for the investors, it really rubbed them up the wrong way), and his plans for the money (it was all going to be used to pay for stock that was already on order, they didn't have any confirmed orders for the product). The next one was for transparent boots with coloured socks. The entrepreneur had decided not to patent the idea, and also seemed to irritate the investors with her personality/attitude/lack of business knowledge. This might work as a small business, but no-one wanted to invest in the entrepreneur. The final pitch was a sonar powered man overboard system. This was a cool product, the guy had all the answers, everything was protected. This one ticked all the boxes and, even without a working product, didn't have any trouble attracting an investor. The investment offered was 100K for 30% of the company, the original target had been 5%, but both parties seemed pretty happy with the deal in the end. Takeaways:-
Free ideaPosted by Gavin Bowman on Thursday, August 17, 2006 at 4:55 PM Redoing an old spectrum game called Millionaire based on Micro ISVs.  There was spectrum game called Millionaire, a strategy/management game where you had to try to become a millionaire by running a software business. Each month you had to decide how to spend your time. There was the black hat stuff, like visiting Honest Harry for his shady deals, and positive options like working on the products and trying to push your software to retailers. Then there were financial decisions, how much to spend on advertising, and what quality of cassette (yes, really... cassettes) you wanted to use to distribute your software. The game took all of your decisions, factored in a massive amount of luck, and calculated sales figures and various special events (like being picked up by a magazine, or being sued because Honest Harry sold you some bad IP). If it was rebuilt today based on how Micro ISVs are run, the core concept of the game could still work, it would just need a bit of expansion. It could be fun and addictive, and probably even a little educational. Do you use that little bit of GPL code, employ that iffy SEO company, or do you put more time into the product? How do you want to price your software, how much do you want to spend on Adwords this month, do you want to write a diggbaiting list for your blog? The main problem with this idea is probably the very limited audience, I'm not sure it would appeal to people who don't remember the game Millionaire, and who don't run or hope to run a Micro ISV. I did say it was a free idea, not a good one... I'd actually love to do this, I can think of reams of content and features, and I'd really like to play it, but I know that it probably wouldn't be a good use of my time. It's nice to dream, though. Something to playPosted by Gavin Bowman on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at 7:58 PM Andrey Butov is writing a game. It's called Inflated, and he describes it in more depth in his latest blog entry, it sounds like fun. After I checked out one of his earlier builds, the name (and something he said about Snake) gave me completely the wrong idea about what he was building. I built the idea I had quickly in Flash, so if you want to take a look, it's right here. It's very simple, but I think it's kind of fun. FascinatingPosted by Gavin Bowman on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 at 9:41 AM Hugh MacLeod and Tara Hunt have been debating viral marketing, there was the bacardi incident, the shotgun marketing blog chipped in with this life cycle of good ideas (apparently the long tail is headed that way, so mISVs watch out!)... Anyway, amidst all this, a nice old man sits in front of a video camera and calmly talks about his life, and hundreds of thousands of people tune in to listen. An Anthem for the Struggling Micro ISV?Posted by Gavin Bowman at 8:33 AM My friend Jake was back in town for the summer, and he asked me if I could help him out with a simple website for his books, poetry and biography info. It was around the same time as this anti-friends-and-family-freebie forum thread was buzzing, but I was glad to help. Obviously, I had that moment later when I wondered if this would turn into one of those horrible situations where you end up supporting the site and making minor changes for the rest of your life, but so far that hasn't happened. The key moment here was in realizing that it's very easy to use WordPress to build a simple content site, if you strip out all the blogging stuff, it makes a great simple CMS. Dreamhost do a one-click WordPress install, so all that was left was to pick a template from OSWD and tweak it. With very little effort from me, Jake has a site he's happy with, and he can maintain almost everything himself. That's the background info, the reason for the post is one of the poems he posted to the site. I'm no literary expert, but there's definitely something in it that speaks about the way I've spent the last 5 or 6 years trying to get a business off the ground. I'm curious to know whether other Micro ISVer's feel the same way. The Cheapjack What do I have for as near as damn it? Jake has another poem and links to his books on the site: Jacob Polley Micro ISV DigestPosted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, August 14, 2006 at 8:00 AM A weekly roundup of Micro ISV news, announcements and relevant blog posts. News and Announcements
A whole new blog rollPosted by Gavin Bowman on Saturday, August 12, 2006 at 11:52 AM Noah Kagan (of Okdork) asked me about my blogroll last week, and it set me thinking. I deliberately chose to have a small list, and I tend not to update it regularly because I have to republish the entire site via Blogger to do it. But most of the entries in the blog roll were very well ranked and busy blogs, and I don't think either readers of this blog, or those bloggers, would really benefit from the links. So, out went Guy, Seth and Joel, and in came Patrick, Andrey, Phil, and a few others. I decided to have 10 blogs plus Planet Micro ISV. Hopefully I'll update it a little more regularly than I have done in the past, and I'll sleep easier knowing my link karma is being put to better use. If I've been reading and linking to your blog a lot lately and I missed you, I'm really sorry. While I was at it, I made a few more changes to the blog template:-
