keithwarren

You are doing it wrong.

I don't mean to be contrarian but if you want to be successful as a independent developer (I have been for almost 15 years now) and you are looking for a CRM you are off the rails.

CRM systems are for the most part, for companies or sales individuals who need help managing the number of contacts they have at any given time and ensuring they follow a structured interaction pattern.

I know about a dozen people like me, some of whom float in and out of full-time gigs and consulting and others who are years or decades into the independent consulting arrangement. Not a single one interacts with a high volume of customers. At any given time I have two or three I interact with and maybe one in the pipeline. If I make contact with new potential customers I create a contact record for them in Outlook/Gmail/Whatever and record any extraneous details in the notes section. That is all, if you need more than that I question the approach.

ps - Another tip. 'Freelancers' are cheap and not serious, 'consultants' or 'developers' or 'independent developers' take home the big checks. Just a perception thing.

To be honest I don't stand as often as I thought I would. I have no set schedule, just moods. I will stand usually for no more than 1-2 hours at a time (once or twice a day) and find I can only stand for work that does not require deep thought. If I am just coding some normal stuff, researching, responding to emails - all those type things are easy. If I need to really focus on big picture architectural plans (decision with big long term repercussions) then I find myself wanting to sit down for that. Not sure why, just me.

GeekDesk and Embody and I have never felt better. Going on a year now.

I have a customer I have built lots of 'back-office' functionality for into a custom event management system. T-Shirts are a simple example, each participant in their event gets a shirt (lots of races do this as well) and they have to coordinate the ordering and production of thousands of shirts, allocate the orders for pickup and ensure that it alls happens in a short amount of time. They need a structure for that process and they expect a simple integration with their registration system. To them this means that when a person or group registers they define the sizes for their people. They have rules about shirt types (kids get t-shirts and adults get collared golf shirts) and upcharges based on sizes larger than XL. This seems like a simple problem but do that 25 times for various operational aspects of their event and now you understand what is meant by 'back-office'

I agree. I have a customer who is an event management firm and the complexity and size of their events (long running events that last over several days) makes the operational side of running the event the biggest challenge.

Good luck. I do some custom dev work for a event management firm because they could not find something that fit their needs (this was 4 years ago) so I took an interest in the space. It shocked me how broad the reach of Active.com was and how they were pretty much universally despised by everyone who had to use them. Really a sales organization pretending to be an event management system.

Do you think the focus positions you better for new smaller scale events or getting access to larger events? I ask because it seems like the real value in this space would be taking down active.com and high volume high frequency events like 5K races etc.

I am curious why the focus went to ticketing and registration instead of back office systems, seems ticketing and reg are already solved problems?

So you are saying the apps which show up are curated with respect to context. So if I make a bible reading app, strip club apps will not show up as options...more likely you will see religious or reading apps?

I would be really curious to see a ratio comparing user engagement and usage when they download from something like this vs when they discover you on the app store.

I would assume that app store or other inbound discovery that was within the context of their search would become a much more engaged user of my app - but I would really like to see data on that spread.

On my own for close to 15 years now.

1) Mostly full stack web/app development. Code for completed, tested app is the end point deliverable.

2) Give them access to my repo, push to their repo or send a zip

3) Mostly before, especially if it is a trusted client relationship.

4) Check or ACH.

I think however you are asking small scale questions that only concern you in relationships that are lacking in trust. An easy way to change the dynamic is to work on a retainer with clients. It takes some convincing but often times the conversation about it alone will help you sniff out if there is going to be issues. People who push back and say they would never work that way, are typically not good clients. People who understand the scenario and agree to it or agree with simple and logical conditions are the people you want to work with.

You say XAML in jest but once you get over the learning curve, it is incredible expressive, it will make you hate HTML and CSS.

Was there consideration given to doing a wholesale rewrite and later swapping out for that? Seems that if things are overly complex now, it may be easier to hold it together with band-aids while a true long term build is put together...what is going on behind the scenes with respect to this kind of planning?

What is the biggest issue right now architecturally?

Aside from the rhetoric, the political opinions and people firing at you now over the 5-10K thing, I do have an actual question of substance.

My assumption when things melted down so drastically, was that the key problem was integration with the various vendors. Yes we all could look at the Html itself and make assumptions about poor practices but given that you are on the inside - what was the biggest issue?

Some companies choose not to open source their stuff because it opens up more opportunities for revenue.

This insistence that everything be open source or it is somehow inferior is tantamount to the people raging over 0.99 apps. How dare they not give away their work for free!

If you want a FOSS editor there are lots of options but don't cry foul when someone announces a new one which you think is cool but then throw a hissy fit when they choose to not open it up like you think they should.

Cold calling people on LinkedIn probably wont prove all that successful but it can't hurt.

