More than ever, small businesses and startups must execute and bring their software-based products or services to market quickly. As Groupon has demonstrated, there is often (but not always) a huge first-to-market advantage.
One risk of moving fast involves selecting software technologies that allow you to bring your products/services to market quickly, but that ultimately may not easily scale to accomodate increasing traffic.
Of course, you always should strive to pick the best technologies. But what if you make a mistake? What should you do if the software technology you pick doesn’t work for you later on?
We struggled with this issue at crowdSPRING in 2009 and completely refactored 100% of our code by the end of 2009, moving from PHP to Python. It was not a fun process.
I hope you never have to go through anything remotely similar. But if you find yourself in a situation similar to ours – here are five suggestions for what you should do when you find that your existing technology just isn’t good enough.
Do you have other suggestions, based on your experience?
Last year’s healthcare bill, love it or hate it, contained a provision that slipped in under the radar, but that will have a substantial impact on small businesses and startups. The bill contains two important changes to how 1099s have been used historically. First, 1099s will now have to be issued for goods as well as services, and second 1099s will now have to be issued to corporations as well as individuals. This means that small businesses will now be sending out literally millions of 1099 forms and will be responsible for keeping track of every one of these throughout the tax year. Beginning in 2012, businesses will be required to issue 1099 tax forms not just to freelancers and contract employees, but to ANY individual or corporation from which a business buys more than $600 in goods or services.
This means that in addition to the 1099s that you already prepare, you will also be preparing a flood of these for your office supply provider, office cleaner, caterer, accountant, computer hardware supplier, office furniture vendor, and on and on and on. The bill will drastically alter tax reporting by highlighting payments that have typically gone unreported – the idea is to increase government revenues by helping the IRS to account for millions of these payments.
Small businesses and lobbyists have started to push back hard against this change, realizing the profound impact it will have on their operations and accounting procedures. And the Congress is listening; two bills have been introduced which would repeal this provision and if passed, small business will be spared another regulatory hurtle which could threaten to drown us all under a new flood of paperwork.
And the revenue that will be “lost” to unreported payments? We will all have to live within the honor system as we know it and report those expenses as well as the income we derive from our businesses. Honesty is always less taxing than paperwork.
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
The image above shows “Club Neverdie”, a virtual property in the game Entropia Universe. This past week, someone paid $335,000 to buy that virtual property. Sure, it has eight bio-domes, space docks, a stadium, club and mall. But it’s not real! More about this bizarre purchase in the “Other” section below.
My experience with crowdSPRING over the past several years has proven to me that with few exceptions, startups and established companies should strive to keep their software features simple. Simple features allow you to release software more often and to iterate and leverage feedback from users.
Time and time again, we’ve made the mistake of over-thinking a feature only to learn that we didn’t do a good job planning and took far too long to release that feature. This is a common problem for young startups. In fact, many startups fail to launch a product because they get bogged down with software development and either run out of money, or are left behind by their competitors.
Over the past year, we’ve done a better job – simplifying our scope and iterating more often. It’s clear to me that what we’re doing now – simple, focused features followed by iteration – is the best way for startups to operate.
In the video, I discuss five reasons why I believe companies should strive to simplify software features. Briefly, those reasons are:
1. it is much easier to focus on simple releases
2. it is much easier to launch a simple product
3. real feedback from users is critical to software development
4. shorter software development cycles are more fun and create more energy
5. better overall product
Please watch the video for a more detailed discussion of the five reasons – and let me know what you think.
Do you agree that startups should simplify features and iterate more often?
A couple of weeks ago, I started a series of video posts for entrepreneurs on creating a business plan. I very much believe that this part of the process is critical to building a strong company. The short video below contains my thoughts on the research process. I hope you enjoy and will look forward to your comments!
In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.
We’re very proud to feature Rod MacGregor (crowdSPRING username: Rodesign) today. Rod lives and works in Valencia, Spain.
1. Please tell us about yourself.
I feel honored that crowdSPRING flew me out to Chicago on Ross’s private jet for this interview. Thanks guys. (Ha,ha).
I live in a small mountain village near the Mediterranean Sea, in the community of Valencia in Spain.
I was Born in England and lived there for the first forty years of my life. I am married and have a daughter, 8 and a son 3. We moved to Spain seven and a half years ago for a culture change and have enjoyed every moment of it. I suppose in the back of my mind, I wish I could have started this interview by saying that I worked for a number of top design agencies around the world and I’m only 28…But that is far from the truth. The truth is I am 47 years old and have worked as a waiter, a shipping clerk, a Tug Boat Skipper(14 years),a builders mate, an electricians mate, a pine tree planter (in the Spanish mountains), a house painter and a car test driver (in South Africa). I don’t regret a minute of it…I suppose I would have been bored if I’d have sat in a design office for all of that time!
My artistic work during my life includes, book illustration, greetings card design, animation, painting, architectural 3d visualization, sculpture, video and installation and I have a First class honours degree in Fine Art.
