Revenge of the Nerd

May 6th, 2009 Chris Posted in General | 3 Comments »

Over a pint (quelle shock) with a buddy yesterday, I was bugged about my lam-mo blog posting frequency of late. And the jab was well deserved. I have been very lame…

I could justify it by saying that we’ve been very busy: our Powerhouse Event was last week (with double the attendees of last year!) and Colleen’s new book is hitting the book stores (go to honestysells.com, now!).

Those items (listed above purely for promotional purposes) have taken a lot of our time but the real exciting news is that we’ve decided that I get to be a nerd again… That’s right, we’re getting into the software business.

I have to be honest: I love the software product business. But based on my experience at my former employer, I thought that it was mutually exclusive with the lifestyle that Colleen and I have grown to love. Too much money was required to launch a product, too much effort was required to market and sell, etc…

But then I started to run into folks that were launching software solutions as micro-businesses and I was inspired. Development could be done inexpensively. Sales and marketing could be done cheaply yet effectively. The big difference is the goal: no desire to go public and make tons and tons of cash. Instead the goal is to launch a product that does relatively well, provides a revenue stream and allows for the continued   lifestyle.

So, Colleen and I agreed on an area where a software solution could add tremendous value to our clients and we kicked off the project! But to do so, we agreed on a few core tenants:

1. Self Funded.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a single person say, I love my VCs… We don’t want to deal with the stress of all that so the first criteria is that we be able to develop, launch and grow the product only with funds that we generate in the business. So no investors – we own it all.

Now it does help that our business is currently throwing off a bit of profit so we don’t have to borrow any from the bank on the ol’ Line of Credit at this point. But if some point we have to, that’s OK. As long as we don’t get ourselves into the position that any debt on the product could take down the company.

Does that mean the product won’t grow as quickly and we’ll not generate as much revenue. Absolutely! But that is the trade-off to keep it ours…

2. Lifestyle Preservation

I am addicted to our lifestyle. The not shaving or wearing pants on most days. The three months in Miami. The lack of PowerPoint in my life. And this project cannot change that.

So, we will need to do things virtually – working with contract developers. Getting sales and marketing help without hiring. Etc…

3. Complementary to the Business

At the end of the day, we need the product to be complementary to the business. That’s how we get a multiplier effect. We’ve got over 10K people in our database which is an amazing starting point to up-sell and cross-sell. And it means we can leverage Colleen’s high visibility in the market to promote this as part of our overall portfolio of services.

So in April, we pulled the trigger and began development. And we’re moving fast, aiming for commercial release in the fall.

I know there are a thousand things I’ve not thought about and will learn by trial and error… And I’ll make sure I share them all on the blog. Hopefully, together we’ll confirm that you don’t have to be a big, VC-backed company to successfully launch a technology product…

Next week: lessons learned in getting stuff developed…

Thanks, C.