Hotblack on Business
Posted on January 4, 2005 in Freelancing
(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:30 am)
(last edited on April 29, 2014 at 1:30 am)
Was talking to Sunil via the ole MSN. He started his own business, Insyst, back in the old country a couple of years ago. I picked his brain for some insights, and he generously he gave! Paraphrased slightly, they are:
- Decide whether you want to position yourself as an art guy who can program, or a programmer who can do art
Decide whether you want to do one-off project work, build a product, or componentized project work
Find a strong business development team to partner up to
If you want staff eventually, start writing davecorp methodology
After developing your methodology, think about how to hire people that can be transformed into mini-Daves
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p>I never thought of writing down an actual methodology first. Usually you see this advice expressed as “develop a business plan“. It seems more effective, and even slightly more sinister. Mua ha ha ha!
1 Comment
hiya dave,
i was playing around with bing to see what it could do, and the old vanity search surprisingly came up with this page. btw, your link on my name is dead. i left the animals three years ago.
so, it’s been five years since our conversation. how’d it turn out for you? are you ruling the northern hemisphere, with a bevy of scantily-clad babes drawing and coding for you?
i stand by what i said 5 years ago… here are a coupla other things i should have mentioned.
– in a startup, staff turnover can be very high. the teletubbies will become very expensive mini-daves, who will take everything you teach them and seek greener pastures. the first few times you’ll be heartbroken. plan for it, and learn to live with it [easy to say].
– part of the davecorp methodology should include career paths, so that from day one, each person can imagine himself happily and wealthily at davecorp 5 or 10 years down the track.
– cashflow is more important than top-line revenue or bottom-line income
cheers,
sunil