Ruby on Rails meets the Business World
5 comments Latest by FXCM Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:11:53 GMT
On Saturday, I had the great pleasure of being up in front of several hundred people with the following individuals on the the Business of Rails panel at RailsConf.
Photo by James Duncan Davidson
- Nathaniel Talbott, President, Terralien, Inc.
- Justin Gehtland, Founding Partner, Relevance
- Geoffrey Grosenbach, Topfunky
- Andre Lewis, Earthcode Studios
- Joe O’Brien, artisan, EdgeCase, LLC
- Robby Russell, Director, PLANET ARGON
Overall, the experience was fantastic. I really enjoyed the questions that Nathaniel and the audience threw our direction, both during and after the session. Throughout the remainder of the conference, people would catch me and present complicated business questions to me and ask for my input. I think that I even helped one guy make his final decision about which job offer he was going to accept (btw, did you decide yet?). It’s always great to share my experiences of leaving my last full-time job (3+ years ago), moving to Rails exclusively (2+ years ago), how Allison and I went from two people in an attic to seven people in an attic in about a month... to having an office in downtown Portland and clients around the globe. I’m also always happy to share my not-so-happy experiences throughout the past few years as well. Running a business is hard stuff as it comes with a whole lot of responsibility, which can lead to stress. It was great to know that the rest of the panel has had their difficult experiences. While Rails makes everything feel easy… running a business is a whole different spectrum of challenges. ;-)
At one point during the session the audience was asked, “How many of you are considering starting your own business based on Ruby on Rails?”
The response?
Based off of my extremely scientific calculations (looking around the room), I’d estimate that around 30-40% of the audience raised their hands! Wow. It was fantastic to see that there was that much interest in people starting venturing off onto their own. Imagine… a flood of new companies, competing directly with us… and guess what? I think that’s awesome! Awesome for Rails. Awesome for future startups. Awesome for everyone!
Let’s face it. Rails isn’t going anywhere for a long time.
So, now that the conference is over, questions have begun to appear in my email box. Thank you all for writing. What if you could have a sounding board to throw questions to on a regular basis? Unfortunately, our session only lasted a hour at RailsConf and too many questions weren’t gotten to. Well, I’ve asked the rest of those on the Business of Rails panel to join me on a google group, titled, Ruby on Rails meets the Business World.
If you’re looking to (A) start your own Rails-based business, (B) already run your own Rails-based business, or ((C)) have business experience that you’d like to share with those in camp A and B… then join the community and start some conversations.
Personally, I’m really looking forward to learning from you all and hope that my experience of co-founding and leading PLANET ARGON can be of benefit to all of you.
Photo by James Duncan Davidson
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It seems like a breath of fresh air. I just love rails, I just wish it had more mainstream support (cough cough Wordpress any1?). I hope this year will be R on R year.
Christy
Hi … I just stumbled upon your post.. a gud view point.. Hey ur post left me quenching for more Your post really gives out useful knowledge.. thanks
Hi Robby
This sounds like it was really awesome. I’m making my own time tracking application for the desktop, aimed initially at Ruby on Rails developers.
I recently made a post to the Google Group you kindly set up about my product.
> If you’re looking to (A) start your own Rails-based business, (B) > already run your own Rails-based business, or ((C)) have business > experience that you’d like to share with those in camp A and B… > then join the community and start some conversations.
I have to confess, having read this section of your blog post, I now feel kind of guilty.
> (A) start your own Rails-based business,
Nope. Not me.
> (B) already run your own Rails-based business
Again, no.
> (C) have business experience that you’d like to share with those in camp A and B
Hmmm. Not me either. Er… are there any other choices? No. Right. Ooops.
I do want to let people know about my product and get their feedback on my idea, but I want it to be a dialog. I don’t want to shove it down anyone’s throats, or annoy the community.
The last thing I want is for people to be thinking “Oh, not that time tracking guy again. Damn. Go away already! We don’t care!”.
I’m also very aware now having read this post that you and the guys set up the forum and give up your time moderating it to help the community, not so that people like me can dominate the conversation to be about them and their product.
After having posted to the thread, I’ve got some good responses from people (positive or negative – both are good in my book), but I’m concerned that I’ve now rail-roaded the conversation from talking about hourly rates to talking about what product people use. I would contribute to the discussion, but I’ve not had much experience as a freelancer.
So I guess I’m just commenting to apologise, and to let you know I’m trying my best to not be spammy whilst still letting people know about my product.
Thanks for a great blog.
Oh, and just one more point: you made a typo in the link to your awesome company site on this post: you put four “w”’s in front of the domain.
And this post comes up highly on Google when searching for some keywords about businesses and rails (can’t remember which), so people may not have much context about you on coming to this page, visit the 404 and think you’re no longer around, or something…
You made some good points there.I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.Thanks