
Software Businesses In 5 Hours A Week - johns
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/06/17/software-businesses-in-5-hours-a-week-microconf-2010-presentation-1-hour/
======
jdietrich
IMHO Patrick is the smartest guy in software at the moment. I can think of any
number of bigger, more profitable and more exciting software businesses, but
none that make the owner quite as radiantly happy as BCC makes Patrick. I feel
slightly uncomfortable talking in such a hippyish manner, but there's a
certain Zen quality to the way Patrick does business; Like a rock garden, BCC
is at once a metaphor for life and something purely abstract. His way of doing
things seems as much about being a better person as it is about running a
better business.

If you desperately want a squillion dollars, read PG. If your idea of fun is
running a big office, read Spolsky. If you have other priorities, I can't
think of a wiser voice than patio11.

~~~
staunch
Oh come on. I think Patrick is awesome too, but you're going a bit far.

And if you think Patrick is some kind of monk doesn't want a "squillion
dollars" you haven't been paying very close attention.

Patrick is a smart (and very nice) guy with some really useful knowledge and a
very analytical mind. He's also exceptionally good at communicating.

It's that last part that he has in common with PG and Spolsky.

His actual advice and experience is severely lagging behind his ability to
promote and communicate. Certainly his ideas about how to run a business are
far from proven. He hasn't even repeated the success of BCC himself yet.

PG's startup advice is directly responsible for dozens of very successful
companies. Probably hundreds. Spolsky's advice on running a software company
improved the way thousands of them are run.

Patrick may get there eventually (he's got all the right skills), but let's
not get too carried away yet.

~~~
evanrmurphy
_"He hasn't even repeated the success of BCC himself yet."_

This is the doubt that inevitably sneaks up on the hope you get when you read
small business advice. If what you say is true, why are you spilling the
beans? Why don't you protect your secret and reap all the reward for yourself?

~~~
jasonkester
Most of the things that go into building a little software empire like this
don't need to be kept secret. And by its very nature, it's not something that
you want to repeat too many times.

Imagine you had a business that took 20 hours of your time each month and
brought in $10k/mo. Your options now are:

A.) go surfing. forever.

B.) build another business that takes up another 20 hours of your month and
brings in another $10k/month.

If you iterate this out enough times, you'll notice that option A goes away
after a few cycles, and suddenly you have a full time job. Sure, you're
bringing in more money, but your quality of life is back to that of every
other schmuck with a full time job.

Since the stated goal of the enterprise is "pay for me to have fun with the
least possible effort", it just doesn't make sense to find ways to add effort
and subtract fun from that equation.

------
patio11
Although it shares most of a title with an old blog post of mine, this is
actually a new hour-long presentation that I did at Microconf this year, with
slides and textual accompaniment. Comments are appreciated as always.

~~~
evanrmurphy
It's a good talk, but the audio quality is poor. How was this recorded?

------
jswinghammer
So I can't help but find the salaryman thing to be creepy and strange (not
that you did this but rather that anyone does).

Is this a common situation to find oneself in?

Does someone explain the rules or do you just figure it out by what every else
does?

Does no one complain or quit in frustration?

Does anyone try to stop this practice?

~~~
patio11
Approximately 30% of the Japanese workforce is salarymen. The rest runs the
gamut in terms of working conditions -- the key difference from the Japanese
perspective is that salarymen are guaranteed against virtually all risk from
the time they join the company until death. I'm not married -- the company was
willing to take care of that. I had problems with my landlords? The company
would have taken care of that. I needed intercession on visa/tax/etc issues?
The company took care of that. We had a bad year and people needed to get cut?
They'd sooner dissolve the company than fire seishain -- we cut
contractors/etc instead.

People get explained the rules in the same fashion that Americans learn that
work starts at nine, being late is discouraged, and that accepting bribes is
improper -- yeah, if you slip up, you'll be reminded of them, but they're for
the most part cultural background. Do you remember the first time you found
out that your dad had to go to the office every day? Imagine finding out, that
day, that he was going to be there until 11 PM. And that's just how it was,
for nearly everybody you knew. And if it wasn't the case for your friend's
dad, you'd keep quiet about it, because you didn't want to embarrass your
friend that _his dad had a crap job._ That's the kicker: these jobs are the
brass rings that people _aspire to_. (And if you wonder why I go on the
warpath when folks suggest the Valley-esque work/life balance is to be
emulated, there is why.)

More than quitting in frustration, the bigger phenomenon is younger folks just
dropping out of the traditional labor force, which is a large (though probably
exaggerated because it is shocking) phenomenon in Japan today.

The government and industry have made a lot of noise about humanizing working
conditions for the last generation. We get reminders to stretch now! Yay!
Seriously though, the cult of salarymanhood is _very_ gradually losing
cultural hegemony, partially because some companies are abandoning the
lifetime employment guarantee (without which it is a very, very raw deal),
partially because the Japanese labor force is broadening away from Men Doing
Men's Work Like Manly Men which was always the core of the system, and
partially because all cultures change over time.

------
physcab
Really good talk. I'm curious if you can expand on how you would optimize for
maximum benefit of an exact match domain. It's a singular event obviously, so
do you need to lead up to it with relevant content or will it just sell itself
because people are already searching for it? Are there ways to get a
multiplicative effect out of it, say use it to boost other products? Also, how
do you keep taking advantage of it even after the event passes?

