Archive for ISV
Conversation with Scott Hanselman at Hanselminutes
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I had the good fortune to be invited to chat with Scott Hanselman about what it’s like to create a software company as part of his ongoing series on startups. In a quick 30 minutes we talked through anumber of the angles of what it’s like to go all in on a startup. It was great to hear that even Microsoft, with all of their resources, has many of the same problems we do just at a much larger scale.
I’m going to be doing an extended version of a talk on the same subject at the New York City Code Camp next weekend called Creating Your Own Software Company: A Survival Guide. Come on out and you can hear that session, grill me at length afterwards, and hear four even better speakers all in one day. Code Camps are the best kept secret in software development today; if you aren’t hunting them out in your area you’re missing a great opportunity…
Later in October I’m on a pretty intense two week tour – starting in Philadelphia and ending in Coventry, UK. You can see the full list for an event near you on our events page.
ISV Survival Guide talk at Philly Alt.NET
Posted by: | CommentsI had the great pleasure of talking with the Philadelphia ALT.NET group last Thursday. Microsoft provided the venue and I believe the pizza (which was hot and voluminous – yay!). Here are the slides from my talk:
We got a chance to relate some recent events like Red-Gate’s decision to chage $35 for Reflector (both the question of going from free to charging and the price point) as well as other aspects of pricing, marketing, and in general what it takes to create your own ISV. The back and forth commentary is as much a part of the talk as the presentation itself, so I’m thrilled we had such good participation!
If you’ve got a community event and would like to have me come speak, just drop us a line through the Gibraltar Software contact us page and we’ll be in touch.
Say Hello to the New Sheriff in Town
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Hello from the newest member of the Gibraltar team!
I’m Robert McLaws, and I’m thrilled to start the new year with bang joining the development team here at Gibraltar Software. In my previous job on the Impulse team at Stardock, I used Gibraltar to help me understand issues with my deployed software, sometimes even before my co-workers had even finished writing me an e-mail to report the problem. It has absolutely changed the way I look at software development, laid bare all of my coding mistakes, and made me a better programmer.
At Stardock, I spent most of my time working in .NET 4, and I was constantly talking to the team here at Gibraltar about ideas for the product, and ways to make the developer experience better. Between their quick product releases, and the VistaDB acquisition, they always seemed to be on the “right track” when it came to developers. They reminded me very much of how SourceGear and Eric Sink were pushing the “ISV Way” back in the early part of the 2000’s.
Over the last year, I’ve had the pleasure (and occasional frustration) of working with a lot of Microsoft’s 2010 wave of technologies, including the latest Windows Azure CTPs, and some Windows Phone 7 / Silverlight work as well. The Gibraltar guys spent a lot of time talking with me about exciting ideas for taking Gibraltar further. And the more we talked, the more I realized I wanted to be part of the team that would make it happen.
Though I don’t really tote pistols to work, I jumping in with both feet lending my insight and abilities to take our products and web sites to the next level. Initially I’ll be enhancing the community and customer support areas of our web sites. I’m also participating in the design of product enhancements that will include some of the cool new technologies above. Stay tuned for more details in the days and weeks ahead.
I’d like to take the opportunity to say thanks to everyone here at Gibraltar, and I’m looking forward to getting to know all of our users, and to making 2011 a breakout year.
As always, we love to hear your ideas on what we can do to help our products deliver for you. You can drop me a line directly or contact support if you’d like. I’m also on Twitter as RobertMclaws.
Happy coding!
Northern Virginia Code Camp (NoVA) Presentation
Posted by: | CommentsI had a great time talking about what it takes to suceed at creating your own software product company at the Northern Virginia Code Camp over the weekend. You can see the presentation slides below. The code camp was well run with good food and a nice facility provided by Microsoft. High quality pizza made a great lunch.
I was presenting during lunch opposite a panel discussion on software craftsmanship so the attendance wasn’t as good as in some other code camps (usually it’s standing room only!) but there was more than enough for a good discussion.
The key takeaway from the presentation is that you have to understand the market you’re diving into and why you’re the right group of people to create a good solution for that market before you get hung up on any particular idea being worth building a company around. In many ways that’s the difference between making a company and having a hobby.
My friends at DevExpress were kind enough to give me two licenses to CodeRush to give away to aspiring entrepreneurs. Judging by how hard people worked to answer the questions to get the licenses you definitely should check it out!
If you have a users group or just about any group of technology professionals and want to hear about what it takes to create a successful software product company, drop me a line and I may be able to come speak at your event too!
