2009 was a very interesting year, a year of some realization and a year which helped lay the foundation for the year ahead and hopefully the future.
I decided to document here a bit of what I have on my mind for 2010, not New Years Resolutions, I hate those and never do them. I have gained a fair following of loyal readers over the years and think of you as family, so I thought I would share with my blog family.
Freelancing
As I said in my previous post, I have been freelancing for many years and in 2009 I realized the ability and desire to continue with freelancing as a full-time endeavor was difficult. I will not be pursuing freelancing full-time in 2010 and as the year progresses I see the time spent freelancing to be less and less.
I will continue to work with selected clients as I have a vested interest in their success. In time I imagine their need for my services will be less and less.
I will be open for consulting opportunities with the possibility of part-ownership in a product and/ or for projects that need help figuring out difficult problems in areas I have expertise in but not limited to .NET to Rails migrations as well as scalable ecommerce systems.
Products
Even before I was in college I have always wanted to have an idea for a product, develop it, successfully market it and support it. I have been involved in a product company in the past but not my own individual ideas. I am sure this sounds self-serving, and it is, but there comes a time when we need to decide what is important and do it.
So, my goal is to primarily be a product company by the end of 2010. The company is Still River Software Company, LLC, which has been the umbrella I have been providing freelance services for the past 3.5 years.
Things are progressing nicely in a couple of exciting areas, so new product announcements will be coming soon. Very soon, but not just yet.
Blogging
I have not blogged a lot lately, been too busy with the business side of life. I will be blogging here, mainly about technology trends and my usual odd opinions about some aspects of technology and may begin to add some business writing as well which covers certain aspects of running a software company.
I will also be opening up a new blog for Still River Software which will discuss very company-specific information, including product releases and such. I will announce it here when it’s ready, please check it out.
Conferences
I have not attended as many conferences as I hoped to in 2009, the ones I did attend were developer-related, mainly Ruby. In 2010 I intend to attend more conferences but probably more in line with running a business or software company more specifically. I hope to see you there.
So, I hope the ride is nice and I hope I can report back great success at the end of the year, I certainly expect it.