David Abramowski

A strange dynamic has taken hold on the internet.  Just as people expect sunshine and air to be free, they also expect internet based software applications to be free.  Ok, maybe not completely free… they agree someone should pay, just not them.  Damn you Google, damn you Yahoo! why did you do this to us? With companies left and right offering full versions of their products for free,  users have been conditioned NOT to pay for anything.  This conditioning can be seen across everything from social media sites to messaging to business applications.  The problem with this as I see it is the negative impact on innovation. Users think that they win by getting free software or services, but do they really?  If you ask me the only real winners in the free ecosystem are the i... (more)

Funding and Revenue = Chicken and Egg

Over the past quarter I have been investigating different types of financing that may be available for today’s technology entrepreneur.  I looked at this challenge from the perspective of a brand new software company ready with their first product and preparing to enter the marketplace.   Here is the summary of my research: You are on your own until you are earning money I’m sure that thi... (more)

Research results on small business funding opps

As a companion to the posting “Funding & revenue: chicken and egg” here is a brief summary of some of the research performed and the results: SBA Small Business Loan – I visited US Bank and talked to them about a potential SBA loan to kick start a brand new business.  End result was that there were no loan programs available to meet the needs of a small software company trying to get star... (more)

The Power of Beta Testing

Don’t underestimate the power of beta testing to a wide range of people. Consider it collaborative development. Open your software to a broad range of people inside and outside of your target market and you’ll be amazed at what you get back from them. A perfect example is my current project MioWorks.com. We opened up for public beta testing a couple weeks ago. In that time we have been ge... (more)

Getting Your Groovy On with Grails and Cloud Computing

David Abramowski's Blog You need to think of cloud computing in three different layers - infrastructure, infrastructure management & platform as a service. At the infrastructure level you have the basis for cloud computing. This is where you'll find virtual servers or services like Amazon.com EC2. A level above the infrastructure layer you find companies that provide tools to help develo... (more)