Ian’s Geek Gift Guide 2016 December 12, 2016 I normally keep it businessy around here, but with the holidays upon us I thought I’d share some of the products that have brought me joy this year. If you’re stuck on what to get some people in your life (or on what to ask for yourself!) maybe this will help. Duck money clip ($39)… Read More
Shady Tactics, Round 2 November 15, 2016 | 2 Comments After my post yesterday about shady tactics in Bootstrapper circles people have been sending me other stuff they’ve seen that irks them. In the other post I didn’t call out specific people because I’ve seen these same tactics so many times that who it was that I saw most recently isn’t even relevant. This time… Read More
Shady Tactics in our Midst November 14, 2016 | 6 Comments Bootstrappers. I’ve been seeing a lot of shady tactics in our midst lately and I’m calling them out. These aren’t good for you or your business long-term. Some of these have already entered the zone of “conventional wisdom” but we need to push back on that. It really is possible to run a successful online… Read More
Are You Letting Today Distract You From Tomorrow? August 29, 2016 What is on your plate today? My guess is that you are busy. You are running around with a To Do list one mile-long with things that need to get done, right now, no exceptions. There are meetings, and project status reports, and deliverables all requiring your immediate attention. If this sounds like you, you… Read More
Should You Sell To Enterprise Customers? July 19, 2016 Money. The more the better, right? Customers. The bigger the better… right? When you’re a bootstrapped start-up, you quickly realize that neither of those assumptions are correct. Of course you want more income. You’re trying to keep the lights on, after all. And of course you want customers who are going to be stable, loyal… Read More
Q&A: What is the best free & open-source customer ticketing software? (“Zendesk clone”) July 19, 2016 Disclosure, I’m founder of HelpSpot a help desk app! I’ve had a bit of a hobby keeping up with open source help desk software apps since I started HelpSpot in 2005. I keep a list of them at Open Source Help Desk List (started that in 2006!). Now, you’re not going to find any open… Read More
Q&A: What type of software engineers are high in demand? July 19, 2016 Cameron Moll recently had an article suggesting that tech hiring is down about 40%. We run a job board for primarily Laravel PHP Developers and we haven’t seen that same drop off, however, we’re in a more niche group that’s growing fast. Still, regardless of the specifics I think that software engineering is still a… Read More
Q&A: What are some tips for a new Tech Support Representative? July 14, 2016 Much of what you have to know in a tech support job is dependent on what you’re supporting. There will be seemingly infinite details to learn about the products and/or systems you support. That said, there’s a few elements that tend to cut across nearly everyone working in tech support. We actually built a help… Read More
Q&A: How does one go about raising seed investment for a tech startup? July 14, 2016 If you have enough capital to launch you have all the capital you need for now. Get out in the marketplace and see if people actually want to buy what you’re selling. Is your marketing angle right? What features is the product missing? What are customers telling you sucks? Get that stuff figured out. Once… Read More
Q&A: Entrepreneurs and Salespeople: What is missing from your current CRM? What would you change about it? July 11, 2016 CRMs are a bit of a relic from a bygone era. In the “old days” you had a few channels for leads. The CRM simply had to be a place to track those leads. Today, on the internet alone you have dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of inbound lead sources. You also have all the traditional… Read More