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    <title>Obie Fernandez</title>
    
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/" />
    <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-1546920</id>
    <updated>2013-06-14T16:02:08-04:00</updated>
    <subtitle>the one and only</subtitle>
    <generator uri="http://www.typepad.com/">TypePad</generator>
    <atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/obie" /><feedburner:info uri="obie" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" /><feedburner:browserFriendly>This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site, subject to copyright and fair use.</feedburner:browserFriendly><entry>
        <title>I'm Hiring: Web Developer and Designer for LSM Javelin</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/aoL3jrdh_KI/im-hiring-web-developer-and-designer-for-lsm-javelin.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/06/im-hiring-web-developer-and-designer-for-lsm-javelin.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca91188330192ab214442970d</id>
        <published>2013-06-14T16:02:08-04:00</published>
        <updated>2013-06-14T16:02:52-04:00</updated>
        <summary>I'm going to hire two full time, experienced web people in September as the first members of my product delivery team at Lean Startup Machine. We'll mostly be working on Javelin, our killer app for product managers that's currently entering...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Obie Fernandez</name>
        </author>
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;I'm going to hire two full time, experienced web people in September as the first members of my product delivery team at &lt;a href="http://leanstartupmachine.com" style="font-size: 12pt;" target="_self"&gt;Lean Startup Machine&lt;/a&gt;. We'll mostly be working on &lt;a href="http://javelinapp.com" style="font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank"&gt;Javelin&lt;/a&gt;, our killer app for product managers that's currently entering pilot phase at a handful of Fortune 100 companies.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p style="padding-left: 30px;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;Senior Web Developer&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p style="padding-left: 30px;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;Primarily looking for full-stack web technology experience, especially with modern browser-based MVC and CSS. Best candidate will be a generalist with broad understanding of OO application design, automated testing, cloud-based production environments and Agile processes.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p style="padding-left: 30px;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;UX Designer / Front End Specialist&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p style="padding-left: 30px;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;Looking for someone special with experience designing &lt;em&gt;and&lt;/em&gt; coding modern web and mobile user interfaces. Javascript/HTML/CSS experience is a must. RubyMotion is a big, big plus.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p style="padding-left: 30px;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Location:&lt;/strong&gt; Anywhere in the United States&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Compensation:&lt;/strong&gt; Short-term contract to perm. Low six figures annually plus generous equity&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;More Information: &lt;/strong&gt;We are a results-oriented work environment, which means all team members must possess a strong work ethic and high-degree of emotional maturity. Unless they happen to live near me in NW Atlanta suburbs or New York City, candidates must be able to work from home reliably and communicate well via email and videoconferencing. Additionally, as an investor-funded startup, the pressure is often quite high and the right candidates need to be confident enough in their skills and opinions to hold their own among co-founders (me and Trevor) with strong personalities.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;Our current technology stack includes Mongo, Ruby on Rails, Spine.js, and Twitter Bootstrap, so experience with those is definitely a plus. Existing interest in lean startup topics is (of course) another big plus. Occasional travel will be required, for company meetings and/or attendance and support of our weekend workshops around the world.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;&lt;em&gt;If you're a recruiter don't bother contacting me.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=aoL3jrdh_KI:UdwRvlFuVE0:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=aoL3jrdh_KI:UdwRvlFuVE0:dnMXMwOfBR0"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=aoL3jrdh_KI:UdwRvlFuVE0:RJU-JkLLmTY"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=aoL3jrdh_KI:UdwRvlFuVE0:RJU-JkLLmTY" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=aoL3jrdh_KI:UdwRvlFuVE0:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=aoL3jrdh_KI:UdwRvlFuVE0:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=aoL3jrdh_KI:UdwRvlFuVE0:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=aoL3jrdh_KI:UdwRvlFuVE0:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=aoL3jrdh_KI:UdwRvlFuVE0:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/06/im-hiring-web-developer-and-designer-for-lsm-javelin.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>The Rails 4 Way (beta)</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/jMIcYdHAS_Y/the-rails-4-way-beta.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/04/the-rails-4-way-beta.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca9118833017eeab6cece970d</id>
        <published>2013-04-30T19:24:21-04:00</published>
        <updated>2013-04-30T19:24:21-04:00</updated>
        <summary>Today I unveiled the latest (and eventually best) version of The Rails Way at RailsConf 2013. Thanks to the cooperation of my publisher, this beta release is being distributed via the most excellent leanpub.com service. My co-authors are Kevin Faustino,...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Obie Fernandez</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Books" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;a class="asset-img-link" href="http://leanpub.com/tr4w" target="_self"&gt;&lt;img alt="Title_page" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fdca9118833019101af0629970c" src="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833019101af0629970c-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Title_page"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;Today I unveiled &lt;a href="http://leanpub.com/tr4w" target="_self"&gt;the latest&lt;/a&gt; (and eventually best) version of The Rails Way at RailsConf 2013. Thanks to the cooperation of my publisher, this beta release is being distributed via the most excellent leanpub.com service. My co-authors are Kevin Faustino, Vitaly Kushner and Ari Lerner.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Beta purchasers will be invited to collaborate on the book. Much more information coming soon.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=jMIcYdHAS_Y:C4DtPlK6CfM:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=jMIcYdHAS_Y:C4DtPlK6CfM:dnMXMwOfBR0"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=jMIcYdHAS_Y:C4DtPlK6CfM:RJU-JkLLmTY"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=jMIcYdHAS_Y:C4DtPlK6CfM:RJU-JkLLmTY" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=jMIcYdHAS_Y:C4DtPlK6CfM:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=jMIcYdHAS_Y:C4DtPlK6CfM:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=jMIcYdHAS_Y:C4DtPlK6CfM:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=jMIcYdHAS_Y:C4DtPlK6CfM:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=jMIcYdHAS_Y:C4DtPlK6CfM:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/04/the-rails-4-way-beta.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Rave Reviews for Consulting Masterclass</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/QUdP6PqJT24/rave-reviews-for-consulting-masterclass.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/02/rave-reviews-for-consulting-masterclass.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca9118833017d41476114970c</id>
