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Sometimes Great Service and Transparency Have to Be Enough

Posted on June 4, 2013 Written by Leave a Comment

Yesterday DNSimple, my DNS provider and domain registrar of choice, suffered from a Denial of Service (DoS) attack and as a result their service went down.  This affected my sites and the sites of many people I know.

DNSimple is a bit of a different provider of services for people on the Internet since they are an infrastructure provider.  This means they provide a fundamental service which I and others rely to deliver services to our customers.  This makes a company like DNSimple that much more responsible for being up moire than most. Their outage yesterday, and actually going back a some period of time before yesterday,

They could have handled the outage in several ways.  The way they chose to handle this outage is an example of how any provider of services on the Internet should handle sometimes uncontrolled events.  As a company, DNSimple has provided great service in the limited amount of support I needed from them.  You can distinguish a great company by how they react when faced with a crisis.

Great Service

Respond to your customers in a calm fashion, letting them know how important your issue is to them.  If support issues come in via email or Twitter, respond to them, even to let them know you received their email or tweet and will get back as soon as you have something to tell them.  It only takes a second and it keeps your customer calm.  How many times have you sent a support request and heard crickets for a day or two?  Me too, it’s annoying.

Treat your customers just the way you want to be treated.

Transparency

Probably the #1 failure of a company under pressure is their lack of transparency.  What is transparency?  Simply being open about what’s going on, the issues and how you are dealing with them.  Most customers are reasonable and probably have been in a crisis themselves and being open with them, communicating what you’re finding takes very little time and is a huge plus.

Be proactive, if you recognize a problem let your customers know before they find it themselves.  Be genuine, let people know you understand how important this to them.

DNSimple did a great job in their Twitter stream, responding to customers as well as general updates on what was going on and chronicling the ups and downs.

June 1st at 12:05am being proactive:

— DNSimple (@dnsimple) June 1, 2013From first thing in the morning:

— DNSimple (@dnsimple) June 3, 2013  

Setting expectations:

— DNSimple (@dnsimple) June 3, 2013  

Keeping your word:

— DNSimple (@dnsimple) June 3, 2013  

Thanking those who are most important:

— DNSimple (@dnsimple) June 3, 2013  

We are in the processing of fixing this issue for good:

— DNSimple (@dnsimple) June 3, 2013  

I feel good using these folks as a vendor.  The openness and the continued updates makes me feel like I can count on them to be there and doing all they can to fix this problem and any other problem that might arise in the future.

Offering details to an audience that would otherwise be in the dark cost them very little in the way of time but wins them big in the eyes of the people who rely on this service.

Running a business where you have customers who rely on the product or service you provide is a very rewarding experience, but it doesn’t always go smoothly.  Customers will remember how you reacted when things got tough.  What image do you want them to have of you?

UPDATE (6/4/2013 @ 5:00pm EST): Anthony Eden of DNSimple posted a great overview of the problem and the actions taken to resolve and prevent future attacks.  A really nice way for anyone not following the drama as it occurred.

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7 Great Bootstrapping Podcasts to Jumpstart Your Business Today

Posted on May 16, 2013 Written by 2 Comments

Bootstrapping2

I love podcasts.  I listen to them in the car, walking or sometimes even when working.  I can’t get enough of the good ones and you probably can’t either.

Since attending MicroConf last week I can’t stop thinking about creating products, recurring revenue and talking about all the facets of running a product business.

I thought I would pull together my short list of the podcasts for boots trappers, entrepreneurs, startups or whatever you might call yourself, that I listen to and gain value. Some of these I have just recently discovered, while others, I have been a fan since their inception.  

If there are some podcasts that should be on this list, please feel free to point them out in the comments.

I hope you find as much value in these as I do:

Startups for the Rest of Us

Rob Walling and Mike Taber, creators of MicroConf have been producing this podcast for a long time.  Startups for the Rest of Us is exactly what it sounds like, a podcast for regular people trying to startup a business.  

The format of the show begins with Rob and Mike talking about what’s going on with their own businesses and related products.  Each show follows a theme where the duo discusses the focused topic.   

Bootstrapped.fm

Ian Landsman of HelpSpot fame and Andrey Butov recently started Bootstrapped.fm and after listening to a few episodes I find myself looking for new episodes in iTunes.  

