Mission : Possible

This blog will be dedicated to documenting the serious business of starting a "micro-isv", a one(?) person independent software vending company, from product inception and development, through to marketing and stupendous riches, and all the trappings of fame that I'm sure will follow ;-)

Lets start with me, the one man in the micro-isv equation. I currently work full-time for a company at the heart of the railroad industry in Cary, NC as a Software Architect. Java is my chosen implementation poison, having jumped on the bandwagon early in '96, and religious flamewars aside, I havent seen any reason to go back to C and C++ beyond performance, and a hidden fetish for controlling my own memory deallocation :) I have a wife and two small kids, making free time a bit of a luxury... but I'd like to try and dispel the notion that such a common domestic scenario isn't a mission:impossible plot when it comes setting up and running your own company. Well, I guess we'll see!

The company is called "Bambleweeny Labs", a homage to a late and great writer who also came up with one of my favorite all-time terms: "a horribly be-weaponed chamelioid death flotilla"... confused? sorry. The purpose of said enterprise is to achieve the following:

(1) Build software for an audience with tastes and interests not dissimilar from my own (and believe me thats probably not as esoteric as you think). Such a goal is self-motivating in the sense that I'll be building software that ultimately I, and you may like to own. I'll have fun constructing it, raving about its meaty goodness to anyone who will listen, will joyfully go about adding new features and you'll be happier for it. The alternative for me, would be to continue writing good software, but without that personal stake, for requirements that are much bigger than the simple you and me equation - i.e. the daily grind :), which brings me to my next point.

(2) Do this full-time! I want to build my own products, interact with my own customers, basically do it all myself. At the enterprise level, where I have worked for a large amount of years there are so many forces at work, political, technical, nonsensical...Here, any irrationalities are my own :-) A note : there is no bitterness here, just a desire to go it alone... I've enjoyed doing this kind of work but its time for a change of direction. I have a number of advantages on the pragmatic side as well, my wife has a full-time job, she is supportive of my desire to go forward with this ... but only if I can demonstrate a solid return ... oh and be a bit more organized than I usually am with all the personal paperwork that goes on with running a company :) So, basically if I am successful I can happily pull the rip cord and go ahead as a standalone micro-isv.

Ok, thats enough for now - a vague but uplifting mission statement, next I'll talk about where I am in the product development lifecycle for my first release. A taster... not too far off! :)