What am I doing here?
OK, so I’ve got a blog. I wonder what will happen next?
Welcome to the Macrobug blog. I’m starting this because it’s quite hard to find good information about how to start a small software company. Or, for that matter, why. I don’t have the answers – but I’m just in the middle of doing it, so you can learn from my mistakes!
Just be aware, I’m posting about my decisions and activities in real-time (more or less) so I probably won’t find out about my mistakes until later. In other words, don’t do what I do – I’m probably wrong :-)
August 25th, 2006 at 11:14 am
Welcome to blogging, the best way to make your mistakes (and successes) known to the entire world.
You might like having a look at Mat Patterson’s blog on setting up his own business as a web designer: http://the-making-of.signal7.com.au/
Good luck!
August 25th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Hi,
Cheers for the effort. I hope you make it, or have fun trying. I’ve always thought Joel on Software is a good sobering read every now and then… http://www.joelonsoftware.com
Good luck!
//markus
August 25th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Hi Markus, thanks for the comment! Yes I am a Joel Spolsky addict too. It ought to be compulsory reading for any techie, along with the Old New Thing (http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/default.aspx).
I plan to hunt you guys down and have a chat at the Smartphone Show…
Cheers
Ade
September 1st, 2006 at 2:30 pm
I recently picked up a copy of “Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality” by Bob Walsh. It’s basically about starting one-person software companies, and definitely worth thumbing through at a bookstore to see if it’s the kind of thing that might help.
September 1st, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Hi Erik, yes, it’s good isn’t it! That was my reading on the train to London for my last few weeks at Symbian. Lots of useful stuff.
Cheers
Ade
October 1st, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Perhaps read John Walker’s Autodesk file?
http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/autofile.html
First paragraph to tempt you: “How to begin to tell the story of Autodesk? The company was so unusual in its origin, so unconventional in its growth, and so eventful has been the road that started with a small group of programmers sitting around talking about building a company and has led, so far, to a multinational company which is the undisputed leader in its market, that it’s tempting just to shrug your shoulders and say “you had to be there”.”
October 1st, 2006 at 10:32 pm
Hi Dave, I shall indeed read that… eventually :-)
I’ve added it to my very-long-list-of-stuff-to-read. There are quite a lot of stories I need to read about how others have done it, mostly online, but there’s also a TV series on at the moment called “A new life – throwing it all away” or something like that. it is about people who’ve given up full-time work to start their own company. I told our PVR to record it months ago but right now haven’t got around to watching a single one.
Oddly I’m most interested in watching/reading about those who have done just OK. Those who have done badly are a bit depressing as I know most ventures end up that way. Those who’ve done really well are intimidating and hard to compare with. Autodesk falls into that category but I expect I’ll read it eventually :-)
Cheers
Ade