If you read blogs and forums and go to conferences you will soon pick up that there are a number of recommended ‘best practices’ for being a successful software entrepreneur. I don’t conform to many of them:

SaaS product

No. Both my products are desktop based.

B2B market

Not really. Most of my customers are consumers.

Funded

No. I bootstrapped the business from my own savings.

Subscription model

No. My licences are a one-time fee.

Beautifully designed responsive website

No! www.perfecttableplan.com converts well, but it is certainly not beautiful or responsive (a new website is on the way though).

Co-founder

No. Just me.

Delegation

No. I have delegated bookkeeping to my lovely and talented wife (who also proof reads this blog) but I don’t have any employees or virtual assistant and do the vast majority of things myself, including all the marketing, sales, programming, documentation and customer support.

Drip email campaign

No. One day perhaps.

Focus

Not really. I like variety. I have 2 products under active development and also do some consulting and training.

Social media campaign

No. I have long since given up on Twitter and Facebook as marketing channels.

Mastermind group

No. I do talk with my peers in forums, at meetups and conferences, but not in any structured way.

Started young

No. I was pushing 40 when I started my entrepreneurial career.

Endless growth

No. I can’t really grow the business much more without taking on staff or becoming a workaholic. But I am happy just to maintain the current level of sales. [1]

Exit plan

No. I haven’t given it any real thought. I am quite happy doing what I’m doing.

But…

My one-man software business has made me a nice living doing a job I enjoy for more than 10 years. So I guess I must be doing something right. There is no ‘one true way’ to be an entrepreneur. If you have a good product with good support and good marketing, most other things are optional.

[1] Added after suggestion by Tom Reader.