Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, August 30, 2007:
Another Potentially Interesting Blog
Here’s another that looks promising, we’ll see.
PS. Both Tony and Starr (the last one I posted about) hit the secret to getting noticed. Link to me or HelpSpot. I (as most bloggers) watch my referrers, so link and you’ll get linked back. And if you have no readers yet make sure to click the link yourself!
HelpSpot API Filter Portal
Here’s some video of a little sample app I built with the new (soon to be released) HelpSpot API. In this video the API looks up all my filters via an ajax json call and loads them all into portlets. I can then drag and drop them around, etc. There’s only crude development data in there but you’ll get the idea. It took me about 10 minutes to put this together.
Did Nick Sell Out?
Nick Bradbury asks if he sold out? My vote is no way. To be honest he’s gone way farther than most developers would in not selling out. Usually when a software product gets sold the founder/developer hangs out for a year (usually because they’ve agreed to as part of the sale) and then they bail out as soon as contractually possible. In fact I personally think that’s a good thing. Having been an employee at a company that was acquired, it’s a horrible process for the company getting acquired especially for the founder. Everyone comes in and tells you what to do and changes the product and so on. It’s too personal to the founder and staying around usually just makes everything unpleasant for everyone.
In this case Nick has hung in with the products, they seem to be moving forward, and he seems to have maintained control of the product for the most part. Certainly not a sell out, in fact it’s a rather masterful handling of the situation if you ask me.
MicroISV or Startup
Lately I find the terms MicroISV and startup often used interchangeable. I don’t believe this is correct and it’s part of the reason I think there’s been a little less interest (enthusiasm perhaps is a better word) in MicroISV’s over the past year than we had a few years back.
A big part of which is which is determining your goals. Do you want to run a business with an office, a secretary, 10+ employees? If so that’s a startup. It may just be you in the beginning, but if you envision that environment as your endgame then it’s a startup. A MicroISV is a very different thing. It’s a lifestyle as much as anything else. Are you content making enough money to have a high standard of living, but not enough to have an office of employees? Would you rather run your business than be a manager in it? Are you content sacrificing a higher probability of success for a lower probability of getting rich? If so then you’re starting a MicroISV.
This determination is critical yet so many blogs I read seem to be confused on the difference or not have thought about it at all. Without understanding the difference it’s hard to plan for your business, choose the right economic model, know the right expenses to incur. For instance, a startup needs to be in or create a market capable of millions of dollars in revenue just to them (the overall market may be larger, but how much can they capture). A startup probably needs a sizable chunk of startup money or at least be active in potential funding options in order to plan for future growth.
A MicroISV is a lifestyle. I recently took a big chunk of HelpSpot’s profits and purchased a house. A great investment for a MicroISV, an insane move for a startup. I could have paid a few employees for a year with my down payment. I’ve paid off all our student loans, credit cards, etc. If I was a startup it would have been much smarter to take every dollar and reinvest in the business, not pull money out to pay personal expenses.
It’s not that a MicroISV can’t become a larger business, but when that happens it’s more of an evolutionary reality than an initial goal of the company. I don’t think wanting a startup is a bad thing at all. In fact some people seem built for it, but it’s a choice you need to understand going in. I get the feeling some people who go down the startup path (or worse an in between path) are really more cut out to be MicroISV’s and would actually be happier following that path.
With all the PR startups have received over the last year I think the benefits of the MicroISV option have been pushed aside. I’d like to see a renewal of MicroISV discussion and activism. There are so many other good examples of successful MicroISV’s beyond UserScape (Antair, Gurock Software, Perfect Table Plan come to mind). Let’s start spreading the word again.
Potentially Interesting Blog
Here’s a new startup blog that looks like it may be interesting http://steplivelynow.com/blog/. Of course he links to me so it’s got to have something worth reading in there 
interestingly I almost created a Live Chat program myself.
NYC Subway Fact
I guess living so close to New York City and having been there so often you forget how massive it is. A top article on Techmeme right now is about Google doing a transit map for NYC. That’s not that interesting, but one fact in the article is. The NY/NJ transit system has 468 subway stations. Only 35 less than the rest of the country combined. It’s an amazing stat.