2. How did you become interested in design?
I got a good feeling inside from seeing creations and artwork by others. We are surrounded by design in our lives and it’s hard not to be interested in it.
Ladies, the wait is finally (almost) over! DressRush.com is opening their figurative doors soon, but registration is available NOW! DressRush.com is a members only, online auction where you can purchase designer wedding gowns and accessories for a fraction of their retail price. Membership is free and the site is completely open to anyone who would like to join.
I recently spoke with Aaron Hall, Co-Founder of Dress Rush, and he just ran a small website design project on the site. The winner is still a secret and will be announced when the full site is revealed!
So make sure you check it out and tell any of your friends looking for gowns or accessories and, in the mean time, read what Aaron has for you to learn… (Oh! And like them on Facebook!)
1. How did you get things designed before crowdSPRING?
We’ve worked with ALOT of different graphic designers….and while some of them were great, it took a lot of time to get what we wanted done.
2. Why in the world did you decide to use crowdSPRING?!
Our graphic designer actually referred us to you since he was swamped at the time. The concept intrigued me, and the results blew me away. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t used this before, especially with all of the design needs we have.
3. What’s the single best small biz resource that you’ve found (magazine, website, blog, etc.)?
Hmm. I’d have to say Mashable.com. I’ve been reading them since their start and they have grown into an amazing wealth of knowledge from social media, to tech…everyone should read them daily.
4. If your best friend told you they were going to start a business, what’s the ONE piece of advice you’d give them?
Start small. Use Crowdspring to create a landing page, then jump over to unbounce.com and get the landing page up quickly. See if your concept gets people interested before you spend the bucks to build your idea.
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
The map shows what would happen if the largest countries in the world (by population) occupied the largest land territories. The world map is in the Random Fun section below.
You have to repeat your message seven times, especially in business – http://goo.gl/fb/yDMxM
Last May, when Conan O’Brien spoke to an audience at Google, he described his situation as akin to being “a prisoner in a 14th century cell writing little things on a piece of paper and throwing them out the window.” Having been contractually barred from television appearances upon his departure from NBC, Conan was forced to turn from the traditional approach to marketing used by the networks to social media and launched one of the most successful marketing campaigns the web has seen. Those “pieces of paper” Conan referred to? Tweets. The result of his efforts? 1.8 million Team Coco members on Twitter, a massive presence on Facebook, Foursquare, and in the press.
The digital onslaught launched by Conan resulted in the wildly successful, sold-out live “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television” tour this past summer, huge buzz both on- and off-line, and culminated last week with the premiere of his new late-night talk show on TBS.
The marketing effort has been unstoppable and serves as an example of how a company can use it’s own native resources to build audience and market outside of traditional channels. O’Brien and his team of writers, tweeters, and digital media gurus have produced a non-stop stream of content: the Coco-Cam 24 hour live web event; a “miniaturized” version of the first episode that was aired online and consisted of a monologue with just of one joke, a guest list of just one celebrity (who was introduced to the audience and immediately left the stage), and a band composed of one lonely piccolo player. The Flickr and Tumblr pages, the YouTube channel, and the twitter streams became huge online magnets with millions of views.
The show’s first episode aired last week and the digital rollout strategy proved triumphant, reaching a huge audience of 4.2 million viewers, beating both Letterman and Leno in the late-night sweepstakes, and garnering a massive 3.3 million adults in the all-important 18-49 age group. As O’Brien put it to his audience, “I know what you guys are thinking: ‘Hey, it’s the guy from Twitter.’”
Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!
The image above shows the label for Buttface Amber Ale – one of a number of ridiculous beer names in the marketplace (see full post in the Random Fun section below) from huffingtonpost.com
crowdSPRING is the world's #1 marketplace for entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits and agencies who need custom logo design, web design, a new company name or other writing and design services. Over 105,000 designers and writers work on crowdSPRING. We are trusted by more than 26,000 satisfied clients around the world.
Last year’s healthcare bill, love it or hate it, contained a provision that slipped in under the radar, but that will have a substantial impact on small businesses and startups. The bill contains two important changes to how 1099s have been used historically. First, 1099s will now have to be issued for goods as well as services, and second 1099s will now have to be issued to corporations as well as individuals. This means that small businesses will now be sending out literally millions of 1099 forms and will be responsible for keeping track of every one of these throughout the tax year. Beginning in 2012, businesses will be required to issue 1099 tax forms not just to freelancers and contract employees, but to ANY individual or corporation from which a business buys more than $600 in goods or services.
Last May, when Conan O’Brien spoke to an audience at Google, he described his situation as akin to being “a prisoner in a 14th century cell writing little things on a piece of paper and throwing them out the window.” Having been contractually barred from television appearances upon his departure from NBC, Conan was forced to turn from the traditional approach to marketing used by the networks to social media and launched one of the most successful marketing campaigns the web has seen. Those “pieces of paper” Conan referred to? Tweets. The result of his efforts? 1.8 million Team Coco members on 
