Yea, I sort of quit blogging the last few months. Not because I don't have anything to write about or that I think it's a waste of time. Even if it was a waste of time, the real issue is I haven't had much of just that... uh, time that is. No time.
I have a list of blog post ideas in my iPhone that I just haven't had time to write them up. I also have a list of like 4 or 5 products that I think would sell really well but just no time to put them together.
Plus, I have some other business needs that are taking up most of my time right now. One of them is CartFreak, which is a "super-human" shopping cart aimed at direct response internet marketers. Check it out if you're in the market for a cart to help automate your business. You'll see the feature list compares (even beats?) most of the major carts out there.
I've also been spending a lot of time consulting with clients on marketing their websites, improving their customer retention, etc. While I love helping small businesses out, I am starting to see that it's cutting way to much into my time and it's effecting my real business goals.
So that said, here are my plans for 2010:
As it stands right now, CartFreak is my main focus and I want to turn it into a huge success. My partner on this project is Joe Lavery, who is an amazing marketer. This guy lives and breaths marketing. The "crazy" ideas he comes up with never stop blowing my mind... Not because their crazy, but because they WORK!
Ok, enough stroking Joe ;) We are both working really hard to help turn CartFreak into a real competitor to the larger "old" cart companies out there. We have quite a few people paying us to use the software already, and it's only in beta release. We've also had such positive feedback from big name marketers on the cart and that has been very motivating and helping us keep our focus.
As much as I love helping small businesses improve their internet marketing, it's time for me to ween myself away from doing so. The reason being is that it's way to time consuming. With clients all over southern California, I find myself traveling to meet with them several times a month and each time I lose a few days in the process.
I'm still going to help out my clients, and other small businesses, just in a different fashion. I have a product in the works that will be very useful to these type of businesses and much more affordable than paying me to personally come out and meet with them so often.
Even though I, myself, am a little guy, I still have a lot to offer people new to internet marketing and process automation. I have a small, but very loyal, following and I appreciate them very much. I want to spend more of my time giving back to them - my customers!
I've got some awesome stuff in the works for them and hope to be able to start with that really soon. Note, if you want to be kept up to date on this, click here and enter your email address.
As a software developer, I thrive on automation. The lifeblood of my business is getting a computer to do the things that I would normally have to do. In the last year I've sort of lost track of this and honestly, been completely neglecting it. Not because of laziness, but I come back to the lack of spare time.
So I will definitely be focusing more on automating (or outsourcing) as much of my business as possible.
I love writing software using Python and Django. The "geek" in me won't let it go, so assuming I can find the time I'd love to pickup some short term contracts writing software on a cool project. This wouldn't even be for the money, but more for the "fun." As odd as it sounds, writing code is almost therapeutic for me.
I love open source software. A lot of people don't realize this but the vast majority of internet services run on open source (FREE) software. Everything from web servers to mail servers to name servers. The very services that are the backbone of the internet, all come from people to write software and literally give it to the world.
I recently released the Zerigo DNS Python module to the open source world. I've also been submitting patches and code changes to other projects I am interested in. I want to do more of this, when I have some spare time or am in the "zone" and just want to "code"
This is hands down the most important part of my plans for the future...
Things in my personal life have been sort of out of whack lately and I have a lot of changes coming in the very near future. Some of them are very hard for me to deal with, but like always, I will have to suck it up and move forward. Like my ARMY drill sergeants used to say - FIDO - which stands for "Fuck It, Drive On." So that's exactly what I plan on doing.
At the same time, I need to create some sort of balance. I work way to much and everything else in my life has suffered a little bit because of it. Especially my relationship with my 2 daughters. When my 10 year old tells me she doesn't get enough "quality time" with me, then something is wrong and MUST change immediately. So that's exactly what I'm doing. Making changes in the right direction.
This turned into a way longer post than I planned on. Guess I had a lot of writing in me to get out ;)
Even though I will never shut down this blog, and I do want to write more here, I know I won't get to write as often as I like. Just stay subscribed (either via RSS or email) and I'll update you as things progress.
If you really wanna know what I'm up to during the day, then follow me on twitter. I update throughout the day, usually every day, there.
Here's to a great 2010!