Yours Truly is in the Press Again
Last week I made another appearance in the papers, this time in the Ottawa Business Journal. It’s a two page spread of an interview of me by the journalist Julie Fortier. I would have posted about it sooner but unfortunately last week was just insane for me.
The article is an interview about me and my company LandlordMax Property Management Software. Questions such as how I started the company, how I market it, what the main differentiators are, and so on. Overall it’s a very nice and well written article. Thank you Julie.
In addition to the article, if you look on the right side of the picture above there are two boxes. Each one contains an expert panelist commenting on the article. In my case they focused on my comments about customer service. On how important it is to get feedback about your business and product, and how it’s crucial to use this information to grow them,. This is exactly what we do.
Unfortunately for those of you interested in getting a physical copy, it’s too late. I took too long to post this article and therefore you can no longer find local copies. That being said, I will try and get you the link to the online version as soon as I can.
Thank you again Julie for the positive article!
**Update: You can read the full article here.
Permalink to this article Discussions (10)
What Does it Take to have a Successful Blog?
A while ago I posted that I intended to write a book about Marketing and Sales For Small Online Businesses. Since starting this blog I’ve been continually bombarded with questions on what’s the key to my success for both my blog and my company LandlordMax. Honestly, I have to thank a lot of people for my success. For example I’ve gotten so many amazing tips from online bloggers that I can’t even come close enough to expressing my thanks. There are a lot of great people out there and it pays to listen them when they speak.
And because of that I decided to alter the topic of my first book to something more along the lines of “Ask the Pros: What Does it Take to Create a Successful Blog” (I’m still debating the title). Rather than just focus on what I’ve personally learned, I thought it would be more interesting and informative to get advice from many of the greatest bloggers on the internet today. To let the biggest and best bloggers tell you what’s made them successful. What they believe it means to be successful. How they achieved it. And so on.
Some of the interview questions I’ve been asking as part of the interviews include:
- Which websites would you recommend for any new bloggers starting to blog?
- What’s your biggest tip on writing a successful blog post?
- Which marketing tactic has surprised you the most in terms of its effectiveness?
- What’s your most interesting story related to your blog and blogging experience?
- and so on…
So far 18 people have either expressed very high interest or have already fully committed to being interviewed. Many of these bloggers have more than a 100,000 unique visitors per month in traffic! What’s truly amazing is that I’ve only sent out the invitations for the interviews this week and the replies have been overwhelmingly positive. The response rate to my initial email has been in the strong double digits. I have no doubt this book is going to be a great success!
I’m very excited about this project. It’s going to be a great book with lots of amazing information. I can’t wait to see it in print and listed on Amazon!
Permalink to this article Discussions (6)
Is it Possible to Predict When a Market will Crash?
Every once in a while a specific blog comment will elicit a full article rather than a simple blog comment response. Recently Andy Brice from Successful Software (founder of Perfect Table Plan) wrote such a comment on my recent blog entry Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crisis:
“Interesting. I’m expecting the insane UK housing market to level off or crash any time now. But I’ve been saying that for the last 5 years…”
Andy is a very smart person whose blog I regularly read (and sometimes comment on). Whose opinion I respect. In this case I absolutely agree with him. I’ve been saying the same thing for North America for some time now, as is evident even in my first month of blogging over two years ago here on FollowSteph.com.
The interesting part of his comment is that he (myself included) know just how hard it is to accurately predict a full economic shift from mania to bust. It’s easy enough to see when we’re in a mania; the fundamental economic principles no longer govern asset prices. But what’s hard is to predict when the general public will realize this. It’s just like the Tulip Bulb boom of long ago; as long as there’s a bigger “sucker” willing to pay more for the asset (in that case rare tulip bulbs) the prices are going to keep increasing.
But now comes the reality. Again it’s not possible to exactly predict when a boom or bust will actually happen, it’s easy to predict when we’re in a boom or bust phase. If the economic fundamental no longer justify the prices then we’re in for either a bust (overly priced as is today) or a boom (under priced as often happens when people overcompensate after a depression). The bigger the discrepancy the bigger the boom or bust.