The format of each episode is similar to Startups for the Rest of Us, where Ian and Andrey discuss their bootstrapping adventures.  It’s nice to hear different aspects of different types of bootstrapped software businesses, Ian with his SaaS application and Andrey with mobile applications.  

Lots of topics crossover, whether doing SaaS or mobile applications but there’s always valuable lessons to learn.

Bootstrapped with Kids

Bootstrapped with Kids  is also a recent addition to my podcast collection.  Brecht Palombo is the host and who also gave a great attendee talk at MicroConf. 

The topics are dear to the hearts of boostrappers and include product ideas and other aspects of the trade.

Product People

Kyle Fox and Justin Jackson are the hosts of Product People, a podcast I only recently discovered.  It is quickly becoming one of my favorites.  

The interviews are with, you guessed it, people who are successful product builders.  The interview style is very dynamic and doesn’t follow a script as you might have heard in other interview format podcasts.  I continually find myself thinking of the questions I would ask the guests and as it happens, these guys are asking those questions.  I’m sure the people who see me walking each day and nodding my head in agreement think I’m crazy.

Some recent interviewees include:

  • Amy Hoy
  • Nathan Barry (two parts and fantastic)
  • Hiten Shah
  • Jason Fried
  • Brennan Dunn
  • Rob Walling
  • Patrick McKenzie

Mixergy

Mixergy is actually an old favorite I have mentioned here before.  Andrew Warner does a fantastic job of interviewing entrepreneurs from all different industries and all different stories.  

Andrew is the marathon man of podcasting with tons of episodes and counting.  Plenty of backlog to go through and enjoy.

If you prefer the episodes are online and can watch the videos of Andrew interviewing his guests.  The benefit is see the guests facial expressions, small but nice sometimes.

Kalzumeus Podcast

Patrick McKenzie is a highly respected bootstrapped entrepreneur in the software industry who speaks at a few conferences and draws a crowd.  Patrick has discussions with various entrepreneurs ranging from angel investing to sales and marketing.  The episodes are not very frequent but they are solid and very much worth the wait.  Patrick includes transcripts in the podcast page so if you would rather digest the great material at a slower pace, it’s there.

Entrepreneur on Fire

This is another relatively new discovery for me.  The format is a series of interviews with entrepreneurs who have a wide range of skills, backgrounds and business types.  Entrepreneur on Fire is a very active podcast and publishing episodes at a feverish pace (5 days a  week), not sure I can keep up.

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MicroConf 2013 was Freakin’ Awesome

Posted on May 7, 2013 Written by 2 Comments

250px Welcome to fabulous las vegas sign

I had the opportunity to attend this years rendition of MicroConf in Las Vegas, NV, run by Rob Walling and Mike Tabor and attended by many great people. All I can say, I will be back next year.

MicroConf is a conference not for startups who took venture funding but rather those of us shoestring it and bootstrapping everything we do.

There is an overwhelming theme I noticed after talking to attendees; virtually everyone is doing some form of freelance consulting and wants to get out of it and move on to a product business. One speaker asked how many were on this path I would say 90% raised their hands. I think that says a lot.

Much of the move to a product based business from consulting almost always raises the question of how to begin the transition and how to replace the lucrative consulting work with paid products. Some demonstrated success with writing ebooks and using that revenue to replace consulting or as a launchpad for their SaaS offering.

Brennan Dunn exemplifies taking this path.

For those who have never written a book it can be hard to imagine you have enough knowledge and experience to produce something of value. Patrick McKenzie was asked about this and his reply was “you know more than you think you know”. Solid advice for sure and provides encouragement for developers to consider this avenue of starting the product business.

Rob Walling started the first day with a challenge, where he asked attendees to create 3 actionable items from the event. I think I can boldly share mine:

  1. Stop consulting and be 100% products by MicroConf 2014
  2. Create and market and ebook…topic to come.
  3. Finish and launch SimpleMailr.

