MicroISV Digest - 01/13/2010 - 47hats.com47hats.com

MicroISV Digest – 01/13/2010

Bob Walsh January 13, 2010

Welcome to the first MicroISV Digest for 2010 with a somewhat new approach. To increase the likelihood of me consistently doing this, The MicroISV Digest will come out on Wednesdays and cover about the previous week’s worth of happenings and news in the microISV/startup world.

Community News:

Vance Lucas, InvoiceMore, has relaunched with a new, simpler, pricing structure and lower prices.

Atul Godbole, LogicNP Software, has released Versions 2010 of :

CryptoLicensing For .Net (ActiveX and MFC editions also available): Add Licensing, Copy-Protection, Activation And Hardware-Locking To Your Apps, Libraries And Websites.
Crypto Obfuscator For .Net: Powerful Code Protection, Obfuscation, Optimization And Simplified Deployment For Your .Net Apps.

Steve Cholerton, Arten Science, is The Man Who Does Not Sleep: he’s offering 25% off his (count them) 7 microISV’s products during January by using the promo code ARTJAN25 during checkout.

ContaX CRM Build Relationships. Reap the Rewards. Effective CRM.
R10Office Productivity. CRM. Redefined.
R10Cipher Security For Everyone
R10BatchMail Bulk Email. Done Right.
R10Clean Clean Accurate. Data
macVCR Beautiful Screen Recordings
MonitorMac Timed Screenshots and Webcam Images with FTP Upload

Interesting Answers.Onstartups.com questions with useful answers:

News/posts for microISVs and Startups:

Dharmesh Shah, founder of Hubspot and startup blogger powerhouse at OnStartups.com came up with a great idea: What advice would you give startups – in exactly 3 words? This is one post – with its comments – you want to print to pdf, load up on your phone and ponder/evaluate your way through.

Omar Ead has just started a Twitterlike web site for startups: http://thisisstartup.com/ : ratable 300 character posts feel positively roomy! I’d suggest taking your next break to read a few and post one there.

David Skok has written a well researched and excellent post of a topic of concern – Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition.

Elie Kochman, Optimal Upgrade Consulting, has some good posts on the growing pains of consulting, if you’re still wearing that particular hat.

Chris Brogan found this gem: Get ready for some fun!

StartupToDo.com, The Startup Success Podcast and other plugs:

Three new Guides (so far!) at StartupToDo.com this week:
- Daniel Kehoe has authored, Learn How to Conduct Competitive Research for Your Startup
- Introduction to social media for startups.
- Choosing between Google Moderator, Get Satisfaction and UserVoice
Show #51 of the Startup Success Podcast is out [link] [iTunes]. Bob and Pat talk with Mark Juras, co-founder of Great Migrations about his firm’s deep software translation offering. If your company still running VB6 or ASP, Great Migrations might be the silver bullet you’ve been waiting for. And, Pat launches his own microISV in addition to keeping his day job (woot!). He needs a real name for his product – Call our Listener Hotline ( 206-202-6473) to make your suggestion!
Take your time but hurry up! was a great guest post here by Jarie Bolander, author of Frustration Free Technical Management…
…As was Inner Productivity and Startup Businesses by Chris Edgar author of Inner Productivity: A Mindful Path to Efficiency and Enjoyment in Your Work. If you’ve ever wondered why knowing how to not procrastinate <> stop procrastinating, you need this book!
Jason Cohen over at the ASmartBear.com blog interviewed me – it was and uncommon and challenging interview! http://bit.ly/BobWalsh

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(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

MicroISV Digest – 04/9/2010

Bob Walsh April 9, 2010

Community News:

Eight free scholarships to the “Startup Lessons Learned” Conference – On April 23 the first Lean Startups conference happens in San Francisco, and the organizers have made available eight scholarships to startup professionals who are interested in attending the show. The scholarships cover the full price of conference registration, valued at $699 for the “early-bird” registration. The confirmed speaker list is a who’s who of the Lean Startup movement, including:
- Eric Ries, The Lean Startup (@ericries)
- Kent Beck, Three Rivers Institute (@kentbeck)
- Steve Blank (@sgblank)
- Randy Komisar, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
- Andrew Chen, Futuristic Play (@andrew_chen)
- David Weekly, PB Works (@dweekly)
- Hiten Shah, KISSmetrics (@hnshah)
If you’re interested in applying, send an email to leanapplication@imvu.com before midnight on Monday, April 12, 2010 describing (in 500 words or less) who you are, how you are using (or intend to use) the lean startup methodology and how the scholarship will help your company. Selected recipients will be notified by Friday, April 16, 2010. More info.

