Please describe the most significant hurdle you’ve leapt so far, and explain why it was significant to your business.
Our original business plan (the one upon which we were funded) was brilliant… unfortunately, it just flat out did not work in the marketplace. We had to turn that philosophical corner past relentless belief in a concept (which is nonetheless necessary, and beneficial) and pragmatic recognition that something was not working.
It was painful, but we did it. Along the way we managed to salvage some of the existing fruits of the previous model that were working, which in turn have been absolutely instrumental in keeping us alive long enough to get our feet back on solid ground.
I’m happy to say that revenue is now predictable and steadily growing, and that we’ve achieved profitably for the last three quarters. Everyone is now on the same page, and pure execution is the new imperative in order to assure future growth and success.
Here is a partial list of clients using our tool: Chevron, Oracle, Sun, Ford Motor Company, Compaq, Sony, Xerox, Proctor & Gamble, Baan, General Motors, Credit Suisse, Sprint, The Home Depot, AT&T, IBM, Prudential, Lucent, PepsiCo, Bertelsmann, Motorola, Accenture, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Goodyear
Qarbon’s Viewlets at Work for Sony: http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/support/tutorials/lib/index.html#
Star-Rookie: devArticles/Socket6: SiteWorksPro
Mission Statement:
We provide developers with an assortment of information, software and concepts to help them thrive in their industry.
Location:
We work from Sydney, Australia.
Number of Employees:
We have four employees.
Years in Business:
I started the ball rolling about 9 months ago with the creation of devArticles.com and then socket6.com 3 months after. The actual “company” has only been in business for one month, however everything was unofficially moving along about 3 months before that. As you can see, we are a new software/.COM company, however we are experiencing tremendous growth and brand awareness at this current point in time.
Describe your transition from employed to self-employed:
Well Colin (who is responsible for strategic planning, investments, and growth ideas) was actually my boss before I started this company. I was the senior developer and administrator for one of Australia’s biggest PC hardware sites, www.techbuy.com.au. I helped build the site up to well over $350,000 in revenue per month and it continues to grow today.
I told Colin that I had been working on some sites outside of work (devArticles.com, socket6.com and siteTell.com) and that I would like to start a small software/.COM company and I wanted him to be part of it. He agreed, we worked out a contract and, as they say, the rest is history. I haven’t looked back and love everyday of work.
I think the main reason I started this company is that I love programming (especially PHP) and I knew that software sells well on the Internet.
Please describe the most significant hurdle you’ve leapt so far, and explain why it was significant to your business.
Breaking the 5,000 unique visitors a day mark on devArticles.com. This was one of our main goals since our inception, and is more of a milestone than a hurdle. At that point we knew that we were on track for more substantial growth, that our content was top notch, and also that our viral marketing strategies (such as people must tell 5 of their friends about us when they download our free ebooks at devArticles.com/ebooks.php) were working. Cracking 10,000 newsletter subscribers was also a significant success.
Related Sites: http://www.devarticles.com http://www.socket6.com http://www.siteworkspro.com
Garrett French is the editor of murdok’s eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.
