I stumbled upon this article yesterday and it's a good read. Basically, Eric Sink, who founded a small ISV (Independent Software Vendor) writes about life as a small ISV and why you should make lots of mistakes, just not any fatal mistakes. ISV's are small to medium businesses - maybe somewhere between 2 and 200 people and they create applications to sell to other people. I guess I was in an ISV when I worked at Connexn and indeed I think we faced many of the challenges that Eric discusses.

Scumbags

Eric's listing of the heierarchy of scumbags particlarly interested me since many of my friends and acquaintances are lawyers or investment bankers. Apparently the heierarchy goes something like

* At the top of the scumbag pile, as the lesser of four evils, are the lawyers.
* Just below that you've got the people who cheat senior citizens with scams.
* A bit further down, you find the pimps.
* Finally, at the very bottom of the scumbag hierarchy, you find the investment bankers.

Independent Software Vendors

His various lessons for ISVs are also interesting to me as I grow my own Independent Software company. I think I'm staying away from most of the mistakes he mentions. I think so...