The good news is that although we can’t accurately predict the exact time a bust will happen, we can still accurately predict when it’s a good time to get in and out at a profit. As Benjamin Graham expresses in his book The Intelligent Investor, as long as you’re buying your asset for less than the real value (intrinsic value) and selling it at a higher price than the real value you’re ahead. He doesn’t show you how to maximize your profit, he just helps you identify how much your asset is overpriced or under priced. No one can accurately tell you when an asset has reached its maximum price (over valuation), that’s speculating on you knowing and understanding the publics psyche which no one can do.
To put it in other words, asset (stocks, real estate, etc.) prices will always shift above and below their true economic value (known as intrinsic value). If you buy them for less than their intrinsic value you’re ahead. If you sell them for more than their intrinsic value you’re ahead. The key to investing is not to try to buy assets at their lowest price and then sell them at their highest price, no one can do this. It would be amazing if that were possible, but it’s not.
What does this all lead to? Well over time an asset can only deviate so much above or below its intrinsic (real) value before it has to re-align itself (adjust its price back to a reasonable value). Right now, at least in North America for sure, prices of real estate properties have deviated significantly above their intrinsic value, so much so that they are now correcting themselves and trying to re-adjust to their intrinsic value. And don’t think we’re there yet, they’ve still got a lot of re-adjusting to do. I expect significantly more fallout before it stabilizes. As a very basic general rule of thumb, a real estate investment property should generate you at least a yearly revenue of 10% of the purchase price (including all costs – renovations, closing costs, etc.). Right now we’re not even close to this, many properties are running at negative cash flow values! This isn’t sustainable.
Knowing this however doesn’t mean you can’t profit from the boom and bust cycles. All it means is that if you buy assets in the under priced area of the above graph and sell in the overpriced areas you should be able to consistently make profits and protect yourself. The “margin of safety” is generally considered to be the discrepancy between the actual price and the intrinsic value – that is how much the asset is under priced. The further off you from the intrinsic value you are, the bigger the profit potential and the closer you are to the max and min’s of the boom and bust cycles. Of course you need to be extremely careful the further away you are from the intrinsic value, especially for overpriced assets, because when the adjustment happens it will be faster and more volatile!
It’s possible to consistently achieve respectable profits, all you need to do is look at the intrinsic value to know when to get in and out. Although sometimes it may take years for an assets actual price to at least come back to it’s intrinsic value, it eventually does. But as Andy’s comment suggests, knowing when a market has peaked is hard to predict. He already knew that the intrinsic value was no longer aligned with the actual price of the asset (in this case real estate), but he still couldn’t know when the adjustment would occur. No one can!
Permalink to this article Discussions (8)
Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crisis
Are we doomed to repeat history? Unfortunately yes! The book Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crisis originally written in 1978, now on it’s fifth edition (2005), clearly illustrates just how predictable we are:
“The end of a period of rising prices for assets to distress whenever a significant number of investors have based their purchases of these assets on the anticipation that their prices will continue to increase. Some of these investors may have a ‘negative carry’ in that the interest rates on the funds borrowed to buy the assets exceed the cash income on the assets; these investors anticipated that they would be able to use the increase in value of the asset as collateral for new loans that would proved them with some of the cash that they would need to pay the interest on the outstanding loans. When asset prices stop increasing, these investors are shunted into distress mode since they have no ready way to get the cash they need to pay the interest on their outstanding indebtedness.”
And what about:
“Causes of distress and the symptoms of distress are observed at the same time and include sharply rising interest rates in some or all segments of the capital market, an increase in the interest rates paid by sub-prime borrowers relative to the interest rates paid by prime borrowers, a sharp depreciation of the currency in the foreign exchange market, an increase in bankruptcies, and an end of the price increases in commodities, securities, and real estate. These developments are often related and show that the lenders have become over-extended and are trying to reduce their exposure to risks and especially to large risks.”
Sound familiar to anyone? And to think this was written years ago and it’s repeating itself yet another time. History does repeat itself.
The good news is that if you educate yourself you can come out ahead. And this is why I strongly recommend the book Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crisis. It’s a pretty intense book written using somewhat verbose and specific economic terms, as you’ve probably already noticed from the quotes above. Therefore if you’re not familiar with economics and business expect it to take a bit longer. But overall the information is excellent and very viable. And although I believe myself to be fairly well versed in economics and business, this book sure brought home some points I hadn’t fully appreciated. A very good read. Well worth your time.
