Tom's attempts to make money with Software as a Service
Hi, I have some questions.
The message popped up on my screen one afternoon. This was exciting; I’d been testing a new live chat tool on my websites, one that was starting to turn visitors into customers, and new messages that asked questions were usually a good sign.
Continue reading Talking with a porn chat spammer, a lesson appears.
Invoicing can be a time-consuming annoyance. Sure, things improve once they’re paid, but at the beginning, the whole process can quickly become a confusing and time-consuming mess. Here’s what I wanted to achieve for my SaaS apps, and for my consultancy work, hopefully saving you some time along the way.
At the start of 2012, I made the welcome return to consulting, setting up my company, TBB Polska, and planning to put all my income through this entity, rather than through my personal tax allowance.
Continue reading The European Invoicing Adventures of my SaaS Apps
This is my first annual review, and what a year it’s been! A doubling of revenues, several new apps launched… but sadly still nowhere near being able to work full-time on them. That’s my target for 2012; turn these from paying the rent to paying a full-time salary instead. So without further ado, here are the details: Continue reading TweetingMachine, InboxCleaner (and others) Year in Review 2011
I’ve previously written about creating new web apps, and the simple fact that without some form of marketing effort, if you build it, they will not come. But what is the solution?
With my latest app – Interactwive, a tool for running contests on Twitter – I attempted to start marketing WAY before I’d even begun to scratch out the first few lines of code. Here’s how I’ve been getting on so far.
Continue reading Creating and marketing a new web app: trying to do it right
If there is a way to make money online by abusing a service, you can guarantee spammers will give it a try. They have so little regard for the service, the spammers will club it to death without a second thought, all to increase their chances of making a fast buck.
Somewhat ironically, spammers do have their benefits: at some point you will be forced to harden your systems, both against spammers and against Things That Can Go Wrong. Let me tell you how this worked out for one of my apps, TweetingMachine.
Continue reading The Benefits Of Spammers Abusing Your Service
UPDATE: When I wrote this post, I was writing about design in the sense of pretty little boxes – and NOT how the user interface comes together and so on. I’m now aware that the terms “design” and “designer” cover an awful lot of ground 
Design is one of the biggest challenges for pure programmers who want to build web apps. When bootstrapping your startup, I’ve read that some people seem to be very keen to hire a designer. I can’t think of a bigger mistake. Continue reading Hiring a designer is a premature optimization
One principle behind developing web apps is that you should aim to fail fast, meaning that if your idea isn’t working out, it’s better that you find out it’s not viable before you invest a lot of time and effort in it. The problem is: it’s not always easy to give up on your dreams.
This is what is currently happening with CampaignBar, a tool that I very much believe in, but that has not brought in a single paltry cent. Continue reading Failing Fast Is Not Fun, Satisfying or Pleasant
What’s the biggest professional mistake that you’ve ever made? I’ve had a good few mistakes that a) have been very expensive and b) I’ve learned a great deal from. In fact, one of my favourite interview questions was to ask candidates to tell me about their biggest mistake; the results could be quite revealing. More to the point: I’d much rather hire someone who’s made a big mistake or two than someone who’s still waiting for their first time.
Just a few minutes ago, I found what is possibly my biggest personal mistake to date. And ouch, is it painful! Continue reading Here’s my biggest mistake; what’s yours?