BizSpark: Free Microsoft Software for your Startup

Thanks to a comment by Wade on the article “A Businessperson’s Introduction to Servers”, I looked into the BizSpark program from Microsoft. BizSpark is a program to help young startups get all the software they need to run their businesses. These are the requirements for…

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Top Web Tech Skills: 10 Years ago

This is an article I’m posting just for fun. We’ll get back to bootstrap startup advice next time. I ran across a spreadsheet I made in 2000, when I was just figuring out what skills I would need to become a professional web programmer and get paid the big bucks. I had pored over…

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Update to the "Umbrella" Post

I posted an update to one of the most popular articles, “The Benefits of an Umbrella Company” based on correspondence with a reader. The update is at the bottom.

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Get Your Site Done Faster with a Framework

Every web developer tries to save time and effort when making a website. The sign of a good developer is the ability to turn laziness into efficiency. Instead of doing the same boring thing again and again and wasting time, a good developer will create ways to do it again in a way that reuses work…

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GooberBlitz Raises $20.45 from Aunt Edith

OK, So GooberBlitz is not a real startup, and a $20.45 round of funding isn’t likely to make TechCrunch. TechCrunch reports on startups and businesses in the Web 2.0 space that are dealing with large VC and angel funding. TechCrunch rarely reports on bootstrap startups unless they are doing…

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My Bias Towards Linux, PHP, and MySQL

As I mentioned before, my bias for Linux comes from me being cheap. And since it’s my responsibility to provide free and low-cost options for you to build your business, I’m sticking with it. If you have VC or angel funding, you can spend money without regard for current or future…

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Get a Cheap Server of Your Very Own

If you read my last post about servers, you may be wondering how much this is going to cost to get a server. Don’t worry. It’s not as expensive as it once was. Let’s go over the options. Why can’t I just run my startup on my own computer? It’s a noble thought, and you…

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Video: Revenues Should Determine Scale

The regularly scheduled post will be a little late, as I’m waiting to hear back from Rackspace. So a little diversion… Great video from This Week in Startups, featuring an interview with David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals, whose remarks mimic the Startup Next Door philosophy, where your…

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A Businessperson's Introduction to Servers

If you’re a programmer writing web software, you don’t need this article. Move along, please. This article is for the businesspeople. You’ve got a great startup idea but you don’t know much about web server technology. You want to build your business, and will be looking…

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A Better Voice for Your Business Than Yours

I mentioned yesterday about a service that will record a professional voicemail greeting and phone directory for you. Today I’ll go over a service that offers professional voice recordings exclusively. Voice123 (homepage plays audio automatically) was first mentioned to me by Josh Guttman…

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