It’s been a busy few weeks at HelpBurner HQ… HelpBurner went live which meant we needed to push out two-weekly update out a few weeks.  The update finally went up today

New Publishing Template – Clean and Clear

This new HTML publishing template is simple, elegant and professionally designed and is a free upgrade for all HelpBurner users.  The template is also cleanly coded so it’s very easy to extend or modify for your own needs.

To use the new template, simply re-publish your help topic or project to HTML and select the Clean and Clear template from the drop-down.  If you do not have the template, ensure you’ve updated HelpBurner to the latest version first.

New Scree-Capture Tools

Something we’re working on is improving the screen capture tools so you can capture a specific window easier and so you can capture menus… this will all be coming soon

New Help

When you start HelpBunrer now you will see there is a new Getting Started guide displayed.  This makes it easier for those just starting out to get to grips with HelpBurner quickly.

Re-designed Library

Thanks for all the input from everyone who wanted the library re-designed.  It’s much easier to use now and takes up much less screen space.  A very worthy improvement.

Upgrading

If you are an existing HelpBurner user you should be prompted to upgrade by HelpBurner.  If not, you can simply run the installer from our website (link below) to update.

http://www.helpburner.com/install/HelpBurnerSetup.exe

Thanks everyone for your great feedback and suggestions

We’ll be pushing a new update in about 1 – 2 weeks, packed with more goodness!

Cheers,

Mike – HelpBurner

Hi all… well this last week has produced some massive improvements to HelpBurner… thanks to everyone for their continued feedback that’s helping us bring this all together

The major feature added for this release is blog publishing. You can now publish any topic to any blog that supports the MetaWebLog API – this is basically WordPress and a bunch of others. We’ll put together a better list in the coming weeks.

P.S. Guess what this blog post was put together in? Yep – HelpBurner

What’s New

Blog publishing - this is a biggie and took a lot of planning and time to get right (we think it’s right anyway). We’ll blog shortly how to best use it in more depth.

In the Publish window, click the Accounts button (1) and you’ll be able to enter the details of your blog (web address, username, password…). Once you’ve entered the information, choose the blog category to publish to and publish the topic.

Image Annotations - (thanks to Aaron), we’ve re-worked how the image are resized and how annotations are added (all internal changes). This gets around a few nasty issues to do with image resizing and annotation positioning when an image was very large.

New Website - the new website (incomplete) is up at http://www.helpburner.com

Fixes - Thanks to – Kamran, Les and others for the feedback and bug reports that we’ve completed over the last week

How to Update

If you’re running a new-ish version of HelpBurner then you should see a blue “update available” message at the top of the HelpBurner window. When this occurs it means HelpBurner has downloaded the update and it will be applied next time you restart HelpBurner.

Where to from here?

Thanks to all of you we’re cracking this thing out quickly and getting some great positive feedback and some awesome suggestions along the way

We plan to launch HelpBurner officially in the next four weeks.

Thanks from Mike – team HelpBurner

What’s New

How to Update
If you’re running a new-ish version of HelpBurner then you should see a blue “update available” message at the top of the HelpBurner window. When this occurs it means HelpBurner has downloaded the update and it will be applied next time you restart HelpBurner.
Where to from here?
It’s coming sooo close to launch time and we can’t wait… We plan to launch HelpBurner officially in the next 10 days

Thanks from Mike – and let us know if you have any comments…

HelpBurner  is a new way for web designers and developers to create project documentation, visual how-to’s, tutorials and support material… and we guarantee it will take you at least 50% less time, plus the help created will look beautiful!

We reached the first public beta milestone for HelpBurner (See below to get it now free) last Friday and we’ve been so rushed off our feet since then (in a good way) that we haven’t had a chance to post this update until now!

HelpBurner Help – Publish to HTML, PDF, Blogs

How to you get the beta?

If you just want to get the beat straight away then please visit:

http://www.helpburner.com/install/helpburner.htm

Windows supported

coming very soon to a browser near you

What is HelpBurner?

We think it redefines how help, user guides, tutorials etc are created and more importantly it makes help easy to use and empowering for your users (and did we mention pretty). This can only be a great new step for us all and lead to happier customers and more expert users of our products.

Get Support and have your say – HelpBurner @ GetSatisfaction

We’re using the absolutely awesome GetSatisfaction community tool for open conversations about HelpBurner, bugs, fixes, what you want and more.

Please just jump in and have your say at:

http://getsatisfaction.com/helpburner

This community is for you… we’re here to help… we want to know anything it is that you have to say because this is how we shape and create HelpBurner.

Give it heaps, we can’t wait to hear what you think!

Yep, we’d love you tell us why we suck (and how too, if you can)… our boot-strapped startup (2 people!) is pushing HelpBurner beta out the door on Friday the 7th of May, 2010 – it’s first public beta and it would be the best early-Christmas present we could ever receive if anyone and everyone took it for a good ole trashing.

