Putting my Time In + Positive Reports

So, this week in my business I have finally gotten some encouraging information.  Essentially, Apple has started to release daily sales reports.  From what I can tell, Wine Pad and Beer Pad are both selling very well (more than enough to make up for my lost day job income).  As you can imagine I am pretty excited about this.

There is still tons left to do before I can leave the iPhone apps alone for while.  My customers are clamoring for new types of products (even more expensive desktop style apps).  Its pretty amazing, but people will do your marketing for you if you listen to them.

The other thing I have been doing is participating in Internet Business Academy.

This is a subscription based website that basically helps you in everything you need to know about internet business.  It is well worth the cost and I attribute a lot of what I have accomplished so far to the influence of the owners of the site (and their book recommendations).

A good start...

New Product Just Launched

This week I had a major success along with a major setback.  First, the success: App Shop released another product similar to Wine Pad called "Beer Pad".  Beer Pad already had at least one sale with reviewer who gave it five stars.  When I designed Beer Pad I took all the feedback I got from Wine Pad and put it in there.  Also, the idea of Beer Pad came right from the community.  In the web 2.0 world, your customers are partners and they let you know what they want.

The setback this week is that I cannot get an update published to my Wine Pad product.  This is very frustrating since I worked on that thing day and night.  Also, if the preliminary numbers are at all correct many people have bought the app and are affected by its shortcomings.  I do not want to lose this audience, however if I really cannot get that fixed I need to consider re-publishing Wine Pad so I can get the right features in.

This is the problem when working with a huge partner like Apple.  On one hand, my website already has over 700 unique visitors with no promotion at all on my part.  And I am making sales with no advertising budget.  On the other hand, I have little control over my product.  I can't take it off iTunes and I can't update it.  Things go wrong with iTunes and I can't do anything about it while my customers suffer and my reputation suffers.

So, something to consider.  For the time being, I have the iPhone programming bug and if this can maintain some cash flow I will stick with it.  Eventually, I will have to expand this business though...

One Week Today

So its been one week since my product Wine Pad has been available for sale. App Shop is doing pretty well in the first week in spite of a few dings. I got a lot of encouraging email about the product which is very nice and this gives me some indication that people are buying it. The reviews on iTunes have been mixed, some people have encounted a bug that crashes the app. The bug is pretty serious, if you put a single quote into a text field the program can crash. Luckily, I indentified the problem and a fix is in the works.

The bottom line is that my work is just beginning and there is a lot still to do. I am putting off starting some other products and refocusing due to some other customer feedback (there appears to be a demand for Wine Pad clones (Beer Pad, Coffee Pad and even Scotch Pad). Also, there is a pretty strong interest in a desktop application.

My plan is to make sure Wine Pad is solid and has an edge over its competition over the next few weeks. Once I am satisfied with this I will make some clones but customized for the subject matter. The next step is to consider releasing free "lite" versions to help drive traffic to the paid product.

I am starting to become convinced that this business model will work out.

A Small Victory

I cannot go into the details because of NDA, however, today I just got through one hurdle in the process of making a product available. Its a small victory, but I believe that at least it will be a human in the partner company that is looking at my work.

Very excited, if all goes well I cannot describe how happy I will be with this. Either way, I will be spending a lot of time over the next month on company housekeeping (bank accounts, web sites, VAs). Also, I want to release the version 1.0.1 of my product as soon as possible after things have settled down and the community comes back with some feedback.

Next on the list is that I need a real live version control system. Right now the contenders are Subversion and Git; both are open source solutions; however I will probably go with Subversion because its a cool name and intergrates with my developement environment.

Very, very busy

Even though I didn't officially start my new work schedule I have been very busy with my new company.  Since I have made much quicker progress that I anticipated learning how to do iPhone programming I decided to try and do a series of all nighters in order to get an app on iTunes by Friday. 

Sadly, I did finish my first product but for a lot of technical reason I couldn't actually get it submitted into the system.   However, I am very happy with my work and all I really need to do now is to deal with the details of putting the product on sale.