        <published>2013-02-25T19:28:58-05:00</published>
        <updated>2013-02-25T19:28:58-05:00</updated>
        <summary>My next consulting masterclass with Brennan Dunn will happen the weekend March 16-17th. Over the course of two 5 hour sessions, we cover the nitty gritty of turning your freelancing or small contracting operation into a world-class operation. The core...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Obie Fernandez</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Business" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833017d414758b9970c-pi" style="display: inline;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Screen Shot 2013-02-25 at 7.19.21 PM" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fdca9118833017d414758b9970c" src="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833017d414758b9970c-500wi" title="Screen Shot 2013-02-25 at 7.19.21 PM"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My &lt;a href="http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy" target="_self"&gt;next consulting masterclass&lt;/a&gt; with Brennan Dunn will happen the weekend March 16-17th. Over the course of two 5 hour sessions, we cover the nitty gritty of turning your freelancing or small contracting operation into a world-class operation. The core topics are sales and marketing, money, staff and client management, culture and products. Plus as an alumni you get exclusive access to a growing mailing list of fellow consultant entrepreneurs that act as a roundtable and support group.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Here's what some of our students are saying about their experience:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;First of all, thank you for being so available and attentive. Both you and Obie have been absolutely wonderful in this process and I sincerely appreciate the time both of your have put into this. I'm excited to see where I can go now that I know what works.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Before I get into the feedback, I want to provide some feedback on what I keep coming back to as the most important part of the class:&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;If I forget about access to the community this class has introduced me to, which in itself is worth the price of admission many times over, the biggest benefit I've received from taking the masterclass is an absolute certainty that the knowledge I've gained can be used to grow my business. The masterclass has, in a big way, provided me with the ability to stop worrying about what the path between where I'm at and where I want to take the business looks like. Growth for my consultancy is now a known item and I understand the work I need to do to make it happen. If I had any doubts about the value of this course before enrolling, you two have solidly eliminated them through your full unrestricted access. THANK YOU!&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Nicholas Hance of &lt;a href="http://reenhanced.com"&gt;Reenhanced&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;hr&gt;&lt;/hr&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I'm having a rough time just selecting just one thing to rave about. The biggest lesson I learned was how to productize my offerings to be able move away from hourly billing.  Also, the section about utilization/hiring taught me exactly when I need to grow my team.&#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;The time I spent in the workshop was exhilarating. During the 10 hours, I filled up an entire notebook of notes. Having you two share your experiences and being completely transparent was amazing.&#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I can honestly say that this workshop really helped me lay the foundation for me to grow my consultancy. I always thought that I wanted to have a complete virtual company. However after Brennan's story about his company transition to brick &amp;amp; mortar and the importance of culture expressed by Obie, I have made it a goal in the next 2 years to open up a physical office for my team. &#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Kevin Faustino of &lt;a href="remarkablelabs.com"&gt;Remarkable Labs&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;hr&gt;&lt;/hr&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;First off, thanks so much for hosting this masterclass and for sharing all of your stories and tips. After first reading Brennan's "Double Your Freelancing Rate" and now taking the masterclass, my company has been undergoing a whirlwind of changes-- all for the better! &#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I had a lot of "aha!" moments during the masterclass. One that I felt like we needed to do immediately was joining the Chamber of Commerce. We had already identified small businesses as our desired type of client, but we weren't sure how to go about finding these types of clients (going to tech meetups, responding to online ads, etc. just kept putting us into contact with more of the same "dreamer"-type startups that we were used to and wanted to get away from).&#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I wouldn't cut anything-- every single topic was relevant to my relatively young business, whether it be in the immediate-term or in the short-term future. For example, despite not having any employees at the moment, being able to know what the pitfalls are and what issues to try and avoid is invaluable as we grow. &#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Obie is someone who we looked up to a lot when we were getting our business off the ground and Brennan is someone who we recently became familiar with but who has helped us so much as we've tried to really upgrade our consultancy. Being able to hang out and actually talk with our "consultancy heroes" was really, really cool. &#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I think that being able to just talk with other people about their consultancies is something that we didn't think was possible, but we sorely wanted. In my experience, there was a whole lot of secrecy surrounding consulting as a whole, especially regarding rates and such. I think creating a forum to talk about this kind of stuff is wildly beneficial and has really helped us feel like we can take our own consultancy to the next level.&#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Carlos Ramirez III of &lt;a href="cetrasoft.com"&gt;Cetrasoft&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;hr&gt;&lt;/hr&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I'm going to embarrass myself, but the whole concept of a sales pipeline, while it should have been obvious, was like a glass of cold water in the face. To this point, my thinking has always just been, "I've got to get as much work going NOW as I can," not," I need to line up high-quality work at a high rate that I can focus on and schedule it out to ensure continued income."&#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Name witheld&#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;hr&gt;&lt;/hr&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xD;
&lt;hr&gt;&lt;/hr&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learn more and register at &lt;a href="http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy" target="_self"&gt;doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=QUdP6PqJT24:PzjCRiFbwTw:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=QUdP6PqJT24:PzjCRiFbwTw:dnMXMwOfBR0"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=QUdP6PqJT24:PzjCRiFbwTw:RJU-JkLLmTY"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=QUdP6PqJT24:PzjCRiFbwTw:RJU-JkLLmTY" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=QUdP6PqJT24:PzjCRiFbwTw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=QUdP6PqJT24:PzjCRiFbwTw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=QUdP6PqJT24:PzjCRiFbwTw:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=QUdP6PqJT24:PzjCRiFbwTw:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=QUdP6PqJT24:PzjCRiFbwTw:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/02/rave-reviews-for-consulting-masterclass.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Ecommerce Takes Patience!</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/KqnbBZHfInc/ecommerce-takes-patience.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/01/ecommerce-takes-patience.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca9118833017d3fc69c13970c</id>