We love HelpBurner but we know there are things you’ll love and hate… tell us… we’re developing the tool for you and whatever you say, I guarantee will be taken on board and seriously looked at, if not implemented. 

Together with you, we want to make HelpBurner the new way (read as: no longer the awful sucky existing way) of creating help, visual how-to’s, user guides and customer support material.  Existing help tools are painful and they create help that no one uses, so it’s time the winds of change swept them away… time they got with the modern web-based world and consumers!

If you’d like a Christmas card from us this year and a huge debt of appreciation from us, please contact us (or check back here on Friday):

Give HelpBurner a try:

• Twitter me @helpburner and I’ll get you the beta on Friday,
• E-mail me mike.stokes@helpburner.com and I’ll get you the beta on Friday,
• Check back here and we’ll have the beta link on Friday,
• Phone me, +64 21661474 and I’ll get you the beta on Friday.

Love from our startup

Mike

Hi All, we’ve reached what feels like a milestone today… the design and user interface has been finalized and we’re so excited to see what you all think – good and bad!  This is the last step on the way to the first open public beta in a few weeks time, which we can’t wait for – ye ha

We’ve put up a few screen shots on Flickr and we’ll be adding more over the next few days.  We think the UI is great and very intuitive but we want to know what you think – that’s the most important thing to us!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/helpburner/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/helpburner/

So go head and fire off your thoughts to us as Flickr comments, blog comments, Twitter us @HelpBurner or e-mail me at mike.stokes@helpburner.com

Thanks all

Today I want to talk briefly (because whole books have been written on the subject and I can’t claim to give it the going over it deserves in one blog post) about the idea of “crossing the chasm” – and how you can stay on your side of the so-called chasm and still succeed.

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers, by Geoffrey A. Moore has become a cult classic since its release in 1991. Its title says it all, really, but the basic premise of the book can be seen more clearly in the graphic below. 

The chasm is wrong and why do you no longer need to cross it to succeed as a tech start-up?

It used to be that the skill of companies that make it big is that of waiting out the gap between “early adopters” taking an interest in their product or service and the “early majority” getting on board.  This is no longer the case for most start-ups.

Startups – early adopters can be all you need.  Why?

1. It’s a matter of quality. You get a good and loyal customer base, whose opinion is respected in the community you are targeting.
2. It’s a matter of quantity.  With consumers becoming far more tech-savvy over the last decade the chasm curve now is simply incorrect.  The early adopters area of the curve (before the chasm) is now much larger – with up to 50% of the market are in this area now.  We’ve got mass consumer technology to thank for this: Facebook, Twitter, iPhones etc have made normal people into tech savvy people.
3. It’s the Internet baby. This one directly affects quantity – simply put, more people have access to high-speed internet and this makes the market bigger.

And with people generally becoming more and more tech savvy the numbers of “early adopters” out there is on the up – and growing fast.  This is the market your start-up needs to target and thanks to the internet, it’s becoming easier to reach.

It’s not so much that crossing over into a bigger market could ruin your company, but that it could dilute the impact of your brand.  Talking to consumers on the other size of the chasm takes different products and different mindsets – they’re conservative in nature.  It can mean leaving your existing market behind.

So don’t be a sell-out.

Here’s a musical analogy: The band The Shins was a huge hit on the indie music circuit in the US. From Albuquerque of all places, they were well known and respected among the right people, but not at all what you would call mainstream. Then a song of theirs appeared on the soundtrack to the film Garden State (and Natalie Portman’s character even said one of their songs would “change your life” in the film itself) and the band’s audience grew.

Now, that wasn’t such a problem, but what was problematic was when one of the band’s songs appeared on an ad for – you guessed it – the iPod. Now, I am a huge fan of The Shins, but I know many who thought they were selling out. (Disclaimer: I maintain the band is awesome)

Remember: the ones that do it successfully are rare and not to be emulated – unless you’re really gutsy, don’t mind alienating your existing customer base or you have such a technical product that the early adopters category is small.

Remember – stick to what you know, what you do well, and what your loyal customers value.

“Choose a niche and dominate it as opposed to trying to dominate the world on the other side of the chasm. 5000 customers at 100 dollars each per month is a pretty good business model still for a small startup!”

(For more on what not to do with your startup, see Mike’s post from a few weeks ago: “How original product ideas can kill your small business”).

It’s been a really exciting few weeks here at our startup HelpBurner and I can’t wait to tell you all about it…

Firstly, as you can see below, we’ve got our new logo and with that, HelpBurner is officially born to the world   It marks a milestone for us and we’re super excited to show this to you and see what you think?

Secondly, we’re excited to welcome Laura Caygill to our team… Laura is going to be responsible for our community – that’s you guys and gals   Keep your eyes peeled, Laura’s putting up a Nice to Meet You post in the next few days to introduce herself.  Laura joins Christoph Fischer, myself and Helen Littlewood on the team here.

Thirdly, we’re almost ready to open HelpBurner to semi-public beta testing.  We’re just waiting for Silverlight 4 to be released as a Go Live release candidate at Mix10 in the next few weeks.  After that we can unveil what we’ve been working on and share it with all – can’t wait!

