Banks

I had the good fortune of having a largish check (for a long term consulting project) to deposit in my new business account. In January, I opened a combination checking and savings business account for my company with Union Bank of California. I have my personal account with them and although I haven't been overly impressed with the service at my local branch, I decided to ask about small business accounts when I was looking to open one late last year.

It turns out they waive fees for new accounts for the first two years, if you open a checking and savings account for your business. Since they waive the fees, there is no minimum monthly balance requirement, and my first set of checks, plus deposit stamp, were free, too. Seemed like a good deal to me, so I signed up. And the monthly fees are waived after two years as long as you keep a minimum balance that seemed low enough to me, that I figured if I couldn't keep that amount in 2 years, I shouldn't still be in business (something like $3000 combined).

I've deposited a few smaller checks in the account but have reimbursed myself for some expenses, leaving a small amount in my checking account, so I was excited to deposit my new check. It turned out to be a bigger hassle than I expected. I had 3 counts against me, apparently - the check was a large amount (compared to my average daily balance), my account is relatively new, and the check was drawn on an out-of-state branch of Citibank. So they are holding $5000 (their threshold apparently) for a week and the balance for 2 weeks!

I understand that they don't want me to withdraw the money before the check clears, but does it really take 2 weeks to clear a check from a major national bank like Citibank?

I'm not impatient to spend the money, but I am eager to move it over to an ING Business Savings Account where I can earn a respectable interest rate on the money. I don't know what the current business savings rate is, but it has been higher than the personal savings rate they offer which is currently 3.4% (it was over 4% before the Fed kept lowering the rates). Either way, it is better than the paltry 0.25% I could earn in my UBOC business savings account.

Multi-function printer

I just tested out my new Canon PIXMA MX700 today. I have had it for about 10 days, but haven't had a chance to test it out. But today, I needed to sign a contract and scan it back in to e-mail to a business contact, so it was a good time to finally hook up my new toy.

It has a flat-bed scanner which I'm excited about because I can scan in things I couldn't scan in with our old HP all-in-one printer (like business cards or photos that I was worried about getting jammed). Anyway, I printed out the one-page contract, signed it, and scanned it back in. I tried 300 dpi first, which was pretty good, but then went with 600 dpi which seemed to be the best resolution for a black and white document.

I couldn't believe how fast it scanned in! Under a minute and much better quality than the HP (I'm not trying to knock HP - it is fairly old technology at this point and I'm sure a new HP all-in-one printer would be comparable to the Canon). I easily saved it to a PDF and went on my merry way.

Merchant Madness

My latest headache is trying to figure out how to sell my software on my website. Since I don't have any staff, I don't want to have to run credit cards by hand (which seems to be the cheapest route). I want the credit card processing done automatically online. Ideally, the user would then be able to download the software without further delay, but it's not essential that that part is automated right away. I can still ensure they get the program within 24 hours if I have to send them something once I'm notified of the payment.

I'm a Costco member, and I saw that they have partnered with NOVA Information Systems to provide members with good rates on merchant accounts.

My web host recommended osCommerce, an open-source eCommerce solution, for my shopping cart.

So there's a shopping cart and a merchant account. But how do they talk to each other? osCommerce has a list of Supported Gateways. So I guess the gateway links the shopping cart to the merchant account?

NOVA isn't listed as a supported gateway, but further research (by my web designer) discoveres that NOVA merged with ViaKlix, which is a gateway that someone using osCommerce uses with their NOVA account.

I'm so confused!

I saw another service called Share*it! that seems more geared for software publishers than the other shopping cart solutions (which are more geared for selling many products that you then ship to customers). Share*it seems to include the merchant account part, as well as distributing my software to customers after they pay for it. Sounds good to me, but how reliable are they? And will it look professional to my customers?

The research continues...

Beta release!

I have just released my first beta! I had 18 people sign up to participate. I'm very excited. I'm hoping to start getting feedback next week, although beta testers are hard to predict. Although they are eager to get the any version of your software, even a beta version, they don't always have time to test it out when they get it, or they don't find time to provide feedback. Since many of my beta testers are overseas, I am curious to find out how the program works for them.

It's a small world

I use Google Analytics for website statistics on my company website. It's free (up to a million page views I believe) and easy to set up. In the last month, I've had 357 visits from 250 unique visitors. That alone surprises me since I am only using viral marketing at this point - no Google Adwords campaign or other advertising. It is all from online forums, user blogs, Google searches, word of mouth, etc.

But what really surprises me is that only 151 of those 357 visits came from the US. The rest came from 40 other countries! The map from Google Analytics below uses darker shades of green to represent the proportion of visitors from each country. This map is for the last month.

