The Less Everything blog, from the makers of LessAccounting, covers bootstrapped web app startups, conversion, and business models.
HN commenters link it for a Derek Sivers talk on business models, the bootstrapping rules post, and brand essays, with one recommending the Sivers talk highly.
I have some experience with this. My old company did a bespoke type project for a 40,000 person company with a small footprint of developers.
- 30,000 people means they have deep pockets.
- 14 days is how many man hours? You can do one of two things: 1. Charge by fixed pricing (which may put you in the hole if it goes past 14 days...humans are terrible at planning things so this is not always the right choice) 2. Charge by hour with the assumption of "Time and Materials" basis. [1] Remember - companies like this WILL come back to you when something doesn't look right.
- If you want to charge support you could consider this possibility: Hire up a junior guy who's only job is to support the system. Spend time ramping him up while you are actually supporting the customer. Charge the customer what the cost of that junior person requires (and maybe a very small margin). This is a great starting point for then being able to build out a future practice. Some may argue to make a larger profit margin here, but you could get push-back on price from the customer.
- Think about bundling hosting and support as a whole entity. Nota bene - For a 30,000 person type company you will face major IT challenges. Many large companies require strict security regulations. In many cases they will require to go through loads and loads of lawyers and IT people. Big client customers will always require crazy security things like this: http://mediatemple.net/company/technology.php
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when you're writing HAML, you're programming more and marking up less . . .If you like programming and you don't like writing markup, then the advantage is you have more fun.
I second that. I used Sinatra and HAML when I wrote Feedstomper.com and the whole thing just felt lighter and more fun than some Rails apps I've written (when I was also using erb).
Granted, the whole concept was lighter than those apps, but still -- I like HAML.
One issue: sometimes you can stumble over javascript:
http://b.lesseverything.com/2008/2/19/haml-doesn-t-like-javascript
Oh, and if you're interested in Sinatra (and why not, while we're waiting on Mrailerbs), you can learn it from just this page:
http://github.com/bmizerany/sinatra/tree/master
Derek, you've been a huge inspiration for me, but I remember hearing you say at a conference that your employees started to hate you a while after working remotely -- to the point that you shutoff the website for a few hours to realize you needed to sell the company.
Do you have any thoughts on what can be done to keep rappore up amongst employees in the office while still working remotely?
NOTE: sorry I don't remember where you said it, might've been towards the end of your lessconf presentation http://b.lesseverything.com/2010/2/3/derek-sivers-speaks-at-lessconf2009
Ooops, I didn't see the link to the original (http://b.lesseverything.com/2008/4/30/rules-for-business); thanks for pointing it out.
I don't agree that it's spam though. The rationale is that you get the content in your RSS reader without having to follow the link.
Derek Sivers speaking about business and profit models:
http://b.lesseverything.com/2010/2/3/derek-sivers-speaks-at-lessconf2009
This is a great talk by Derek, I highly recommend it.
I totally agree!
http://b.lesseverything.com/2010/3/30/brand-is-the-aftermath-of-your-actions