The Blog of Jonas Martinsson

I created two new Google Drive document templates for Product Management work: a Product Requirements Document (PRD) and a Functional Specifications Document (FSD) . These are central documents in the product development lifecycle. The requirements document is used for a product's business and marketing requirements, while the specification document further details how those requirements will be implemented in the product. I'll start to dogfood these templates right away and will make updates along the way as needed. Please let me know if you find them useful or would like to see any changes!

Definition: "Software as a service [...] is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. " (Wikipedia) Software as a Service (SaaS) can be a very attractive model for software vendors. Here, I share my experiences of transforming the desktop application FeedJournal to use the SaaS model. FeedJournal was born into this world as a .NET desktop application; a fruit of Microsoft's Made In Express Contest that ran in 2006. After the contest (First Prize, thank you Microsoft!), I took some time off to learn ASP.NET and port the application to the web. The port itself wasn't too cumbersome; most of my time was spent learning the development platform and web development patterns. Today, FeedJournal Publisher employs the SaaS model throughout, and users can run it from their web browser, or by using a REST API. Below, I count 10 obvious benefits that came from this transition: 1. Fear the Hacker ...

Today's update to FeedJournal Reader includes a fix for an annoying bug which occurred sporadically. Error messages about trying again after you hit the "Generate Newspaper" button should now have been rooted out. The update also includes some site optimizations to Reader. I am currently probing the market for a more reliable web host; so if you have positive experiences from an ASP.NET + SQL Server hosting company I'll gratefully lend you an ear.

It's been an interesting week. On February 19, the brand new FeedJournal Reader service launched and created a small buzz, boosting my daily unique visitor count to 10,000. Seven days later the traffic is still up there, and I thought it's a good time to do a retrospective to see which lessons could be learned form this experience. What I did to promote the release: - Sent a press release with pr.com. - Submitted suggestions to major Web 2.0 blogs and media. - Notified 30 powerful sneezers. - Blogged about it Before the release I always imagined the press release would be my strongest card for generating buzz. I figured print media should be interested in a technological innovation related to their field. As far as I know, the press release was only picked up by one source (online) plus Google News , so that was a big disappointment. I suspect pr.com might not be the best service for publishing press releases. I chose them because I knew Google News would pick it up, and I...

Just a quick note to let you know that image support is re-enabled with yesterday's update and everything seem to be working well so far. Next up here on my blog, will be a post reviewing the FeedJournal Reader release. During the weekend the site was blasted with traffic, and I with e-mail; I'm sure there are a lot of lessons to learn from that experience. After that I plan to run a series of posts describing how to best take advantage of FeedJournal, and how it integrates with different 3rd party services.

Google was recently granted a patent on personalized newspapers. Until now, I have been having the market all to my self with FeedJournal , but I welcome the competition. A player like Google can really help to boost the awareness for these kinds of solutions. Yes, I am one person, and Google is somewhat larger than that. But still, I think it is a good sign that FeedJournal-like sites start to pop up. It will increase multitude, and the competition will help to drive the projects forward and prevent stagnation. In the end, users will gain by having better products. The granting of the patent seems somewhat dubious to me, considering that FeedJournal has been alive and kicking for a long time. The patent could have been a good requirements specification document for FeedJournal. I am obviously very curious to see where Google is going with this, if they decide to use the patent to build a product. Will they offer both a reader and a publisher version of their product? How will the...

I have a guest post up at micro-ISV consultant/author Bob Walsh's 47 Hats blog, describing the development of FeedJournal, and some notes about what might come in the future. On a side note, I am happy to report that category/section support has now been added to FeedJournal, and is available to paying customers.

FeedJournal proudly presents the availability of a web service for bloggers and other content providers to publish their latest articles as a PDF newspaper or magazine (see left column of this blog for a sample). The service enables an easy export of your RSS or Atom feeds to a newspaper. Full branding capabilities and customization options are available in the service. The newspaper is regenerated on the fly by simply pinging FeedJournal's service. To learn more about how it works, and to get started, head over to feedjournal.com .

I was recently interviewed by Ireland's leading tech news service, Silicon Republic, regarding the upcoming launch of FeedJournal's web service. The article is published online (see below) and is well worth a read. It talks about the future of traditional media and my visions for FeedJournal. Direct link to online article: Bespoke newspapers on the way

On my daily commute to and from the office I enjoy listening to podcasts on my iPod. One of my favorite shows is Microsoft/Channel-9 sponsored " The Micro-ISV Show ", where Michael Lehman and Bob Walsh interview software developers who run their own businesses with small means, often on a smaller scale. The podcast is a spin-off from Bob's book "Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality", where he describes how to plan, market, host and sell your software. Amazon.com: Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality: Books: Bob Walsh ISBN : 1590596013 ISBN-13 : 9781590596012 While the book itself contains plenty of interviews with independent software vendors (ISVs), the audio interviews is a great addition and I always look forward to tuning in to new shows. The interview questions are all relevant and always shed new light on areas where software and business intersect. Some of the many notable shows have featured Eric Sink, Joel Spolsky and Nick Bradbury. My only criticism is re...