        <published>2013-01-11T09:05:47-05:00</published>
        <updated>2013-01-11T09:05:47-05:00</updated>
        <summary>This chart shows recent sales on msabundle.com where I sell contract document templates for freelancers and consultants. Nice, eh? I started the project a little less than 2 years ago and have experienced very slow but steady growth in revenue...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Obie Fernandez</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Ecommerce" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Life" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833017c35977fdf970b-pi" style="display: inline;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Screen Shot 2013-01-11 at 8.43.42 AM" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fdca9118833017c35977fdf970b" src="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833017c35977fdf970b-500wi" title="Screen Shot 2013-01-11 at 8.43.42 AM"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;This chart shows recent sales on &lt;a href="http://msabundle.com" target="_blank"&gt;msabundle.com&lt;/a&gt; where I sell contract document templates for freelancers and consultants. Nice, eh?&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I started the project a little less than 2 years ago and have experienced very slow but steady growth in revenue over that time. For the most part it's a side project that I have ignored on a daily basis, especially so during the first year and a half when I only got a few sales a month. I say that ecommerce takes patience, because there were a handful of occasions during that time where I wondered if it was worth the mental bandwidth to keep it going! The ramp up curve was really that flat. But in retrospect, I think part of the issue has been the lag time it takes to get a naturally high ranking for my most effective search terms. I have not done any proactive SEO work like getting bloggers to create inbound links.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Costs? Granted the reason I can offer this service is because of my career experience and lots of other intangibles, but the cumulative hard time investment in creating the site and content over the last two years has to be less than a week. There's only a small amount (2-digits) of cost associated with hosting the site, so the margin is almost 100% profit. A perfect &lt;em&gt;lifestyle business&lt;/em&gt; and the mailing list of customers that I'm building up is invaluable for marketing my other projects such as the monthly &lt;a href="http://buildaconsultancy.com" target="_blank"&gt;Consulting Masterclass&lt;/a&gt; and my new &lt;a href="http://leanpub.com/nachos" target="_self"&gt;book about consulting&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Really proves out the value of &lt;a href="http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1620-sell-your-by-products" target="_self"&gt;selling your byproducts&lt;/a&gt;! (Thanks Jason and 37signals for popularizing the concept!)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=KqnbBZHfInc:Yh5AxNIgJ_s:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=KqnbBZHfInc:Yh5AxNIgJ_s:dnMXMwOfBR0"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=KqnbBZHfInc:Yh5AxNIgJ_s:RJU-JkLLmTY"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=KqnbBZHfInc:Yh5AxNIgJ_s:RJU-JkLLmTY" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=KqnbBZHfInc:Yh5AxNIgJ_s:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=KqnbBZHfInc:Yh5AxNIgJ_s:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=KqnbBZHfInc:Yh5AxNIgJ_s:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=KqnbBZHfInc:Yh5AxNIgJ_s:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=KqnbBZHfInc:Yh5AxNIgJ_s:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/01/ecommerce-takes-patience.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Announcement: CTO of Lean Startup Machine</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/4XrerOLTRk4/announcement-cto-of-lean-startup-machine.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/01/announcement-cto-of-lean-startup-machine.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca9118833017d3f96cb63970c</id>
        <published>2013-01-07T13:08:45-05:00</published>
        <updated>2013-01-07T13:08:45-05:00</updated>
        <summary>Ch-ch-changes! I've joined Lean Startup Machine as their CTO and will be working remotely from Atlanta, with occasional trips to NYC. I've been advising LSM for a couple of years already, since becoming friends with their CEO, Trevor Owens, one...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Obie Fernandez</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Lean Startups" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Life" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;Ch-ch-changes! I've joined &lt;a href="http://leanstartupmachine.com" target="_self"&gt;Lean Startup Machine&lt;/a&gt; as their CTO and will be working remotely from Atlanta, with occasional trips to NYC.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;I've been advising LSM for a couple of years already, since becoming friends with their CEO, Trevor Owens, one of the best-connected entrepreneurs in NYC. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;The vibrant team that Trevor has united and the success they've experienced so far with their weekend workshops all around the world, well, it's simply a testament to their great vision and execution. I'm excited to take a greater role in the company as we dive into a promising market for tools that help teams stay lean and accomplish validated learning every day. Expect to hear more about it from me over the coming months.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 12pt;"&gt;&lt;a class="asset-img-link" href="http://leanstartupmachine.com/lean-startup-machine-infographic-2012-review/" target="_self"&gt;&lt;img alt="Lean_2012_Infographic3" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fdca9118833017c3567c002970b" src="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833017c3567c002970b-500wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Lean_2012_Infographic3"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=4XrerOLTRk4:aBRE5C2dW8M:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=4XrerOLTRk4:aBRE5C2dW8M:dnMXMwOfBR0"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=4XrerOLTRk4:aBRE5C2dW8M:RJU-JkLLmTY"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=4XrerOLTRk4:aBRE5C2dW8M:RJU-JkLLmTY" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=4XrerOLTRk4:aBRE5C2dW8M:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=4XrerOLTRk4:aBRE5C2dW8M:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=4XrerOLTRk4:aBRE5C2dW8M:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=4XrerOLTRk4:aBRE5C2dW8M:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=4XrerOLTRk4:aBRE5C2dW8M:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2013/01/announcement-cto-of-lean-startup-machine.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Consulting Masterclass</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/suuk6tg7NEo/consulting-masterclass.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/12/consulting-masterclass.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca9118833017c349c1d7f970b</id>
        <published>2012-12-14T12:23:13-05:00</published>
        <updated>2012-12-14T12:23:13-05:00</updated>
        <summary>My friend Brennan Dunn and I have taken everything we know about bootstrapping successful consulting companies out of freelance work and packaged it into an actionable two-day online workshop. In addition to the course material, you will be privy to...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Obie Fernandez</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Lean Startups" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Life" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Software Development" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833017c349c14bf970b-pi" style="display: inline;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Ignite" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fdca9118833017c349c14bf970b" src="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833017c349c14bf970b-500wi" title="Ignite"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&#xD;
