Posts by Mike Taber
How to Make Developer Certifications That Matter
In general, I’ve found that the number of certifications a developer has is usually inversely proportional to their actual skill. Most people I talk to would agree. But why is this? There’s one simple answer.
The certification system for developers is fundamentally broken.
Read MoreDomain Name Change
This morning, I made several changes to the server that runs my blog and will continue to make tweaks over the next week or two. Essentially I’m transitioning everything to slowly use the singlefounder.com domain instead of miketaber.net, which is probably what you are used to seeing. Interestingly enough, my Google Page Rank is going…
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 MoreBlog overhaul
Today I did of an overhaul on my blog, giving it a facelift and a new theme. I’ll continue working on it over the next week or so. I’ve got a lot of other changes to make before I’m done, but should be finished by the end of the weekend. I expect to fix some…
Read MoreStartup Success Podcast Appearance
For anyone out there who is a Podcast fan, I was featured on a recent episode of the Startup Success Podcast with Rob Walling talking about the Micropreneur Academy. It’s one of several Podcasts I’ve been featured on with Rob over the past several weeks. I’ll highlight this and all of my other appearances on…
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 MoreOutsourcing for Entrepreneurs
If you’re an entrepreneur, you should try to outsource as much as you can possibly get away with.
In the tech industry, ‘outsourcing’ is a dirty word. Outsourcing. The very word invokes thoughts of high technology jobs being sent overseas from the US to be fulfilled by people in India or China. This is seen to be unfortunate for tech workers in the US. It’s a widely accepted misconception that if you don’t speak English well, then you’re somehow less intelligent. If you don’t speak English at all, you’re somehow better off than if you spoke it poorly. No English means you never learned and it’s not your fault. Poor English translates to idiocy. This is obviously wrong, but I digress.
What many people don’t realize is that outsourcing is an entrepreneur’s best friend. Now, before you track me down and smash my car headlights with a baseball bat, let me explain what I mean.
Read MoreTips on negotiating a great consulting rate
One of the more difficult parts of being a consultant is determining and negotiating your rate with a customer. Consulting is a lot different than product based sales because you can generally charge whatever you think you can get away with. The first few months of my consulting career, I was charging $67.50/hour. It took several iterations for me to find out what my time and expertise was worth, but eventually I did. My rate increased to $70 for my second client, $90 for the third, $120 for the fourth, and eventually peaked at $275/hour.
The key to making good money as a consultant is to know how to negotiate your rates. This is not a skill you generally learn in college. It takes time, practice, and even if you’re good at it, you don’t always get what you want. This article contains six and a half tips for negotiating a good consulting rate.
Read MoreOptimize Your Code!!!
Last December, Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror wrote that Hardware is cheap, Programmers are expensive. While I certainly agree with the spirit of his premise and eventual conclusion, it is only applicable if you are running Software as a Service. But he doesn’t say this and I wonder if it was an oversight, or if he forgets what it’s like to ship software to other people. There is clearly a case to be made for telling developers to optimize their code in shipping products.
The problem lies in the very first step where there are some major underlying assumptions which you can infer from the list.
1. This is your budget we’re talking about.
2. You have the budget and means to upgrade the hardware.
3. The software isn’t a dog out of the box.
The final assumption is worth taking note of and is the real reason for this post, so let me give you an example. Or “the” example, rather.
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