As part of these goals I plan to generally improve my business skills in several areas:

  • Marketing – this such a broad area but includes driving traffic to my business, by SEO understanding and implementation as well as better use of advertising (Google, Facebook and LinkedIn).
  • Copywriting – honing skills of creating eye popping copy to pull people in.
  • Design – this has always seemed like a black art to me. I plan to not become a designer but rather be more aware of design and the process to effectively create good design. It’s important to have enough skills to communicate the business needs to a qualified designer. It would be helpful to better understand design to take what a designer has to say to then relate to the business.
There are a good number of other accounts of the event from attendees so I won’t rehash everyone else’s thoughts.  One site in particular by Christoph Engelhardt is worth reviewing.  He took great notes on every talk:

Notes on the talks

  1. Jason Cohen’s Opening Talk: “Designing the perfect bootstrapped startup”
  2. Josh Kaufman: “Shut up and take my money” (still needs a lot of editing)
  3. Joanna Wiebe: “Copywriting that converts”
  4. Ben Yoskovitz: “Measuring What Matters”
  5. Guest Speaker – Patrick Thompson: “Bootstraping an App Business”
  6. Guest Speaker – Sherry Walling: “Don’t Burn up in the Launch”
  7. Guest Speaker – Jody Burgess: “Dude. Marketing is not your thing.”
  8. Guest Speaker – Josh Ledgard: “Getting your first 989 Customers”
  9. Rob Walling: “How to 10x in 15 months”
  10. Erica Douglass: “How to Measurably Move the Needle With Your Software Company”
  11. Dave Collins: “SEO Demystified”
  12. Hiten Shah: “Killer Content Marketing”
  13. Mike Taber: “Enterprise Sales Tactics”
  14. Guest Speaker – Nathan Barry: “Zero to $5,000 / month”
  15. Guest Speaker – Brennan Dunn: “The Long-Tail Sale”
  16. Guest Speaker – Brecht Palomo: “How a Non-Technical Founder Built a 6 Figure SaaS App Using Only Free Public Data Sources”
  17. Guest Speaker – Cameron Keng: “Taxes for SaaS”
  18. Patrick McKenzie – “Building Things To Help Sell The Things You Build”

Christoph followed up with What You Can Learn From MicroConf 2013 – Even If You Did Not Attend (great use of copy hack from Joanna Wiebe‘s talk)

Some attendees wrote up their take or takeaways from the conference as well: 

I’m sure this list is far from exhaustive, but you get the idea.   

The bottom line for me is this was a great conference that I will be back for next year.  I walked away from this event with more excitement and to-dos for my business than ever before.  If you didn’t attend this year, you should next year…*after* I have my ticket in hand.

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Free Ultimately Always Has a Price

Posted on March 14, 2013 Written by 2 Comments

Gr logo

I bet by now you have heard the news Google Reader will be shutting down on July 1, 2013:

We have just announced on the Official Google Blog that we will soon retire Google Reader (the actual date is July 1, 2013). We know Reader has a devoted following who will be very sad to see it go. We’re sad too.

There are two simple reasons for this: usage of Google Reader has declined, and as a company we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products. We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.

To ensure a smooth transition, we’re providing a three-month sunset period so you have sufficient time to find an alternative feed-reading solution. If you want to retain your Reader data, including subscriptions, you can do so through Google Takeout.

Thank you again for using Reader as your RSS platform.

That’s it..thank all of you for signing up for our service, relying on it but we have to go now.  Virtually everyone I know jumped at the chance to use Google Reader to keep track of their RSS feeds and synchronize them with a supporting client application on your Mac, Windows PC and any iOS and Android device. The ease of use and integration with the platform almost eliminated the market for desktop (Mac and Windows) RSS reader clients.  

What happens now when Google Reader has its plugged pulled this summer?  We lose all of the conveniences afforded to us by Google Reader and we have no where to turn to at this point.

Marco Arment points out this may not be a bad thing:

Now, we’ll be forced to fill the hole that Reader will leave behind, and there’s no immediately obvious alternative. We’re finally likely to see substantial innovation and competition in RSS desktop apps and sync platforms for the first time in almost a decade. 

I think he’s right but at a cost.  All the RSS reader applications who use Google Reader will now need to scramble and retool with their own sync platform or work with others to create one that many can use.  It won’t be free to build, support and maintain.

Possible solutions do exist today but not really 100% replacements for Reader; both NewsBlur and Feedly have been mentioned but they seem to be having some scaling issues at the moment. 

It seems others, such as David Smith, envisioned something should be available that is not run by Google.  David announced last night that he is working on such a platform and has for months:

Feed Wrangler will be a paid, subscription based service. I believe the reason that Google turned its back on Reader and left its users hanging is that they were users not customers. I’m not interested in building a platform designed to attract as many users as possible and then work out how to sustain it later. I want to instead build something that is sustainable from Day 1. I want my customers to feel confident that they can expect this to be around long into the future. I want to build a relationship with them and make something they really, really love. 

