Seize the storm

So the beta testers have had their first taste of the program.  It wasn’t without a few bugs and a crash or two, but here are some of the comments they had:

• Freakin’ AWESOME!!!
• this is slick!
• The  [feature is] very very nice! A great addition to the program…
• Hats off ed. When I started playing around with the [feature], i saw immediately how powerful this app is. You have done a superb job of making a very complicated set of features accessible to a average user.
• This is one amazing piece of software Ed. I am very impressed with the organization and relative simplicity of the interface. I can foresee lots of grateful users getting a lot of use out of this.

So we can have one of those “Reading Rainbow” moments where, “you don’t have to take my word for it.”  Seriously though, there is a lot of work that has gone into the program.  Things are progressing and I am really tenacious about getting these bugs fixed.  One might say I’m trying to drive the beta testers almost too hard (maybe to the nagging point).  They are a great group and I’ll have a lot of credit due them once I get the product released.

In other news, I’m pretty sure I’ve settled on a name.  I have someone working on the logo ideas right now.  Near the end of the month, I’ll also have the business set up as an LLC.  But I get ahead of myself, I have many bugs to focus on and it seems some of these bugs don’t want to go away.  So I’m off to do some bug squashing…

The program is now moving into beta testing mode.  It still doesn’t have a final name; currently it’s built under its codename.  While the beta testers do what they do best (which is tear the program apart – haha), I will work on the framework of my business.  That means meeting with a CPA and then with an attorney to get my business incorporated.  I’m even starting to dream of a release party.

There’s still a long ways to go in this journey; there are a few bugs I want to fix, small features to implement, security to be refined, and websites to be set up.  But for now, I will relish this small entrepreneurial victory…

So I spent the last month trying to figure out how to get a critical new feature working.  Now that I’ve got that solved, we’re getting very close to beta mode.  I’ve still got a bit to do while we’re beta testing, but nothing I’m too worried about.  I’m also starting to think about what to do after primary development is done and I move into deployment, sales, and such.  Things should hopefully move much faster now.