Other than that I have started work on my company's website (app-shop.com), but its not quite ready for public consumption.  I am considering hiring a VA to help setting up the various blogs and other content I want on the site.  Also, I need some help with search engine optimization.  I plan on using GetFriday and I will let you all know how that goes.

New Company Launched and more news

So, since WWDC I have felt an amazing pressure to get out and do
something. Yesterday I got two steps closer to doing just that:
My hours are officially reduced to two days per week and the paperwork
for my new company arrived from LegalZoom. July 9th will be
my official launch of my company as well as my new life. My first
milestone for this is to get my first product, WinePad, onto the
Apple App Store. I am hoping that this will be done by the App Store
launch date.

Just Read a Great Blog Post for Entrepreneurs!

The author says it better than I can so:

Here it is

Blogging is a Lot Harder than it Looks + Google Analytics

Blogging turns out to be a lot harder than it looks.  Each time I sit down to write a post I have a great writing idea that I think people would be interested in reading.  But, the execution so far has fallen flat and the idea only gets half expressed.  Maybe it is just the amount of time that I can actually put into it...

One of the reasons I am doing this blog is to get into the habit of blogging and learning about the tools that are used to understand and drive traffic.  I will write a more detailed post on this later, but an amazing tool that I am using is Google Analytics.  This tool presents all the data about the users of your sites (how many are unique, how long they stay, where they come from,  etc).

Google Analytics has this great feature that overlays an image of your site with the % of times people clicked on each link.  This is a great way to listen to your users - they tell you by clicking what they want. 

What I found is by far the most clicked link on this blog at the very bottom where there is a list of links to other independent business sites (26%).  The second most clicked thing was something like 10%.  So, what I am going to try next is to add to this list resources that I think are valuable and see if these component still gets as much attention.  I'm also thinking of a way to make that component more visible so that maybe it will draw the attention of the majority of users who simply click away from this site after being referred from StumbleUpon or Digg.

When Do You Know Its Time to Leave Your Job for Your Business?

Anyone who has thought about starting a new company has had to wrestle with the idea that their life was going to change drastically as a result.  Most people have grown comfortable in the typical 9-5 workweek that ensures a steady cash-flow and routine of a corporate safety net.

For a time, people already in the workforce may be able to run their side business as a hobby but in order to fully develop an idea most people know that they need to focus as much time on it as they can.

Lately, I have gotten to this point but frankly I didn't really know what to do.

Should I just get up and leave my job, burn my bridges and jump into my new life as many authors suggest?

Should I try and sneak my company development into my current work schedule?

Should I just drop my business?

For the truly courageous entrepreneur the best move indeed may be to simply pack up and leave and burn all your bridges.  This ensures that you will be as motivated as you can to make it work.  Honestly, especially for those of us who have enough money to support ourselves for a year this is probably the best way to go.

At this point in my life I could not stomach the first option.

A friend recently pointed out that other startups have been successful even though they spent their first year as a side project of people who had full time jobs.  37signals is the name of the company and the advice is start small and develop a cash-flow that can be built on.  Here is a link to their blog post on this.

These two approaches seem to represent extreme ends of the spectrum.  I for one did not want to burn my bridges, but I do want to move things along more quickly than I could while working at my job.  Also, my better half is not willing to drop out of paying bills completely...

So, what I am trying to do is to negotiate working only 50% with my current employer.  They are not really happy with this, but they certainly think its a better deal than 0% time.  This is my compromise and I believe it is enough for me to get my business moving over the next year.

Maybe this is something that you could try before one of the two extremes above.

To answer the question posed by this article, you know you are ready to do something drastic when you have a burning desire to start.  If you are thinking about your business idea all the time and truly want it then the time is going to come when you are going to have to start pushing the boundaries of what you are comfortable with.

The key is to come up with a plan that will work for your life and then follow it through.

Why Should You Create an LLC?

Here is something you should probably do if you want to go into business for yourself: create an LLC. This means "Limited Liability Corporation" and it is essentially a legal structure that separates your business concerns from your personal concerns. The LLC is your business.