"Founders at Work" is a inspiring book for anyone interested in reading the stories of successful software companies' early days. A lot of well-known companies' founders get to tell their story on how they made it all happen, and how they felt at the time of the start-up. Amazon.com: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days: Books: Jessica Livingston ISBN : 1590597141 ISBN-13 : 9781590597149 It is fascinating to learn that so many successful companies struggled in their early days, and that they often didn't know which product to market. Many of the founders tell stories of how they stumbled upon their successful idea after many failed attempts, and that the product which finally took off was just a side project. This is for example true for both Blogger and PayPal, among many more. "Founders at Work" should be mandatory reading for anyone running a start-up software company or with such aspirations. It is especially interesting to read...

Small software businesses, or µ-ISVs, are cropping up everywhere nowadays. A big challenge for them is to get a foothold in the industry and claim a piece of the market. Then they need to keep that attention. In Bob Walsh's excellent " Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality ", I learned that a blog can be an excellent vehicle for spreading the word about your product. It can also help to make sure you are keeping your customer's attention focused, by having them subscribe to your blog's RSS feed. The Blogosphere is a fast-moving media where the attention span sometimes lasts shorter than it takes to read a headline. The cross-pollinati on in the blogosphere is an interesting phenomenon which I hope to be able to leverage some more in the future. For now, I decided to add a new section to FeedJournal's web site . The new section is called " In ...

Take a minute to remember the last project you completed alone. Can you remember the satisfaction of seeing the pieces fall into place to build a greater whole, to put the finishing touches and perhaps launch it publicly? This satisfaction, in its best moments, defines one of greatest feelings in life. It is the driving force for artists, hackers, bloggers, journalists, and anyone who lets their creativity be a central part of their day-to-day activities. Creativity can be manifested in different ways for different people. The force of it is just as powerful though, no matter if it is being used to cook, do gardening, writing, drawing, composing music, or anything else. I am a software developer, and my choice of profession has a lot to do with getting an outlet for my desire to be creative. It is my firm belief that people gain happiness and satisfaction from nurturing and giving...

Reading my fellow finalist Douglas Steen's entry about bug tracking tools, I am totally agreeing with him that it would be great to have a lightweight bug-tracking tool built into Express. Sure enough, we have the Task List pane where tasks can be sorted and having a priority but that's not really accomplishing anything substantial. Douglas chose a web-based bug tracking system and he mentioned another web-based system. Hunting the Internet will lead you to yet other web-based systems. Why does 99% of bug-tracking systems have to be run in the browser? I hate the browser: it is less responsive than a native Windows application as well as usually lacking a menu and having quirky keyboard support. Just because a system is multiuser doesn't mean that the browser is the only interface. The large advantage I see of using the browser is that no client softwa...

OK, time to return to the blogosphere after my honeyweek with the baby. I have set up a web site at feedjournal.com where all things related to my project will be collected and presented. In the meantime I have put up some basic information together with the project goals. I bought the domain from GoDaddy.com , and it was a very straightforward process. feedjournal.com was actually not my first choice of product/domain name. I was initially having my eyes set on a different name but the .com name was taken. Or rather not taken, but parked, like almost all decent .com domains today. It's pretty frustrating to see that one after the other of all your candidate names are taken, and when you try the more esoteric names you find them taken as well. And then you try the really absurd names, and sure enough, none is available. Not that these domain names are in use, many ...

When creating a software product enterprise that completely lives on the Internet there are some things you simply can't do without. One of them is having your products listed on the popular download sites: Download.com, Tucows, etc. Since I am trying to bootstrap (BTW, check this word's etymology ) my business, I am not going to use any of the costly programs that these download sites have available for speeding up the registration process. In case you are going the free way you will need a large amount of patience depending for some of the download sites. Download.com is the leader among the download sites and I am happy to say that I just got listed there with my "pilot application" Window Control. When you get added to their directory you are automatically given a nice download button to put on your web site. This is of course optional, but I was quick to add it to my product page .

As I mentioned in an earlier post I was reading the book Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality by Bob Walsh. Now I've finished it and must say that it is packed with very sound advice for a startup software business. While containing a lot of screenshots, filling up the pages, these also make it convenient to read the book offline and still getting a glimpse of the sites mentioned in the text. A short introduction to Getting things Done is also included. All stages of the business is covered, from finding an idea, choosing a company and domain name through development and on to marketing, selling and support. Interviews with various micro-ISVs are sprinkled throughout the text, and serve as a reality check in some cases. It is entertaining to read Bob Walsh's book and his sense of humour keeps the reading a pleasant experience. Watch this space for my own venture into the micro-ISV world.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, and for that name which is no part of thee take all myself." Juliet did not run a µ-ISV, but she did realize the importance of having a fitting name. Naming a company is not a trivial thing, and I have been struggling with finding a good name that has an available .com-domain as well. From Walsh's book I found a reference to "The Igor Naming Guide" which is available for free at http://www.igorinternational.com/process/naming-guide-product-company-names.php . This seems to be an excellent overview and I hope to have a name ready by the time I finish reading the PDF.

Today I got a package from Amazon. Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality by Bob Walsh. It describes how to start a one-man business developing software products. I am eager to read it, and I will report my results here.