Carsonified

FOWA Road Trip!

I’ll be hopping in the FOWA van and touring 11 cities across Europe, so come out and join me for a drink at the local bar. We thought it would be really fun to get everyone out from behind their laptops and out for a nice night on the town. It’ll be a fab opportunity to meet like-minded web app folks :)

We’re going to be throwing some money behind the bar, so please come out and say hi. The FOWA Road Trip site will be launching soon, but for now, you can see all the cities and dates at the holding page.

I came across this vitriolic thread about me this morning. Wow, what a great way to start the day :)

So I’d like to give everyone an update on my original post titled Why you need to get rid of your freelance developer ASAP.

We couldn’t be happier

Since we decided to stop using freelance developers and invest in building a development team in Russia, things have gone really well. We’ve made huge improvements to DropSend and the backend to our events system.

In case you never read my first post, our setup is fairly simple. We have one manager who works 20 hours a week for us and he speaks fluent English. His name is Alex and he manages our full time LAMP developer (who is named Marat). Alex is super friendly, happy to help, very professional, and overall, a joy to work with. I’ve never actually emailed Marat directly, but I’m sure he’s a nice guy as well ;)

Whenever we need a new task done, I put it on a list in Basecamp. The higher up the to-do list, the higher priority it is. It works great. Occasionally, I’ll wireframe something if it needs detailed explanation.

The challenges

The hard part about having a team off-site is that you have to specify things in detail. You can’t just lean over your shoulder and say, “How’s it going? Oh, that’s not quite what I meant … Let me draw a sketch for you.” etc etc.

I find that when I’m asking for a brand new module to be built, I have to thoroughly think through the details and do a lot of sketches. Ironically though, this has helped us to avoid some snags that we would’ve encountered if we hadn’t specified things carefully.

Overall, it’s rocking and I’m so glad we’ve got Alex and Marat on the team! We might even be adding another developer and increasing Alex’s (the Manager) time to 80 hours a month.

Our first true expo is now available for booking at The Future of Web Apps.

We’ve created a great opportunity for any size Web company to gain exposure to our expected 3000 attendees, a 3m x 3m booth is only £2195 and that includes a shell, carpet, electrical and internet connection.

We also want to encourage any non-profits and .org’s to exhibit for free. If you are a startup looking for exposure, or an established company looking to get in front of a serious enterprise attendee, please contact Andrew Calvo at andrew [at] carsonsystems dot com for more info.

Exciting news here at Carson Sysems HQ! We’ve just added three new talented members to our team. I’d like to introduce you to …

Joanne Andrews, Event Manager

As a seasoned event organiser, Jo will be bringing a wealth of expertise in logistics and event co-ordination. She is responsible for the Future of Web Design series of events.

By Lisa Price
Slides from the recent Future of Online Advertising event we held in New York City are now available online. There’s some really useful stuff there on topics such as:

• Using demographics for online marketing
• The most effective online ads
• Secrets to successful blog advertising
• The future of search marketing
• The ad potential of crowd generated media
• Ads in video - which format will work
• Increasing the ROI in search advertising
• Advertising in the virtual world
• Lots more!

Speakers included Yahoo!’s Ron Belanger, Google’s Kim Malone, Jeremy Allaire (BrightCove), Jay Adelson (digg/Revision3), Heather Luttrell (IndieClick), Darren Rowse (ProBlogger), Brent Hill (FeedBurner), Joel Greenberg (Electric Sheep) - it’s all good information and you can get it for free from the Future of Online Advertising website!

I’m sorry it’s taken me so freakin’ long to get these designs up! Here are the entries:

Sean Johnson

Grant Bissett

Chris Abad

Karen Stout

Anna Bergman Template Monster

And the winner is … Grant Bissett! We’ve notified him and hopefully we’ll be able to up the new design soon.

Thanks everyone for participating. It was a lot of fun!

We just hired our fourth employee! (Six total, counting Gill and I). Her name is Jo and she’ll be starting next Monday.

It’s so exciting to be growing, but our office is really starting to creak at the seams. We’re just getting too big for the space and when we add a web designer, we’ll have to move.

Right now we spend £500+VAT (17.5%) for rent, which is a fricken bargain. However, we’re technically throwing our money away on rent, instead of investing in property.

We’ve found an amazing office right in the middle of Bath and we’re going to meet with our accountant on Thursday to discuss our options.

You can only get a commerical mortgage for up to 80% of the value of the property (unless your willing to get hammered with a really high interest rate), so we’ve got to come up with a way to secure the 20% deposit. It’s just beyond the cash we can afford, so we’ve got to get creative.

There’s all sorts of clever ways to buy property. I think Gill and I might actually form a Partnership and have it buy the property. Then we’ll rent it to the company which will make selling the property much tax efficient.

However, I could be wrong - after our meeting with Nick (our accountant), we’ll know more!

If anyone has experience buying an office, please feel free to share your experiences. Tips are welcome!