Interview with Ian Landsman of UserScape
Nov1
I met Ian Landsman through our blogs at the beginning of the year. We were both embarking on the microISV ownership path. He and his company, UserScape, have been far more successful than me. Here’s his story…
Ian, please give us a little background on your business.
UserScape builds help desk software for small to medium size businesses and business divisions. The average customer so far tends to be a business with 1 to 5000 employees.
We were formally incorporated in March 2005, though in practice we started developing HelpSpot about a year ago now.
UserScape is located in the beautiful Hudson Valley, about 2 hours north of New York City.
Do you work from home?
Yes, I’ve set up dedicated office space in the house. I’m currently looking into office space, however, that will probably wait until the spring.
What kind of traditional 9 to 5 job(s) have you had in the past, if any?
I’ve had a bit of a wandering career. I started out as an accounting major. After school I went to work for Office Depot, where I was an assistant store manager. The money was good, but overall, the job was less than rewarding, so a few years in, I decided it was time for a change.
I left Office Depot and went to work for a startup in the educational technology field. There, I learned how to formally program, though I was always a bit of a computer geek. As a product manager, I was responsible for all customer support. This is really where the idea of HelpSpot started and many of the features I wish I had in my tools back then are the core of HelpSpot today. During this time, I also began consulting on the side, developing websites as well as several corporate intranets.
My last 9 to 5 was working for Marist College running the eLearning technology and programs. Among my responsibilities was the management of the support system for over 5000 people who used the eLearning system daily.
What led you to start your own business?
Million Dollar Experiment
Nov0
I reference a lot of Steve Pavlina’s writings and ideas here. He is a game developer turned personal growth guru. His thoughts and writings on personal growth are always thought provoking and inspiring. The meticulous intentional planning that went into his life got him where he is today, with multiple streams of passive income that gives him complete time freedom; it is exactly the place I’m striving to get to and the reason I started this blog, to be free from 9 to 5.
I find his experiments in polyphasic sleep just fascinating. Now he has gone and come up with another experiment. He intends to use the intention-manifestation model of goal achievement to generate $1 million. And he is asking people to join him. I’m in.
Corporate greed rears its ugly head again
Oct0
Internet access is vital to the majority of small businesses these days, especially home-based businesses. Only with the Internet can I put up a storefront, albeit a virtual one, in a matter of hours. VoIP makes long distance and international calls very affordable. It is a shame that corporate greed is being allowed to trump national and local progress in broadband connectivity. However, the time seems ripe for the right outfit with the right know-how to replace these businesses that rely on outdated laws to stay in business.
Get good grades, get a good job!
Oct3
This post has been in my WordPress queue for a few months now. I never got around to posting it because I wanted to polish it a bit first. But after this post by The Window Manager, it reminded me of this post-in-progress, so I just decided to post it, rough edges and all.
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What a bunch of crock
“Get good grades, get a good job!”, yammered my parents, my teachers, everyone. Well, I got great grades, and by conventional measures, I have a great job. But what would have made me happy got lost in between.
For the first 20+ years of my life, following the Plan was paramount. Any deviation from this was surely the road to destitution and misery. I’m not destitute, but I don’t like the job my education prepared me for. I’ve finally seen through the well-meaning brainwashing to begin the road to recovery. It would have been easier to start this road 10 or 15 years ago. I wish I spent less time studying and more time doing, in high school and in college. But I didn’t know. And Paul Graham’s articles (1 2 3 4 5) weren’t around back then. But better now than 10 or 15 years hence though. What am I going to do? No clue. But realizing I need to do something is a start.
Enjoy the scenery
Oct2
As it turns out, I’m not the only one who has had to put on hold the journey to freedom from 9 to 5; Cubicle Coder also has other higher priorities in his life right now. But the keyword for me is “on hold”. Not abandoned nor forgotten. Just delayed. Unless you’re capable of intense unwavering focus, as Steve Pavlina seems to be (just read his blog and you’ll see what I mean), the path to your goals usually isn’t as straightforward as you would hope; sometimes it’s more circuitous and takes longer. I say, unless you’re in dire straits, don’t worry about it. Enjoy the scenery wherever you are.
Slow going
Sep2
This blog is suffering the fate of most new blogs, namely, wavering motivation and less frequent postings. There’s a common saying that 95% of new businesses fail within 5 years. This probably also applies to new blogs: 95% of new blogs fold within the first 5 months.