The US had the most visitors from one country, followed by the UK, India, Poland, the Netherlands, and Canada, all of which had visitors totaling in the double-digits. It's amazing to me how easy it is to reach people around the globe.

Below is a map from Nov 1 to present. It represents 54 countries.

Starting a company on limited resources

I knew from the start that I wanted to bootstrap my company. I had some money saved up, but I still wanted to spend as little as possible to get up and running.

Software is one essential that can get expensive. Fortunately, a year and a half ago, I discovered Microsoft was offering a free copy of Visual Studio 2005 to anyone who watched 3 tutorials on ASP.NET. I signed up fast and watched three tutorials and in about 4-6 weeks received a full copy of Visual Studio 2005 Standard edition. It was worth several hundred dollars, so a very good deal.

Then last year, I attended a free Microsoft conference on Office 2007 and received a free license of Office 2007 Professional. Another huge savings. Visual Studio and Office were two pieces of software that I had to have to start a business. (You may argue that I didn't need Office, but I've tried several of the competitors and despite the issues with MS software in general, I still think Office is the best suite of products).

Granted, I got lucky with the MS freebies, but I've also found that a startup company can negotiate some good deals. For example, in order to write software that works with my former company's products, I needed to join their developer program. Normally it is $5000/year, but after inquiring, I discovered they have a small business price of $1500/year. (You might wonder why I couldn't get a special deal as a former employee - I wonder that myself. Although, they did let me work off the first year in consulting work.)

I have also found that some software companies, when I explain that I am a startup with limited funds, are willing to provide a discount in exchange for a testimonial or a case study of my implementation of their solution. This can potentially save thousands of dollars depending on the software products in question.

All-in-all, I have spent about $5000 on startup costs so far. Roughly a third of that has gone to my web designer, which I think has been money well spent. Another third went to a faster laptop (which was 30% off at the end of the year), a new all-in-one printer, and miscellaneous software. The rest has been filing fees, taxes, accounting services, web hosting, and misc office expenses.

Child labor

I was recently dreading a tedious task I needed to do before I could release a beta of my program. I was even considering coming up with a more elaborate solution for the problem so I could avoid the tediousness, but unfortunately, the simple solution was really the better solution for the end user.

But I had a stroke of genius in the shower the other day. I could hire my teenage nephew to do the task! He is 18 and off at college and I correctly guessed that $10/hour for a job he could perform on his computer in his dorm room in his spare time was too good to pass up. The job requires no programming skills or even typing - he could cut and paste everything he needed to do.

I did have to take a couple of hours to start the project for him and write instructions, but it is easily saving me several more hours of my time. Although I didn't think he'd have time until the weekend, I sent him the files and instructions last night and told him to let me know if he had any questions, preferably before the weekend, so I wouldn't hold him up if I wasn't available then.

I had an e-mail from him this morning saying he'd spent an hour on it last night and he sent me the work he had done so far to confirm it was what I expected. It was! I have a few more similar tasks I hope to send his way. Best of all, as long as the work is under $600 (for the year), my accountant tells me I don't even need to do a 1099.

Benefits of blogging

I started this blog just to record my experiences so I could look back later and remember what the early days were like, and to share my experiences with friends and family who are interested in what I'm doing. But I have already discovered a real benefit of blogging.

After reading my blog entry on source control, a friend of mine e-mailed me to tell me that he uses a program called Visual SVN which integrates source control into Visual Studio. I don't need that right now, but it is a good tip.

Then, my Dad read the entry on my needing a good all-in-one printer and he wrote to tell me about a review he read in Money Magazine on all-in-one printers in case I hadn't bought the one from Costco yet (I hadn't - my coupon had expired 2 days before that blog entry). After doing some research on the two favorite printers from the review he read, I ended up buying a Canon PIXMA MX700 which my dad found on sale with an instant rebate from one of the big electronics stores in town (only $129!). He even picked it up for me since it's hard to shop with baby in tow and I wanted to get it while the rebate was in effect. I am going to pick up my new toy this weekend.

So many thanks for the useful tips and please keep them coming!

What to say?

This morning, after putting Aaron down for his morning nap at 8am I called a guy who had e-mailed me about the possibility of doing some contract work for their company.

I'm currently doing some contract work for a large software company, let's call them Acme. The guy I talked to this morning is a client of theirs and had gotten my contact details from them as someone who may be able to do some customization of Acme's software, of which they own many seats. As we were discussing some details, the gentleman I'm talking to says that if I end up doing some work for them, "We'll want to fly you out to our office so you can meet with some of our staff."

Well, I work from home with part-time childcare while my husband works full time. Travel would be really difficult, so I'm debating what to say. Should I just wait to explain this until we are further along? Will he think less of me knowing I work from home and have a baby here?

