Interview With Tech Ranch Austin

Mike Gromer — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:52:52 +0000

Last week, I was asked to be interviewed by Jonas Lamis from Tech Ranch Austin about BG Alert, and the impact that Tech Ranch has had on BG Alert and myself. For those who don’t know what Tech Ranch is, they are an incubator of sorts, helping entrepreneurs get the help they need, as well as provide office space, mentorship and classes to help launch the next big thing. Jonas has an interview with Kevin Koym from Tech Ranch explaining this more in detail.

Unfortunately, I haven’t done much video before, so I look a bit stiff in the interview, but it worked out. Tech Ranch has been a great help to me. It’s nice being around people who just want to help others. Also, make sure you check out the other video entries on Jonas’ site.

Lessons Learned – Perfectionism

Mike Gromer — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:11:21 +0000

As a software developer in the entrepreneur world, one of the biggest quirks I’ve had to overcome is perfectionism in my software, mainly for BG Alert. A key part of launching a successful venture is your speed to the marketplace. This is especially key if you are trying to be first to market, in front of any would be competitors. Who knows what the mobile phone market would be like if Google had launched the Android OS before Apple came out with the iPhone? Could that have given them the edge they needed to dominate the marketplace? We’ll never know. Currently, I REALLY want to make BG Alert with the new ASP.Net MVC Framework, but I have the site almost all the way done with ASP.Net WebForms. Going the MVC route would be a bad decision.

For us entrepreneurs getting close to a launch, make sure you keep this in the back of your mind. The product is not going to be bulletproof in your first version, at least with software. There will be bugs. People will have change requests. You can always take the time to go back and improve a software’s architecture. Don’t take this as an excuse for lazy coding or poor product design. The architectural phase of a project is vital to maintanability of the software and will have a big impact on the overall time it takes to create it. Concentrate on a good design, then implement it as fast as you safely can.

After all, there’s a reason people use the phrase “first to market,” in press releases so much…

Entrepreneurship and the Pursuit of Happiness » Development

Interview With Tech Ranch Austin

Lessons Learned – Perfectionism