Software Made Simple

Wow! I want to thank everyone for their kind words of encouragement. It’s now been a week since I’ve officially made this decision and one of the most frequent questions I’ve been getting is “what are you going to do for health benefits?” Certainly health care benefits are a big concern, at least in the United States, so it’s an important question.

For my purposes, I have several options which my wife and I are considering. Since my wife works part-time right now, we might be able to go with the health care plan of her employer. This would probably be the least expensive option for us.

Obviously, I can take advantage of COBRA with my current employer, which might be a viable short-term option (up to 18 months). This would be about $1500 a month (for family coverage), so it’s a bit expensive.

Since LogicalVue is a corporation, there are also several small-company health care plans that are available. First, Maine has something called DirigoChoice health care. It’s administered by Harvard Pilgrim and would run about $1,100 a month or so (the above web site erroneously indicates that Anthem is administering, but they stopped at the end of 2007).

And I also have a couple other plans from Anthem and Aetna that run about $700 to $1,100 depending on deductibles and coverage.

To get this information, I went to a local insurance agent that specializes in coverage for small businesses: Cross Insurance. They put together a very slick package of available plans and rates for us to consider.

The time has come. On Monday, February 25th, I resigned from my day job at AMS Services. Soon, I’ll be working full-time for my MicroISV, LogicalVue Software. My last day as an AMS Services employee is March 14, 2008.

This has been a long time coming and I’m very excited about the change. I formed my first company in 1993 when I was writing shareware for the Atari ST, but that didn’t last very long as the Atari ST market disappeared pretty soon after that. I knew then I would someday want to own my own company, but it wasn’t until 2001 that I started seriously looking into it again. In 2002 I formed LogicalVue Software and in 2003 I incorporated. I knew that LogicalVue would focus on creating software using REALbasic, so I spent the following years attempting to increase my visibility in the REALbasic community:

• I created several open-source REALbasic products
• I write for REALbasic Developer Magazine (since its inception in 2002)
• I founded RBDevZone as a community portal for REALbasic developers
• I am the community evangelist for REAL Software
• I am presenting at the REAL World conference for the second straight year

I had always had a blurb on my web page about doing REALbasic consulting, but I never really did anything significant. Late last summer, I decided to more seriously investigate doing some REALbasic consulting. The response was phenomenal. I’ve since created solutions for many clients and had a lot of fun doing it. But the last couple months, I’ve been inundated with consulting work. So much so, that I’ve really had trouble keeping up while only working nights and weekends. That’s one of the reasons I felt I needed to make this change now. I feel I’m starting to not meet my client’s expectations so I really need to pick up the pace on my consulting work. And it certainly wasn’t fair to AMS Services for me to not have my head “in the game” there.

Another thing that I’m really excited about is to get back to working on my MicroISV product, Pharmacaid CMS. Consulting is fun and pays the bills, but to be a MicroISV, I really need a product. I’ve been thinking and planning this product for some time, but I really need to get it out the door to test the market. I’ve worked a lot with the pharmaceutical industry and I think this product will help fulfill an important need. I also think the B2B market and this particular industry makes sense for my skills, experience and contacts. And of course, I’ll be using REALbasic to build this product.

To commemorate all this, I will be launching an all-new web site design in March to better focus on my new product and services. The current web site is out-dated and doesn’t reflect what I’ll actually be doing. I expect I’ll drop several services and add a couple others. Stay Tuned!

And I’m sure I’ll be looking for more clients in the coming months. If you’re looking to have your software made simple, please let me know.

In closing, I have some people to thank:

First and foremost, I have to thank my wife for supporting me, as best she can, in this decision. No time is ever perfect for a change like this, but she realizes this is something I really have to do. Thank you, dear! I love you!

I want to thank my kids for helping me realize what’s important in life. They get such joy from simple things and it’s a pleasure to watch. We should all strive for a little joy in our lives. Thank you, Laura and Lucas!

Next, although I’ve never met or spoken to her, I have to thank Pamela Slim for her inspiring blog Escape From Cubicle Nation. Her writing struck a chord with me and made me realize I can do this. She inspired me to make the jump. Thanks, Pam!

I also want to thank AMS Services. They have been completely supportive of this and also realize that I needed to make this change. We’re leaving on good terms, and if all goes well we may even continue our relationship with some consulting. Thanks, Dave, Mike and Vance!

And lastly, I have to thank REAL Software. I was getting burned out working with complex technologies like Java and .NET but REALbasic has invigorated my desire to write software. Without REALbasic, I don’t suspect I’d have been able to make this jump. Thank you Geoff, Aaron, Mike, Mars, William, Dana and anyone else there I’ve not mentioned!

Wish me luck!

Products vs. Services. It’s always a dilemma for a software company because they both compete for our precious limited time. Products have the lure of eventually being more profitable, if you can get sales, and are highly scalable. Services have the advantage of bringing money in now, but generally only scale to the amount of time you have to give.  Although, I continue to work on LogicalVue products, I’ve also decided to take on some consulting work to help with our cash flow.

I’m starting small and will ratchet it up over time, as demand warrants. This means that initially I’m only looking at REALbasic-related work. I’m pleasantly surprised so far. After just a couple short weeks of actively pursuing opportunities, I’ve landed several smallish contracts with some prospects for other larger ones.

I’m using Big Contacts to track my sales contacts and leads.  For managing projects, I’m using Basecamp, which I, and my customers, like very much.  It’s a great way to keep all information about a project in one place, instead of having it scattered in a bunch of e-mails.

If you’re also doing the consulting thing, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.