Todo list for MicroISV developer | Hacker News Reader

Todo list for MicroISV developer

secretgeek.net

57 pointsecaradec14 comments

This is a great resource.

I've just come out of the SharePoint world and whilst I'm now in a Java world I've setup a solo boot-strapped micro ISV to cash in on the knowledge that I still have.

The only thing I'd add to that list is that if you're doing anything with the Microsoft stack then you should go and sign up to BizSpark. It will give you all of your software (dev tools, test stack, etc) for free which will help reduce an initial overhead.

That takes time, so do it immediately after 15. and 25.

BTW: I'm already making £3k per month from this and so far I've only sold a few WebParts to existing contacts. I would totally recommend little side projects like this if you do have specialised domain knowledge that you can take advantage of in a way that doesn't conflict with your current employer (if you have one).

The motivation to start the micro ISV was simply to fund my MSc and to cover the costs of the hardware that my project/paper requires. But it's quickly becoming a viable business on it's own so I might keep it up long-term.

Capitalizing on you own strengh is a good idea. You don't want to spend month of research if you have a hour a day at most for working. Focusing on the production side is a better use of your time.

I didn't know bizspark. Can you get free licences to visual studio from it ? Do you need to be a real business to apply ?

In answer to your questions: Yes. (You can get free licences to almost anything MSFT makes in software. The one proviso is that they'll charge you $100, total, when you exit Bizspark, which is the later of three years from now or when you start making $1 million a year in revenue. It is the sweetest deal you'll ever get for commercial software.)

There are four qualifications you have to make to be eligible for Bizspark. Being a "real business", by which I think you mean incorporated, is not a requirement. All you have to do is promise MS that you're actively developing software or related services which are intended to be core to your business. There are darn few people on HN for whom that doesn't apply.

I have never done development on the MS stack but if you do it is an absurdly good deal.

Aside from what patio11 has said, yes you can get Visual Studio through it.

I'm running Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and developing against SharePoint 2010 and Office Server 2007 as well as Microsoft Project Professional 2010 and the Office Web Apps 2010.

My total outlay so far has just been getting the company registered (accountancy fees) and then time on getting things like the bank account in place. I already had the domain and with the domain reflecting the business (even as a one-pager) I've made it through the rather simple BizSpark setup steps and now have full access to the MSDN subscription downloads.

If you touch anythign for Windows or MS products, BizSpark is a no-brainer. You just have to be a startup and have low revenue... which makes it perfect for the solo boot-strapper.

I'm an indie Mac developer (what Mac guys call Micro ISV's), so I scanned down this list and compared it to my checklist for a recent release. Out of the 124 items listed here, I'd say that ~105 of them are either essential or good ideas to have. I don't really agree with the ordering: for example, I can't imagine leaving usability testing to #116.

That being said, the ones that should be in place ought to be in place from day one.

I don't see any point to several. EULA's on first run, asking at the BOS forum, PAD files (though I understand these are pretty important in Windows download sites), various pricing levels, obfuscation, or physical disk shipping.

The one that really bothers me is #88, 'box shot 3d'. If you don't ship boxed software, you shouldn't have a picture of boxed software on your site.

> The one that really bothers me is #88, 'box shot 3d'. If you don't ship boxed software, you shouldn't have a picture of boxed software on your site.

You should A/B test it, shouldn't you? At least a number of years back windows users were more comfortable buying an online product if it had a box shot. Even if they knew there was no box version. It's a question of being comforted by the familiar..

I have long thought that, like the Hacker Free logos, favoring box shots is a symptom of a vague distrust of the Internet and all the scammy thieves who are waiting to take your money even though no software exists. A box shot (or screenshots) proves that the software actually exists.

Based on the alacrity with which I'm called a scammy thief if something goes wrong anywhere near the payment process, I'm going to guess that this really does weight on my customers' minds.

"Box shots mean it is real!" is not less rational than any of a thousand things I've heard about software over the years. (Some of them from techies.)

Except for sophisticated users who think that showing a box shot actually makes it seem MORE scammy. The gentlebox doth protesteth too much, as it were.

> I'm an indie Mac developer (what Mac guys call Micro ISV's)

you should put what your products are on your hacker news profile, i was curious to see what you made, sad panda :)

I like how this is simply one bullet:

> build a community

Don'tcha know, social software does all the work of being social for you.

Build an API should be down at the bottom somewhere.

He's selling downloadable software. He's got an item on there about plugins, which might be considered the desktop equivalent.

A lot of it you repeat from one to the other :)

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