With the launch of my new web site design and the switchover to CMS Made Simple as my site CMS, I'm also going to be doing some blogging as part of my PR strategy. The idea is to create transparency and trust - get a connection with my current and potential clients.
Habitsoft was originally conceived as a means for me to reduce my income taxes. As it turns out, dividends are more or less tax-free up to a certain level, and the corporation is taxed at a low 18% because it gets a small business tax deduction. Since my taxes were generally more than 18%, and as my income increases my personal taxes would be a lot more than that, I followed my accountant's advice and incorporated.
I decided, for whatever reason, to choose a name for the business based on my belief that good software is all about good habits. Thus "Habits" and "Software" were joined to make "Habitsoft".
I've spent a lot of time cultivating (then forgetting, then remembering and re-cultivating) good software engineering habits. Habits like:
- Do it the right way the first time, since the first architecture is often also the last
- Use revision control, like subversion, as a backup, so if you mess up you can go back and start from a recent check-in, instead of from scratch
- Use a good bug and task tracking system like trac
- Use descriptive variable and function names, not code comments, to say what something is
- Use code comments to explain why a piece of code is written the way it is
- Write code that is easy to change, because things are always changing
- Use, or create, a good framework so that you can work quickly and make changes quickly; it can be a big investment in the beginning, but by the end you're able to get things done many times faster
- Write test suites; if not to define your application's functionality, at least write a test case for every bug you find, so that you don't miss any regressions
As time passed have become more and more entrepreneurial, and for that reason I'm freeing time to start businesses where I can be founder and be responsible for creating more than just software. I'd like to own what I do, and have the potential to make more than just my hourly rate.
In that vein I've hired a success coach and read up on business ideas and how to start and operate a business. My most recent read was "The E-Myth Revisited" preceded by "The 4-Hour Workweek".
A great blog about starting your own web business is OnStartups.com, a blog with a great store of tips on starting your own business.
I suppose the next step for this blog is for me to pick some blogging topics and write about them. If you have a suggestion let me know!
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