Successful Software

Ok, so you’ve set yourself up as a one man software company and you’ve made some sales. But are you a real microISV/micropreneur/indie/startup? Take the test below and find out.

1. You checked the number of sales you made overnight before you had your breakfast this morning.
2. You measure the price of desirable objects (cars, houses, Xboxes) in terms of the number of licences you need to sell.
3. You’ve outsourced some work to someone with no idea what they look like and only a vague idea where they live.
4. When booking a hotel you are more interested in how good the Internet connection is than how good the restaurant is.
5. Your product has at least 20 five star awards from download sites.
6. You know what CTR, CPC and CPM mean.
7. You have begged all your friends and family to ‘like’ your product’s Facebook page.
8. You set up your computer or phone so it makes a special noise each time you get a sale.
9. Your software has been cracked at least once.
10. You have suggested to a particularly problematic customer that one of your competitors might have a more suitable product.
11. You’ve done technical support while wearing a dressing gown/bathrobe (or less).
12. You have Google alerts and Twitter searches set up for your product name.
13. You start to get anxious after not checking your email for more than half a day.
14. The last time you set an alarm clock it was because you were going on holiday and didn’t want to miss the flight.
15. Your relatives think you don’t have a ‘real job’.
16. You own at least 10 domain names.
17. You have had to fix problems with your software or website while on holiday.
18. You have had a least one chargeback.
19. Your software has been flagged as malware by at least one anti-virus package.
20. You use at least 3 different email addresses in the course of a day.
21. You have explained what you do to someone and they said “And you make a living from that???”.
22. You have used Google translate to answer a support email in a language you don’t understand.
23. You use “we” when talking about your company, even though its really only you.
24. Someone told you a half-baked idea they had in the shower that morning and said they would be willing to give you 50% of the profit if you did 100% of the work to  implement it.
25. The last time you wore a suit and tie was to a wedding or a funeral.

I scored 25/25, of course (it’s my test). How did you do? Are there any other questions I should have added? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks to fellow microISVs Steph, Oliver, Terrell, Clay and Ian for suggesting some of the above.