Permalink to this article Discussions (4)
Founders At Work
I recently had the very fortunate chance of reading Founder at Work: Stories of Startup’s Early Days by Jessica Livingston. What can I say, it’s a great book! I had problems putting it down. It’s filled with non-stop stories of how people started their software companies. Jessica was able to get interviews with so many great founders that it’s amazing the book wasn’t any longer (and too bad).
Each story was great on their own, but some always stick out more than others. For me personally, I really appreciated James Hong’s story of how Hot or Not was founded. I had heard of that site when the internet was a new thing, but I didn’t realize just everything that went into it. His parents even got involved in trying to filter out inappropriate images at some point. He explains to his dismay that he realized this, and then what he did to solve it. For that particular company, in the beginning they were really flying by the seat of your pants. Jessica’s writing is definitely able to convey their crazy roller coaster ride, you really feel what they went through.
Others that stuck out to me where Max Levchin’s Paypal story. Steve Perlman’s story of how they founded WebTv. Caterina Fake’s story of Flickr. The list just goes on. Every story is interesting. In reality there’s not a single founding story I can say I didn’t thoroughly enjoy. Jessica really has a talent for pulling the best out of the people she interviews.
The best news of all about this book is that according to her Channel 9 interview, she’s in the works to create a sequel to this already great book. I can’t wait for it to come out. I’ll definitely be one of the first to pickup a copy.
And if you haven’t already read Founder At Work, you should definitely get a copy.
** Update: You can goto Jessica’s Founder At Work Blog by clicking here.
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
Which is Riskier? Owning a Business or Being an Employee?
Many people have different ideas of which is riskier. For the majority of people, starting a business is much riskier than getting a job. For me the opposite is true.
With a job, you have one customer, your boss. If at any point you happen to displease your customer (ie. your boss) you can terminated. If the company runs out of money, have no doubt that they will terminate your position. Remember, it’s not personal it’s business. Just like if you use a maid service and you run out of money, that service will be one of the first financial cuts you make. You might love their service, but if you can’t pay for it you will terminate the service.
As an employee you’re income is limited. We’re not talking about the great tax breaks you get as a business owner, but you’re salary increases. Unless you’re on commission, which few people are, any increase in salary you receive is dictated by your boss, or your boss’s boss, and so on. You cannot control this, it’s completely up to the company you work for whether or not you get an increase. On top of that, it will never be beyond a certain cap.
But more than that, I often hear people talk about how amazing safe their job is. The most common comment, at least here in Ottawa, is that if you work for the government you’re good for life. Do you really think so? Just like any other institution, be it a business or a government entity, you’re job is only guaranteed as long as money is allocated to your department, project, etc. Governments sometimes have to slash spending. Although it may often appear as though they have unlimited resources, they don’t.
No job is 100% sure. Just look at the recent headlines from Ottawa here where they’re considering terminating 500 government jobs. These 500 people may have thought they had very secure jobs, but they no longer do.
With a business you have more than one customer, you have many. If you’re a consultant, you have many clients. If you sell products, each person you sell to is another client. For LandordMax, we have many customers (each person who buys the software is another customer).
Although we really hate to miss out on customers, it’s possible that someone doesn’t buy the software because they no longer have the budget for it. That they ran out of money. Maybe they hired an accountant, a property manager (who may have in turn purchased LandlordMax). The reality is that we can survive the loss of a customer, or several customers. Our risk is spread over our total customer base, not just with one big customer (a boss or company). The more customers you have, the lower your risk is as a business. As an employee, with very few rare exceptions, you’re risk is very high, it’s focused on the needs of only one or two people (your company and your boss).
Now I ask you, which is riskier?
Permalink to this article Discussions (2)
LandlordMax Mac Version Update
A while back I talked about possibly offering a Mac version of LandlordMax. We bought all the necessary hardware, started work on it, we were very excited. If you follow this blog you’ll already know that after some time we ran into a few roadblocks. Nothing that insurmountable, we just got to a point where the cost to benefit ratio (the development costs versus the potential revenue) didn’t work anymore. It wasn’t that we were converting the system, it’s that there were certain UI (user interface) issues we didn’t know how to program on the Mac. Our knowledge is mainly Windows UI programming.