&lt;div&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;My friend Brennan Dunn and I have taken everything we know about bootstrapping successful consulting companies out of freelance work and packaged it into an actionable two-day online workshop.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;In addition to the course material, you will be privy to hours of conversations we've had with other successful consultancy owners and gain entrance to a tight-knit alumni group.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;You'll also walk away with customized action steps to let you take your consulting business to the next level.&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;Seats are very limited. &lt;a href="http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/build-a-consultancy"&gt;Click here to learn more about the curriculum and how to register&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is an actual email from of one of our students:&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;blockquote&gt;Hello Again,&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Here's what I've experienced over the past 4 weeks since taking the course:&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;1. In the last week I've been able to take two of my "do work once a year" clients into a monthly retainer relationships which will bring in an additional $20,000+ revenue annually.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;2. Changed my estimating process from time &amp;amp; materials to value-based, fixed bids (with a couple clauses mitigating the risk of scope creeps).  For example, projects I was estimating at $5,000ish are now closer to $8,000ish, and prospect clients are biting just as hard... harder actually.  Communicating my companies value has completely changed our current &amp;amp; new clients eyes are willing to pay for any given product.  If you're after hard data, two new clients are in the door grossing an additional $6,200 above what I originally would have grossed... and are both interested ongoing retainers :)&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;3. I'm planning a workshop based on Brennan's advice geared towards How to get new clients from your website scheduled for the end of January.  This is an exclusive event catered to our Oil &amp;amp; Gas clients and their extended networks only.  Our dev team is hyper busy while the web team is only booked until the end of February, so it's time to fill our web design/dev pipeline.  Once this event passes, I'll keep everyone posted on what comes from it.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;This isn't everything, just a few of the bigger notable successes I've experienced.  I'd love to hear how your businesses are doing, growing, alongside giving back to Brennan re: measurable outcomes from this wicked awesome course!&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Tata for now,&lt;br&gt;Kevin&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=suuk6tg7NEo:7SZcB8aY5oo:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=suuk6tg7NEo:7SZcB8aY5oo:dnMXMwOfBR0"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=suuk6tg7NEo:7SZcB8aY5oo:RJU-JkLLmTY"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=suuk6tg7NEo:7SZcB8aY5oo:RJU-JkLLmTY" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=suuk6tg7NEo:7SZcB8aY5oo:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=suuk6tg7NEo:7SZcB8aY5oo:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=suuk6tg7NEo:7SZcB8aY5oo:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=suuk6tg7NEo:7SZcB8aY5oo:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=suuk6tg7NEo:7SZcB8aY5oo:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/12/consulting-masterclass.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>I want a kill switch for all the electronic communications in the house</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/nlr4M94Rx-o/i-want-a-kill-switch-for-all-the-electronic-communications-in-the-house.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/12/i-want-a-kill-switch-for-all-the-electronic-communications-in-the-house.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca9118833017c349c0f6b970b</id>
        <published>2012-12-14T12:15:31-05:00</published>
        <updated>2012-12-14T12:15:31-05:00</updated>
        <summary>Photo credit: Pulpolux I want a kill switch for all the electronic communications in the house. I'd like it to be a physical device, with a big red button, in my master bedroom. Kind of like how some people have...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Obie Fernandez</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Life" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;a class="asset-img-link" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833017d3ecb0eae970c-pi" style="display: inline;"&gt;&lt;img alt="11187139_aa9382488d_o" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00e54fdca9118833017d3ecb0eae970c" src="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/.a/6a00e54fdca9118833017d3ecb0eae970c-500wi" title="11187139_aa9382488d_o"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;div style="font-size: 80%; padding-top: 6px;"&gt;Photo credit: &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pulpolux/" target="_flickr"&gt;Pulpolux&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I want a kill switch for all the electronic communications in the house. I'd like it to be a physical device, with a big red button, in my master bedroom. Kind of like how some people have a security console next to their beds, except mine would assist with mental safety. At midnight, BOOM, one of us hits the switch and no more internet, mobile phones or cable television for anyone in the household for the next 7-8 hours. The concern started with Taylor's disturbing lack of sleep, but extends to my own desire to limit my connectivity and inject a measure of peaceful detachment into my nightly routine. Self-discipline gets you part of the way, but not all the way. With a kills switch, disconnect and it's time to sleep or read or do something non-connected and relaxing so that our minds can rest. More and more I am finding that the always-on nature of our daily lives dampens our creative energies and saps my internal, more spiritual motivations.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Implementation of this device is relatively straightforward when it comes to the internet and cable television... it could literally be a relay inserted into the main coaxial feed coming into the house. Mobile phone is a lot trickier and would probably involve some sort of cell scrambler of dubious legality. I have not investigated implementation of this proposed device at all and would rather discuss it further with my friends in the form of a mind experiment, with the following kinds of questions: Is it a good idea to begin with? What are the dangers? How to phase in, especially with regards to my contrarian and somewhat rebellious 16-year old daughter? Is this thing even feasible and if so, could it be a commercial success?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=nlr4M94Rx-o:knkLTW_4Y6M:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=nlr4M94Rx-o:knkLTW_4Y6M:dnMXMwOfBR0"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=nlr4M94Rx-o:knkLTW_4Y6M:RJU-JkLLmTY"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=nlr4M94Rx-o:knkLTW_4Y6M:RJU-JkLLmTY" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=nlr4M94Rx-o:knkLTW_4Y6M:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=nlr4M94Rx-o:knkLTW_4Y6M:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=nlr4M94Rx-o:knkLTW_4Y6M:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=nlr4M94Rx-o:knkLTW_4Y6M:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=nlr4M94Rx-o:knkLTW_4Y6M:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/12/i-want-a-kill-switch-for-all-the-electronic-communications-in-the-house.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry><title type="text">Links for 2012-09-18 [del.icio.us]</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/NZ5tsRP7KiQ/obie" /><updated>2012-09-19T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>http://del.icio.us/obie#2012-09-18</id><content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://kingcounty.gov/council/news/2012/September/vans.aspx"&gt;Sept. 17: Council approves working &amp;ldquo;retirement&amp;rdquo; for County vans&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
