Useful Little Things

I’ve just finished the first draft of the microISV Pain Point survey.  I’ll be kicking it around with Dr. Umphress and his research team of graduate students.

Right now, it looks like the survey will be short on the questions and long on the possible answers; there are dozens of topics that affect microISV operators on a daily and weekly basis, including software engineering, marketing, accounting, legal, sales, outsourcing, … the list goes on.  With that in mind, I will focus on getting the “big picture,” not necessarily the specifics.

My hope is that the survey results will show at least a handful of topics that are common pain points for the microISVers out there.  From that springboard, we can target one or two areas to focus on for the next year or so (i.e. – my research proposal and dissertation).  And, if the research is fruitful, we’ll be giving something back to the microISV community, in terms of raw data and distilled information.

On a related note, Dr. Umphress’ research team is now viewing their work on single-person process (“PCSE”) within the umbrella of the microISV community.  This is not to say that they are changing their focus or direction; the research itself is simply being viewed with a more focused — and potentially broader — audience.  I look forward to seeing how this shapes up for the community at large.

jSimpleX gets between 30 and 100 downloads a month from SourceForge.net and has been since March 2003.  However, no new trackers have been opened since 2005.  Strange.

As an experiment, I added a prompt at first launch of the program asking the user what they planned on using the application for (business, personal, both, evaluation).  The prompt can be dismissed and no information is sent.  If the user responds, the answer is pushed to this site (see the widget in the bottom right of the home page).

Let’s see if we can find out what people are doing with the software, shall we…

I met with Dr. Umphress today and we agreed he will become my permanent advisor.  My next steps are to prepare a dissertation proposal, to be presented Spring 2011.  It would normally be sooner, but I have one last class to complete before the Graduate School allows me to defend my proposal.

In the immediate future, I need to identify the most fertile areas for research potential.  The foundational goal of setting up this research is to support and grow microISVs.  With that in mind, I will focus on the pain points of microISVs.  In other words, the areas in which microISV operators commonly struggle; the areas that would benefit from further exploration and formal research.

Many of these pain points are addressed or alluded to in the Business of Software FAQ and the Business of Software forum discussions.  From these sources, I can infer common topical areas (marketing, sales, accounting, etc.) that typically provide a challenge to new or existing microISV operators.  From this springboard, I will dive into other sources, such as Eric Sink’s book on the Business of Software and Bob Walsh’s book Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality.  Lastly, I’ll scan the ACM and IEEE databases for previously published papers on entrepreneurial software companies (since the term microISV doesn’t exist there… yet).

From these sources — and my own experiences — will evolve a list of topics or subject areas in which microISV pain points will likely be found.  However, this list will be largely academic, if you’ll pardon the pun.  What we need next is to validate the list against real-world microISVs, both new and established.  The most obvious avenue for validation is a survey of microISV operators, since direct observation is out of the question.

Therefore, as part of my research, I will establish an annual microISV Pain Point Survey.  Operators of new and existing microISVs will be invited to partake in the survey, and the resulting data from the survey will offered back to the microISV community.

I believe this will fulfill a series of goals.  First, this will help guide my dissertation topic into fruitful areas.  Second, it will give back to the microISV community more than I take away.  Third, it will be instrumental in setting the long-term goals of the microISV research center.  Lastly, it will measure changes in the focus and attitudes of microISV operators from year-to-year.

Some initial thoughts on topical areas:

• General topics (marketing, accounting, sales, billing, payment providers, SEO, etc)
• Intellectual Property Issues (data ownership, anti-piracy, app signing, provisioning, recisioning, etc.)
• Software Process (methodology or lack of, testing, quality)

Next steps: Assemble committee; perform literature survey.

In the war between publishers and retailers over control of the e-book channel, the customer is losing.  My letter to Harper-Collins and my email to Amazon explain it all.