My time has been consumed by wedding planning and new home ownership duties. I also got an intra-company transfer to a nearby location that cut my commute from 30 miles to 7 miles. Timewise, it went from 1 hour to 15 minutes. And I’m loving it. No rush hour madness. No being stuck on the freeway. I didn’t realize until now how much the commute drained me. I now feel like I have a life again.
My 9-to-5 isn’t feeling as onerous now, but I’m still staying on the path to being free from 9 to 5. Not much progress has been made in the past month, hence no new postings, but I mean to stay on this path, however long it takes.
I have noticed that quite a few fellow bloggers and micro-ISV owners have made great progress on their products. I envy them and I wish them the very best:
Userscape
Ataraxis Software
Component Factory
NGEDIT
The journey continues
Aug3
During the course of the past few months, I’ve been reading, researching and experimenting with various ways to reduce my dependence on a regular dayjob. It was slow going at first, but as I took baby steps towards my goal, things started to accelerate. I started trying things just for the sake of try them. My previous post summarized my activities.
But I have been, to say the least, unfocused. The process of doing all this has, however, exercised my mind to be more receptive to and cognizant of new business ideas; ones that I would have not recognized if not for my trials and errors these past few months.
I expect to remain partially unfocused until I find the right fit for me. I will continue to devote time to TempestBlue Software, the best idea I came up with thus far, but my research will continue until I find something that screams out, “This is it!” A comment by John Kwarsick on my previous post sums things up very well:
… remember it is all about sowing and reaping, most people are concerned about the reaping, that is, what am going to get/or make. In order to get some fruit, you have to plant some seeds and that is what you are doing right here, right now!
Ongoings here and there
Aug6
When I started this blog in March 2005, I knew I wanted to make a living outside of Corporate America for various reasons, including the ones I blogged about here. But I had no idea what to do. Since then, through personal introspection, daily research on the web and just plain serendipity, I’ve embarked on several ventures of my own.
First is my microISV, TempestBlue Software. I wrote an editor tailored towards SEO and released it several weeks ago. Sales have been modest (read, more than 2, less than 7), but I’m far from discouraged and actually did a little jig around the room when the first order came in 
. I’ve just begun to market this and I know the marketers will say this is backwards, but I’m learning!
Second is Elegant Wedding Shoppe, an online wedding supply retail site. This started when my fiance made a flower girl basket, ring bearer pillow and bridal garter set for a close friend. Through word of mouth, she got requests for another 2 sets, and I saw an opportunity and pounced on it. I opened accounts with drop-shipping wedding suppliers and added their products into the mix. Through eBay and the online storefront, only another 2 orders came in so far, with pre-sales inquiries numbering in the teens. I’ve since learned that the wedding supplies market is pretty saturated and I may have jumped the gun on this one. But I did learn how to use Zencart and Paypal very well, so it isn’t a total loss.
Third, I succumbed to what I consider a pretty cheesy money-making tactic; I’m almost embarrassed to mention it. Following a process I found in an internet marketing forum (sorry, couldn’t find the link again), I created EnchantingWeddingFavors.com. It is nothing more than a Google Adsense flycatching site. I bombarded the site with pseudo-content using keywords “wedding favors”, signed up to exchange reciprocal links with other wedding websites and waited for unsuspecting visitors to come and click on the prominently placed Google Adsense links. Believe it or not, the Adsense revenue from EnchantingWeddingFavors.com surpasses that of FreeFrom9to5.com. This was really just an experiment though. I’ve covered my only expense here (the domain name) and then some, but I don’t intend to go into this line of business.
Finally, I added Google ads to FreeFrom9to5.com and signed up to be an affiliate for several related products. Although this affiliate income has been the easiest to earn, in terms of time spent vs. return, income from Kwedit sales has been the most gratifying.
Net profit over the last 5 months? About $70. Not an especially auspicious start, but a start nonetheless. And I’m learning, having fun, hopeful and slowly preparing for a future free from 9 to 5.
Presenting my microISV – TempestBlue Software
Aug6
A few weeks ago, I released the software product I’ve been writing the past few months. Kwedit is an editor tailored for writing website content. Features include a realtime word count and realtime keyword density/count. Go check it out and let me know what you think! Sales have been very modest thus far, but I’m hoping it’ll pick up as the marketing picks up.
I mentioned before that I got the idea for this software from a fellow blogger. That would be Star of astepcloser.com. Star’s beta testing abilities really helped to make Kwedit a better product and I owe her a big debt of gratitude.