The Metropolitan King County Council today unanimously approved sending more than two dozen King County “retirees” to second careers of helping transport county residents. The Council adopted a motion donating 27 retired Metro Vanpool vans to provide transportation assistance to local governments, community programs, senior citizens and young people.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://kingcounty.gov/council/news/2012/September/JH_transitalternatives.aspx"&gt;Sept. 17: Buses and beyond: Council accepts report implementing transit alternatives&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
The Metropolitan King County Council today adopted a motion accepting a five-year implementation plan for alternatives to the delivery of traditional transit service to King County communities that need transit but not big buses.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://kingcounty.gov/council/news/2012/September/cleanwater.aspx"&gt;Sept. 17: County Council Celebrates 40 Years of Clean Water&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
The Metropolitan King County Council today recognized the forty year anniversary of the federal Clean Water Act and the ongoing effort to restore and protect King County’s waterways. The Council also unanimously approved an update to the Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Control Plan, which will reduce the amount of untreated wastewater in Puget Sound and King County’s lakes and rivers.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://kingcounty.gov/council/news/2012/September/RD_cyberbullyADOPT.aspx"&gt;Sept. 17: Studying ways to prevent cyberbullying in King County&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
The Metropolitan King County today gave its unanimous approval to a motion urging the King County Sheriff to study ways to protect the public from an emerging trend in our growing electronic society: cyberbullying.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://kingcounty.gov/council/news/2012/September/KL_DDES_DPER.aspx"&gt;Sept. 17: Council adopts legislation streamlining, renaming county&amp;rsquo;s permitting environmental review agency&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
The Metropolitan King County Council today gave its unanimous approval to an ordinance reorganizing King County’s Department of Development and Environmental Services (DDES). Along with a new structure will come a new name: The Department of Permitting and Environmental Review (DPER).&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://kingcounty.gov/council/news/2012/September/KCSO.aspx"&gt;Sept. 17: County Council approves action plan for Sheriff&amp;rsquo;s Office accountability reforms&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
The Metropolitan King County Council today unanimously approved legislation adopting an action plan to address recent reports assessing how the King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) internally reviews uses of force, allegations of misconduct, and citizen complaints. The action plan establishes specific timelines and benchmarks for KCSO to implement recommended reforms identified in the reports.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/dnrp/newsroom/newsreleases/2012/September/0918-Brightwater-LEED-Platinum.aspx"&gt;Sept. 18: Brightwater Center earns prestigious LEED&amp;reg; Platinum certification&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
Sustainable design that creates a healthy place for people to meet, work and learn earned King County’s Brightwater Environmental Education and Community Center the honor of LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/news/2012/12091801.aspx"&gt;Sept. 18: Medical Examiner seeking assistance in identifying individual&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
The King County Medical Examiner's Office is requesting the public's assistance in identifying a person recovered from the water near Foster Island in Seattle (part of the University of Washington Arboretum) on September 3, 2012. The date of death is estimated to be sometime in mid-to-late August 2012; the manner of death is suicide, caused by fresh water drowning. Efforts to identify the person have been unsuccessful to date, which is why the public is being called upon to assist in identification.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.kingcounty.gov//exec/news/release/2012/September/18TransitBondRefi.aspx"&gt;Sept. 18: High credit ratings lead to lower borrowing costs for King County&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
High credit ratings continue to help King County lower the cost of borrowing money to fund critical transportation improvements. On Monday, the County sold $71.7 million in bonds to refinance outstanding debt associated with the 2002 and 2004 bonds originally used for the construction of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel and improvements at King County Metro transit bases.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</content><feedburner:origLink>http://del.icio.us/obie#2012-09-18</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Links for 2012-09-14 [del.icio.us]</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/suNMj5nvINs/obie" /><updated>2012-09-15T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>http://del.icio.us/obie#2012-09-14</id><content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-avoid-seo-disaster-during-a-website-redesign/42824/"&gt;How To Avoid SEO Disaster During a Website Redesign &amp;ndash; Top Marketer Concerns | Search Engine Journal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://pixsym.com/blog/seo/top-5-reasons-search-rankings-drop-after-website-redesign"&gt;Top 5 Reasons Search Rankings Drop after a Website Redesign&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://new.searchrankings.net/seo-tip-august-2011-the-seo-effect-on-a-website-redesign/"&gt;&amp;raquo; SEO Tip &amp;ndash; August 2011 &amp;ndash; The &amp;ldquo;SEO Effect&amp;rdquo; on a Website Redesign Search Rankings&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
your current website map (sitemap)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</content><feedburner:origLink>http://del.icio.us/obie#2012-09-14</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Links for 2012-09-13 [del.icio.us]</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/s97SbkIukQo/obie" /><updated>2012-09-14T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>http://del.icio.us/obie#2012-09-13</id><content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/other/quick-tip-first-look-at-the-git-tower-gui/"&gt;Quick Tip: First Look at the &amp;ldquo;Git Tower&amp;rdquo; GUI | Nettuts+&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://git-scm.com/book"&gt;Git - Book&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</content><feedburner:origLink>http://del.icio.us/obie#2012-09-13</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry><title type="text">Links for 2012-08-27 [del.icio.us]</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/4p_L--19t24/obie" /><updated>2012-08-28T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>http://del.icio.us/obie#2012-08-27</id><content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.cssdesignawards.com/"&gt;CSS Design Awards and CSS Gallery - Web Design Awards&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;</content><feedburner:origLink>http://del.icio.us/obie#2012-08-27</feedburner:origLink></entry><entry>