Therefore we ended up having to postpone the Mac version so nothing was moving. Then suddenly out of the blue Werner Randelshofer from the Quaqua Look and Feel posted a comment on my article LandlordMax Mac Version. I quickly replied and asked if he would be interested in helping us. This eventually led to an off-line discussion by email.
Before I go on, let me tell you how much of a stand-up person Werner is. We basically asked what it would take to have him help us, possibly even offering a small contract (you can even see this in comments for the article). For someone with his know-how of the Java Swing language on the Mac, this would have been easy for him to make a quick buck. It reminds me of the story I recently read on Friday Reflections, which to quickly paraphrase (and I’m doing the story proper justice here), it’s not the actual work effort that’s valuable it’s knowing where and what to do. Anyways, Werner instead suggested that he would be happy if “it contributes to the final solution for LandlordMax“. And that just an Amazon gift certificate or a bottle wine would be great. Thank you Werner, I really value you’re beneficence, it’s very appreciated. A lot of salespeople might groan at his beneficence, but you know what, it’s because of it that I’m sitting here today in front of my computer writing so positively about him and Quaqua.
Although I’m sure he never thought about it when he decided to help us (I have no doubt he was acting altruistically), he’ll probably get more benefit from his beneficence than had he charged us a very high quick one time bill. Firstly, we might not have taken him up on his offer (we already turned down one person who tried this tactic). And secondly as you can already see he’s getting his name out. He never asked to be written about, in fact he never even mentioned it. This is coming directly from me to show my appreciation. It’s my personal recommendation. And not only am I recommending him as a professional Mac Java Swing developer but I’m also recommending his product Quaqua. By the way Quaqua is free so there’s absolutely no reason you shouldn’t look at using it if you’re writing a Java Swing program for the Mac. On top of recommending him publicly, if we ever need more help with the future Mac version of LandlordMax I won’t hesitate to contact him. Who knows what this might lead to…
Therefore because of Werner’s contribution, we’re re-allocating back some of our efforts to working on the Mac version of LandlordMax. We definitely won’t be releasing a version 3.11 for the Mac, but hopefully the next major release of LandlordMax will be fully Mac supported. So let’s see where this journey leads us…
Permalink to this article Discussions (4)
Ya Gotta Love Innovative Advertising
Last week when I had a few moments to waste I went to the local Timmies and picked up one of those free local real estate magazines, the ones showing all the latest listings (in this particular case it was Homes & Land). Anyways, as I was perusing through the magazine, one page in particular caught my attention. Actually not a page, but an ad. I looked at it two to three times before I realized what was happening, which is very amazing. I thought I had circled it myself, but in reality it was part of the ad.
Click here to see the full page ad
Now some of you might think this is misdirection, in-proper, just not right. Possibly. I won’t argue here whether or not it’s right, but what I will say is that it really got my attention. It made me think I had circled that particular listing, so I paid a lot more attention to it. I looked at it a few times trying to see why I would’ve circled it. And remember at the time I didn’t have a pen in hand, I had just gotten the magazine. And I also wasn’t looking for any real estate properties. That’s effective advertising!
In a magazine that has many listings, this one particular really caught my attention. Enough that I looked at the property in detail. If my guess is right, the property that was circle was intentionally selected for some reason or other by the real estate agent. This was her main property to move for this issue of the magazine. And I’m sure it worked. I’ll even try to contact her (Shirley Charbonneau) as soon as I’m done writing this article to follow-up and see just how effective this advertising tactic really is. Personally I’m sure it very effective.
Which leads me to the moral of today’s story. Even in a sea of ads if you’re smart you can quickly draw attention to your ad. It doesn’t always need to be splashy, in your face, the largest, the most expensive, or what have you. You just have to be smart about it, creative. You have to come up with an innovative way of doing something a little differently that will draw people’s attention to you. Congratulations to you Shirley on doing just this!
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
Book Recommendation: On Writing Well
Since I started FollowSteph.com about two years I’ve been reading a lot on how to improve the quality of my writing. So far the best resource I’ve ever come across is the book On Writing Well – The Classic Guide to Writing Non-Fiction by William Zinsser. If you haven’t already read a copy, you absolutely should! This book is amazing and filled with great advice that will improve your writing skills.
