Starting a Software Business with Liam Westley
While at the NDC London conference, Carl and Richard talk to Liam Westley about building your own software business. It starts with the idea that the most destructive thing to your software business is support calls - or more broadly, the accumulated cost of your past business. The conversation digs into the power of being a business of one, rather than having employees, and thinking beyond just your development work, digging into all the other aspects of business: marketing, sales, accounting, and so on. As Liam says, starting a software business is easy, staying in business is hard!
Guests:
Liam Westley
Liam Westley has been using Microsoft technologies since the days of Visual Basic 1.0 and is currently a Microsoft MVP in C#. He's a prolific speaker in the UK developer community, talking at user groups and community conferences. After 15 years in the broadcast television industry, including working with BSkyB, Reuters Television, chellomedia, GMTV and the QVC UK shopping channel, Liam moved into the world of tech startups in London. In his time he created the first in house weather system for Sky News using Visual Basic 1.0, acted as architect for two general election systems, project managed the launch of the GMTV web site, was key to delivering the first interactive television chat service in the UK for BSkyB and helped launch the first live shopping channel in the Netherlands. He is currently one of a team of application architects at Huddle where he works with some of the best .Net developers and UX designers to deliver world class collaboration software. He quite likes working just outside the City of London as there is some fantastic food and coffee to be had within a few minutes’ walk.