Business
MicroConf 2012 Review
I can’t begin to describe the feelings I have now that MicroConf is over. But I’m going to try anyway. MicroConf 2012 was somehow better than last year. I spoke with several others and we couldn’t quite pinpoint why, but it was better. We upgraded the venue, we seriously upgraded the Monday night party (Thank…
Read MoreFree Tickets to MicroConf
It was just two short months ago that I announced on my blog that I’m co-hosting a conference called MicroConf. Well, we’ve gone through the pre-sales process, and gone through the regular sales process. Now it’s time for the final push. If you’re interested in going to MicroConf, you still have time to get there.…
Read MoreTaking on Goliath
One of the pieces of advice that I’ve heard doled out. Over the years is this. “Don’t build a product that goes head to head against a company like X.”, where X is usually Microsoft, Oracle, Google or some other large, public company with billions of dollars sitting on pallets in a dark bunker somewhere.…
Read MoreHow to Legally Steal From Your Customers
In early October, I had the pleasure of meeting Harry and Ted from Moraware Software at the Business of Software Conference in Boston. They’re apparently big fans of the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast that Rob Walling and I run. We had more than a couple of discussions at various points in the…
Read MoreFirefox is the new Internet Explorer
Here’s a date you probably won’t remember. November 9th, 2004. That’s the day that the Mozilla Foundation unleashed Firefox 1.0 to the world. Sure, there were more than two years of releases before that which were affectionally labeled as “beta releases”. Don’t blame Mozilla for that. Google’s the one that made it fashionable to do…
Read More5 Lessons You Could Learn From (Good) Professional Consultants To Advance Your Career
A colleague referred to me as Mariano Rivera this week. If you’re not a baseball buff, Mariano Rivera is the closer for the New York Yankees. Like most closers in baseball, Rivera usually comes into the game when it’s almost over and the Yankees are winning by only a couple of runs. It’s his job…
Read MorePodcast Launch: Startups for the Rest of Us
In 2006, I had been self-employed for less than a year. I knew a decent amount about business and a whole lot about technology, but wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I had been involved in a startup called “Pedestal Software” for the previous few years and it was sold to Altiris to…
Read MoreThe Single, Most Important Secret to Success
About 6 weeks ago, I had dinner at a pizza place near Boston with some fellow developers. We were generally discussing various aspects of business, things to do, things not to do, etc. One of the guys asked me a question that I feel like I get quite frequently: “What’s the most important thing you…
Read MoreThe Builder and the Salesman
I published a popular article named “The Single Founder Myth” a few years back. In this article, I contended that contrary to popular opinion, it was not impossible to go it alone with a software startup and be successful. To clarify up front, what I mean by “going it alone” is that you build up…
Read MoreBe Smart, Make a Ton of Money Doing Stupid Stuff
Several weeks ago, someone pointed me to an article on a blog I’d never read before. It was very profound it its simplicity. It was called Smart People should do Stupid Stuff. The basic concept of this blog post was that there are millions of dollars to be made doing things on the internet that…
Read More