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On Starting a Software Business

stephaniehurlburt.com

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Re: On Starting a Software Business

#31

Post by vidar »

300bps wrote: post #14
shubhamjain wrote: post #6

There is a bit of detail missing that I would like to understand. How to just 'talk' and give help? Do you approach people/businesses and ask if they are having any problems? Or, your aim is to just get the conversation ball rolling, hoping that it leads to the problem part without deliberation?

I met my largest side client while at a baseball clinic my son was attending. I was reading a very thick book studying for a certification when a local business owner approached me and said, "Are you in IT?" Four years later of 15-20 hours per week side work and that chance encounter had an amazing impact on my life.

Just curious: What do you charge them?

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#32

Post by rompic »

chii wrote: post #11
shubhamjain wrote: post #6

There is a bit of detail missing that I would like to understand. How to just 'talk' and give help? Do you approach people/businesses and ask if they are having any problems? Or, your aim is to just get the conversation ball rolling, hoping that it leads to the problem part without deliberation?

i have a friend who is a construction contractor, and one of the tasks they needed to do is inspection of a property, and take pictures of problematic areas with notes. Currently, this is a manual process, paper driven with digital photos, and after wards, somebody back in the office would transcribe the hand written notes into an excel spreadsheet along with pics. This process could be made easier with an automated…

you might like https://www.planradar.com/

disclaimer: I met the founder once at a party.

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#33

Post by bluedino »

skybrian wrote: post #3

I'm wondering about how they draw the line between "give first, take later" and "don't do work unless you're getting paid for it."

I'd like to hear more specific experiences on switching from working for free to $CONSULTING_RATE for the same client

I helped a local business group with their website, their previous host shut down and all they had was an archive on CD, they had some quotes for 10-20 hours to get it back up and running (and then everyone wanted to charge them hosting/domain registration).

I did the work for free. A couple hours importing databases and site files, configuring WP/Joomla (I forgot which), some testing... My hope was that I'd get a few leads from the 50-60 companies in the business group.

I was contacted by a few but once they found out I wouldn't do the work for free...

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#34

Post by jahbrewski »

shubhamjain wrote: post #6

There is a bit of detail missing that I would like to understand. How to just 'talk' and give help? Do you approach people/businesses and ask if they are having any problems? Or, your aim is to just get the conversation ball rolling, hoping that it leads to the problem part without deliberation?

While I can't speak for OP, I've taken a similar approach with my own business. For me, the most important thing was to simply change my mindset from thinking "how can this person I just met help me (give me leads/business/etc)?" to: "how can I help this person I just met?" And that's going to be completely dependent on context. Maybe they need some help with a meetup, maybe they need some help with their iPhone, maybe they need some help with something completely non-tech related, and maybe they don't need help with anything at the moment. The point is: people like to help people who have helped them in the past. No one likes someone who appears selfish. Basically, just be a good friend to the people you meet.

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#35

Post by IanCal »

quadcore wrote: post #30
rmah wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The short answer is: it depends. The long answer... New customers come from two primary sources: 1) marketing and 2) referrals. Marketing is things like events (trade shows, media hits, advertising, reviews, etc). None of those things happen without outreach on your part. Referrals are when (as you described) existing customers tell other people and a few of them try your product. This will not be constant, right aft…

Thank you, that gives some meat. Ultimately, I was focusing on the fact that if a customer brings you n new customers, n only via marketing. If n > 1, you get new customers with something else than marketing - so to speak.

Actually anything n > 0 will mean you get customers by more than just marketing by definition. n > 1 for a static n is exponential growth.

Edit - though under 1 you can see a limit. For example, if n = 0.5 then you would expect to grow to twice the size. In reality it's much more complicated, but on a purely mathematical basis this should be right.

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#36

Post by personjerry »

thomk wrote: post #12
shubhamjain wrote: post #6

There is a bit of detail missing that I would like to understand. How to just 'talk' and give help? Do you approach people/businesses and ask if they are having any problems? Or, your aim is to just get the conversation ball rolling, hoping that it leads to the problem part without deliberation?

