Software Side Roads

I have a number of projects in the pipeline. The first to come out will be a Rhino3D plugin to aid in CAD and model review. To all external appearances, it’s a simple little form which opens up upon command and tells you some important things about whatever pieces of the model you happen to be interested in. It’s a bit more complicated than that behind the scenes, and that’s even before trying to turn it into a business.

I’ve been close to software projects and businesses for all of my professional life, even when I was working on projects that didn’t involve shipping software. Nevertheless, I still envisioned the creation of a sole proprietorship selling software as consisting of two pieces:

• The software
• The business

While the list is technically accurate, it’s also incredibly misleading because the first item is mostly self contained while the second involves a wide mix of skills and dependencies on other individuals and companies. I could arguably write my own web page framework; I’m not going to found a credit card processing site.

I will probably expand on the software line item at various other times: design, development, testing, more testing, improvements, more testing, and so on.

The second item, ‘the business’, is the focus of this article, and when I say focus the point I’m emphasizing is that it needs to be a wide focus. No doubt any MBA-type who might chance to read this will be thinking ‘silly dev, what did he think he was getting into’ at about this point.

Here’s the expanded list, so far- and I haven’t even launched yet with payment processing being the major slow item:

• The software – “All I have to do is…” That’s not to say it’s easy, but for a startup it’s generally a self-contained group with no outside dependencies. Further, the designer gets to define the scope. The scope and initial features may not be perfectly selected, but they should be within the core skill set of the designer and dev.
• The business
  • Website
    • Domain – choose (falcatagroup.com)
    • Domain – purchase
    • Hosting
      • Choose a host (pair.com)
      • Pick a framework (wordpress)
    • Logo
      • Find artist
      • Discuss concept and important elements to include
      • Iterate
    • Background-type images (got lucky, I was taking pictures around this time which turned out to be suitable)
    • Find webmaster (marsolaisphotography.com)
    • Discuss requirements
    • Set up hosting so the webmaster has the ‘keys’
    • Wait for results (Hey, this one wasn’t a work item for me!)
  • Supporting materials
    • Instruction manual
    • Screenshots
    • Demo video(s)
      • Write a suggested script
      • Find someone to revise it
      • Find someone to do the voiceover: the actual dev will probably be poor in pacing and delivery for a user audience unfamiliar with the product
  • Ability to accept money- rather important!
    • Find a payment processor (I chose Digital River, which is a merchant of record meaning that I also get to cross “get merchant bank account” and “find someone to handle sales/VAT/etc. taxes off of my list)
    • Apply with Digital River
    • Set up an online store with them (including license keys for purchase fulfilment)
      • Images
      • Product naming
      • Packaging/offers such as bulk discounts
    • Set up payment information
    • Finalize – this is proving difficult as they ask for more information, such as tax records for the past three years of a business which didn’t exist until recently
  • Find beta test(ers)
  • Set up an online ticketing system to handle support, technical and sales questions (I’m trying FreshDesk)
    • Set up account
    • Set up email addresses and other contact information
    • Customize form letters
    • Configure basic flow (what events generate what types of notification to which parties, …)
  • Plan marketing and advertising
  • Plan pricing and sales

With all of that said, I still haven’t completed the end to end process of delivering product and being able to accept payment for it.

I hope that gives a better sense of perspective regarding how the load feels when moving from a company with support for other roles to being much more directly responsible for each piece of a functioning business entity.