Business Updates

Testing new method for (almost) fully automatic time tracking

I’m currently testing a new automatic way to track my time when I’m doing consulting. Currently it’s a very barebones proof-of-concept (I only partially built the “engine” and it’s automatically tracking time into a text file), I’m thinking of developing it into an actual prototype other people could use and eventually a full product. Anybody interested?

Update for yaTimer licensing options

I actually changed the licensing options a long time ago, but I've just found out the latest blog post about it wasn't updated. I simplified the licensing options, there is just one option now, for every yaTimer license you buy you can install yaTimer on up to 3 computers, I did this because I have multiple computers myself (that only me and my wife use) and having to buy multiple copies of software is extremely annoying to me. The next version of yaTimer is planned to have support for running off an external drive (such as a USB stick), for each license...

First (Real) Sale

Last week (I haven't been able to blog for most of the week) I had my first sale. I've given a free license of yaTimer in exchange for an ad once, but this is the first time someone actually paid real money for yaTimer. yaTimer has a 45 days trial period, this sale was 50 days after I've started selling yaTimer and 45 days after David St.Lawrence wrote about yaTimer is his blog, I assume my first paying customer came from his blog but I can't know for sure.

What's Next?

Now that yaTimer 1.1.0 was released what am I going to do next? Work on yaTimer 1.2.0 of course. I have a short list of feature requests that didn't make it into the 1.1.0 release, I hope to have them all in 1.2.0 (version 1.2.0 will be a free update for all current customers, if you buy 1.1.0 now you still get all the new features). If you have a suggestion for a new feature for the next version of yaTimer please contact me. ...

AdWords Update

The day I published my 3 Adwords tips blog post was a really bad adwords day, I had a lot od clicks and maxed-out my daily budget - but no downloads at all. I guess its some sort of a karma thing.  

3 Quick Tips to Improve Your AdWords Campaign

I've tripled my traffic in less then two weeks by applying those simple techniques (while keeping my conversion rate constant), so I decided to write about it, just in case it will help someone else. I did not "develop" those techniques – I just collected them from multiple sources, your mileage may very, use at your own risk. Add lots and lots of negative keywords. Google loves negative keywords, a lot of good  negative keywords will prevent your ad from being shown to someone that is clearly not interested in what your offering – for example, if your product isn't free you should...

yaTimer Licensing Options

UPDATE: yaTimer licensing options have changed, see this post for details For most software a single license gives you the right to install the software on one computer – and if you own multiple computer you are supposed to buy multiple licenses, I own several computers and I find this to be a real pain (and sometimes very expensive). I expect a lot of yaTimer's potential customers have the same problem, so I've decided to create two different license types for yaTimer: Single computer license:  You can install yaTimer on a single computer, anyone who can use this computer...

Why Am I Selling a Timer Application?

What makes a someone wake up one morning and write a timer application? it certainly isn't a "sexy" application, it wont change the world, no big company is going to buy me out and it's not even "Web 2.0". I've been reading some blogs I read regularly and found this blog post, in this post David St.Lawrence writes about timer applications, he writes about the different timers he found and lists the features he is looking for in a timer - and I thought it looks like a nice project, so I built it. A few days later I got tired of...

Paperwork Delays

I don't have a bank account just yet, I have to get my lawyer to write some useless documents first. This is annoying, I paused my adwords campaign until I'm set up to collect payments on the software I'm trying to sell. On the other hand - everything is going according to plan on the development front, I'll be ready to release yaTimer 1.0.1 early next week

Getting This "Income" Thing Working

Right now I'm paying for Google ad-words but I'm not receiving any money, this is not a good place to be business-wise. Tomorrow morning I'm going to the bank to open an account for my company, this will probably take a few days but I want to finish this process as quickly as possible. I've already signed up with a payment processor - a little premature as they have nowhere to send the money to - but I want everything to be ready to accept payment as soon as I get the formalities over with. I will then have many other formalities with...