The real question is do you have anything built yet? Do you have domain expertise in the space you are targeting?

In lots of cases enterprise software for niche scenarios is born out of a consulting engagement: Company A contracts you to build them a system for tracking widgets. You do so and get their permission to use that software in other projects. Company B wants widget shipment calculation software so you go to them and say 'I know about widgets, we built this widget tracking thing and we can add shipment calculation to it'. That is how the ball gets rolling.

Most software in this kind of space is packed full of features and rules that are not easily just spawned out of thin air - it usually takes many man years of development.

CL is not a good place, great sales people are rare and they dont hunt around on CL. I would find an already successful enterprise software sales person in the space you want to be in. He/She probably already has a job but sales people sell and they love have new things to sell. It may take some convincing but keep persistent and you will find someone.

The salesperson does not really rack up the dollar amount on a feature by feature basis. There is not some line item set of features each with a price. They are buying the whole thing - the feature dance is all about ensuring the customer (whether you have the goods or not) that your package will fit their needs. Large corporations have evolved themselves into a potpurri of rules and processes for how they do things. They dont make sense in most cases which is what prevents them from using a low barrier to entry tool like something a small startup might make - basically, they cannot change their process to fit the software, they need the software to fit them. None will, I repeat, no software from any vendor will fit their business...the salesperson has to convince them that you are the best company to make it fit.

Preferably dont hire guys and manage, hire no one and do it yourself. When you are working way too much, have not enough time and a mountain of work ahead AND signed deals with customers (including checks) then hire someone. Repeat this process. DO NOT HIRE people until you absolutely need them.

If the sales person is any good, he had the next lead before he left the last meeting. When you find a good one you will have to tell them to slow down.

Pricing is a black art, too low and no one takes you serious, too high and you become a budget item that needs to be planned for and the sales cycle goes on for over a year which gives competitors more chances. Feel out your customer, ask them directly what their budget is...but mostly let your sales person worry about that.

Step 1) Find a great sales person

Step 2) Let them promise your software does whatever it takes to make the sale

Step 3) Make software do that

Step 4) Repeat

Step 5) Profit

I know it sounds crazy but I have worked at a couple software companies in the specialized enterprise space (things like healthcare IT) where software costs several hundred thousand per location and this is simply how it is done. The expectation is some very broadly featured software that you will customize to their needs and support. The upside, the expect to pay handsomely to license it, they expect to pay for the customization and expect to pay annually for support.

The key is a great sales person which often means you need to give them a hefty commission.

Just when I feel like I am finally getting the hang of this computer geek thing (it took 20 years) then some whipper snappers go do something fancy and make me feel inferior. Hail to the smart people!

Personal thing really, started about 10 years ago. I dont drive often but when I do I want it to be an enjoyable and luxurious experience which I often equate with the freshness of a new car. I also get bored of the character of a car over time. Leases gives me a controlled and knowable insulation (given the rapid depreciation of new cars) from the value downside. Basically, I get the new car experience far more often without taking big cash hits.

I will flip it before that becomes a concern, I am usually in and out of a car in under 3 years. I get bored easily.

I disagree on the S class. It is bigger but I find nothing else about it 'better' and certainly not 'much better'

All things are relative. I am not some gazillionaire for which money is no concern but I am financially successful enough that I look at money a bit differently that most. When I consider buying cars I expect a certain level of quality and craftsmanship that you typically only find in higher end automobiles. Given that as my baseline - the Model S makes a pretty compelling fiscal argument.

On top of that value and cost are not the same. The value represented by the Tesla can far outpace the cost factors between its sticker and those of a Prius or Fusion.

tldr; I am not in the market for a cheap car, I want a great car.

Yes, the federal is the only one that applies for me. My states has nothing in addition.

I am not an environmentally conscious consumer and I am going to buy one when our current lease is up. I am a monetarily concious consumer who sees the value in a high quality car which maintains its value well, has good purchase incentives. I also have a family and have seen the amazing safety record the car has put together so far and I am a hacker on top of all of it and have been to a Tesla center and explored the Model S. It is a technical marvel imho.

All of these things make me want one, not some green aspect.

NEWSFLASH: Stepping through the framework sources has been available for several years. Roslyn, which is a re-architecting of the compiler itself is not somehow going to change this or make it better.

To quote Bill Nye - I find this claim to be extraordinary.

So you have found some esoteric issues that are likely encountered by less than .01% of developers and this is somehow 12 years of crap from Microsoft?

I find it funny (not really) that somehow this floats up as the top comment when most developers have no clue what he is talking about but since this is HN and someone is saying how bad Microsoft is then lets upvote. Microsoft killed my pappy and all (ht to shanselman) so I must do everything I can to make sure no one else dares like them.

Mono has had compiler as a service for quite some time now