29 Jun 2011

Software Products: A Highly Gratifying Business

Developing software products is an amazing business. It is a very risky business with potential of huge profits or losses. As per Nassim Nicolas Taleb, it is a scalable profession.

But if your product is good it can be highly gratifying too because nothing beats the appreciation you get from the user of your product. 

I just received one such amazing appreciation from a user for Sign in Style. I would take liberty to write down the whole feedback instead of just the excerpt. 

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On first impressions, I loved No. 3. As I watched the videos & looked again, that's definitely the one that looks the most like "Me"! 

I don't like the first one at all - too disjointed & a bit weird. 

The second one I quite liked as I looked again, but No. 3 is the one I will be practicing. 

I will definitely be recommending Sign in Style to people. 

It's hard for those who aren't changing their names to go through the whole saga of changing all their documents just for a new signature, but as I was changing my name and had been trying to come up with ideas myself and had found nothing that I really liked, I gave Sign in Style a try. Why? I love the way you have Sign in Style written for your logo. 

Also, you had lots of useful information about signatures, e.g. I was going to use Shas Lee and then read where I needed to use my full name for official documents and I hadn't thought of that at all. 

I am so impressed with the signature I have chosen. I hope it won't be too hard for me to master, but the video viewing definitely helps. 

Great to be able to save all the files so easily to my computer too. 

Excellent value for the price! 

You definitely deserve more than 5 stars. I would give you a rating of 6 stars plus for the whole package and for Signature No. 3. 

I am really excited about it. 

Thank you so much. 

Warmest Regards, 
Sharon

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This makes us all proud. Proud of the fact that we have created something which can be so important for few people in the world. 

I love my company and this business!

28 Jun 2011

iA Inc : You have a new fan!

I have to admit, I am in love with one more company I recently discovered. Let me explain how it happened.

I came across following article via my google reader feeds

Nothing new, I read the article, watched the video and loved it. But what struck me the most was this sentence in the article.

"I aspire to be able to produce something this good. Well done."

Now when Jason Fried who is running an equally impressive company and making equally impressive products says that, you need to listen.

I read the article once again and decided to dig deeper.

I went to iAWriter website surfed it in detail reading almost every page of it carefully. It is a great example of how you can make a website for your product. The video, copywriting, screen shots, almost everything is perfect.

From the About iA page, I found the parent company which is known as Information Architects. 

For the next 2 days I surfed the site multiple times and read many articles written by the founder Oliver Reichenstein including iA Writer: On Prices and Features.

I was mesmerized! 
  • With the products they have created
  • With the clarity they think and write
  • With the solutions they have created for clients! 
Yes, the last point is the most appealing for me. They work for clients too same as us. 

So it is not just a product company but also a design agency which works for clients. It makes my life much easier. Now I can aspire to make my company like them. I will be closely following them from now on and will not rest till I create something cool like iA Inc.

Guys, you have a new fan and thanks Jason F. for that!
16 Jun 2011

Bible for Software Engineering Students

Following book should be your bible for developing useful software.

Read it as many times as you can before doing any kind of software development.

Yes it is free to read online and it is priceless!
14 Jun 2011

Computer Engineering Students: Get ready for the real world

Recently I interacted with 3 bright students who are just about to start their 7th Semester of Computer Engineering. They have to do a year long industry project. 

GTU (Gujarat Technical University) provides this weird guideline on how they should do the project. Students have to just understand the project definition in their 7th Semester and do the actual coding in 8th Semester.

Its really funny. 

6 months for understanding the project and for creating the documents, students may never create in their real life. For e.g. ERD, DFD, Class Diagram etc. 

If they are creating a web based project, why can't they just go ahead and create HTML mockups right away? Something which works in real life. 

Anyways, I am really truly saddened by the current state of our college education system. Especially in engineering colleges of Gujarat. I can't comment on other colleges and especially not on IITs. 

But I was a student in one of these engineering institutes of Gujarat and now running a software company here so I have a fair idea about the system as of now.

I really wanted to do something about it. That is why I started this blog. Occasionally I write about topics which may be of importance to fellow students. But the irony is, students don't even know, they should read blogs!!

Who will tell them that 

... they should start reading blogs as soon as they enter college? 

... they should start coding as soon as they enter college, regardless of their syllabus?

... they should learn spoken English and start working on improving writing skills as soon as they enter college?

... they should start contributing on open source projects?

... they should have a strong profile on "StackOverFlow" and should be active member of "Hacker News" before they come out of college?

Lecturers or professors can't tell them because probably even they don't know. They never went to an IT company before becoming a lecturer or a professor. I don't blame them.

There is a huge gap between students coming out of these engineering colleges and students needed by the IT companies. I smell an opportunity here for Entrepreneurs.

I am thinking on how to solve this problem but meanwhile following articles from my blog may help students reading this blog.

If you are a computer engineering student and you have read it till here, please take some time out and read following articles carefully. 

Give them a proper thought. Let me know if I am wrong anywhere. Comment, contribute and start acting NOW.

I hope you find them useful.

Please share articles in comments which are beneficial for students if you know any.
10 Jun 2011

How do you present your work to clients?

As a software developer or a web designer how do you present your work? And why it is important? 

I will give you a real life example.

Initially @digicorp when we were naive professionals, we used to present logos to client in a very primitive fashion.

We used to attach logos in an email as JPGs or PDFs and send them to client. And we used to provide minimum 2-3 options of logo.

Most of the times client might like one option but always wanted more options. More options mean more choices and more choices mean confusion for clients.

