Working with users

A lot of young programmers believe they have some good programming skills. Then we can build a good application which a lot of people will buy that. Let’s start a business. In the most of cases i heard, we built a good application,but only they liked their software. Building a good application only reqiures good programming skills. The most important skills is understanding what your users like and hate. Not just what you like.

Thus, that is important to know your users.

We have to have our own code

There are open source or some off-the-shelf software components. We can glued them together a product. Maybe, only with a few custom codes. However, we may not know enough those components. We have to have our own codes. We need to understand every line of source code. So that, we can change them to adapt into fitting those requirements. Moreover, if we have our codes, we have advantages against with our competitors.

Tablet is a helpful tool for salesperson

Recently, I did some sales work for my company. I found Tablet is very useful. It is very handy. I can easily bring it to my client's office without a large carry bag. Although it has a keyboard, I cannot show some complex operations to my client, that is enough to show some website layouts and presentations to my client. I think nowadays tablet is a essential tool for a salesperson.

Multi income streams

I think that is important to have multi income streams as a startup business. That is too high risk to generate the income from a single area. We have diversity of client base. In case, one industry is going a tough time. We can get enough income from other businesses. That is the reason my company builds mobile apps, custom applications and websites  for clients. Even we do technical support for clients  too! That is hard to do time management for doing well in those areas. But that is the way to have a stable business .

Corporate Culture

Recently, I met some graduates. I had some discussions with them about their first job. I found they are very focus on profession training, salary and the size of companies. I think they should think about Corporate Culture. They should think about whether they can fit in the team and whether their work style is similar with the company they are going to apply. I really wish them can enjoy their first job!

Social Network is not very helpful for internet marketing

We, AdvGen, are managing a lot of local and IT news portals. I found the most of traffic are coming from the search engines, the traditional way. Yes, the segment of Social Network traffic is getting more comparing 3 years ago. That is not as powerful as some internet marketing said. They said the social network can get your website to be well known.
If you ask me, whether that is a good idea to use Social Networks for internet marketing. I must say "Yes". That is a good tool to bring some traffic and get other people to know your website. But you need to do SEO. You cannot only rely on Social Networks.

A success story of Australia Software Company - Atlassian

This monday night, I was watching The Business on ABC. During the program, there was a section about A success story of Australia Software Company ,Atlassian. I have been their product JIRA for years, but I never know they are an australian company. I am surprised that is a local startup in Sydney. That was an interesting story. Thus, I paid attention to listen their story. I found they faced a problem which a lot australian companies are facing, Australia is a relative small country. Our local market is not big enough to reach a critical mass. They pointed out Internet is an opportunity for Australian companies to reach the global easily. They are selling their software solutions. I believe that will be a model for every software company in Australia to consider!

Brisbane Software Development Company have to go Globally

Recently, my Company,AdvanGeneration, setup an online store to sell our software, moreover, we have our account in Google Player to sell our paid app long time ago. The reason to setup them is we wish to go Globally. Brisbane is not big enough, that is too small! We have to sell our software to everyone, not just about Brisbane!

Running I.T. Company is not easy.

Some people think that is very easy to setup an information technology company. You just need to do a business registration and buy a laptop. Then you can be the CEO of your own I.T. Firm. Yes, we don't need to a big office and even you can use a home office.  But, I wish to ask where we cam get customers. You may say the customers can find us from our company website. There are  thousands companies doing similar things with us. We still need to do marketing same as other companies. We posted advertisements online and local papers. They required to invest some money. Moreover , we needed to deal with accounting and legal matters. These requires other professionals to help us. Some fees are involved. These are not as simple as you thought

That is Friday! I nearly fall to sleep

During this week, I am so busy , I worked around 10 hours per day this week.That is great! Today is Friday, I can get some time off. But I am already so tired, when I was jogging outside, I nearly fall to sleep. I want to sleep, well, I still have a church meeting to go tonight! Brothers & sisters, please prepare a cup of coffee for me!

Coffee is the things every day i need

I found after I started to be a full-time programmer, I need coffee every day. I had three cups of coffee every day.I used to be stay awake for a whole night, if I had a coffee after 6pm. But recently, I have to take a coffee every 6pm, this way is to make sure I can drive at night. 

That is Friday, a training day

Today is Friday, but that is a bit relaxing. I am in a Win8 training. Not that stressful at all. But I need to work tonight and tomorrow....

I am in a training session

After I started my own business,AdvGen-Web Design Company in Brisbane, most of my time is working for my clients. That is so great to have a day for training, learning Win8 and visual studio 2012

More Apps will come

I just finished a major update of  AdvGen Todo. This update, we changed the UI based on our users' feedback, such as making the live update on the time spent of a running task and the slider will jump to the page of the current task. We will continue to improve our existing apps and build more new apps!

Self-motivation is the key of running a startup business

In a start-up company ,there are a lot of things happened every day. Some are encouraging. Some makes you a bit sad. Some need time to handle. They can make your mood up and down every day. Even they made you to consider going as an employee.
Well, that is an exciting journey. You should be able to find something as your motivation.

Keep changing

When you start a small business, please keep your mind open. You are on a journey to find the right answer. Maybe, at the end, you have to completely change your core business. Startup business is very dynamic.