Strike up a conversation with anyone, casually mention you work with computers and they will tell you every problem they have from their horrible cellphone reception to the idiot IT guy at work to issues with Excel. Whatever the current 'computer' problem is, your'e about to hear it. That's step 1. Step 2 is give them some solid advice in the form of a few things to try. Say "Well here's what I would do" and tell the…

Not if you live in the bay area

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#37

Post by rfrey »

quadcore wrote: post #21

I have a question regarding startup growth so I apologise in advance if its irrelevant here (haven't read the article to be honest). 1) I get that to get the first users, you have to go out and recruit them. That's the advertisement part. So yeah, I get how you get users by advertising. 2) I get that when you have a million customers, they become the advertisement and they are the ones who are bringing you new custom…

It's not either-or, advertising and virality (what you're calling "n", and the cool kids in the back of the room call "k") go hand-in hand.

K > 1 is a runaway train, hold on. It happens rarely and apparently when it does, it's the ride of one's life. (Apparently, anyhow - I've never experienced it.)

K Implement some application flows that incentivize referrals, get that k to, say, 0.25, and now that $500 is getting you 1.25 customers - and your cost per customer has dropped to $400. That allows you to outbid your competitors for those adwords. (Except of course that they're also focussing on virality.)

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#38

Post by nickthemagicman »

jahbrewski wrote: post #34
shubhamjain wrote: post #6

There is a bit of detail missing that I would like to understand. How to just 'talk' and give help? Do you approach people/businesses and ask if they are having any problems? Or, your aim is to just get the conversation ball rolling, hoping that it leads to the problem part without deliberation?

While I can't speak for OP, I've taken a similar approach with my own business. For me, the most important thing was to simply change my mindset from thinking "how can this person I just met help me (give me leads/business/etc)?" to: "how can I help this person I just met?" And that's going to be completely dependent on context. Maybe they need some help with a meetup, maybe they need some help with their iPhone, may…

I don't think it's a problem with mindset..it's the actual logistics of making it happen.

They also need to ENVISION their goal, and then WORK HARD, and OVERCOME ADVERSITY.

Also TEAMWORK AND GRATITUDE!

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#39

Post by _lbaq »

katzgrau wrote: post #18
westoque wrote: post #8

Interesting about the 50-50 split. If you talk to most people in the valley, they would probably tell you this is the worst thing you can do. That is, if you're looking from the perspective of a VC.

VCs want to avoid the possibility of deadlocks when it comes to control - it's an easy box to check off when it comes to protecting the investment. But realistically, even at 51/49 or 60/40, if the disagreements are serious enough at an earlier stage the company is probably in a bad place anyway.

Being 3 founders is better, going into something that demanding like a startup on an uneven footing, is never going to work out, it will be a source of constant friction.

Re: On Starting a Software Business

#40

Post by Silhouette »

tacostakohashi wrote: post #28
chii wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i have a friend who is a construction contractor, and one of the tasks they needed to do is inspection of a property, and take pictures of problematic areas with notes. Currently, this is a manual process, paper driven with digital photos, and after wards, somebody back in the office would transcribe the hand written notes into an excel spreadsheet along with pics. This process could be made easier with an automated…

That app is called Evernote / OneNote / Google Keep - incrementally improving their process using off the shelf software is likely to be more practical than a custom app. Where is your contractor friend based? I am looking for a contractor, or some contacts, for a job now.

improving their process using off the shelf software is likely to be more practical than a custom app

That really depends on context. Very often something starts out sounding like "document with text and pictures" or "database with some tables in it and some forms for UI", making it an easy job with generic business software. However, often when you look at the details the actual requirements are more complicated and require some level of domain-specific functionality.

There are many applications that are aimed at a certain industry and provide some core function that seems quite generic but then some other more industry-specific functions on top. That certainly includes tracking, displaying and annotating specifications and inspection results in the construction industry, where there are multiple players in the market already.

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