        <title>Top 10 Mistakes Companies Make During Acquisitions (notes)</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/MFDdVceJPjo/top-10-mistakes-companies-make-during-acquisitions-notes.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/06/top-10-mistakes-companies-make-during-acquisitions-notes.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca9118833016767b62f1d970b</id>
        <published>2012-06-20T13:24:56-04:00</published>
        <updated>2012-06-20T13:24:56-04:00</updated>
        <summary>Here are my notes from Don Keller's (@dkellerjr) talk Top 10 Mistakes Companies Make During Acquisitions, presented today at RocketSpace in San Francisco. 1. Founder Equity Have your founders issued stock from day one so that all the appreciation towards...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Obie Fernandez</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Business" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here are my notes from Don Keller's (&lt;a href="http://twitter.com/dkellerjr" target="_self"&gt;@dkellerjr&lt;/a&gt;) talk &lt;em&gt;Top 10 Mistakes Companies Make During Acquisitions&lt;/em&gt;, presented today at RocketSpace in San Francisco.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Founder &lt;a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_%28finance%29" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Equity (finance)"&gt;Equity&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Have your founders issued stock from day one so that all the appreciation towards an acquisition is counted as capital gains instead of regular income (which would happen if the founders had options instead.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;RSUs (promises to issue stock in the future)  you have to make sure there is a liquid market when they are issued because their issuance will result in a taxable event. This mainly worked for Facebook.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Founders shares can be subject to a vesting schedule in a similar way to options. The company retains the right to repurchase the shares that are unvested if you part ways with the company. (Repurchase happens at the original price that was paid to purchase them.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;If you are joining a company and have the funds available to actually purchase stock, it's preferable to taking options. Some companies will allow that, others won't.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;If the company is trying to "hook up" a key hire with shares for free on hire, it can bonus them or even loan them the amount that they will need to pay in taxes. Just make the person aware that the loan might be due if the company is not doing too well.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Make sure that &lt;a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Internet Protocol"&gt;IP&lt;/a&gt; ownership is well documented&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;If you're creating a business that is similar to your current employer, they might well own it unless you have explicit written agreements that say otherwise. This issue might not come up until after a startup is founded, funded, etc… then you go to sell it and the buyer digs up the issue as part of their due dilligence.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Every new employee should sign an invention assignment agreement, to bring assurances that the company owns any IP brought over.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;If you hire a consultant and they develop something for you, they own it (unless you have agreements that say otherwise.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;The level of scrutiny that your company is going to be subjected to on acquisition is much, much higher than at any other time, even when investments happen.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Keep your options open&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;To maximize price, Company should leave itself with alternatives to the buyer they are targeting.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Alternatives could be another buyer, another investor, that the company could continue with its current situation, that IPO is an option. Focusing on one buyer is important, but not to the exclusion of others. "Companies get bought, they don't get sold."&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Going around and establishing partnerships with potential acquirers is very necessary. Pace those relationships, so that they mature at roughly the same time. Once an acquirer is interested, they're not going to wait  they'll want to take advantage of you on price and sign a LOI right away at a good price, but then put a 60 day exclusive window in place for due dilligence, during which you can't go out and talk to others, but then they'll come back during that window and say "gee, we can't do 20 million, but we'll do 12 million instead." You want to have something to support resistance in that case.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Even when you get an unsolicited offer, you might want to not seem too excited in order to maximize their interest. If the buyer realizes that you don't have alternatives, the price will inevitably come down later.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Avoid selling the Company for private company shares in a transaction that is taxable.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;In most cases, when a private company wants to buy you for equity, you don't know what the true value of that equity and what sort of liquidation preferences are ahead of you by holders of preferred shares.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Also, avoid selling assets for a price above your net operating losses. Particularly early stage companies should beware of double-taxation problems. Simplest way to avoid this problem is to do a merger instead, so that only the stock that is sold is taxed. Buyers in small transactions (&amp;lt;5 million) are usually paranoid about possible liabilities outweighing the benefits.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;It's tricky, but generally speaking if the value of the deal comes in at least 50% stock, then the transaction is tax-exempt (until the shares received are sold.)&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. Make sure to understand the deductions from the negotiated purchase price.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;There are many adjustments to the initial &lt;a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_price" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Ask price"&gt;offering price&lt;/a&gt; that affect how much money you end up with:&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;escrows (money that is set aside to pay for unforseen liabilities, usually 10-20%, for 2-5 years) &lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;legal fees (50k - 200k, depending on the purchase price) &lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;balance sheet adjustments (liabilities push down the price) &lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;special indemnities (like 409a concerns) &lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;There's a real difference in east coast vs. west coast buyers and the terms that they demand. Be careful with how much the buyers demand as subject to clawback. Generally you want the rights to as much of the proceeds as possible.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Figure out and negotiate as much of these things asap before the 60-90 day "no shop" period. Push the buyer to get as much due dilligence and possibly even board approval before you agree to a lockup, so that the lockup is only the period needed to execute the deal.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Often buyers will put "residuals clause" in the NDAs, which dilute the value of the NDA in protecting the seller's secret sauce. Push off giving the seller access to important IP until very late in the process.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Back up the price that's put on the table with as much preparation as possible, especially if you're able to present real data.