I’ve only read it a month ago and already I’ve applied many of the suggestions he offers. This is not saying that I’m a great writer, only that I can always improve myself and this book has clearly shown me some great ways to achieve this. Sometimes his advice is subtle and other times it can be so obvious that you can’t understand why you never saw it.
On my last blog entry How to Write Out Your Domain Name, I made several edits directly attributable to this book. For example the beginning of the last paragraph of the blog entry starts with: “It’s only a matter of time before uppercasing each word in a domain becomes the standard…”. In my first draft I had started it with “I’m willing to bet that it’s only a matter…”. I changed it because in On Writing Well the author suggests:
“Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident”.
I couldn’t agree more. If you look at the last draft it’s much more powerful without the “I’m willing to bet that” beginning. It’s obvious when you read it, but I doubt I would have noticed it if it wasn’t for the book. After all, we all do it, it’s just that the book brings it to your attention. It’s part of evolving your writing and making it better. Learning something each day.
As another example, in the second paragraph I state “Back in the old day, which in internet time is less than a decade ago, everyone wrote out their domain names in all lowercase.” Before having read the book On Writing Well I would have finished this sentence with an exclamation mark, mostly to get across the light humor I embedded in the sentence. However after reading this suggestion from William I decided not to:
“Also resist using an exclamation point to notify the reader that you are making a joke or being ironic. … Readers are annoyed by your reminder that this was a comical moment. They are also robbed of the pleasure of finding it funny on their own. Humor is best achieved by understatement, and there’s nothing subtle about an exclamation point.”
Although not everything he says should be taken as a rule, which even William himself states, I really respect his advice. He offers examples for each of his suggestions to show the difference. More importantly though, is that when I now read other authors I really enjoy, I notice some of these suggestions in their writing. A great example of how to properly embed humor in your content is just about anything written by Joel Spolsky from Joel On Software. He does exactly what William suggests, he doesn’t force out the comedy, it lets the reader pick it up on their own.
These aren’t the only tips the book offers, it’s loaded with great advice on how to improve your writing skills, be it for blogging, business, etc. What I’ve described above is just two small examples of many that I learned from reading On Writing Well. If you haven’t already read it, I strongly suggest you do.
Permalink to this article Discussions (0)
What am I up to?
The short answer? A LOT! Seriously, I’m overloaded with things to do. There’s a lot going on here alone at LandlordMax. Lots of things going on behind the scenes, lots that’s already been publicized here through this blog, and a lot extra curricular items as well. Today I’m going to make a list of it all. Mostly the reason I’m writing it here is because I’m asked so frequently that it gets too long to say it all. “Lots” just doesn’t work anymore as an answer. So here goes:
LandlordMax – Version 3.11d
We’re planning to release an updated version of LandlordMax (version 3.11d) later this week. This is an updated version of the main 3.11 version and includes a few bug fixes.
The first and largest is a fix for Windows Vista and user access control (UAC). UAC is a new feature introduced by Microsoft for Windows Vista that is causing a lot of people grief with a lot of software, including LandlordMax. This update is going to specifically address this issue. It’s not a complete solution, we’re working with Microsoft to “properly” code where the database of LandlordMax should be stored on your computer. but for now this will correctly deal with this issue.
As well, this release also fixes a few other minor issues. For example one is a small error in the vacancy report when you have an evicted tenant assigned to a unit at the same time as a “current” tenant (the unit appears as vacant when it has a actually has a “current” tenant).
This update is already finished, we’re just in the final testing phase. I suspect it will be available within the next few days.
LandlordMax – Website Re-Design
We’re working very hard on redesigning the LandlordMax website to make it friendlier as well as better selling. I’ve been reading (and re-reading) a lot about web usability and sales & marketing. and there are many improvements we can make. For example we’re going to move away from using so many colors on the main page to instead using whitespace more effectively.