I agree and this sums up my thoughts on free.  Free services are not good for its users in the long run, they’re not sustainable and the company operating the services has no real obligation to keep it going.  I like to give money to the services I use, it makes me feel good that the service I rely on will be there tomorrow.  I would have gladly given Google money for my Reader account, but they never asked.  It gives them an out.

I don’t trust Google will not shutdown other free services, such as Feedburner.  Those of you consuming free services probably should take this opportunity to take a look and reflect on what would happen if they went away.  How would you replace them?  Are there comparable services you could pay for that may be a more sustainable business model?  Entrepreneurs creating free services…do you think that’s the best way to go?  Me either.

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Mixergy and Jason Cohen – Best Business Advice Ever

Posted on April 19, 2012 Written by 1 Comment

I have been a long-time listener and viewer of Mixergy content and have to say it’s always top-notch.  Each interview I listen to always has a takeaway for me, always a useful nugget to try.  Andrew Warner, host and founder of Mixergy, recently talked with Jason Cohen of WP Engine.  This interview was over-the-top for me with all the goodness Jason shared.




For me, this interview had it all.  Jason discussed how he and his time started WP Engine but more importantly how they found customers before actually creating the product.  This is so important and seems to be to most difficult part of starting a business.  We developers tend to have an idea for a product, go out and create it and then sit back and wait for customers..who never come because you created something no one wanted.  Jason discusses and idea he had which potential customers did not want to pay for and he dropped it.  WP Engine was customer tested before it was conceived.

Jason found potential customers via LinkedIn:

The first one is, I’ll tell you how we did some tools for consultants, and I’ll tell you how I got a hold of those consultants and how I got them on the phone. It’s exactly what I did, and anyone can do this. You go to LinkedIn, and you search for the type of person that you want to interview. In this case it was WordPress Consultants, but you could say just people who have WordPress in their blog, you could say designers, you could say anything obviously, there’s something you can do on LinkedIn to roughly find them.

Then I simply went through anyone that I could find, and, of course, looked through their information a little to see if it would make sense. And I found people who were professionals, that is, they charge money for their time. Then, I contacted every one of them, which is easy, since, as they are consultants you can find them and their e-mail addresses and they answer it because that’s their sales line. So, it’s very easy to contact people who are professionals in the field. So, I would send an e-mail to each one, and this is what I’d say exactly. I’d say, “Hey, we’re thinking of building these new tools for WordPress.

You are exactly the kind of person who we’d want to use these tools. I would love to get your opinion on what you’re doing because it seems like you’re someone who’s doing something nice in the world and I care what you think. I also know that you’re a consultant and you have an hourly rate, and I’m happy to pay for your time, in fact, you can quote any rate you want since this is just a one off. If you want to charge $200 an hour for the one call, I’m okay with that because I’m not just trying to “pick your brain”, I will compensate you for your valuable time but I really want to know what you think.”

Here’s the result, I had 30 hours of interviews, because I literally logged them so I know. One hundred percent of them agreed to the interview, and one hundred percent of them said “Oh, you don’t have to pay me. This would be fine.” OK? This is why I’m saying anyone could do it. And, by the way, they didn’t really know who I was per se, because I didn’t come through a blog.

Discussion of the growing pains associated with WP Engine are discussed in detail, what worked and what didn’t.  If every business did this we would all learn so much.

This blog is hosted on WP Engine and I have seen those growing pains first hand.  During the early months it seemed this blog was down more than it was up.  Support at the company was what kept me from pulling the plug, fast response and even when they didn’t have an answer they were transparent and explained the issues were not resolved.  I’m sure I have needed more support than most others but each time WP Engine support is there, willing to help and solve the problem. This kept me as a customer.

Other areas which hit home that Jason discussed:

  • Partners
  • Transparency
  • Marketing
  • Contracting
  • Assistants
  • Giving Up

Anyone who has an idea or is struggling getting to the next level should take the time to listen to this interview, maybe even twice.  Take notes and try some things out.  I would call this episode a blueprint for business.

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How I Don’t Provide Customer Service

Posted on April 13, 2011 Written by 1 Comment

I recently bought a Mobee Magic Charger to stop having to replace the batteries in my Apple Magic Mouse so often.