Jordan Osher, Meet The Famous, Inc., recently launched this crowdsourcing celebrity photo agency. Get the shot, upload it, they sell it for you and you get paid.

Richard Nichols, ranware.com, has released qikTweet for the iPhone/iPad. qikTweet is for those situations when you want to get your tweet out faster than waiting for your usual Twitter client to start, load your message feed, any new messages and anything else it needs to do.

Interesting Answers.Onstartups.com questions with useful answers:

News/posts for microISVs and Startups:

Just one: Gina Trapani’s awesome The Power User’s Guide to Google Apps. If you use Google Apps, this is a post you need to read.

StartupToDo.com, The Startup Success Podcast and other plugs:

No new Guides at StartupToDo.com (I’ve been on a programming deathmarch the past month, striving to finish 2.0a):
Show #63 [link] [iTunes]. Bob interviews Jason Fried, co-founder and president of 37signals and co-author of Getting Real and now REWORK. Jason is the archetype of a successful web-based software company founder (Basecamp, Highrise, Campfire, Backpack), a strong proponent for a reality-based (versus VC-funded) approach to building a tech company with a point of view, and a strong believer most of the accepted ways of doing business don’t scale down to startups.
In this interview, we dig into not just Jason and David Heinemeier Hansson’s new book about the business of startups, but why and how they arrived at 37signals’ successful approach to building a software company. Jason generously shares a range of advice and experience about building your startup that is anything but a rehash of all the other advice you’ve heard.
Show #62 [link] [iTunes]. Bob and Pat talk with Paul Pluschkell, CEO and cofounder of Spigit.com, an innovative startup that is transforming social media, innovation and idea creation in large enterprises and other companies. What happens when social media reputation building, leaderboards, voting ideas up and down within a company meets companies like AT&T, Walmart and Southwest Airlines? The results may surprise you.
Paul shares some very useful advice for startups selling to enterprises as well, and offers a perspective from a vantage point few enjoy on how social media is going change the workplace.
Show #61 [link] [iTunes]. This week Bob and Pat conclude our interview with Daniel Pink, bestselling author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.
In this show, we quiz Daniel on why public education systems don’t teach how to select your own motivation, how organizations can build that into their business DNA, get some answers for questions for Dan posted by our listeners, how he personally integrates work and personal time, and more.
Show #60: [link] [iTunes]. This week Bob and Pat start an interview with Daniel Pink, bestselling author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.
If you’ve ever wondered why sometimes when doing creative work you’re highly motivated and other times unmotivated, this is part 1 of a 2 part interview that may profoundly change your life.

The scientific research and conclusions Dan brings to the modern business world go a long way to explain why some startups founders succeed, others run out of steam, why some companies will succeed and others fail as we continue moving to an world based on creating ideas, not running assembly lines.

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(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

MicroISV Digest – 03/13/2010

Bob Walsh March 13, 2010

Community News:

Pretty quiet out there…

Interesting Answers.Onstartups.com questions with useful answers:

News/posts for microISVs and Startups:

Want to know how to find your customers? This is the post for you: 7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing.
Cloudsourcing using Second Life: How I reduced translation costs of 200 articles from $9000 to $46
Dreaming the Possible Dream (Tom Friedman, NYT).
Getting an introduction to a VC is no mean feat.Tony Wright tells you how: How to Ask for an Introduction.
A Pew Internet Study: Understanding the Participatory News Consumer. “The internet is at the center of the story of how people’s relationship to news is changing. Six in ten Americans (59%) get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day, and the internet is now the third most popular news platform, behind local television news and national television news.”