New House
Amongst everything else going on last week we moved to a new home from our condo. The condo was really getting tight with the baby, the business, etc. My uncle is a home builder and was able to sell us this house at the “family discount” which was really generous of him. It’s a really nice home, it even has a view of the Hudson River. Here’s a few pics. It’s a little barren still, but we’re working on it.
Front:
Entry:
Office (still waiting for my bookcases, can you tell!):
This was actually a formal living room, but what the heck do you need 2 living rooms for? So we added the doors and made it into the office. It’s going to be nice to have the extra space.
Kitchen:
Great room (my uncle didn’t want his pool table, so we’ve put it to use ):
Family room:
This might be my favorite room. It’s so nice to finally have a place where we can sit down and not worry about what the baby is touching or getting into.
37Sigs Highlights HelpSpot Design Feature
On the Signal vs. Noise blog today Matt highlights Twitters online support form layout and it’s unique 3 questions approach. The Twitter portal is powered by HelpSpot. It’s always nice to get some 3rd party recognition, especially for a UI element that was a bit of a risk to implement.
Hat tip to JD for pointing out the mention to me.
Future of Web Design
Anyone else going to the FOWD conference in NYC November 7/8? I’m thinking of going if for no other reason than it’s something actually going on in NYC. HelpSpot is probably going to get a pretty decent face lift in v3 and so I’m hoping this might get the creative juices flowing.
Software Awards Scam
Great post by Andy.
http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software-awards-scam/
TechCrunch
I rarely get mad at blogs these days, mostly because I don’t have time to read enough of them . One blog I learned to stay away from a long time ago though was TechCrunch. It’s a total waste of time. I literally disagree with nearly everything Mike Arrington writes. So when I saw Alex King’s post pointing to Mike’s thoughts on Alex’s former product Feedlounge I went ahead and read it against my better judgement.
Alas, the post has done nothing to improve my impression of Mike’s web thinking. There are so many erroneous statements in the post it’s hard to believe anyone bothers to follow TC. Forget any factual errors about the demise of Feedlounge, what’s more shocking is how wrong he is in his thinking on various business topics.
First, people make BILLIONS of dollars selling and entering markets which are commoditized. So to say doing so is suicide is silly. He’s so focused on every idea having to be new that he completely ignores the benefits of entering markets which are highly competitive or even commoditized. Namely that most of the work of generating a customer base has been done for you. No need to explain what your product is, the customer already knows. It’s probably the biggest reason “new idea” startups fail.
Perhaps the most outrageous claim is that there’s no money to be made in markets that are commoditized and have a price point at or near zero. There are many examples where this is not true. What about the bottled water business? Nothing is more commoditized and basically free than water in every US home and public space, yet it’s a 16 billion dollar business that didn’t exist 20 years ago. There’s basically no good reason to buy bottled water, yet people do.
It’s not even close to feed readers which can have different features, UI’s, etc. Water is basically all the same, even most bottled water is simply tap water, the minority of the market is actually spring water. Bottled water is simply well marketed water. That’s it.
Sure it may not be the easiest route, but then again bringing a new idea nobody has ever heard of to market isn’t easy either. My guess is that he mostly writes this stuff to get links and I’m falling for the trap, but it’s been a while since I’ve read something so out of touch with reality and it got my blood pumping a bit
Feature Update on Open Source Help Desk List
I’ve just done a small update to my little marketing/information site open source help desk list. You can now add comments on any of the applications listed. So if you’ve ever used them and have any feedback take a second and add your 2 cents.
As an interesting aside the site has produced 12 sales for $22,532.25 in revenue ($1,877.69 avg sale). Not bad for a day or two’s work. Also I think it’s an interesting indication that many people simply start their search for open source software, but don’t actually consider it a requirement to be either free or open source (HelpSpot is neither).
I also suspect that it’s probably really responsible for about double those sales figures or more as those numbers only count users who purchased with the same browser as they found the site with. So if a manager actually did the purchase or something like that then it’s not counted.