That being said, why do it if you have an unproven business idea? Well, the most important reason is to protect your personal assets from any liability from your business actions. IE: if something you do as a business hurts someone they can only sue you for your business assets and not personal assets such as your home and beannie baby collection.

Another reason is that you will gain credibility with your clients. People want to do business with an entity that they perceive as being established in some way. The ", LLC" at the end of your business name and product could be enough to cement the sale in some people's minds.

Finally, formally creating a company is a sign for yourself that this is serious business. The **** is on now! This calls back to the notion of "mindset" and a lot of the people I have been reading say that success simply has a lot to do with mindset.

So, on that note I have submitted paperwork to get the process started in my home state. I used the online service LegalZoom which put me back about $600. However, you can get a real lawyer for more or try to do it yourself for less (~$200). In the next few weeks I will update this blog on the success of this part of the process of setting an small business.

The iPhone Registration Has Arrived!

I will not get into the gritty details (more on that after the beta period), but my Apple registration has finally come through!  This is very exciting news for me since I have spent a considerable amount of time learning the Objective-C ropes.  Now, I can let go of the nagging feeling at the back of my head that I am wasting my time. 

It is very nice to see my own apps running on my phone and I am very excited about the apps that will soon be available from the App Store.

As a side note, I am not with a big company and even though I am a programmer I do not have any special ties to Apple or any particular certification other than applying for the program.  For everyone else out there like me I have to assume your certification is in the mail as we speak.  Good luck and hunting.

What this means for me is that I can focus on the iPhone internet business first.  I have about three apps in mind and one in the prototype stage that I hope to have ready by the end of the summer.  This is very good news for me, now I can't wait to do to next week's conference and see if I can't get some learning on!

You Gotta Network!

Well, I just finished ordering some "cool" business cards for next
week's Apple Developer Conference. The entire card looks like a
mainframe computer screen and simple lists my email, blog, and
Twitter. The reason I did this is because "you gotta network" and this
will be a chance to try my "glad hand". As you can tell from the tone
it is not my favorite activity but I believe its important.

The cards will hopefully make this easier (people will not want to be
writing junk down I assume).

Yar.

Uncomfortable Truths about Getting Rich

It turns out that money is important for more than just buying beer and the occasional video game.  Recently, I read an eye opening book, Rich Dad Poor Dad,  that puts you into the mindset of how the rich think about money.  Its a great book but I have to tell you that it really is hard for me to accept some of the points that the author makes.  The eye opening thing I realized is that I don't actually like or really even care about money.

This is a problem.

Here are a few things I learned recently that have made me squirm:

1.)Pay Yourself First

I always thought this meant buying myself that shiny new iPod before paying the taxes.  The reality is that the book recommended that you put aside 30% of your income to invest in assets.  Assets are things that make you money like rental properties.  That is a lot of money and a lot of possible angry bill collectors.  They call this motivation to go out and "invent money".  This is also money you need to be able to risk (aka: lose).

2.) Outsource

This goes deeply against my middle class brains, but living richly means delegating.  Hire a cleaning lady, a plumber, or whatever professional you need to do your work.  A rich person values their time.  Delegating the tasks that you are not needed for frees you up to make the money or spend your time wisely with the family.

3.) Borrow to Invest

I don't like being in debt, but the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad believes that you should use the bank's money to invest and not your own.  This makes sense for real estate since essentially your tenants pay your debt off and you use the banks money to pay all your liabilities.  Obviously, if you really believe that an investment will give you a 20% return then getting the bank to loan you 4 times your savings will net you a much bigger return.

Goo Throwing, Sub-Consciously Trying to Get Fired...

Well, this blog post is going to be more about me me me me since this is supposed to be a microscopic look at me taking a shot at the indies.  In the spirit of the guys at Internet Business Mastery who recommend to "just do it" I have started this blog in the past two weeks.  My reasoning is that I since I am learning about this topic I might as well immediately start applying the principles I am learning.  So, that is one of the biggest reasons that this blog exists - its a bit of goo I am throwing at the wall and hoping it will stick.  At the very least, I will get myself into the habit of blogging and otherwise doing the things you need to do to be "it" on the web.