StartupToDo.com, The Startup Success Podcast and other plugs:

No new Guides at StartupToDo.com (I’ve had my coder hat on, finishing 2.0a):
Show #59 of the Startup Success Podcast is up: [link] [iTunes]. Should there be a special immigration visa for non-U.S. startup founders? We grill Eric Ries of StartupVisa.com about the federal bill he and thousands of VCs, Angels, Silicon Valley notables, IT people, and others are supporting, tweeting and advocating.
Pat and Bob robustly question Eric on exactly how the Startup Visa would work, what it will and won’t do, how this VC/tech community political movement got started, and can social media become political action and even national policy.
Show #58 of the Startup Success Podcast: [link] [iTunes]. Bob and Pat talk nuts and bolts, billing and bookkeeping with Greg Jones, CEO of Bookkeeping Express. A startup is a business and an outsourced, tech-aware, certified bookkeeper using a state-of-the-art online accounting system can do bookkeeping tasks better, and save you money at the same time

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(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

MicroISV Digest #startupvisa, MicroISV Digest

MicroISV Digest – 01/20/2010

Bob Walsh January 20, 2010

Community News:

Anthony Williams, Just Software Solutions Ltd, Tired of waiting for the upcoming C++ standard (C++0x)’s support of multithreading and concurrency? Just Software Solutions’ just::thread library is an implementation of the C++0x thread library for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and g++. V1.3 introduces support for the new std::async function for launching asynchronous tasks, support for 64-bit Windows and support for g++ 4.4..
There’s more than one way to create a startup: my friend Tsutomu Kodama in Japan has launched a site for non-Japanese who want to get to see the real Japan at Kotodamaya.com. If you’re thinking about broadening your horizons in 2010 by visiting a really different country than what you’re used to in the US or EU, check out this site. (I hope this clown’s picture doesn’t scare away visitors!)

Interesting Answers.Onstartups.com questions with useful answers:

News/posts for microISVs and Startups:

Oh, that’s what Twitter lists are for! @balsamiq/essential-startup-tools. And yes, you should be reading the Balsamiq blog: any microISV/startup that made in 2009 gross gevenue: $1,626,528.93, and shares how they did it is a blog you should follow.
Five Early-Stage Alternatives to the Traditional Investment Model of Growing Startups. (from July 2009, but still a good list)
I’m biting my nails waiting for my iPhone App to be approved. Here’s what it will look like, thanks to AppMakr. I have at least some company: Morten Jacobsen talks about his new AppMakr-made app. Don’t like AppMakr? Check out iSites Will Let Publishers Simultaneously Build Apps For iPhone And Android. The more interesting ways you can reach out to your market, the better!
Online Calendar Management Roundup: How Do You Plan Your Days?

StartupToDo.com, The Startup Success Podcast and other plugs:

Two new Guides (so far!) at StartupToDo.com this week:
- Copy protection of desktop software.
- Handling subscription e-commerce with Amazon Payments – the Business Viewpoint.
Show #52 of the Startup Success Podcast is up: [link] [iTunes].Bob and Pat talk again with entrepreneur and Silicon Valley consultant Sramana Mitra, this time about her newest book, Positioning: How To Test, Validate, And Bring Your Idea To Market. This is the third volume in Sramana’s Entrepreneur Journeys series. This was a fascinating interview that sliced through the what do I build – how do I find my market conundrum. Pat and Bob also talked a little bit about how Pat is positioning his new microISV, Spackle Software.
Sramana did a guest post here that’s must reading if you stuck because you don’t know the right questions to be asking to define your startup: Clarify your story.
Sramana offers free weekly strategy roundtables for entrepreneurs to address positioning, financing, and other aspects of a startup venture. Up to 1,000 people can attend each session, but only the first five who register to pitch will be able to present their business ideas. All attendees are able to join in on the conversations via a live chat.

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(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

MicroISV Digest just::thread, kotodamaya.com, MicroISV Digest, Sramana Mitra