Business as Usual
Thanks for all your feedback last week. There were lots of different ideas on offer. Enough to make me think twice about relying on a packaged, Domino-based product for financial security. As many people seem to think this is a good idea as think it's not. Worryingly it seems to be the people who've tried this approach that warn against it.
Having thought about it for some time since I think I've decided it's probably not for me. You could argue that if I have to think about what product to make then that's not a good start. It's like somebody trying to guess what the next YouTube might be. If you have to think or ask then you're losing already. Unless you have an instinct of your own to follow or an idea you truly believe to be a winner then quit while you're ahead.
The consensus seemed to be that I should continue doing as I do - whereby I do all this for nothing and get work based on the reputation this builds up for me. This has done me well so far. My third financial year ends at the end of this month and takings have been more than ample. It's an odd business model though and not exactly reliable. There's no predicting how much work will come my way in any given month or year. If I explained to the bank's business manager how I get my work I'm sure he'd think I was bonkers.
Anyway, this business model is working now so I'd be daft to change it. All I need to do is continue maintaining my own reputation. The most obvious place to do this is here on codestore. From here I could maybe venture out and write a book or get involved in an OpenNTF project like !!HELP!! which I've been asked to add a web front end to.
Only time will tell what I end up doing. Fate has got me this far in life without any kind of plan and so should help me through the rest of it ok.
Once again, thanks for all your feedback
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Actually in the legal industry in the U.S.A. there was a Domino web product which was for e-invoicing. I happen to there for 14 months, but this company had many top corporate customrs who wanted to track the legal expenses, The proct was called DirectInvoice. It used Domino Security for ppl to accesşto view, approve. reject. and process invoices for electronic payment.
I think if the app had a valid business purpose you can do it,
Secondly I have a friend whom I help develop Gigbuilder which is part of an online suite of product for DJs. Is a Domino solution which mt friend manages in Domino. there is even a module for DJs to manage their next events and manage their bill history online.
hope it give some real world examples.
I have followed the evolution of several companies that when from a consulting to applications. I am a huge fan of one company in particular called 37signals, here in Chicago, that did just that. They are more successful now with their application business than they were with consulting and they have fewer headaches.
I think moving to an application business is the right move. In the beginning you may have to continue consulting in order to fund your application development but in the end you might find the result more rewarding.
I have been tossing around the idea of launching a web application myself. Being a long time Domino developer, I naturally gravitated towards leveraging Domino as my platform. But, thinking about it, I decided that Domino was not the right choice. It's an expensive proposition when it comes to software, hardware and the cost to scale a Domino application is too much for a small company.
I know you have experimented with Rails and other open source software. Why not think of something that you would find useful, develop the idea and test it out. What can you lose? And, who knows, in the end it may just be a success.
To be honest, it depends on what you want to get out of the hosted platform for Domino Web Applications. The item I can not discount the fact that the Domino platform has one of the best security models out there. It is extended to any application I build. When using something outside Domino, I have to create the security. I am not saying I can't do that, but it is an initial investment cost which many people don't realize up front.
Secondly who is the target audience? Today the cutting edge technologies are not going to be quickly adopted. Companies tend to stick with mature environments. If I was to create an application which is not going to be in Domino, then I will try to make a compatible version for Domino.
To share about my past projects:
1. My most successful project in my past emplyment experiences a Lotus Notes client application which did not have any content in the NSF. It made many backend calls to an Oracle database server. To the client it looked like the Domino NSF had 3 million records (and growing), but in reality it had not one record.
2. My second most successful application was a google like search engine which was used for a Michigan Pizza franchise to review customer service complaints. It was doing full text search against a 1.5 million records stored in Domino. This massive database had only 1 view and no computed columns. The result set was being shown on a dynamic document containing a rich text field showing the results in a column format. Most of these reports were going to a printer, but this company used it for 3 years. Their call center platform changed but this database is being used for historical purposes.
Both of these application had web front ends as well.
So for me I think Domino has many strengths in the from of Security and full text indexing -- which can include attachments. Not many other web apps can do not without special knowledge in using open source projects for indexing.
A pizza company with 1.5 million complaints? Remind me to avoid them like the plague ;o)
Jake,
How's Karen looking/feeling? (I don't recall the due date) And your daughter reacting to the impending sister/brother? Off topic from the money making endeavor, but you might need to add another blog to your others. You'll be busy changing diapers soon (or is that what you were hoping to avoid by taking on a new project? ;-)
It was over 7 years worth of calls. Also there are many people who spend their free time complaining trying to get free money by asking for refunds....
Interesting business model, rather like my own but in the arena of software quality.
Would like to suggest a possible "opening", at one of my clients . .
Would like some advice on creating an excel "download" from a www/.nsf view
When you have time to trade, I look forward to hearing
Are you trying to recruit via your blog comment?
Simon,
I re-read your post and I was misunderstanding that you may have wanted me to work for this client.
The biggest problem with excel is that it can not do more than 64K in rows. In my opinion excel is not a very good tool for datamining.