Introduction

In February 2005, after releasing my first commercial application, I went looking for all sorts of information that would help me market, support, and improve my product. I wasn't especially happy with what I found.

There were books aplenty on starting retail businesses, restaurants, inns—you name it—except a self-funded software company. There were a few pre-Internet books, now mostly out of print, about how to start a shareware company, and there were a few books out about how to write the killer business plan that would woo venture capitalists to fund your start-up but nothing about how to define a product, develop it, support it, market it, and do all this 100 percent on the Web.

I did find one really good Web site, the Business ...

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