Day-day running

Evaluating when it’s best to do something in-house and when to outsource it is invaluable -especially in the case of a developer, the temptation to develop all your internal applications is great. Sometimes it’s better to outlay £500 rather than spending many hours not getting paid by clients.

If you’re starting up with more than one person, having some form of blog is a useful method of conveying this information as it means people can easily subscribe to the RSS feeds and keep up-to-date with the latest information with minimum effort. If you use blog software such as DasBlog [www.dasblog.net] you are also able to have different authors on one portal.

While on the subject of blogs, I would recommend setting up a company blog, or at least a personal blog with plenty of references to your main website. These back links will increase your visibility and hence ranking on Google but it will also increase your company’s profile.

I would advise reading my other posts [The Scourge of Google and Public Facing Blogs and Blogging And Competition] which overviews what I see as the pros and cons of blogging. As you’re here reading this, it’s evidence enough as to why you should blog IMHO.

Processes and procedures

Depending on your background, you may not be too interested in the management side of business but it is very important to have a number of management processes in place, you won’t necessarily be able to set these up before you start but as you learn your business, get them in place ASAP.

What sort of processes am I referring to?

• Have a client sign an agreement that outlines the responsibilities of both parties (what you’re going to do for them and what they’re going to do in return –e.g. pay) before you start work for them. Make sure you’re as clear as possible so you can charge for additional services without the client quarrelling with you.
• Depending on the size of the company have the client provide you with a purchase order number. It’s best you ask whatever size the company is as it portrays the image that you’re dealing with larger organisations but the worst they can do is ask you what you mean. A purchase order number is basically a reference in the clients purchase database letting their accounting department know your invoice is on the way in. In many situations it also speeds up payment. When dealing with larger invoices it’s a must because it’s the loosest form of guarantee the person you’re dealing with has informed their accounts department and had the amount authorised.
• After you’ve had a meeting with a client follow it up a few days later with an email/phone call thanking them for their time, make it relevant to the meeting if you can and word it so it requires some form of response from the client. Making this post-meeting contact can be the difference between getting the work and not –in the same way making contact with a recruiting company after your interview thanking them for their time can make the final decision sway your way.
• Have a dedicated admin day. Initially this can be something you do once a month but as your business grows you’ll most likely need to increase this to once a week, as outlined in my previous blog post about setting your rates [Pricing your work] you’ll probably find around two days a week are taken up with adminy type work. People are forever moaning about how boring doing a years accounts is however, if you do break it down to say 2-3hours a week it’s a lot easier It’s important to remain strict with yourself as there’s always something more interesting available ;).
• Invoice regularly! Sounds obvious but it’s important. Depending on your business model, I would recommend setting a day aside every month which is solely for invoicing. I’m not just talking about sending out invoicing, I also mean chasing invoices as you’re bound to have plenty of clients who will delay paying until you really bug them!
• Log payments and receipts –this should be part of your admin day but it’s worth mentioning again. If you log all your receipts and any payments on a weekly basis it should dramatically save that end of year rush trying to find all your receipts for the accountant, if you do it really well it should also save you a few quid!

Team structure

Having someone who’s able to carefully put people in their place and ensure the company is moving in the right direction is important, it’s even more important when friendships are involved. If one of you can’t cut the niceties and point out the obvious you’re more likely to fail from the start.

Having someone who is presentable and can communicate well is intrinsic to getting new business, everyone operates differently but if your new client can’t relate to your representative you’re unlikely to retain them for very long. As James said, if you can’t at the same time tell them to cough up, you’ll probably find yourself with a very low cash flow very quickly.

Getting Employees

This is something that I’m approaching at the moment, so it’s probably best to add in an article later however there is a very good series of articles on Joel on Software [www.joelonsoftware.com] about Finding Great Developers which is a good start [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FindingGreatDevelopers.html].

The hardest thing you’ll face (if you’re anything like me that is) is loosening that tight grip you’ve got on your business. It’s taken me 3 years but I’m finally allowing Stacey to take over some of the admin work for The Site Doctor in an effort to lighten my work-load (admittedly I should be blogging less too but hey). Accepting that other people work in different ways is a surprisingly hard thing to accept when it’s your own business. I’ve already accepted that if I want my business to grow, I’ll have to put up with someone else’s coding style until we’ve found common ground.

One final point I’ll make here though is (again depending on your business model) you will need to get employees at some point so make some form of provision for them. If you don’t get an employee and try to do all the work yourself forever your business is capped and you’ll more than likely burn out. Someone once told me the perfect business is one that can easily be converted into a franchise.

Business Management

Well put, you need to be able to fall off your bike and get back on again so to speak, you will make mistakes and if you don’t I doubt you’re taking enough risks and so will just end up ticking over, there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes as long as you can learn from them and move on. Listen to your gut instinct and as soon as it turns sour pull out!

Taking an all -or- nothing approach to things, giving it everything you can/need to until the point that your instinct says enough and then cut it off straight away is important.

Be careful, but don’t let your project or company suffer as a result of being prudent. If you’re going to talk to someone that’s in the position to do what you’re proposing (i.e. they have the skills or can buy them) at the very least have them sign an non-disclosure agreement to give you a little backup. If you’re really worried, prepare your material so it gives them the minimum amount of information required for their input and explain your reasons for doing so.

Either way, if you ever discuss a project with someone else (even internal employees) there’s a chance it’ll get stolen. The best advice here is learn from it and move on. If you want to pursue the matter in the courts weigh up whether it will be at the cost of the detriment of your company and/or image.

When I first set out, I had to take a client to court and cutting a long story short settled out of court because I calculated the rest of the time I would spend preparing for court would cost me more than I would be awarded. It’s also worth noting that if the amount is below a threshold (IIRC £5000) you can go through the Small Claims courts which saves you a lot of expense and agro.

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