Getting A New Product Off The Ground: Part One

Hmm. I'm sort of considering blogging on a fairly frequent basis this month, so while I appreciate to no end that folks find my blog interesting, can I ask that anyone considering submitting this series in the future exercise discretion? I would dislike being on the front page twice a week.<p>That said, if folks have any questions, shoot.

"Happiness does not write code" is an awesome quote.

Patrick, what service are you planning to use for billing (presumably recurring)?

Nothing beats a solid TODO list. I keep mine in a file called TODO.txt with sketches on my grid notepad. (Makes designing html pages much easier.)<p>When you have a solid framework (I use Perl + CGI::App) the CRUD code/modules become the easiest to code.<p>It's the damn interface that takes a good while (especially without a good designer.)<p>What I like to do is use Blueprint CSS and make my pages jQuery themeable. This gives me good fonts and padding along with a standard look when working with the jQuery UI plugins.<p>I can't even fathom the idea of starting a business, there is so much to do when creating a decent app that adding the business part just adds to the headache.<p>Another hurdle I've come across is documentation. Even writing a good description for your app can be hard.<p>I envy products that take only a couple of months and are able to turn a profit. I've been working on my project for over a year now and just barely getting close to a release month.