Todo list for MicroISV developer

This is a great resource.<p>I've just come out of the SharePoint world and whilst I'm now in a Java world I've setup a solo boot-strapped micro ISV to cash in on the knowledge that I still have.<p>The only thing I'd add to that list is that if you're doing anything with the Microsoft stack then you should go and sign up to BizSpark. It will give you all of your software (dev tools, test stack, etc) for free which will help reduce an initial overhead.<p>That takes time, so do it immediately after 15. and 25.<p>BTW: I'm already making £3k per month from this and so far I've only sold a few WebParts to existing contacts. I would totally recommend little side projects like this if you do have specialised domain knowledge that you can take advantage of in a way that doesn't conflict with your current employer (if you have one).<p>The motivation to start the micro ISV was simply to fund my MSc and to cover the costs of the hardware that my project/paper requires. But it's quickly becoming a viable business on it's own so I might keep it up long-term.

I'm an indie Mac developer (what Mac guys call Micro ISV's), so I scanned down this list and compared it to my checklist for a recent release. Out of the 124 items listed here, I'd say that ~105 of them are either essential or good ideas to have. I don't really agree with the ordering: for example, I can't imagine leaving usability testing to #116.<p>That being said, the ones that should be in place ought to be in place from day one.<p>I don't see any point to several. EULA's on first run, asking at the BOS forum, PAD files (though I understand these are pretty important in Windows download sites), various pricing levels, obfuscation, or physical disk shipping.<p>The one that really bothers me is #88, 'box shot 3d'. If you don't ship boxed software, you shouldn't have a picture of boxed software on your site.

I like how this is simply one bullet:<p>&#62; build a community

Build an API should be down at the bottom somewhere.

A lot of it you repeat from one to the other :)