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;6. Make sure you understand the open source code used in your product and that you own it in a way that is possible to sell.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Open source issues rarely are showstoppers, but often there are hangups related to the "black duck" analysis.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;7. Mind 409 issues - company minutes, &lt;a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_%28finance%29" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Option (finance)"&gt;stock options&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Make sure your books are in order. Don't leave housekeeping until the last moment. Not doing so can really mess up a deal or push up the escrow requirements.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;8. Don't wait until the last minute to think about and negotiate employment agreements and non-competes.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Generally, if there are considerable proceeds then non-competes of 3-5 years are very enforceable. Use your own counsel because the counsel for the company is representing the board and the company shareholders and that doesn't necessarily mean they are concerned about your views, since there is potential for conflicts of interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;9. Be weary of &lt;a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnout" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Earnout"&gt;earn-outs&lt;/a&gt; arrangements.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;"We're offering 20 million, but only 1 million up front and then the rest if you meet certain expectations related to our business goals and projections." 50% of earnout arrangements end up in litigation down the road because expectations are not met in a way that is unfair to the seller.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;10. Pay attention to sentiment of your board members and investors.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Look out for board member bias for or against a sale  and be aware of a strategic investor reactions to the sale. For institutional investors, a lot will depend on where they are with regards to their own fund, are they near the beginning or are they in a hurry to close out so they can raise another fund.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bonus Topic: Acqui-hire issues.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;As a founder negotiating the deal, be careful with the buyer wanting to screw the existing investors. The biggest tension is the split between the proceeds going to the investors vs. employees over the next 4 years.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Bonus Topic: &lt;a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank" rel="wikipedia" target="_blank" title="Bank"&gt;Bankers&lt;/a&gt; on the seller side?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;In deals of $50-100 million, probably makes sense to hire a banker to represent seller's interest and maximize the deal terms. However, sometimes the buyer will balk if you try to get them to talk to your banker instead of you. The board might also balk at paying 1-2% in fees to the banker, but it should be worth it because of the resulting increase in the sell price.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=MFDdVceJPjo:3hhvFLx2FpA:yIl2AUoC8zA"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=MFDdVceJPjo:3hhvFLx2FpA:dnMXMwOfBR0"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=MFDdVceJPjo:3hhvFLx2FpA:RJU-JkLLmTY"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=MFDdVceJPjo:3hhvFLx2FpA:RJU-JkLLmTY" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=MFDdVceJPjo:3hhvFLx2FpA:F7zBnMyn0Lo"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=MFDdVceJPjo:3hhvFLx2FpA:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=MFDdVceJPjo:3hhvFLx2FpA:V_sGLiPBpWU"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?i=MFDdVceJPjo:3hhvFLx2FpA:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?a=MFDdVceJPjo:3hhvFLx2FpA:qj6IDK7rITs"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/obie?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/06/top-10-mistakes-companies-make-during-acquisitions-notes.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Redis on Rails - RedDotRubyConf 2012</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/M43KJHiZcns/redis-on-rails-reddotrubyconf-2012.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/05/redis-on-rails-reddotrubyconf-2012.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca9118833016305bbaf4c970d</id>
        <published>2012-05-22T15:47:06-04:00</published>
        <updated>2012-05-22T15:47:06-04:00</updated>
        <summary>This past weekend I had the pleasure of delivering a wide-ranging talk in Singapore about using Redis as a complement to your main relational database. It was essentially a much enhanced redo of my RailsConf 2012 talk of the same...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Obie Fernandez</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Redis" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Software Development" />
        
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="NoSQL" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="Redis" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="Ruby on Rails" />
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;This past weekend I had the pleasure of delivering a wide-ranging talk in Singapore about using Redis as a complement to your main relational database. It was essentially a much enhanced redo of my RailsConf 2012 talk of the same name. The challenge of covering this topic effectively is that Redis is quite popular so at a single-track conference such as RedDotRubyConf, I was sure the audience would include many people that are already using Redis in production. For that reason, I cut down on the introductory material and dove into aspects of Redis, related libraries and programming techniques that I hoped would be of use to as much of the audience as possible. Apparently that strategy worked, because I was happy to get a lot of positive feedback from almost everyone at the conference.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;The slides below are not particularly useful without the associated talk material, especially since I spent most of the time inside of the sample app doing live coding and code walkthroughs with explanations. However, the slides do provide you with pointers to a number of different libraries that are of definite use to you if you're using Redis to complement your relational database. I have every intention of expounding on this topic here on this blog since the technique has been very useful to me in development of DueProps. With that said, here are my slides. Enjoy.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;div style="width: 425px;"&gt;&lt;strong style="display: block; margin: 12px 0 4px;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.slideshare.net/obiefernandez/redis-on-rails-reddotrubyconf-2012" title="Redis on Rails (RedDotRubyConf 2012)"&gt;Redis on Rails (RedDotRubyConf 2012)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; &#xD;
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&lt;div style="padding: 5px 0 12px;"&gt;View more &lt;a href="http://www.slideshare.net/"&gt;presentations&lt;/a&gt; from &lt;a href="http://www.slideshare.net/obiefernandez"&gt;Obie Fernandez&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/div&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/div&gt;&#xD;
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&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/05/redis-on-rails-reddotrubyconf-2012.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>The Rails Dilemma</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/CF1_GZhbBZA/the-rails-dilemma.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/05/the-rails-dilemma.html" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54fdca91188330168eb7ecb8a970c</id>
        <published>2012-05-14T20:31:31-04:00</published>
        <updated>2012-05-14T20:31:31-04:00</updated>
