Book review: Micro-ISV: From Vision to Realityhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

I recently finished reading, Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality by Bob Walsh. I've been thinking more and more about a startup, and in particular a "Micro-ISV", as coined by Erik Sink, who also has a book, Eric Sink on the Business of Software. In general, a Micro-ISV is a single person, or maybe a couple person company, self-funded, producing a software product/web app|service (thus "ISV"). A friend bought both of these books, and we're swapping reading them.

Micro-ISV is a pretty quick, and good read. It is very practical, with a ton of interviews with Micro-ISV folks. The forward of both books is by Joel Spolsky, of Joel on Software (I'm personally more in the Paul Graham (blog) camp though :), plus a longer interview with him later in the book. What I liked about this book is all the practical, and very specific bits. Walsh covers specific payment/e-commerce systems like PayPal, 2Checkout, and Verisign. He talks about specific associations and communities. He covers the various types of company you can form (sole proprietership, LLC, S-Corp, etc.) in a very easy to understand, and right to the point way. And, all the interviews are quite nice.

The main take away for me, and this is ringing true of many things I read from various indi folks, is that the software part is usually the easiest part, and it's all the other stuff (sales, marketing, PR, legal, taxes, etc.) that are the challenge. I'm looking forward to doing it some day (soon?) though.

Tags: books, bookreview, micro-isv, eriksink, joelspolsky, paulgraham