IT and Patience

It's been a while since I posted but I promise I have some good excuses.  I got married (!), went to the Dominican Republic with my beautiful new wife, and took some additional time off to work on my golf game :P  While my golf isn't anything to write home about, I'm definitely excited to get back to work.  It feels good to have recharged batteries! 

I'm happy to report that the number of ePortfolio downloads has steadily increased since we last spoke.  Sales are sluggish but I am still encouraged.  We've got some great feedback that will keep things going in the right direction.  First and foremost is implementing a full-fledged WYSIWYG.  It seems like an obvious missing feature in hindsight.  Here's a link to a Stack Overflow post that lists the most important features of a content management system.

Finally, I'm going to try write about some of the more interesting articles related to this blog's content.  I'll start off with an author my co-workers are probably sick of hearing me quote.  Joel Spolsky, of Fog Creek Software, started writing a blog back in the early 2000's called joelonsoftware.com.  One article that I've used in real life countless times is the Joel's guide to hiring.  I love it.  I don't copy his process word-for-word but the high level objectives are spot on.  This is highly recommended reading for technical people responsible for participating in the hiring process.

If you build it, they will come

I love Field of Dreams as much as any other red-blooded American baseball fan.  "Ray, people will come Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom." says James Earl Jones after seeing deceased ball players scrimmaging in Kevin Costner's corn field.  "Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come." he says in a prophetic tone only JEJ can pull off.  When I first started building my content management system, this is how I felt.  I thought I had a good idea and there was a niche.  How hard could it be?  Design it, code it, wrap it in an installer, get it on the web, and watch the money start rolling in.  As you can imagine, this isn't exactly how it's worked out so far.  It's been available on my website for about 1.5 months and there's not been exactly two trial downloads.  Barely anyone has even looked at it.  I'm rather discouraged.  Jones may have played an intellectual, reclusive, and revolutionary writer in the movie but right now I feel more like trusting, naive farmer Costner plays... I'm feeling a little crazy, like all that work was a waste of time.

Going the distance

I'm being a little sarcastic here.  I haven't heard any (new) voices in my head in the last few months.   And I've not seen any dead baseball players.  But I did spend a ton of time working on getting my content management system shipped.   I'm not naive though.  I'm well aware how competitive the market is for content management systems.  You can buy content management software for many thousands of dollars or download different types for free.  I should also mention that I've not done much in the way of marketing.  My marketing has consisted primarily of this blog, my website, and word-of-mouth.  Clearly this isn't enough.  It is probably obvious to most entrepreneurs but let me reconfirm the lesson: just because you built it, doesn't mean they'll come.  That applies even if you've got a fancy website that's optimized for your target search engine query.

For me, it seems a big part of learning how to be an entrepreneur is conquering my fears.   I'm scared as hell to release software to the world.  It took some chutzpah to commit to a date when I would actually ship the release.  I know that I need to market the damn thing but I hesitate because when I compare it to some of the other well-established CMS's there's no way ePortfolio competes in terms of the number of features.  In short, I'm afraid someone will find it, think its crap, and never give it another thought.  I guess its fear of rejection. 

Winking at the pitcher

It's been said though that fear is the most worthless emotion.  I know what I need to do.  Now that my software is out there, I need to tell others about it.  Can I go feature-for-feature with the other big name content management systems out there?  Nope, sorry.  Is there room for improvement?  Of course.  But guess what, I've used it and I know it's got a few advantages that nobody else has.  And I'm not about to give up on it either.  I will market the software, add features, and continue to improve it.  I'll wink at the pitcher just before he goes into his windup... hopefully I won't catch a high, hard one in the ear!

The timing of Joel's article about start-up static is very apropos.