Dragon's Den Ep2Posted by Gavin Bowman on Friday, August 11, 2006 at 12:46 AM I had fun writing about this last week, so here's a brief rundown of the second episode. If you don't know about the show, it puts entrepreneurs in front of potential investors (the dragons) so they can pitch their ideas and hopefully walk away with the funding they wanted. It's great train-wreck TV, you get to see pitches fall apart and crazy ideas brutally dissected. If you're in the UK, you can watch it here on the BBC's website. First up were Lee and Howard with Kardoctor. The idea here was to have a premium rate phone service which people could call to get advice on problems with their cars, a take on PC support and medical support lines. The pitch went off track when Lee was thrown by the negative comments, and got worse when he was asked for figures. It wasn't helped when the investors gave two sample problems (one vague, one very specific), and the advice in both cases was to take it to a garage. The investors were skeptical about the amount of help that could be given over the phone. In most cases it was felt that the operators would be drawn into messy problems, conflicting advice and trouble with garages, and that there would be no way to recoup the costs for the time taken to sort everything out. Takeaway: Time isn't free, understand all the costs of the business you're taking on, and how it relates to the potential return. These guys didn't seem to have a good grasp of the cost of their staff time, and seemed prepared to take on problems that would cost them more to solve than they could ever hope to recoup. A quick pitch for some crude novelty figurines didn't go well. It made everyone laugh for a moment, but no-one was interested in investing, or wanted to be involved with the project. Takeaway: Just because people laugh when they first see the product, it doesn't mean it's a good business idea. The next one Empty Me, came from a strange pain. Apparently the pitcher's hatred for picnics had driven her to invent a new picnic basket (unless I misheard). Anyway, this was the first good product of the show: a waterproof bag that unfolds to a soft blanket with a tray. She was only looking for a £50,000 investment, and was prepared to give up 25% of the business. The bag was already selling in various retail outlets, it wasn't setting the world on fire, but it was selling. This was the only one of the night that made me want to scream at the TV. The product seemed to have plenty of potential, but the entrepreneur had very little ambition, and was more interested in creating more products and building a brand, than in trying to maximise the sales and potential of the picnic basket. It was infuriating viewing. None of the investors wanted to work with her, because it seemed unlikely that she would have the drive or ability to see the thing through and make it work. Despite all that, she was offered the £50,000 in return for 51% of the company. She turned it down... I think it was a bad move. Takeaway: This business needed a business/marketing geek, the entrepreneur was a product design geek in the same way many of us Micro ISV types are tech geeks. It's nice to believe we can do it all, but sometimes we just can't. A stone hotplate for cooking steaks followed. The problem here was that although they liked the taste of the steak, they didn't think the product had potential. The most interesting part of this one was the market research. Apparently this guy invited people round for dinner and cooked them great steaks on his hotplate. Unsurprisingly, the market research was entirely positive. Takeaway: If you're going to do market research, make sure it's real, relevant and appropriate. Don't just ask your friends. No interest at all in a kids-only hairdressing brand. The best pitch of the show was from Peter, with his crazy easy exercise chair. This was a lot of fun, Peter reminded me of an eccentric inventor from a million old movies. The chair basically had a multi-gym built into it, and had all kind of extensions and addons for different exercises. The investors all liked the pitch, but couldn't really see the market, and Peter's understanding of the market seemed flawed. I'm sure I remember a lie from a Guy Kawasaki post which said the market is xxx million, so if we just get 1% we'll be laughing. This guy used the exact line, about the leisure industry. On national TV. It didn't help that the chair looked silly as an exercise machine, and ugly as a chair. Still, a great guy, entertaining pitch, I hope he has fun with it. Takeaway: Know who is going to buy your product, don't just assume you can grab x% of some wider market. A mobile scaffolding platform seemed to fail mostly because they'd been trying to sell it for 10 years without much success, and just wanted the money to keep trying. Takeaway: I'm not saying give up, but looking for investors to keep trying something that doesn't seem to be working probably isn't the best plan. A big floor sized board game to help kids get fit was too boring, an a glue based hair removal product failed to attract interest. Last up was a solid proposition from Gary of Alpine Cleaning. They had contracts with service stations to install Truck Washes, and needed the money to move them forward as quickly as possible. This was a great example of knowing what you're talking about, and having all the numbers ready. The investors were skeptical about the passing trade and compared to concept to car washing. Here the entrepreneur could have been bullied, but instead just explained the differences, and how hauliers tended to have a budget for regular truck cleaning, and that the drivers had to stop in the services anyway by law to take a break. His numbers were challenged, the utilization figures he used for his profiforecaststs seemed unreasonable. Again, he stayed fairly calm, and he had a very favorable sounding break even utilization figure ready when he needed it. He was left with 4 of the 5 dragons arguing over the opportunity, although they wanted 40% for £200K, rather than the 20% he was offering. He did his best to haggle them down, and ended up with an offer of 35% from two investors and one of 40% from the other two. In the end he took the 40% deal based on who he thought he would like to work with. Takeaways: Be confident and know your numbers. The best investors will also bring their time, experience and contacts. If you're going to have to work closely with someone choose wisely, it's not all about the money. So there you go, great TV. Obviously I might have misjudged some of the participants and their businesses, but I'm only basing my opinions on the highly edited segments in the show. Cool WhiteboardPosted by Gavin Bowman on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 at 11:30 AM I came across this cool Whiteboard site about a month ago, but somehow never got around to posting it. I'm filing it under "Web apps have come along way". Enjoy. Sleeping GiantsPosted by Gavin Bowman on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 at 9:30 AM Is Borland back? Hmm, so there's a free Turbo Explorer product for each of the Borland languages, sounds good. A Pro version for each language costing around $500, okay. I'm sure this is a step in the right direction for Borland, but I maybe a bit more flexibility or multiple languages in the Pro versions would have been even better. As it stands, you have to pick one language and you're stuck with it. You can't install two versions on the same PC, so if you want to mix languages you have to look at their expensive Developer Studio products. Update: There's no mention of the one PC = one language issue on the Borland site, only in the PC Mag article. I'll wait and see on that one, it does sound like a strange imposition. Video LinksPosted by Gavin Bowman at 8:33 AM I had to share this great Richard Feynman video that I found on Joho the blog yesterday. If only all teachers could express things so distinctively, compellingly, and clearly. To keep the post slightly on topic, check out TED Talks for some great speeches. Also, you might like "The Day of the Long Tail". If you think you can do better, here's Setup a Video Blog, from Solostream. Finally, Guy Kawasaki points us to VeoTag, a new service that allows links inside videos... no doubt all online video will work like that someday. Micro ISV DigestPosted by Gavin Bowman on Monday, August 07, 2006 at 8:00 AM A weekly roundup of Micro ISV news, announcements and relevant blog posts. News and Announcements
Dragon's Den Ep1 (or, "I was wrong")Posted by Gavin Bowman on Friday, August 04, 2006 at 9:59 AM Okay, apologies to everyone outside of the UK. Yesterday I told you that you could watch the BBC's entrepreneur show Dragon's Den online, but it turns out the online feed is only available in the UK. As a kind of half-assed attempt to make it up to you, here's a brief summary of the first show in the series, which made for joyously painful viewing. First pitcher up was Nick, with his multimedia coffee table. Damn this was painful... His nervousness ruined his pitch, but the best pitch in the world couldn't really have swung it for him. Basically a table-top PC with some wireless multi-media features, retailing for $6-10K dollars. The first question was "Are you serious?", and it just went downhill from there. He also completely failed to explain who might want his product and what benefits it might give them. Painful, painful... When your potential investors make faces like this:-  and this:-  and best of all:-  You might want to take the hint. This guy (2 kids) is selling his his house to invest in the product. Dude, please don't sell your house! Takeaway: Amongst dozens of others, be able to explain the benefits of your product. A quick failed pitch for a quirky map followed, then came James and his system for preventing overflowing baths. This one was good, nice pitch, nice product. Nothing really to criticize here, except that having ownership issues on the patent limited the investment potential. He was offered £150,000 for 40% of the company, but turned the deal down because he only wanted to give away 10%. He said in the interview afterwards that he would have taken it for 30%. Hopefully he doesn't regret holding out for that little bit extra. Dog fashion designers, a hog style 25MPH bio diesel motorcycle, and book stands in coffee shops all failed to generate any interest. An ex-teacher with a bit of a hygiene obsession was next. She was pitching individually wrapped toilet seat covers for women on the go, and a furry toilet seat cover for cold nights. For a bit of background, those paper disposable toilet seat covers that you find in dispensers in many US public toilets are quite rare here in the UK. So basically, she got a little bit of interest, there's probably a market here for the disposables. It started to fall apart when she was asked what she wanted the money for. It all got very inconsistent, she didn't know her numbers, and didn't know how the investment was going to help her. The final problem was that the seat covers were elasticated and couldn't be flushed... Takeaway: If you're going to meet investors, you must be able to explain what the money is for, and you should know the numbers. A pitch for a west end musical from two guys who had never put on a show before, a guy trying to sell a table planning service for around £400-£500 a time (don't these people know Andy Brice has table planning all sewn up?), and a multimedia driving instructor program also all failed to get any interest. Finally, another James was pitching his waterless egg boiler. This was cool, it cooks the eggs using a soft thermal element. It was a fine idea, nice prototypes, everything patented, and seemed like a good investment. The only problem here was that none of the prototype demos worked. At all. First time he forgot to put in the egg. The next two just didn't cook, he couldn't explain why... and then he was out of eggs. The demo made the whole thing painful to watch, but he was still offered his investment for 40% (as usual, he was offering 10%) by two of the investors, and he took the deal. Takeaways:-
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