As well we’re hoping to address many of the same pre-sales questions we continually get. One of our most common question is how to implement re-curring accounting entries (rents, mortgages, etc.). Although the software does a great job of it, it’s not always obvious to everyone (especially if you come from another software and expect us to behave in exactly the same way). We currently have an animated tutorial that walks you through the process but it’s only available in the View new features in version 3.11c. With the re-design all such pre-sales animated tutorials will be available on the home page. Basically we’re doing a lot of cleanup to try to answer as many of our pre-sales questions on the home page as possible (without cluttering up the page). All at the same time trying to make everything easier to do.
We’re also hoping to add a lot more screenshots on the main page. Or at least what we call “shorts”. These are cut-outs of screenshots which showcase something. At the very least, if we can’t put a screenshot, we’ll put a link to one or an animated tutorial, whenever we state something. So for example if we say “Easily show a list of tenant’s that are late paying rent” we’ll either link it to a “How-to” or an animated tutorial.
The re-design is going to happen in three phases. The first is going to be a large revamping of the website, especially the home page. In phase one, we’re not going to really change our shopping cart, that going to be pushed to phase two. I’d rather release phase one sooner than wait for phase two to be done. Why wait? So phase one is all about the home page and the new look and feel.
Phase two will be all about the shopping cart. We’re hoping to drastically reduce the number of choices, go from six choices to one with a few “options” (for example shipping). We’re also hoping to refactor the shopping cart for some future additions and options.
Phase three will be the completion, cleaning up the rest. This includes updating the user manual the FAQ, and so on. Adding a lot of animated tutorials. Basically enhancing the content.
LandlordMax – Version 4.xx
We’re also working on the next major release of LandlordMax! We’re hoping it will be available before the end of the year, at least that’s the plan.
The list of new major features for this version has changed quite substantially since we initially started working on it. For example, we anticipated offering QuickBooks support but that’s been postponed to another future version. The costs to benefit just doesn’t align right now. Integrating with QuickBooks is just too expensive and time consuming as compared to the number of requests. We even looked at purchasing third party components to alleviate this but we’ve only had limited success. We’ve already spent a significant amount of time and money on this feature and its unfortunate to have to postpone it again. I’m just glad we’re able to avoid the “sunk cost effect“.
One feature though that’s looking like it will make it into the next major version is check printing. Although its not official yet, and nor will it be until it’s completed (remember our QuickBooks experience), we’re making some good progress here. Another major feature that we’re pushing for is integration with Outlook. Being able to pull out your contacts, put in new ones from LandlordMax, send emails, etc. There’s obviously more, but for now that should give you an idea.
We also have quite a large list of smaller changes we’re planning to implement. Simple things such as having the lease automatically fill in the tenant’s building for you rather than having to re-input it when possible. In other words many many UI improvements. My feeling is that this version will have fewer new major features and instead it will overwhelm you with sheer number of significant UI improvements. Things that will make your life simpler all around.
LandlordMax – Mac version
This version has currently been postponed. We use to get a lot of Mac requests but recently they seem to have fallen (not sure why). We did have a large push for a Mac version, we bought all the necessary Mac hardware to go forward, and so on. We got quite a ways forward but then we hit a few roadblocks (code and image conversion costs). Nothing insurmountable, but enough that I’ve decided to postpone this effort because of the cost to benefit ratio. I really do like the Mac, I’m actually working on a Mac right now that was purchased specifically for the Mac version. Unfortunately Mac support has been postponed. We just have too many other higher priority items. I don’t have the time to manage an outsourced resource to solve our remaining issues. So for now this is on hold.
LandlordMax – Real Estate Analyzer
On the LandlordMax website we currently offer a free real estate analyzer as a traffic generating tool. When we launched it I mentioned on this blog that I’d like to expand it, possibly offering a more advance paid option (maybe even integrating it with LandlordMax). We’re looking into this.
LandlordMax – Browser Based Version
Probably the biggest item here today! We’ve been really really wanting to do this for over a year now, almost two really! We actually almost started the whole thing as a web application. Anyways, our interest in offering LandlordMax as a web application or online service has been increasing with time as more and more people keep asking us about it; they love the software but need a networked multi-user version.
So far we’ve done a lot of research and prototypes to see which path we want to take. My personal training and experience is with J2EE, so I’m a little biased this way. Before I start a holy programming language war, I’d just like to say that J2EE done right can perform very fast and not hog all your resources. The problem is many people don’t do it right, they often try to over engineer everything which is bad.
