Day 77: < Insert Witty Title Here >

Dot .Net Dilemmas

There is a sure feeling that summer is on the way in Sydney. The A-league has kicked off again and Sydney FC look like they may just challenge for honours this season. Sydney FC will never replace Bohemian FC in my heart but I guess it’s like a heroin addict just 'getting by' on methadone. The warmer evening make you feel like you should be doing something with your time (other than working full time and working on Project “Something Something”) so, On Monday night I attended my first Sydney Alt.Net “Lightening Talks”. I knew that there was an Alt.Net group in Sydney but for some reason (which I can not explain), I thought that it was invite only. It isn’t so, on the advice of friend I went along. The meeting was held in Thoughtworks offices on Pitt Street and my first impressions were very positive. It’s a big bright open office, good sized monitors with comfortable chairs at each desk, a well stocked kitchen and work space environment conducive to getting things done. The fact that there was beer,soft drinks and pizza on offer too didn’t hurt when it came to forming my opinion.

Since coming to Sydney,I have found it pretty difficult to find other .NET developers in my general circle to bounce ideas off so, to be in a room with 30 or so likeminded people was a good experience. To date, all the decisions on what technologies that I am using for my product are based on my own personal preference, experience and research so it was exciting to see that some of the choices that I have made were somewhat validated as most of the talks were on ASP.NET MVC, Fluent NHibernate, IoC and JQuery. Of particular interest to me was Damian Maclennan’s 10 minute talk on ‘Making ASP.NET MVC simple with Fluent NHibernate with StructureMap’ and James Crisp’s ‘Securing your ASP.NET MVC site against code injection and x-site scripting’. Largely, I think that the type of people that go along to user group meetings are those that have a real interest and passion for what they do, so to hear them discuss and share their positive experiences of the technologies that I am using gave me much needed and timely encouragement to stay on the path that I am on. At the moment I am working my way through the SportsStore web application created by Steven Sanderson in his new book ‘Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework’. When I have it finished, I plan to migrate it to the Azure Cloud as I think that it will be an excellent exercise to ensure that the Frameworks and technologies that I am using work in the cloud. If there is interest, I think that I will offer to present my finding to a future Alt.Net meeting.

Finally, if you are developing a ASP.NET MVC web application, you will no doubt know the importance of the whole concept of Routing URLs. So, if for no other reason than it's like getting your homework done for you, you should read Chapter 5 of Pro ASP.NET MVC where Sanderson ‘gives’ you a full unit test for both inbound and outbound route mappings that you can simply plug into your own unit tests... Excellent..

Day 50: Project Something Something Meets BizSpark

Dot .Net Dilemmas

Day 50!!!! I can not believe how quickly the time is going by. I am now really starting to understand why a lot of people who are looking to start their own company, save up a few months salary and take time off before embarking on the ISV adventure. It is not easy to have a full time job (especially when you are on the run-in to a major product release) and put in the time that is required to get a project of this scale up and running. Anyhow, that’s the reason for me not having time to update my blog but not an excuse for not continuing work on my project (which I have a working title of ‘Project Something, Something’ – Don’t ask…)

So one very important thing that I have done since the last update is, I have applied and was accepted to participate in Microsoft’s early stage startup program, BizSparks. I have to admit that this is one of those offers that may seem too good to be true and I spent more than a few hours looking for the ‘catch’ in the offer but I don't think that there is one. As they say themselves, it is Microsoft’s program that provides Software, Support and Visibility for Software Startups. You can expect to get;

• Software. Receive fast and easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools, platform technologies, and production licenses of server products for immediate use in developing and bringing to market innovative and interoperable solutions. There is no upfront cost to enroll.
• Support. Get connected to Network Partners around the world — incubators, investors, advisors, government agencies and hosters — that are equally involved and vested in software-fueled innovation and entrepreneurship who will provide a wide range of support resources.
• Visibility. Achieve global visibility to an audience of potential investors, clients and partners
• As a Microsoft BizSpark member, you’ll be tapping into a rich, vibrant ecosystem of peers, partners and support resources around the globe, helping you grow and succeed. Microsoft BizSpark is the quickest way to get your Startup fired up.

There are a number of conditions of acceptance into the program; your business needs to be:

1. Developing software - Check
2. Privately held – Check
3. Less than 3 years old – Check
4. Making less than US $1 million annually – (regrettably) Check.

You also have to have a company URL. I was a little worried about this because as yet, even though I have a number of domain names registered, I do not have a business website or even a landing page.

Up step Bob Walsh of 47 Hats. On one of the recent Startup Success Podcasts, Bob suggested that anyone who was looking to get involved in the program and had any questions to simply drop him a line with a brief outline of your startup idea and he would help in the BizSpark sign up process. So, 20 minutes after I completed the email, in which I described my product and explained my concern regarding the lack of a company URL and sent it off to Bob, I got a very prompt reply. Bob is a man of his word.

Two really good things to come out of the correspondence with Bob are. He showed me how to create a very professional landing page using a service call ‘Launch Splash’ until you have your own site up and running. He also thought that my idea was an ‘excellent focus for a Micro-ISV’. He could also see the same potential that I can for future projects based on this one idea. I can’t tell you how much confidence that gave me, as Bob as been very successful with his own Startups and I would say as seen thousands of startup ideas over the years. He has also written a number of books on the topics including ‘Micro-ISV from Vision to Reality’ and his latest offering ‘The Web Startup Success Guide’

Two things that you should know about BizSpark; even though it is a Microsoft program you do not have to develop your software using the Microsoft development stack (but the free software may change your mind about that), it is open to anyone who meet the criteria. Also, the program is only open to new startup for 3 years at which time you are no longer part of the program and have to pay $100 exit fee. Hopefully by that stage, $100 will be less than a minute’s work for you.

I just hope that my BizSpark membership will entitle me to discount Azure rate, now THAT would be cool.