~~~
patio11
So exact match domains are certainly not limited to events on the calendar,
but to the extent that mine are:

1) The way to get extra benefit out of Halloween is to, well, wait 12 months.

2) Getting people's email address is the single best way to boost other
products, if there is any overlap in customer needs. (This is my single
biggest _d'oh should do more with that_ in my business, for five years
running.)

3) If you have their email address and permission to contact them, the party
never stops.

------
sixtofour
Fabulous. I would have bailed due to sound quality (I don't hear speech real
well in general), but the content was worth squinting my ears for an hour.

------
mise
Woot, patio11 is engaged! Congrats.

~~~
patio11
We're not officially engaged yet, but suffice it to say that, if October were
to set another record this year, that would be fortuitously timed.

------
jbellis
I'm more curious about the tptacek consulting tips now, than BCC. :)

~~~
evanrmurphy
I don't remember anything from the video about tptacek consulting tips. Could
you fill us in?

\--

Update: OK, I see. It's in the Quitting The Day Job section starting at "Also
at Christmas I had a conversation with Thomas Ptacek".

------
swanson
Will have to check this out this weekend. Any idea if the other MicroConf
talks will be posted? I'd like to see the talks from Justin Vincent (from
Techzing) and Noah Kagan.

~~~
patio11
I heard from Rob that they don't have any particular plans to use the talks at
the moment, but might if they decide to do the conference again next year.
That means that the raw video files go out to the individual speakers. Whether
they post it is up to the individual speaker -- actually doing so takes a bit
of work.

------
rimantas
> A major multinational advertising firm with an anomalously > high number of
> PhDs on the payroll

Was that Google?

------
armandososa
I wish I could download this video to my iPad to see it later, while on a
couch. The flash player turned up my MBP fan :S

~~~
patio11
The video should be iPad-enabled. Is that not working for you?

If you absolutely need an offline copy, see
[http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/files/video/patrick-
mcke...](http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/files/video/patrick-mckenzie-at-
microconf.mp4) It is 400 MB and not set up for streaming, so I'd strongly
suggest using the one on the blog, but if you need to download it go ahead.

~~~
Sukotto
I'd be interested in signing up for an audio-only "podcast" of your
appearances and interviews. Have you considered setting something like that
up? (Any chance people like BoS and techzing would let you effectively reprint
stuff you did for them?)

I'm often in a situation (driving, for example) where I can listen to stuff on
my ipod-alike but not watch anything.

~~~
joshuacc
You might find this helpful: <http://huffduffer.com/>

It only works for things that are already audio files, but it lets you create
a customized podcast feed of the random talks you find online.

------
becomevocal
I agree with many of his points, but I think it very much only applies to the
burgeoning stages of a bigger vision or a solo ran / small vision product.

As many, many successful entrepreneurs have said before, outsourcing will
absolutely not equate to quality in the long run. You need more control over
execution to build the best product.

Now don't get me wrong, I respect Patrick for the business he's built - it's a
lot more than most. We should all give props.

~~~
patio11
So keep the product inhouse and outsource stuff where quality is checkable or
irrelevant.

~~~
becomevocal
For sure. But if you're in certain competitive markets you are going to need
to eventually level up those checkable areas either before the competition or
in response.

Also, I'd like to think nothing is irrelevant. If it really doesn't matter at
all, why are you even outsourcing it?

------
eurohacker
hope the presentation answers why is solo startup better than to partner with
someone

~~~
evanrmurphy
It depends on the scope of the project, among other things. Some projects are
too big for one person to tackle. Others are too small to pay more than one
founder.