I immediately had issues with the Magic Charger and figured I must have a possible defective unit because it should not work this way. I wrote up a blog post about my issues and submitted a support request to Mobee.

You can see below the Mobee Support Form asks the right questions, clearly taking my name:

Mobee support

My message submitted April 10th, stated my issues:

Hello,

I have just purchased a Magic Charger and having some issues. I put the mouse on the charger and the power light flashes green but never gets to a solid green light indicating the charge is complete. I have left the mouse on charge for over 24 hours and still blinking.

The charge level of the battery never goes above 76%.

It appears I may have a defective unit. I heard similar issues with the charge level not going above certain levels from other users.

How can these issues be resolved?

Thank you,
Robert Bazinet

And their response on April 12th:

Dear Customer,
Please make the following test:

- Remove the battery pack from the Magic Mouse and place it on top of the base station. Please confirm that the LED is blinking green ?

- Leave it during a full night on the base station, please confirm that the LED is now full green ?

It is normal if you seen a battery level of 76%.

You can fin the explanation on the link below:

http://www.mobeetechnology.com/support/faq/view-article/7-why-the-battery-level-displayed-in-osx-is-only-70-to-80-after-several-hours-on-the-base-station-.html

Thank you

The first thing that stuck in my mind is “Dear Customer”.  What?  They took my name in the support request form but don’t use it to address me.  This may sound picky but it really annoys me when companies do this.  Take the time to use my name, otherwise, don’t ask for it.  This tells me you really don’t give a damn about me but rather I am just a response in your customer support system.

Pro tip: If you have the customer’s name, use it.  If you have a customer support system beyond just email, learn how to use it.  If your support system won’t allow customizing emails, it sucks, replace it.

My two problems could have been addressed better.  The first one, “It is normal if you seen a battery level of 76%”, is a result of a poorly designed and implemented product.  How many support requests do you think Mobee gets on this one?  Well, enough to put in a FAQ.  As a product owner this would bug me until I engineered a way to make it go away.

The second problem where the Magic Charger seems to charge forever, never giving an indication it’s done.  So, based on the answer to issue #1, 70-something percent is normal, a full-charge should occur in some magic window of 70 to 80 percent.  Well, the batteries charge to that level but don’t get any higher yet the charger is still blinking.  The suggested solution to the problem is “Remove the battery pack from the Magic Mouse and place it on top of the base station.”.  Now, I may have missed something but I thought the purpose of the Mobee Magic Charger was to be more convenient?  If I need to remove the batteries to charge them, then why not just use regular AA rechargeable batteries?  They would certainly cost a lot less.

Rather than admit I might have a defective unit or apologize for a poor design, I need to remove the batteries from the mouse to charge them and know I have a full-charge at 70-something-percent.

As a product owner I would not ever handle support this way.  I always address the customer by their name, not some all-fitting title, offer a way that fixes the problem to their expectation OR offer to refund their money.  I think this is a pretty simple way of doing customer support, fix the problem or offer a refund.

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Running a Lifestyle Business – Tom Rossi Interview on Mixergy

Posted on January 7, 2011 Written by Leave a Comment

UPDATE: There is a really good discussion about the interview on Hacker News.  Check it out.

I really love listening to realistic entrepreneurs.  The ones with practical advice based on years of experience who can clearly explain why they chose their path.  This contrasts with the ones who are out to be the next Mark Zuckerberg.  I’m not saying it can’t happen, it just doesn’t happen to most of us, like winning the lottery or becoming President. 

The main goal taught by Amy Hoy in her 30×500 Launch class is finding a group of people willing to pay you $30 a month to solve a particular problem for them really well.   When you find 500 people paying $30 you have a nice annual income of $180,00, a nice chunk of change to service a small market.

A great example of this type of entrepreneur was featured recently in Mixergy’s great interview with Tom Rossi of Molehill.  Tom created such a business with a couple products where people pay him a small sum of money for each month.  Tom, in return, he has a great lifestyle business.

A lifestyle business, in my definition, is a business where you work from home and earn a healthy living where you can come and go as you please, making your own schedule. 

