11–20 of 25 posts
Among academics, the convention is to use "we" when writing papers irregardless of the number of authors. It's half custom and half a matter of maintaining professional distance. Use "we" even if everyone can see that it's a single-author paper. It communicates that it is a company and not just your personal services, which is especially important if it's just your services for now. You can still come back and talk a…
I was crucified on /. when I wrote that :)
I'm a one man startup. My about page should be personal like: After working for 4 years as a server administrator for some medium to large websites and after having a lot of trouble with existing monitoring solutions I decided to build my own. ---OR--- Like a company: With our 4 year experience in the server management industry, we build this tool to help our clients… etc please let me know what do you prefer. Thanks…
I'd preffer the first one, you are a startup so your company won't have 4 years of experience in the industry, you have. Also clients will figure out that you are a one man startup anyway. Jason Cohen writes exactly about this question in http://blog.asmartbear.com/youre-a-little-company-now-act-li...
Among academics, the convention is to use "we" when writing papers irregardless of the number of authors. It's half custom and half a matter of maintaining professional distance. Use "we" even if everyone can see that it's a single-author paper. It communicates that it is a company and not just your personal services, which is especially important if it's just your services for now. You can still come back and talk a…
Personally, I'd leave the about page as is; but I'd definitively change the main page to impersonal discourse. "tagBeep has some unique and very useful features but there is a lot of room for improvements and I’m working on them." Would become (something like, I'm not a native speaker): "tagBeep has some unique and very useful features but there is a lot of room for improvements which are being actively developed" "…
A lot of people suggested a middle path... that is what I'm thinking to do now but I will give it more time.
Among academics, the convention is to use "we" when writing papers irregardless of the number of authors. It's half custom and half a matter of maintaining professional distance. Use "we" even if everyone can see that it's a single-author paper. It communicates that it is a company and not just your personal services, which is especially important if it's just your services for now. You can still come back and talk a…
>irregardless I was crucified on /. when I wrote that :)
It's definitely a good question. You need to consider the pros and cons and decide for yourself. If you present it as a company, people will be much harsher with their criticism and expectations. If you present it as a person (yourself) people will be more lenient, but at a cost: they could question the longevity of the service; trust, support capacity etc. More important for enterprise customers though, imo. On the…
Thanks for your suggestions!
I'm a one man startup. My about page should be personal like: After working for 4 years as a server administrator for some medium to large websites and after having a lot of trouble with existing monitoring solutions I decided to build my own. ---OR--- Like a company: With our 4 year experience in the server management industry, we build this tool to help our clients… etc please let me know what do you prefer. Thanks…
It's OK to present a company profile as "we", but don't overdo it by constantly implying a large group when there is none. And really, even one-man-shows generally have help from other people (be it friends or family or freelancer) so that's OK.
That being said, I think it's often a good idea to present a separate About section specifically detailing the founder of the company. It can even be on the same page as the company profile. This is the place where you put professionally relevant personal info, such as "4 year experience in the server management industry". You can even make it more personal by giving out info about what motivated you to do this in the first place, which can be a powerful tool to establish a deeper connection with your potential clients.
Personally, I'd leave the about page as is; but I'd definitively change the main page to impersonal discourse. "tagBeep has some unique and very useful features but there is a lot of room for improvements and I’m working on them." Would become (something like, I'm not a native speaker): "tagBeep has some unique and very useful features but there is a lot of room for improvements which are being actively developed" "…
When I've made that page the idea was to present myself as a person, as one software developer working on a nice product. A lot of people suggested a middle path... that is what I'm thinking to do now but I will give it more time.
The rest of site should not be about you. It should be about the product. Otherwise it comes across like a hobby project (and I'm guessing you don't want that).
I'm a one man startup. My about page should be personal like: After working for 4 years as a server administrator for some medium to large websites and after having a lot of trouble with existing monitoring solutions I decided to build my own. ---OR--- Like a company: With our 4 year experience in the server management industry, we build this tool to help our clients… etc please let me know what do you prefer. Thanks…
The most important rule is: don't lie or misrepresent what you've been doing. Second: don't sound silly. "our 4 year experience in the server management industry" violates both a little bit. It's OK to present a company profile as "we", but don't overdo it by constantly implying a large group when there is none. And really, even one-man-shows generally have help from other people (be it friends or family or freelance…
Some grate advice in your comment, thanks for your time.
That way, the about page projects a professional corporate image while keeping the personal touch. A bit like how GoDaddy is more than just Bob Parsons but he's the face of the company in some ways.