Start my own business

has been born. http://glimmerdesign.com is my new business. It’s a web based application company, and we (I) have one application released so far. It’s called Got the GiST and it’s a tool for managing GST (sales tax) returns to the government in New Zealand. It’s aimed at small and medium businesses.

Fingers crossed I can pull it all off. Time for some marketing I think.

I spent today configuring up apache on my mac, and protecting away my application. I’ve released it to 4 people for testing – one of whom is a professional tester.

The biggest test will be with my parents. They run a farm, and they will be testing this application for me. They often struggle with these computer things, so if they can use it, I’m sure anyone can.

Oh, and on what the app is – small business accounting software, web based, high on usability, low on cost (operating and capital).

If you run a small business in New Zealand (it is country specific, it has NZ tax handling built in) and you’re keen to help me out here, let me know. There may be some free software in it for you ;-)

I have fixed 5 bugs tonight, and have none left. I’ve completed my testing, now to get my professional tester friends to give it a whirl. All launch functionality is complete, fingers crossed testing goes smoothly… I’ve still got to head off to the lawyer and the accountant, sort out company structure, and things like terms of service etc. woohoo! nearly there. I’m getting quite excited really.

Ah. The satisfying feeling of knowing you’ve created some elegant and functional code. That piece of functionality took a bit longer than I expected. Now to make it more robust. I’ve got a bit of error checking and feedback to insert, then we’re ready to roll.

It’s getting the better of me. I thought of a feature today that the application really should have. Now, I just have to build it in. Shouldn’t take me too long, I’ve just completed my design, now onto the coding.

Yesterday on the plane back from my holiday in Christchurch, I finished the functional aspects of my application that I’m developing.

Today, I made it aesthetically pleasing. The application is ready for testing. I’m going to ask my friend Yanti who works for Unisys as a tester in Wellington to test the application out.

• Go see an accountant about company structures
• Go and get a terms of service statement from a lawyer
• Find a CMS to help me maintain a “business” web site
• Find a product name.

That’s about it really. Shouldn’t be too hard to finish this off.