Good post on Code Snipers from the Perspective of a Business Owner/Programmers Wife.

The missing part of a sucessful business equation that is always missing from the startup books is support of family and friends. If your wife hates you sitting in front of the computer, your friends think your idea is dumb, and your family won't even check out your website, you will have an extremely hard time making a go at it. It's very easy to get a business started, but almost everyone will reach a point where those outside pressures, be it a wife who needs attention or friends who want to go out to the club every night, when they will have to make the decision which is more important. The business or the friends/family. I honestly think this is the reason many businesses fail. Most people are not willing to make that choice, so they give a little of each, spending less time on the business and then resenting that time spent away, causing arguments, which causes less time on the business etc....

Luckily, my partners and I have very supportive wives who helped us get past that painful development phase. :)

Good post by Ian Landsman over at userscape called "Your Software Sucks Because Its Ugly". So true. The original version of ChimSoft was a very plain jane looking application. Sure it had the functionality people wanted, but when I showed it to people they were like "Eh". I spent a decent amount of time making it look "pretty" after that. It's been shown time and again that people will leave with a much better impression after seeing a "pretty" program with less features, then an "ugly" program with more features. That is many people's draw to Apple after all. I used Mac's for years before the hip "style" came around in the late 90s. No one cared, they were little grey boxes with a happy face computer when they started that didn't play the games they wanted. Now, with a super face lift, people buy macs as a fashion statement for themselves.