We used to spend a lot of time in designing logos.  But we learned over the period of time and saw how other well known design agencies did that.

Here is how we present our logos to client now (in a proper HTML page):
(download)
And guess what? In most cases, client approves it within seconds! We rarely have to provide another option now.

I agree our quality of design has changed but few other things are also changed.

We of course made it look prettier and all but most important of all, we are telling a story with every logo now. (Check "Mood Board" and "Designer Notes" section in above logos)

"Telling stories is by far the most under rated skill in business." - From Crush It by Gary Veynerchuk

However short it may be, always try to tell a story when you present your work to client. And that is why good writing skills are so important for programmers and designers. Real good companies hire programmers and designers who are good writers.  

Hope this post helps you make a better presentation next time.

Please share if you have any other interesting ways to present your work to clients.

 

9 Jun 2011

Are you staying late or working on weekends to get things done?

Just came across this wonderful excerpt from excellent business book "Rework", I thought I should share.

If you are constantly staying late and working on weekends, it’s not because there is too much work to be done. It’s because you’re not getting enough done at work. And the reason is interruptions. 

You can set up a rule at work that half the day is set aside for alone time. 

A successful alone-time period means letting go of communication addiction. During alone time, give up instant messages, phone calls, email, and meetings. Just shut up and get to work. 

Also, when you collaborate, try to use passive communication tools, like e-mail, that don’t require an instant reply, instead of interruptive ones, like phone calls and face-to-face meetings. That way people can respond when it’s convenient for them, instead of being forced to drop everything right away.

Are you staying late or working on weekends to get things done? Think about it.

8 Jun 2011

Two life changing advices

I have just finished reading "The Black Swan" from Nassim Nicholas Taleb (NNT). 

It's a great book if you have the slightest inclination towards philosophy and understanding meaning of life. Let me warn you, language of the book is quite philosophical and technical at times. You may not understand the book in its entirety but you will get the gist of it. That was the case with me at least!

I would like to write about the two advices NNT considers worth remembering out of thousands he has received in his lifetime. 

1) Choose a profession which is "scalable"

The author received this advice from a second year Wharton student.

Scalable profession means where you are not paid by the number of hours you put in. Doctors, Consultants are few of the "non-scalable" professions. Their income is subjected to gravity. It means there will always be a limit to the amount of money they can make during their lifetime. Gain of one day or loss of one day will not make a major difference in their income if you compare it to the income of their life time. 

Whereas being an Author or a Trader are few of the scalable professions. Author does not have to write every copy of book by his hands. Once the book is written, millions of copies can be printed without lot of additional efforts from the author herself.

But NNT advises us to choose a profession which is "non-scalable" i.e. be a doctor or consultant etc. Why? Because there is a huge disparity of wealth and success in scalable professions. You will find very few successful authors and a lot of unsuccessful ones. Same with any other scalable professions. 

"Winner takes it all" is the law of scalable professions. So if you are not a winner, you might not have anything when you die.

According to me, Software Product Development is a scalable profession and an IT service company is a non-scalable profession. 

Once you have the software product ready, you don't have to do lot of efforts to sell multiple copies of it. But if you are giving an IT service, you always have to be there, present every hour for earning your $.

Each one has their own perils and especially being in a scalable profession can be very "risky" as you can end up with nothing. I prefer scalable profession in any case :)

The whole "Black Swan Theory" and the book is derived from the above premise so I will not go in very detail here. But I would once again recommend reading the book.

2) Never catch a running train

Author received this advice from one of his friends in Paris. This is a more practical and meaningful advice according to NNT. 

Snub your destiny. Missing a train will only be painful if you run after it!. i.e. Don't be slave of time.

Once you know you are in control of your own time, you will get more satisfaction from your life. This will provide true elegance to your life and behavior. 

Being alive in this world itself is the luckiest event. How many odds were against us and still we are here "living" and "breathing" on the earth.  

Instead of admiring our own luck and this beautiful phenomena we choose to fret over small and useless stuff in our life. 

The other way to look at this advice is from the perspective of success. You will feel "failed" or "unsuccessful" only if you also see success same as what others think of your success. 

For e.g. somebody wanted you to be a doctor and you are not. Was becoming a doctor your way of measuring a success or somebody else's? If you don't have the same measure, you will not regret not being a Doctor.

Have your own definition of success and enjoy working hard for it. You won't even feel you are working hard, I promise.

I am finding both the advices life changing for me. I hope you find them useful too.

Have you received any life changing advice so far? Please share in comments.
7 Jun 2011

Infosys, TCS, or Wipro? (from Susam Pal)

I came across a very good blog post today from Susam Pal titled "Infosys, TCS or Wipro?"

A must read for all the students reading my blog.

There is also a very good discussion going on "Hacker News" (Don't tell me you haven't heard of it!!)

Check it out and be part of the discussion if you can.
6 Jun 2011

Newsletters worth subscribing

I am not a big fan of newsletters coming in emails. I mostly unsubscribe them as soon I receive but recently I am finding few newsletters worth my time. 

I recommend following newsletters to people who are like me i.e. loves internet, technology and reading.

Now I know (Daily) 

Code Project Insider (Daily)

The Cool Hunter (Monthly) - Coolest of all! (Update)

Subscribe them and I guarantee you won't regret it.

Do you know any other newsletters worth subscribing to?

Abhishek Desai's Space

Co-founder of Digicorp, Sign in Style and Rivals4Ever

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