After a ton of work, it gives me great pleasure to announce the first publicly available release of ePortfolio, the easy-to-use content management system for ASP.Net websites.  I made the 2/15 deadline, even finishing a few days early which was good because shortly thereafter I got sick with a severe cold.  Thanks to the loving care of my fiancée, Cheryl, I'm feeling much better now.  You can download the software at my website, Communicate Solutions.

ePortfolio is a content management system I've used to manage several of the websites I've designed.  It was designed for brochure-style websites that use Microsoft's ASP.Net framework.  Unlike other CMS's, ePortfolio works with Microsoft technology instead of around it.  After running the simple installation wizard, you get a fully functional website that is easily updated without needing a degree in computer science.  If you do have a degree or some design skills, ePortfolio offers a simple UI for changing the nitty-gritty details of the website.  Click to read more about ePortfolio's features.

Now that ePortfolio is out there, I'd love to get some feedback.  I certainly have some ideas on how to improve it but I'd like to hear what you think.  Anything is game: installation, configuration, usage, bugs, and new features.  There’s several ways to give feedback: post on this blog, post on the forum, shoot me an email, or submit a trouble ticket.  If you give me some valid feedback, I'll give you a free license.

That’s right; I said the four-letter f-word, free.  I appreciate your feedback :)

My stomach is doing somersaults.  My sweaty palms are sticking to my ergonomically correct keyboard.  I'm nervously checking people's away status on IM.  I can't believe I'm about to do what I'm about to do...

The first official production release of ePortfolio will be available on February 15th, 2009.

ePortfolio is Communicate Solutions' homegrown content management system (CMS).  It's designed so that .Net web developers can design beautiful websites and domain experts can add the appropriate content, all quickly and easily in one place.  Learn more here. 

It's a bit nerve-racking to formally announce the release date since now I've got to meet that date :)  It's very exciting though!  Previously, Communicate Solutions has only sold services; this will be our first shrink wrapped software available to the world.  I honestly have no idea what will happen.  I would not be surprised if we sold zero units in the first month or if we sold 1000.  I do think that any C# website developer would be crazy not to at least check out the trial version.  Also, it's not really version 1.0 since I've used it with several of my client's websites.  I also use it for my company's website, Communicate Solutions.com.

So, check back in mid-February, download the trial, and let me know what you think!

It's been a while since I posted so I wanted to give everyone an update on my latest project.

As you may or may not know, my company, Communicate Solutions, is in the process of releasing a shrink wrapped software product to the world. The product is our home-grown content management system. The content management system (CMS) is named "ePortfolio" since it easily allows the creation of portfolio websites... you know, those websites which showcase the project work that a company/individual has done in the past. The software consists of a custom designed website and an admin site. Someone can describe a project and upload pictures of their work by using the admin site and these updates are reflected on the custom site. It does a bunch more useful stuff too; if you're interested, read more here.

Anyway, an important part of any piece of software is the installation and configuration of the software. The first thing a potential user/customer does with a new piece of software is install it. If the software doesn't install properly and work perfectly out of the box, you're in trouble. You only get one chance to make a first impression. I believe this is especially important for non-enterprise software.

Knowing I needed an installer, I started evaluating tools. I've used Visual Studio setup projects before so I knew they wouldn't quite give me the full set of features I want. I also researched some of the big-boy package creation software vendors like Wise and Installshield but they are not only expensive ($400 min), I felt like they would mask some of the complexity that I would need to understand in order to build a high quality package and troubleshoot any issues that may (will) come in.

I decided to go with a tool called WiX 3.0.  WiX is free, open source software which lets developers build installer packages by authoring an XML file.  I'm not finished building the installer package for my application but it is clear that WiX is quite powerful.  With that power comes quite a bit of complexity.  The learning curve is quite steep because WiX markup compiles to build MSI files.  That means you have to understand the rules of MSI in order to author a proper installer package.  Believe me, this is no small task.  There are a couple other nuances which add to the complexity of authoring an installer package with WiX; I'll go into more detail in my next post.

For now, here's a few useful links for authoring an installer with WiX:

1. MSDN's Windows Installer Database Table Reference
2. Many posts on Alex Shevchuk's blog, including this on explaining how a package gets installed.
3. The original WiX tutorial by Gábor DEÁK JAHN

 
I know I'm going to struggle through a few more things, but I'll be much more confident in my ability to support the finished product because I'll understand the technology at its base level.  Wish me luck completing this project!  I'll be sure to post my lessons learned