This post picks up where yesterday's post left off.
So I got the business going. Sold a few copies. And... learned a few lessons about testing software before releasing it. Macaroni 1.0 came out on a Tuesday. Then 1.0.1 on Wednesday. And 1.0.2 on Saturday, and 1.0.3 on Monday the 21st. After that things settled out and I could think about adding new features instead of fixing surprise bugs. It made for an intense week.
A popular question from people interested in starting a software business goes something like, should I quit my job to do it, or work on it part time while earning a living somewhere else and quit when I can live off of my profits? In my case there's no way I could have gotten Atomic Bird off the ground while working full time. As I mentioned yesterday, after writing software all day for a living I was pretty much wrung out and couldn't face doing more of it in the evening. Ending up out of work conveniently removed that obstacle.
Regardless of your temperament, I think at some point you need to make a leap of faith if you want to work independently. A day-job salary is a hard thing to just walk away from, even if you're making some money on the side from your own software. Even if you matched the day job salary, quitting would then mean cutting your income in half. I don't necessarily think it's necessary to be unemployed before getting started, but it has a nice way of focusing your energy on making things work. If you've got that regular check coming in it can be easy not to make your own stuff a priority. Just make sure you've got some funds saved up to see you through the slow times.
The other popular one is, how long does it actually take before you can live off of it? Of course it depends on how much money you need to live. I reached that point relatively quickly, but then I have a low mortgage payment and no other debt aside from that. Having your finances in order really helps, because monthly loan payments will make it a lot harder to reach the point where you're really supporting yourself. It also helped that I don't have any kids. In my case it was under a year, probably 8-10 months before I could actually cover all of my expenses and not have that mean living off of ramen.
Macworld, March 2004Not long after that I did have some help, though. In early 2004 Dan Frakes reviewed Macaroni for his "Mac Gems" column in Macworld magazine, and gave it four out of five mice.
The effect on sales cannot really be understated much.
I prefer not to get into actual sales numbers, but it's like this. Prior to the review I had a level of sales in mind that was comfortable, in that it was enough I didn't feel like I needed to think about help-wanted ads. In the month following the Macworld review sales were roughly 10x that amount. After that they declined, but gradually. In the second month it was "only" about 5x that amount, and the same the month after. It was in 2004 that I hired an accountant.
Anyway, this is starting to get long again, so I'll sign off for now. Tune in again tomorrow when our story continues.
Tue, 10/16/2007 - 06:20
Tom, I really enjoyed your story and will be excited to see more. I guess I am one of your customers that started buying your software when the MacWorld review came out. I can see why that has tremendously helped your business. I am happy for you, and I am glad to have supported your efforts.
Lets go back to 1996. Yes, I am one of them corporate employees who started a dot.com business off to the side of my full-time job. And your right, doing both was way too much work. Its tough to come home and jump right on the computer again. I was in the online sellling business but since I could not put forth 100% of my energy that was needed, it failed miserably. I was not fortunate to get laid off like yourself. If I was, I probably would of went full steam ahead and been my own boss today. But I got to say, there are pros and cons to everything, so I can complain to how thing are going to today. Okay, I'm not going to get into a another story : ) but I you do inspire a lot of people including myself.
Huh, and all this time I thought I was dealing with a large software company : ) Keep up the good work! And I will be looking forward to dealing with you in the near future.
Wed, 10/17/2007 - 08:00
Tom, here's a suggestion for content in one of your posts. I think it was Gus who did a graph (without numbers) showing the relative sizes of sales of a product since its release, with little push-pins showing significant events (e.g. getting an award). It'd be cool to see something like that - the more data points there are for us wannabe ISVs, the better!
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