If I Started Now: How to Start a Software Company That Makes $40,000 Per Month

by James Clear

This post is part of the If I Started Now series, which hands you the step–by–step blueprint on how to get started building a particular business.

Let me share a secret with you.

Software is the greatest tool for building a profitable business that the world has ever seen (even if you don’t have any money to get started).

Bold statement, I know.

However, once you’re finished watching today’s interview, I’m confident you’ll feel the same way.

Why Should I Watch This?

Today’s interview is with Dane Maxwell and it will cover the exact steps you need to take to go from nothing (seriously — you don’t even need an idea!) to a profitable software business.

Dane has already built four six–figure software companies and his biggest seller, Paperless Pipeline, currently pulls in over $40,000 per month. Yes, every month.

If you have ever thought about building an iPhone app, web app, or any type of software then this interview is for you.

The goal of this interview is to help you answer the question, “If I started building a software business, what steps should I take right now?”

Don’t miss this one. You’ll love it.

Click the Play Button Below

Mentioned In This Interview

Special Gift — Because Dane is my main man, he has decided to give away a free gift to Passive Panda readers. Click here to find out more.

Spin Selling — Dane mentions this book in the interview (and I promptly pull a copy off my shelf like it was planned all along). You can check it out on Amazon here.

The Foundation — Dane has also taught hundreds of students how to build their own software companies. One student, Sam Ovens, recently went from having no money to building an iPhone app that pulls in over $2,500 per month … and he did this all in 10 weeks. You can get a case study of Sam’s full story here.

What You Should Do Now

Leave a comment below and share your thoughts on this interview and on any questions you have about building a software company.

As always, I’ll do my best to help.

Ten Tiny Apps That I'm Thankful For

This is Thanksgiving, so I’d like to show some gratitude for ten tiny apps that I use almost every day. If you’re a writer, blogger, speaker, or entrepreneur who uses a Macintosh, please give them a look because they will make you more productive.

1. 
   Adjix. Adjix is the best way that I’ve found to post links to web pages on Twitter. It shortens the URL of the page, enables you to edit the tweet, shows you the ever-important character count, and renders a preview of the page you’re linking to so that you can be sure of what you’re tweeting. Price: Free.
2. 
   BBEdit. BBEdit is admittedly overkill for the HTML editing that I do. However, it does a great job of formatting text into XHTML, and it houses the SmartPants UNIX filter that I use to smarten quotes and dashes (see below). Generally speaking, if BBEdit can’t do what you want to text, it probably can’t be done. Price: $125.
3. 
   Foxmarks. I use Firefox on three different Macintoshes, so I need to synchronize your bookmarks across them all. Foxmarks enables you to do this as well as create a backup of them. I wish other programs did synching so cleanly. Price: Free.
4. 
   MarsEdit. I use MarsEdit to write my blog postings for my blog, the Alltop blog, and the American Express OPEN Forum. I compose in MarsEdit because of the built-in HTML markup features and then finish the writing in BBEdit. What would make me even more thankful: MobileMe synchronization of drafts. Price: $29.95.
5. 
   Preview. Preview is simple application to open up graphics and text files. I use it to resize screenshots and to annotate them with circles and comments. It can also send your photos to iPhoto for storage. Skitch is another application that does this if Preview doesn’t have enough power for you. Price: Free.
6. 
   SmartyPants. I hate dumb apostrophes, quotes, and dashes but replacing them is not simple because HMTL links must contain dumb quotation marks—for example, href=”http://daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/”. However, in regular text, I want replace a dumb quotes with smart ones. SmartyPants knows that HTML links should not be smartened while apostrophes, quotes, and dashes should. Price: Free.
7. 
   TextExpander. This is a utility that expands abbreviations to full text. For example, it expands “gk” to “Guy Kawasaki.” I use about ninety of these abbreviations. I’d be even more thankful if it didn’t sometimes paste the clipboard not the desired abbreviation. Incidentally, I love a competitive product called TypeIt4me, but it cannot synchochronize my abbreviations across multiple Macintoshes via MobileMe like TextExpander can. Price: $29.95.
8. 
   Tweetdeck. This is a front-end application to Twitter. I have to stay on top of many terms in Twitter such as “Guykawasaki,” “Guy Kawasaki,” and “Alltop” as well as private and public messages to me. It is the best way to use Twitter that I have found. Price: voluntary donation, so I sent $50.
9. 
   Twittelator Pro. I use this iPhone application to access Twitter. In a sense, for me it’s Tweetdeck on a phone. I’d be more thankful if I could customize the menus structure, but it’s still the best iPhone application for Twitter that I’ve found. Price: $4.99.
10. 
    Yojimbo. This is my catch-all for things like passwords, invoices, travel confirmations, and bills—basically all the stuff you know you’ll need someday but don’t know how to store. You “print to Yojimbo,” and this creates a PDF of the document and stores it in the application. Then you can do a freeform search for any text to find the information later. Price: $39.

    ---

    Update: Several readers told me to look at Evernote, and they are right. This is a cross-platform application and service that enables you to synch information across Macintosh, Windows, and iPhone. I’ve been using it for a four days, and it’s very good. You should check it out.

There you have it: my favorite tiny applications that make me more productive on a Macintosh. As you can see, a few bucks goes a long way these days! My heartfelt thanks to the men and women who created and support them. Happy Thanksgiving!

November 24, 2008 in Cool stuff | Permalink

Read More http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/11/ten-tiny-apps-t.html#ixzz2dPKEDImv