From the interview, Tom is asked if running a business is not about “millions and billions of dollars, then what is it about?”:

Well, I think it’s about life. Life isn’t found in those things. We can have all the money in the world, but what are we going to do with it? Where are we going to find happiness? And so, for us, my co-founder, Kevin Finn, and I, we went into it with the idea of we wanted our business to support us in life, not our life to support our business. And sometimes it’s hard for people to relate to that because they go into it with this idea of how can we make the most money, whereas we went in with how can I have the most freedom? All of our kids, each of us have three kids. They are not even in kindergarten. My oldest is in first grade. Most of them are younger than kindergarten, and we want to be there. We want to be around. We want to be in the house. We want to have freedom to be able to go up there for lunch or go on a field trip with our kids and things like that.

Listening to Tom’s story mirrors my goals and plans so closely that I found this interview especially valuable.  Please listen to his story and decide for yourself:

 
 
Tom is a seasoned entrepreneur who chose a lifestyle business over one chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I see so many folks trying to be the next Facebook or Google but failing to realize the odds of hitting that lottery are very small.  The path Tom takes, which resembles mine in so many ways, is doing work you love while making a decent living and being afforded the time to enjoy life.
 
I think many entrepreneurs realize it is better to make a good living doing something you love which gives you the time for the other great parts of your life.

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2010 Year in Review and Looking Ahead

Posted on January 6, 2011 Written by 7 Comments

I don’t always do these types of posts and I almost didn’t this year but I figured it would help keep my thoughts together to reflect on later.

2010 was a really busy year and there was very little rest.

Expens’d

It has been just over a year since I acquired Expens’d from Atlantic Dominion Solutions.  The past year has really been about understanding the application, how people are using it and fixing some obvious bugs that plagued my users.  We added several new features requested by users but did not add the features I am dying to tell you about.  Unfortunately, I can’t say just yet what is being added but it will be great for our users.

Subscribers are continuing to increase, both paid and free accounts.  Advertising consisted of Bing, Google Ads and Facebook Ads.  I was surprised to find Bing brought in the most new users.  I don’t have exact numbers just yet.

Running a Software-as-a-service (SaaS) project is interesting and exciting, I have learned a lot in the past year and plan to share the details as we move forward.

Ruby on Rails

My complete move to Ruby on Rails and especially Rails 3 is almost complete.  I have one client remaining who I still provide consulting services to who is a .NET shop.  Once this project completes in 2011, my .NET career will come to a final end.

Rails 3 has really been a joy to work with, not in a single aspect but in the areas the team improved.  The areas which annoyed me in Rails 2.x are mostly rewritten and the pleasure continues.

I think Rails 3 is going to be a huge turning point for the Rails community.  This version could lead to better adoption in the enterprise and other organizations unsure of the platform.

An Epiphany

I would say about halfway through the year I came to realization that no matter how great it was to work with Ruby on Rails or any programming language and framework is, client work is not the joy it once was to me.

Since that time in the summer, I have been diligently working toward becoming 100% reliant on products.  These products include both web applications and mobile applications mainly targeting small businesses.  I continue to look for products to acquire which fit in with my plans.  If you know someone looking to sell, send them my way.

The transitions to 100% products is not as simple as flipping a switch, it takes time and planning.  My goal is transition complete by the end of the year.

All of my current products and projects are now Rails, future products will also Rails.  As consulting work winds down I will set some time aside to work on selected consulting projects that are particularly interesting.

Mobile Exploration

After purchasing a Motorola Droid X earlier this year and hearing how Android is gaining such market share I had to see what the hype was about.  I rejoined the Apple iPhone developer program and the Android Marketplace to make sure I had the latest information and tools.

Spending several weeks with both platforms to expose myself to iOS 4 and Android development I came back with an initial gut feel where my tolerance for risk versus the state of each platform and determined Android was not ready for prime time yet.  It is not as polished, tools are weak and making a reasonable living is a lot harder than with iOS.

This set my course from a mobile standpoint that I would focus on Objective-C on iOS and leave Android for another time, a more mature time.

The Year Ahead

I attended only one conference in 2010, which was RailsConf in the first half of the year.  I hope to change that in 2011.  I will be attending RailsConf again but want to take in some smaller, regional technical conferences as well as some business-related ones as well.  Maybe the Business of Software Conference this year.

2011 will be a year of transition from consulting to a products company.  I plan to blog more here about running a software company, some technical stuff but mainly about the factors behind technical decisions.  Some will be code, some will be me blathering on.

I have some ideas for other products to develop this year and some significant plans for Expens’d.  The journey will likely not be taken alone as one person cannot do it all, cannot know it all.

I am looking forward to this journey, things will certainly get exciting.

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