kokodev.de reloaded
Hello World!
I guess there’s no one out there listening to me so far, but anyway: This is kokodev.de and there will be some activity here soon! It’s been a while since I wrote down some thoughts and I think the time has come to jump back onto the blogging-train. I think I’ll enjoy it once more to start blogging and I hope that there will be enough time to work on that. There was a lot of work going on since my last post here and there are some reasons why I think writing down some things that are floating around in my mind might be useful at least for myself.
So… stay tuned!
Welcome, Mr. President!
America got a new president today. Congratulations and good luck Mr. Obama. But since this is not a blog about politics but one about software development, I am far from going to talk about this now 
But nevertheless, I saw the speech of Barack Obama today and some parts are not only true for the citizens of America. They are somewhat inspiring and general when you are about to start your own company, which is not as easy as some people may think…
At least for myself it is not easy. There is a day-job that occupies your whole day. The time that is left in the evening should be used for emerging this dream of being your own boss and tell yourself what has to be done. The ideas are there, but it needs so much power and strength to simply sit down and get going with bringing life into your dream. At the moment this is quite hard to do, maybe even too hard. So maybe this means that it is not yet time for this dream to become true. Maybe it means that the vision is not clear enough yet to be become reality. Maybe it means that I am not sure whether this vision is exactly the one that stands behind the dream. Or maybe it simply means that I am too darn lazy to get going with the stuff that is to do now to kick off that microISV that I have in mind since quite some time…
And that is where Mr. Obama comes into play and reaches me with his speech even thousands of km (or miles) away, where I am the last one he wants to tell something:
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this: They will be met.
…
Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the fainthearted — for those who prefer leisure over work
…
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done … All this we can do. And all this we will do.
In short, that simply means to me: „Sit down and get going, jerk!” There will be problems. Problems that I can not know yet. But these problems are not so big that they can not be solved. I read THE book of Bob Walsh again lately which said that everything in starting a microISV is simple, but simple does not mean painless. The main rule is:
Rock on: Don’t spent your days in a cubicle wondering if you can turn that burning desire in your guts into something real – go for it!
Well… that’s what I’ve been doing lately: Wondering whether this is the right thing to do at this very moment. And that’s where I have to restart now. Once you are rolling, some things are easily done. But it needs steady work, a hard will and not to prefer leisure over work. All this I can do. And all this I will do!
My Vision – My Goals?
Joel Spolsky recently wrote about a short and nice blog entry about having goals. Reading this reminds me that I need goals! Indeed it is quite easy to go through life without a particular goal, simply living and doing the dayjob. But well… doesn’t this get boring after a while?!? You want to do a project and sell something? So you need to focus on it! For sure I will not forget to un-focus from time to time But that’s just another goal, isn’t it?
Finding your Vision
When trying to build up a “company”, even a small one, or if you just want to do a project for yourself, it is supposed to be quite easy to find a good idea. Well… face it: it is definately not. Of course sometimes there’s just this perfect idea coming to your mind that will be the basis for the upcoming success of your new company. But what if this perfect idea does not want to come into your mind? What will you do to get it – to get started with your fancy new killerapp which is going to take over Microsofts monopol on the office-suite market?
I am currently in this situation. I want to build up something on my own. It might not be a big application that brings me the money for my living, but it should be at least a nice project that might bring me some coins for one beer during my summer holidays. I was patient and sitting there, waiting for this idea to come into my mind. Guess what? It did not come up!
It takes more than waiting. It takes research, brainstorming, thinking of what people could need. What are your possible target groups? For what kind of people would you want to write software? Take a look at Software-Download pages, look at the rankings and categories, check out what’s existing on this huge software market! Maybe there is a topic that’s interesting for you? Maybe there are a bunch of programs that are just too awful to be used by anyone? Maybe that app on page 3 is exactly what you would need in your life and that might need a lot of improvement to be a cool app to buy?
Hey… what’s this? I think there is a starting point to get a first vision of what projects there are for you! Even better, there is a full list of projects and you just have to pick the best one out of it! Of course it is not THAT easy. But it might be enough for a first step; for this starting point to do something serious in your spare time that might eventually bring you some extra cash, or might not! When starting a spare-time-company it is certainly not a bad idea to start small and go bigger later on.
But still… there’s more to a software project than just some idea of a piece of program that might be nice to have. Now it’s time to fine-tune this idea. It needs some polishing and thinking to get a real vision out of it. Without a vision, the project might be a good programming practice, but as a real software project that you want to sell to people, you definately need a clear vision! You need to know clearly where your project path is leading to and where you want to have it leading to. If this is missing, you’re going to get lost on your own path quickly.
And that’s what’s coming next for me: I got the ideas, now it’s time to form my vision!
A whole lotta iPhone
Seems like T-Mobile Austria is very proud to be the distributor of Apple‘s iPhone:
9999€ (or 15.750$) for a phone without contract… Wouldn‘t you buy that too?!?
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