Of course, I do this stuff at work - but corporate do-nothingery does not really generate an audience or interest.  Who can blame people, if you can read a blog about your work and like you are lucky.   Where I work, we are not there - even if the actual work can be interesting at times.   + SharePoint will kill all but the most interesting of topics.

Speaking of work, I've been in this mindset lately of self-destructiveness at work.  Sabotaging myself.  This is something I need to keep in check, but it is tough to work at my type of job without being engaged in it...  As corporate as it is, I need to be innovative to keep things going and to keep myself sane.  Right now, all my energy is being applied to the potential new business.

But, creating bad feelings at my current job is not fair or even a good idea for me.  Things will come to a head in the next year though because I have stopped learning there (very bad sign for me).  But, I am thinking that maybe it would be better for me to transition away from my current job as a consultant (prob be a better deal for them anyway).  This would would give me the freedom of place (and some of time) as I try to develop a business.  + it would ensure some kind of cash flow for me as well as keep there critical systems maintained (and hopefully transitioned).

Anyway, just some thoughts from a deck in Pennsylvania inspired from some incredible summer weather.

Ways You Can Make Money Online

So, like many people out there I would like to get some independence from my job.  In order to frame this better, let me describe three ways of generating cash:

Earned Income - Income from a regular job or consulting done on an hourly basis.

Passive Income - Money that simple comes in as a result of an established work process.  IE: Rent from property you own or sales of a product that you have already established.

Portfolio Income - Money that is generated through your investments.  IE: Stocks or real estate going up in value.

Most people depend on Earned Income they receive through their job while waiting for retirement to access their Portfolio Income.  The dream for me would be to earn all of my income as Passive and Portfolio Income.

In order to do this, I believe that it would be necessary to get some freedom of place and eventually time.  As a brainstorming exercise I thought it would be fun to list out the different ways to earn money online without a traditional job.

1.) Consulting - you are essentially your own boss, but you are still stuck in the trap of time = money.  However, if you are efficient or savvy you can free up a lot of your time to work on your passive income (no boss over your shoulder).

2.) Online Professor - you can teach at an online university getting benefits similar to #1 if you have the right degree/experience.  Your need at least a Master's degree for this option.

3.) Virtual Assistant - if you have office skills you can hire out your expertise to people online at hourly rates.

4.) E-lancing - you can actually hire yourself out for almost any type of work that can be done remotely (programming, web design, graphic art).

5.) Create a product - this is where things cross into the Passive Income realm.  If you create a product you could start to create a business that will run itself (selling software, e-books)

-it is possible to outsource or automate most of the tasks required for a lot of business

6.) Investing - this requires money and knowledge (neither of which I have right now).  But, if you invest your money correctly you can have it work for you.  This is the best way to truly have money work for you and it can be one fully online.

(Time = Money) is a Bad Idea!

Last week, I heard this really simple but counterintuitive idea from the two guys who do the Internet Business Mastery podcast. They basically said that you have to stop thinking of time as being equal to money. That is, most people think that if they work longer hours at something that they will get paid more.  I know that when I think of how to earn more money I immediately think of consulting.

Their point was really that you need to find a way to bring in cash-flow that doesn't require your constant attention.  The way to do this is through automation.  Let's take this example: the problem you are solving is teaching people how to do bicycle maintenance.  One way to do this is to hire yourself out as a consultant; if you valued your time at $50 / hr you could probably replace the income from your present job if you worked 40 hrs/week.

This model is good, but there is a another way: if you were able to create a video or e-book that really showed people how to do this and priced that at $50 then you would be solving the same problem.  Your customers would be getting a better deal because a one time cost of $50 is much less than a few hours of $50/hr consulting fees.  You would be getting a better deal because your product will be making money for you while freeing you to do other things.

Essentially, this is the difference between owning a business and a  business owning you.  Under the second model, you will be earning income long after you have lost interesting in being a bicycle tutor.