        <summary>The growth of the Rails community worldwide appears to be relentless, but there's a dark underside to that growth that does not get enough attention: In terms of sheer numbers, there just doesn't appear to be enough Rails developers to properly serve the needs of the market.</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Rusty Zarse</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Ruby on Rails" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Software Development" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is a guest post by &lt;a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/zarse" target="_self"&gt;Rusty Zarse&lt;/a&gt; CTO of Search Discovery, spurred by a series of email conversations that we had regarding the difficulty of finding experienced Rails talent. Rusty leads the Atlanta iOS Developers meetup and is one of the better known technologists in our city.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Where'd Every RoR Go?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;“Rails is hot,”&lt;/em&gt; ain’t no headline today. Five years ago, Ruby on Rails was an underdog, the somebody to watch, the next big thing. It's not news that the Rails community continues evolving and growing while its members do a good job protecting the integrity and quality of the platform. Rails 4 is visible on the horizon and looks better than ever. The growth of the Rails community worldwide appears to be relentless, but there's a dark underside to that growth that does not get enough attention: In terms of sheer numbers, there just doesn't appear to be enough Rails developers to properly serve the needs of the market.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Technical organizations (particularly at the CTO and Director level that I inhabit) are now faced with a stark decision of choosing the Rails platform on its virtues or reluctantly giving the nod to another technology that carries less staffing risk.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;On the face of it, people might think that this situation is good for Rails developers because it means that they continue commanding astronomical billable rates, higher quality coding practices and standards for their professional ecosystem and the aura of elite superstars. But Rails remains a community-driven platform and so it's up to the community itself to identify the needs of the market and identify what can be done for our overall growth to continue to flourish.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;Attracting Rails Talent&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Our &lt;a href="http://www.searchdiscovery.com/satellite/" target="_self"&gt;core product at SearchDiscovery&lt;/a&gt; does things that truly push the envelope. There's a lot of work remaining to be done, but we feel that it already does what nothing else in the world can do. We owe a lot to the &lt;a href="http://hashrocket.com/work/satellite" target="_self"&gt;exceptional genius of our Hashrocket team&lt;/a&gt; and the wizardry of the lead developer they provided to us. During my career I've led many projects and never seen a product reach this level of complexity without falling apart due to compromises and shortcuts made along the way. I attribute our success in no small part to the principles and practices that Rails embodies. It is the motivation that I had for choosing Ruby on Rails as our web development platform to begin with and continues to provide a level of quality and productivity that I believe is unmatchable.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Our dilemma is that in over 3 months of arduous searching, we have not been able to find even a single Rubyist in Atlanta interested in joining our team. I'm not talking about having to turn down interested applicants; I'm talking about not having any interested applicants to begin with.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Now we have new products in the pipeline and our CEO is pushing to choose an alternative platform. Some of us know PHP and I personally know .NET. My experience with PHP is that its a great hacky tool to tweak wordpress and everything else just becomes spaghetti soup. Microsoft .NET is the platform of choice for developers who like to write the same oil tanker full of plumbing code over and over again just to show how great they are at doing things "better" than everyone else. Here in Atlanta, a common alternative to Rails is .NET, given the large Microsoft contingent we have in town. In my opinion, .NET doesn't deliver quickly enough and PHP inevitably becomes a maintenance nightmare.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Why on earth would we consider switching off Rails? The painful truth is that we need a team of professionals more than we need the best technology. We don't even need to hire an entire army of engineers immediately. We're specifically looking to fill at least &lt;em&gt;one&lt;/em&gt; senior position so that this individual can cultivate Ruby on Rails talent within our walls. Our long-term goal is to become that company everyone in Atlanta wants to work at. We admire companies who posses an organic energy and self-managed excellence within their development team and we're willing to invest the capital needed to get there. I feel  that we have the professional atmosphere and culture that would be attractive to Rails professionals, but where are they?&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;Rails in Atlanta&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Obviously, timing is everything. I've tapped the local user group community and will continue to do so, but so far have not seen much interest in the position. When I do connect with a local Atlanta Rails expert, often the professional courteousness is not reciprocated. I don't want to complain about specific people, but c'mon it just isn't necessary to be rude when someone asks if you are available. Clearly I'm trying to recruit someone, but I'm a CTO not a recruiter. Is politeness too much to ask for? Most technical people in Atlanta are nice and as helpful but there are a handful of dudes with serious reputations that apparently forget that we're all in this together. Their dismissive attitudes are toxic to non programmers who just want to run a business.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Worse, these bad attitudes get back to my bosses. I can argue all day about the gazillion benefits that using Rails brings to the table, but I can’t argue against the facts of our recruiting problem!  &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;A Plea to the Community&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I wrote this post at Obie's request when I asked him for advice. I'd failed to consider that this is more than just my problem, more than just a hiring problem: It's a Rails community concern. The Rails platform is not bleeding edge anymore. It's proven, mature, reliable, amazing and a proper choice for just about any web development problem domain you might encounter. I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that we need to ensure that it continues to be the platform of choice for innovation.  We’re committed enough in the concept to &lt;a href="http://www.searchdiscovery.com/careers/ruby-on-rails-developer/" target="_self"&gt;put our money where our mouth is&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;What do you think? Is this actually a community problem? Let's get a greater dialogue going.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://blog.obiefernandez.com/content/2012/05/the-rails-dilemma.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
 
<entry><title type="text">Links for 2010-08-31 [del.icio.us]</title><link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/obie/~3/MSuSkxH4q-4/obie" /><updated>2010-09-01T00:00:00-07:00</updated><id>http://del.icio.us/obie#2010-08-31</id><content type="html">&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1649065"&gt;Hacker News | Ask HN: Are there any good online communities for UX design?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
Links to good UX communities&lt;/li&gt;
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&lt;/ul&gt;</content><feedburner:origLink>http://del.icio.us/obie#2009-04-25</feedburner:origLink></entry></feed><!-- ph=1 -->
