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Running A Software Business On 5 Hours A Week
Some four years ago, I started Bingo Card Creator, a business which sells software to teachers. At the time, my big goal for the future was eventually making perhaps $200 a month, so that I could buy more video games without feeling guilty about it. The business has been successful beyond my wildest expectations and [...]
Getting Ready For Going Full Time
I’m quitting my day job as of March 31st. Today I was running out to lunch prior to a day packed with various uISV-centered activities and it struck me: crikey, this is really happening. I’m exhilarated and that weird not-scared-not-settled feeling one gets when one has run out the door in a hurry and is [...]
Business Stats On A Photo Frame
I got inspired by a blog post from Panic, a Mac software company, and created myself a dashboard for the business, currently residing on a photo frame right on my desk. The full writeup is on my main site, including code if you want to use it.
Women, Men, And Other Things Done Wrong By Silicon Valley
This post is waaaaaaay outside the usual ambit of my blog, as it is at least arguably political and about cultural norms in Silicon Valley. (I’m a sometimes visitor and spiritual resident, but I’ve never lived there.) I’ll be back to software blogging on the weekend if all goes well.
There was a bit of a dustup [...]
Using CrazyEgg on Pages Requiring A Login
Long-time readers of this blog know I’m absolutely goo-goo for CrazyEgg, principally because they keep making me money. They’re seriously my favorite $19 to pay every month, even when I don’t actually use them, because some day I know I’ll get the itch again and then bam actionable insights into what my customers are doing. [...]
What My User Survey Taught Me
Some weeks ago I mentioned that I was implementing a user survey in Bingo Card Creator, using Wufoo. About forty of my customers have now taken the time to give me detailed advice. I thought I’d share some things I learned. A few takeaways may be applicable to your business, and at the very least [...]
Four Open Letters To The Book Industry
Dear Publishers:
Hiya. You don’t know me, but I’m a pretty good customer of yours. I buy several thousand dollars of books a year, in almost every genre you sell: fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, classics, mysteries, you name it. I have bought everything from Gladwell to the most obscure author in your backlists and back again. I [...]
Followup Questions for “Strategic SEO for Startups”
Peter Christensen had a few questions for me regarding my last blog post about SEO for startups. I thought the questions were interesting enough to require a bit more than a comment on his post, so I’m going to answer them in detail here. The details are very, very specific to my particular business — if you [...]
Deploying Sinatra On Ubuntu: In Which I Employ A Secretary
As mentioned previously, I really hate getting woken up at 3 AM in the morning. This happens fairly frequently for me, though, because I live in Japan and about half of the people who call me do not. I have not been effective at getting them to check what time it is here before [...]
The Solo Founder (Startup) Rap
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I saw the title Will Single Founders Please Stand Up and got a bit inspired. Substantive comment continues below the song. With apologies to Eminem, Weird Al, and fans of quality [...]
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