Unfolding

How to get the Microsoft Start Up Software for FREE!

nfld — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:47:39 +0000

Microsoft has a range of start up programs. Our vision is to provide services with E-Business on Microsoft .Net, Dynamics and Windows Azure for start ups, so what better path than to follow the same route as the teams we’re providing services to. Our plan is to start by creating a web presence, follow on to develop services and after that unleashing marketing for the services. Plain and simple.

Microsoft Website Spark

This program provides “visibility, support and software” for web designers and developers and Start Ups. It’s a cheap way to get the applications we’re using to create our web presence:

Design and Development
- Expression Design and Web
- Visual Studio 2008 Professional
- SQL Server 2008 Web Edition

Production
- Windows Web Server 2008 R2
- SQL Server 2008 Web Edition

With regards to support the only really exclusive feat is that we get two professional support incidents, apart from that it’s really only stuff that’s out there anyhow.

The program assumes we’re less than 10 people and that we will publish a public website within 6 months. There is only a penalty of $100 for leaving the program which sounds fair to us.

We enrolled as a start up, but if you’re going to enroll as a web pro you need A “valid approval code from a Microsoft Champ, Network Partner, or Hosting Partner”, sounds much more complicated than it is.

Read the full program guide (PDF)

Microsoft BizSpark

Since we’re going to deliver software services based on the .Net, Dynamics and Azure platforms, we need a more heavy development platform than what is provided with Website Spark.

BizSpark is the Microsoft program for software start ups, and this really is a valuable program from our point of view. The key selling point here again is “Software, Support and Visibility”.

Now the software package here is substantial in our opinion. For a mere $100 we will receive a full fledged MSDN Premium Subscription. That includes Visual Studio Team System 2008 and all other servers we need for designing, developing and testing the software services we’re about to develop.
For our production environment we will not only get OS, but a range of application servers and the production environment servers! Wow, now that is great news to our business case, since we aim at reaching break even the first year. Please refer to the detailed program guide below for more details.

For our service offering it is also quite nice that we will be listed in the BizsparkDB a public directory hosted at Microsoft StartupZone.

Eligibility
- Develop software
- Privately held company
- Less than three years old
- Not make more than US $1M annually

Read the detailed program guide (PDF)

Great List of Start Up Utilities

nfld — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 14:31:13 +0000

Here’s a quite good list of resources – some of them more obvious and others at least new to me.. I specially like the Mockingbord for sketching, pitching and scoping concepts since I’m trying to establish a completely virtual way of working.

7 Essentials of your Start Up

Lush Mirages out in the Desert

nfld — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:38:20 +0000

I’m following a great series on the Enterpreneur blog about the 10 most common start up mistakes and the Seventh is in my opinion the most common and wide spread in experience. Sure I agree – each business case is different and has it’s intrinsic business requirements for financing, I’m not going to delve into that discussion. I believe that if the investment plan contains hiring core competence, buying awareness not supported by current waves, and above all testing the market then it will be down to having a strong value proposition.

In many of the business cases I have been involved there has been a constant trade off and combat on time and other resources on focusing on selling the value proposition to investors or customers. It is both time and energy consuming to land start up finance from investors, and if the same time and energy can be spent on landing actual customer orders that is a powerful way to radically smooth up investors. By showing that customers are actually willing to buy from you is key to negotiating with investors. Finding a short path to the market that can be elaborated to the target business architecture is a powerful strategy, and there’s no learning like doing.

Here’s an excellent article about Value Propositions – In Search of Value Propositions

Mantra

nfld — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:35:10 +0000

mantra (plural mantras)

(Hinduism.) The hymn portions of the Vedas; any passage of these used as a prayer.
A phrase repeated to assist concentration during meditation, originally in Hinduism.
(General.) A slogan or phrase often repeated.

Why a mantra? I came across this idea when reading the The Plan-as-you-go Business Plan book pointing to a blog posting “How to Change the World: Mantras Versus Missions” by Guy Kawasaki. Since I come from an Enterprise consulting environment I have stumbled across many cases of Mission Statement-itis, and very much been responsible for torpedoing many sizzling ideas with it myself. So finding and following a short mantra is very appealing with those experiences in mind.

Back to out mantra:

Unfold your dreams	Dreams are unrealistic, absurd and imaginary. They are radically different from reality.
Engage on a tangible target	Listen to Oprah: it’s a simple question of want and need. Engage resources and momentum with passion on a common razor sharp focus. First things first!
Unleash the intrinsic energy	Attraction before promotion. Nobody enjoys nagging. Unleash a love bug nothing spreads faster and creates more devotion.

Our general idea is to establish presence, connect with customers without compromising long term business architecture and prospects. The concept of learning by doing is essential here, but there are some pitfalls that must be avoided with this path. We’re following a manifesto of an online business profile as we perceive it, which demonstrates our strategic focus but most definitely don’t mean that it is the only way to do business. The manifesto, which will be published in a near posting, details our guiding rules and principles for building online business, both for our business network and our customer partnership profiles. The core pillars of our business manifesto are:

Agile	Build business and software (websites) in small incremental steps and with the ruling principle to be flexible and light weight
Adaptive	If your strength is to be agile – use it or step back. Don’t change a winning formula is well and good, but in this line of business the winning formula is to listen, chew and adapt.
Measuring	Not measureable, but measuring. Being agile and adaptive without metrics is like riding a scooter in central London with a blindfold.
Break Even	Our business is in building cash flow positive business and this is the core of our differentiation. There are several very strong and famous businesses out there that are fueled with venture capital and brand building strategies – the obvious striking example being Facebook. Not chosing this path is controversial but healthy.

The mantra of this blog is narrowed down from our business mantra to unfolding dreams to break-even, implying that we’d like to share our experiences, successes, mistakes and smiles from our and friends projects. It should provide practical solutions to practical problems, a channel to unfold dreams to reality.