I can’t believe how quickly this is all coming together… Can’t wait to show you more.

As always.. leave us a comment below to let us know what you think or contact me directly at mike.stokes@helpburner.com

What are the five most important books for your tech startup bookshelf?  Without a doubt the books that have helped us most in our last company and the ones that are helping in this new startup, HelpBurner are:

Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah

This book summarizes what you need to be doing before you launch your startup and also what you should be doing post-launch and on an ongoing basis.  These guys really get the way marketing has changed from old-school (outbound) to new-school (inbound).  Not only that, they tell you how you can get the results you need from inbound marketing in a clear step-by-step approach that makes it easy for the busy startup company.

by Seth Godin

Probably the most important book for any tech startup is this one.  It’s the one you need to read and understand before you build your product and company.  If you’re already some way down the road then this book becomes even more important and helps you re-focus your product offerings and company to succeed.  To summarize Seth –

“Summarize your business by being remarkable”

The Web Startup Success Guide and MicroISV Sites that Sell (e-book) by Bob Walsh

These books provide great information for anyone in a tech startup and are must-reads.  Whilst I much prefer and found the content in MicroISV Sites that Sell to be much better, Web Startup Success Guide is still worth having at your fingertips.  Sites that Sell guides you through the process of distilling your product ideas so you can communicate them quickly and easily as benefits to potential customers.  Most tech heads realize this is sometimes a complicated process (to change our heads from features to benefits) and Bob does an excellent job of guiding you through it.

What 99% of Startups Should be Doing to Succeed

OK, so this one isn’t a book but it is really important (and interesting) – This is one video every single small business / SOHO owner should watch at least once.  It doesn’t matter if you know all this stuff already or if you’re already successful – this is a great motivational piece that spells out what 99% of entrepreneurs  should be focusing on.

David’ core message is: forget trying to be the next Facebook or MySpace… focus instead on choosing a niche market which has a real problem that your business can solve well.  Simply put, yours odds of success are far far higher.

David is an owner of 37signals, one of the most successful web 2.0 companies and their ideas and principals have shaped a lot of what we see today in the web SaaS (software as a service) type business space.  While this video is discussing technology businesses, the message is the same across the board – it doesn’t matter if you’re in real-estate or software.

Here is the link to the full-size original: David Heinemeier Hansson at Start-up School 08

Whew it’s been a couple of really busy weeks on the Help Burner startup front!  Firstly, I’m moving full speed ahead with development of HelpBurner and I’m really pleased about the progress that’s been made so far.  I’m lucky enough to be in the position of having already had a semi-successful startup, so I can work full time on HelpBurner’s development and design…

I’m hoping to get some time to post some screenshots of HelpBurner and where I’m at with it in the next few weeks   And I want to give it out to a small selected group of users.  Keep tuned for more updates

So here’s the startup progress since mid-December:-

Design – For the last month, I’ve been redesigning the UI and the user experience (UX) over and over again.  I;m one of those people who know when it’s perfect but I’m not arty enough to be able to design it perfectly first-time, it takes me quite a few iterations to “get it right”.  Anyway, I purchased a copy of Balsamiq Mockups and it was great!  Within an hour I had created a few mockups and chosen the perfect one.  The ability to tweak the design until it’s perfect saves so much time!  Welcome Peldi and Val and Marco from Balsamiq, they were in the small startup position just a year and a half ago so it’s great to see a cool company succeed!

Development – I’m pushing full-steam ahead and have have an almost-beta-able version of HelpBurner.  Development in Silverlight 4 is great if a bit fiddly – it’s just so powerful.  Needed to go with Silverlight 4 because HelpBurner uses screen-capture and SL3 couldn’t do that without Java Applets and they suck from a user experience perspective.  Luckily I’m in the Microsoft BizSpark program so all dev tools etc are free   One of the great things about SilverLight (and Adobe Air) is that people can try the software (when it’s posted) from the website and they don’t have to install any software!

Company – I need to incorporate the the new HelpBurner company.  Luckily in New Zealand it’s a super simple process of registering a company and only takes about an hour online at the Companies Office and only costs $100

Website – Everything is in place and this blog is running and HelpBurner’s also on Twitter.  I’ve also got our GetSatisfaction community setup and ready.

What’s Coming Up

The biggest things I want to achieve over the next month is to get HelpBurner beta-able and give to that small select group of users so they can rip it apart and tell me where it sucks and what they as users want to see improved.  You know, get the basics of it perfect before moving forward to completion. So:

• Get HelpBurner beta-ready.
• Select a small group of users.
• Get the beta to the users and start gathering feedback.
• Incorporate HelpBurner Ltd.
• Get screenshots of HelpBurner on the blog.
• Get ready for a more open beta.
• Start gathering worthy organizations for free giveaways at launch time.
• Consider CruistControl or some other continuous integration tool (any advice anyone?).
• Welcome my new baby daughter