In the end, I decided to be up front about it. I told him we could discuss that later, but that it might be difficult for me and explained my work situation. He was completely understanding! He immediately said that someone could probably meet me out here since they do work all over the country. He must have kids because he was so nice about it.

We are going to talk more in a few weeks. I couldn't do anything for them anyway until I finish up the contract job for Acme. Which I better get back to now.

Business advice

I went to my old office yesterday to check in code for some contract work I did for them. Since I was going to be in the office, I had made an appointment with my old boss, who use to be the president of the company I worked for until they were acquired by a bigger company. I wanted to get some business advice and he had offered to help me out when I first started out, so I took him up on that offer.

He's a very smart guy. He has degrees in math and computer science, and although he successfully ran the company for years, he went back to school (while working full time) to get an MBA. My primary question for him was on how I should structure a business partnership I am negotiating with a company. Although he had a partner when running our former company, he was the one that decided who to create partnerships with and how best to arrange them, so I knew he could help me out. And he did give me some good advice in that area.

The other question I asked him was whether I needed a partner. I knew he had a good partner that focused on the sales side and wondered if he could have done what he did on his own. I often wish I had a partner to share ideas with and take over certain parts of the business. He said in his case, he needed someone to do sales. It wasn't his area of expertise. He told me "Don't get a partner because you're lonely."

He said I don't need a partner unless the business is growing and there is an obvious void that someone could fill, more than just an employee. An area of the business they could take over. It makes sense. And at the moment, all I really need is some help with development, which Thom is going to try to do (or which I can hire a contractor to do). And I've got a friend lined up to help out with QA and support (if I'm lucky enough to need it). So for the time being, I'll stop thinking about wanting a partner and wait for it to become obvious I need one.

Administrata

I almost forgot what else kept me from writing code yesterday. Before I got hung up with trying to set up my svn repositories, I was trying to fill out a form that I needed to either e-mail or fax back. (It's a license agreement for a tool I want to use with my current project and is free to distribute if I fill out this form.) But my workspace is so small, I had virtually no room to fill out this form on my desk, so I got frustrated and tried to clear off my desk, reminding me that I don't have an office waste basket. I also was getting fed up with the pile of unfiled papers related to my business. So I went online to OfficeDepot.com and found a waste basket, stacking letter trays (for unfiled papers), and a portable, locking file holder to file all those papers and documents. By spending $50, I got free next business day shipping.

I also wasted a good amount of time trying to scan in the filled out form so I could e-mail it in. I wanted to e-mail it in rather than fax it because our all-in-one fax/scanner/printer is not so good about faxing one page at a time. So although I only needed to fax 2 pages (the form and a cover sheet), I knew chances were good that the fax would suck both pages through, sending only my cover letter.

To avoid that frustration, I tried to scan the document in. My husband had scanned in something for me a few weeks ago and it had come out pretty well, but my three or four attempts all resulted in an unreadable mess. But since I was going back and forth between his computer to do the scanning and my computer to work on the source control system, it wasn't until he got home that I realized I had forgotten the scanning project completely at some point. So today, I will try to fax it over. That is starting to look like the less aggravating option at this point. I think Costco has an HP all-in-one machine on sale (with coupon). I need to look into that, if the coupon hasn't expired.

I also went to Amazon.com yesterday to buy my husband a copy of Visual Studio 2005 so he can help me with the code I never seem to get to.

Source control

I had planned to write code today. I really did. It is Monday after all and my sitter is here for 6 hours. But my husband has decided to help me out on my current project and suddenly it became necessary to set up a source control system to share my code and to allow him to make changes. I had wanted to set up source control anyway so that I could save versions of my code. So when I run into problems like I did this morning where something isn't working that used to work, I could go back to last week's version and see exactly what I changed.

I chose Subversion (svn) for my source control system since it is well regarded and free, but I don't know the system that well, so I didn't want to try to set up and host my own Subversion repositories on our network. So I decided to use ProjectLocker, an online svn hosting website. For my needs, I was able to set up a hosted repository for $30 for the year.

That was the easy part. Then I had to install an svn client (I chose TortoiseSVN) and now I am trying to figure out how to upload my source code to my new repositories. I was a die-hard Visual SourceSafe user at my former company and SourceSafe and svn are nothing alike. So the learning curve is steep.

Maybe tomorrow I will write code.

Blogging as a form of procrastination

Over 6 months ago, I quit my job of nearly 9 years to stay home with my son (now 9.5 months old) and start my own software company. As I struggle with the day-to-day realities of starting a company, I find myself wanting to write about my experiences. It will give me one more thing to do when I'm procrastinating over some task. And maybe my friends and family will find some of this interesting.