In any case, just because I’m J2EE biased it doesn’t mean it’s the right solution for us as a produce or company. The reality is that we’re probably going to build it as a PHP based web application. This decision wasn’t easy, it took a lot of time and effort.
The quick of it was that J2EE let us share the current code base (huge factor). It gives us an amazing path to AJAX support (IceFaces – if you’ve worked with it you know what I mean by how impressive their AJAX support truly is). And I know J2EE very well.
The downside is that if we offer it as a web application rather than just as a service, hosting will be an issue for many people (few hosting providers offer J2EE hosting). We looked at Ruby on Rails and decided against it for this very same reason. PHP removes this very large hurdle (don’t try to downplay it, hosting options are a very important factor). PHP is pretty much available everywhere. We can re-use a decent percentage of our code base (at least the SQL queries which are often times pretty complex to figure out). But what really got me excited about PHP is CodeIgniter and their framework. I’m very impressed by it!
Of course just looking at a framework is not the same as really using it. So we’ve since built 3 small trial web applications. This is where WhichJar.com came in for example.
In any case, offering LandlordMax as a web application is not a small effort. It’s going to take some time. We’re working on it simultaneously with the other items listed here today. It’s going to take some time, no doubt about it. With limited resources choices have to be made. It will be available, and right now my suspicion is closer to 2008 than 2007. But we’ll see…
WhichJar.com
As I’ve already mentioned, we’re expanding our reach beyond just property management software. I truly believe a business should focus on it’s core competency, no doubt about it. I’m a strong proponent that businesses should spend a certain amount of their time and energy on other endeavors to expand themselves. For us, that’s about 10% (1 day every other week) on side projects. This is where WhichJar.com came from.
Right now WhichJar.com is stable in terms of code base. What we’re trying to do is grow its database by adding more Jars. For this I’m looking to outsource the database population. The only issue is that I don’t have the time to manage it as I initially anticipated. So right now it’s moving pretty slow. Hopefully this will accelerate sooner than later.
FindYourWeddingDress.com
Another project that’s about to go live soon because of our policy to spend 10% of our time on side projects. This is a simple site that lets you search for and look at wedding dresses. It’s a large database where you can filter out the information (or browse through it all). The site will not sell anything (other than put ads on it when I get a chance) so it’s really about getting pictures and information of wedding dresses to upcoming brides.
Right now this site is somewhat live online (very small database but that’s changing). It hasn’t been marketed at all because we’re in the process of filling it with real data to showcase to perspective companies/designers. That is to say, we’re seeding it with real wedding dresses so that we can show how it works when we contact companies/designers for permission to display their dresses (and get updated information on their wedding dresses). I believe that if they can see it live they will be interested, otherwise it’s a hard sell.
So right now we’re at the stage of getting someone to populate the database with real data. As it’s still in the “side project phase”, this is moving along slower than any of our LandlordMax efforts. However I’m hoping that by sometime next month we’ll have enough data to start contacting designers.
So please feel free to go and check it out. Let me know what you think.
Online Sales and Marketing Book
And you thought that was it! I really am a busy entrepreneur. On top of all this I’m working on a book for smaller online businesses to help them better market and sell themselves. I’ve started writing it, I’m almost done the second chapter now. I was hoping to allocated more time but the Windows Vista UAC bug I just mentioned has really been taking up a lot of my time. This and some other personal things I’ve had to take care of.
FollowSteph.com
As well as the usual article writing like today, I’ve been looking at ways to enhance this blog. One item I’ve really been considering for some time is podcast interviews. I’ve already lined up one person who’s willing to do a podcast interview with me about his online company (it’s a company that offers a different type of service, so it’s interesting). All that remains is making this a reality (figuring out the details). So hopefully you’ll see that sooner than later.
That’s All Folks
I have no doubt I’m leaving something out, maybe even a few items, but at least this gives you an idea of what I’m up to. Yes, I’m definitely keeping busy and I’ll continue to be busy for some time. But as you can see from the list, there’s quite a lot of diversity in everything I’m doing. And that’s why I love being an entrepreneur!
Permalink to this article Discussions (8)
| « PREVIOUS PAGE | NEXT PAGE » |
