Hello and welcome to a new chapter in Sitepoint’s ‘Down to Business’ blog! I’d like to thank Simon and the whole SitePoint staff for giving me the opportunity to participate in such a useful and widely read blog. I’m very excited to interact with the SitePoint community on a new level, and will do my best to make this blog as informative and interesting as possible.
I’d also like to recognize Andrew Neitlich for his outstanding effort as SitePoint’s business blogger over the last two years. Like many of you, I’ve applied the sales and marketing lessons I learned from Andrew and my business has increased its revenues dramatically as a result. I’ll certainly be watching to see what Andrew does next!
A bit about me: I’m a life-long computer enthusiast who was born around the same time as the Internet (the Arpanet, more accurately). In 1985 I went professional as a support and repair technician for PC’s and Macs at a Computerland retail store. I later entered the software world, developing large applications for businesses, movie studios, start-ups and governments. I continue to work as a process and methodology consultant to Fortune 50 and government clients, but my main focus is on web development and the outsourcing world. Over the years, I’ve also worked as a paramedic, a SCUBA instructor, and a musician and lived in India, New Zealand, Holland, and Hong Kong but I’m currently dividing my time between Louisiana, California, and Thailand.
I’m the founder and Managing Director of Sagewing Corporation, an outsourcing and consulting firm dedicated to helping web developers to grow through outsourced services. Because of Sagewing’s focus on web professionals, I’ve had the unique opportunity to work with hundreds of freelance and boutique development shops and get a good understanding of what it takes to ‘make it’ in the noisy WWW marketplace.
Moving forward, I hope to shift the main focus of this blog from sales and marketing into some new aspects of the web development business. I’ll discuss some of the day-to-day administrative issues that web developers face such as proposal writing, taxes, bookkeeping, and legal matters. In addition, I hope to provide some interesting and useful perspectives into more abstract (but equally important) elements of business such as negotiation tactics, ethics, time management, relationship building, and most importantly the art of making your business bring more than money to your life.
Now I’d like to hear more about you, the readers, and what you hope to learn from this blog. I invite all of you to leave a comment or send me a PM - let me know what direction you would like to see this blog go in! As always, I’m most interested in hearing what your ultimate business goals are, and what you most want out of your business over the long-term. I’ll do my best to satisfy, and hopefully we’ll have some fun, too.
November 6th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Welcome to the blog! I’m excited to see what you will be writing about here.
November 6th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Glad to have you here, Dave.
I’m looking forward to interesting blog entries, I think the shift in focus will be a good one.
November 6th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
Well done Site Point. Sagewing’s participations in the business forum have been very insightful. I look forward to reading this blog.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:28 am
I too am glad you’ll be writing a blog at Sitepoint.com. I look forward to reading it.
November 7th, 2006 at 1:12 am
Great! Sounds exciting and can’t wait… in fact, enough of this, bring it on ;)
November 7th, 2006 at 2:34 am
Sounds good. Looking forward to some of the administrative posts.
November 7th, 2006 at 4:42 am
Welcome aboard! Looks like you have a great set of new topics that will compliment what Andrew did over the last two years. I am very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts on biz dev and accounting.
November 7th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
Hi,
I find the sitepoint forums very interesting, and the number of subscribers and the vast amount of information talk to themselves.
I know I shall find more of the good stuff!
Karl
November 7th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Good news ! I myself, I am taking the risk to start solo on the first of 2007. I have been doing an after-day-job style of freelancing, but work just gets too much. So I’ll need your advice on optimisation and organisation.
M
November 8th, 2006 at 2:11 am
Dave,
Congratulations and thanks for taking over the role! The shift in focus is timely and Sitepoint has made a great choice. Best of success. I’ve always enjoyed your posts and our interactions, and know you’ll do a great job.
Andrew Neitlich
November 8th, 2006 at 7:56 am
Thanks Andrew :)
November 8th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Welcome aboard, Dave :-)
November 8th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Hello and Welcome Dave
November 9th, 2006 at 12:17 am
Welcome aboard.
I’ll be reading with keen interest for tips on how to successfully manage freelance relationships. It seems to work one of two ways with us; we depend to greatly on good freelancers, or, get burned by poor ones. There seems to be no happy medium.
It seems it’s all about the integration, choosing the right jobs to outsource.
November 9th, 2006 at 12:36 am
Congrats Dave. I am looking forward to following this blog!
November 9th, 2006 at 12:57 am
umm…
this could be interesting, couldn’t it? i for one look forward to reading your blogs, so by all means, do continue ;)
dr livingston
November 9th, 2006 at 7:26 am
Congrats Dave. Looking forward to seeing some insightful posts.
November 10th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Congratulations Dave. You have always been a great help in the forums, and I am delighted you have taken this position. Looking forward to your nuggets.
November 12th, 2006 at 3:09 am
first article not bad at all - keep up the good work!
November 24th, 2006 at 8:24 pm
Nice to hear from you.