A milestone
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Way to go, John. Must be fun to watch your baby grow up. :)
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Nice. And you didn't once credit it all to the wonders of .NET. ;)
But who is the king of all of these folks?
Or blame how long it took him to get to a million dollars on the evils of open source software. ;P
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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Nice. And you didn't once credit it all to the wonders of .NET. ;)
But who is the king of all of these folks?
Actually to be 100% objective we would still be a few years away if we were still working in the c++ MFC version. After porting it to .net our sales went up considerably because we were finally able to get on a quicker release cycle with newer features more regularly.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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Actually to be 100% objective we would still be a few years away if we were still working in the c++ MFC version. After porting it to .net our sales went up considerably because we were finally able to get on a quicker release cycle with newer features more regularly.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
John C wrote:
Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software
That's a great accomplishment; congratulations John. :-D
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Congratulations! I'm beginning with it. My partner and I are building this application in our spare time. We already have some customers, so I'm working until late (I won't quit my job still) trying to finish it as early as possible. Let's see if I can follow your path! :beer:
Stupidity is an International Association - Enrique Jardiel Poncela
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Enjoy your first million! :beer:
Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren't doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they're sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head. (Charles M Strauss)
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Man thats great I hope the trend continues upward. Mike
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. "George Carlin
Semper Fi http://www.hq4thmarinescomm.com[^]
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Do you have a link to your company?
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Enjoy your first million! :beer:
Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren't doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they're sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head. (Charles M Strauss)
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Do you have a link to your company?
Um..not to our company no, we only have sites for our products. You can find the one to our main product by searching for "Work order software" in google and picking the first listing at the top in the non paid for listings, the one that starts with "ay". I don't want to link to it directly here because I value my separation between my work and here where I can say what I want without the usual censoring I have to do on our work forums.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Awesome, congratulations.
Need a C# Consultant? I'm available.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway -
Mladen Jankovic wrote:
Enjoy your first million
I wish! The amount that trickles down to me is just enough to make house payments, buy groceries and slowly get out of credit card debt. It's picking up though.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
It reminds me on one very popular sentence in my country.
Just don't ask me about the first million, everything else is legal!
Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren't doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they're sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head. (Charles M Strauss)
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
That is just about the coolest thing I've heard in a while. Thanks for the chear up. I kind of needed something like that. Congratulations!!!:rose:
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Much congratulations John. This is truly an inspiration. I run my own company too and I still remember the first sale. Can you shed some light on your experience running the business without outside capital ? Did you take any credit from banks ? How about overdraft as a temporary source of financing ? It would be quite safe if you had committed customers, wouldnt it ? We are struggling with this issue ourselves. I tried the consulting route, but the consequences were bad. The gig sucked too much time out of the main product, and before we knew it three months had passed without much action on the product. Unfortunately, financing is hard in India due to lack of overdraft support from banks and lukewarm interest from VCs towards non-social-networking startups.
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Congratulations!
Scott. —In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday. —Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are. - Buckaroo Banzai
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Much congratulations John. This is truly an inspiration. I run my own company too and I still remember the first sale. Can you shed some light on your experience running the business without outside capital ? Did you take any credit from banks ? How about overdraft as a temporary source of financing ? It would be quite safe if you had committed customers, wouldnt it ? We are struggling with this issue ourselves. I tried the consulting route, but the consequences were bad. The gig sucked too much time out of the main product, and before we knew it three months had passed without much action on the product. Unfortunately, financing is hard in India due to lack of overdraft support from banks and lukewarm interest from VCs towards non-social-networking startups.
We've always had a smallish overdraft for unexpected circumstances and to get us through the odd slow month here and there. We never took out an actual loan or any direct business financing. We worked doing networking support for a variety of businesses and I got tired of it and started doing contract programming for different businesses in the town we were in at the time. It was very stressful dealing with so many different people all the time all who had wildly different sets of expectations and wanted everything on extremely short notice. Mostly I got tired of starting from scratch over and over on new projects. I was getting paid to write software from nothing over and over again but I never really had total control over it and the stuff people would ask for or the way they wanted it done often didn't make a lot of sense but they insisted. I did learn a *lot* though about usability in dealing directly with the end users onsite often having to redo elements of an interface at the job site while the people (often the office ladies) all stood around and threw their 2 cents in. I had made some software years before that we used for our own network and computer support business to track service because there was nothing remotely affordable at the time and it occurred to me one day that rather than doing all the contract programming I had a good product already that just needed some tweaks to get it into a saleable version we could sell over the internet. The idea of writing software how *I* wanted it to be and writing it once but selling it over and over again just made all kinds of sense. So I dropped as much of the contract programming as I could while everyone else continued doing the network support, we had some pretty big clients in the oil and gas industry as well as the local hospital, some law firms etc which freed me up to work at it almost full time. There's no way I could have worked on the software product and did anything else at the same time. It was just way too much time required. I'd program for 14 hours straight as it was while also doing tech support by email, writing the manual and marketing and website and everything pretty much other than the bookkeeping. We decided early on that we would spend no more money on the software business than it could raise on it's own after the initial investment of my time and a small amount of money for the website and the initial marketing. Initially I released with very few features but at a very rock bottom price. As time wen
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Our little company just passed the million dollar mark in total gross sales of our software over the years since our very first sale of our commercial software. There were a few lean years, (our first month was 53.00 in sales, I still have a copy of the check on the wall framed :) ) to start and a couple in between but we've been ramping up quite abruptly the last few years; it's pretty cool thinking back on all the times I was wondering if we had made the right decision going into the software business on our own with limited experience. We could have been much higher but our attitude was to slowly grow a solid business within our own means and not get any financing, no outside capital at all and in return be beholden to no one and it's worked out very well in the long term. We started it as a side business to our networking and computer tech support contracting business, then I slowly moved to full time programming and support and about 2 years later no one was doing contracting work any more as it was all software related work.
When everyone is a hero no one is a hero.
Way to go!! :rose:
