Just got back from spending two days at the Business of Software 2007 conference organized by Neil Davidson of Red Gate Software. It was good and very inspirational. The lineup had many clever people, all saying equally clever things.

Still, I tend to favor substance over inspirational talks. Or maybe I just favor people talking about things that apply more closely to my situation, which is probably why I didn’t much appreciate Matt Mason’s talk about piracy, pop culture and innovation. I probably am a conservative when it comes to professional work; leave it to the professionals. And only small doses of pop culture for me, please.  (But no, I don’t buy Andrew Keen’s gloomy perspective as laid out in his book, The Cult of the Amateur. And don’t make the mistake I made and go and read it. His point is easily made in a few sentences. And his research is so one sided that it doesn’t classify as research.)

So back to substance; Bill Buxton I liked. He speaks and, it seems, thinks fast. His talk about designing things was very good and based on years of research and experience. I was inspired and it still felt like a proper and nutritional helping of his very relevant work.

I guess I like it when people do their research, which is why my second favorite was Jennifer Aaker. She spoke about the psychology involved in creating a strong relationship between company and customer. Well, she really did say consumer, but even in B2B it is real people buying your stuff. And then she would consistently use words like "transgression" instead of whatever would go down easier with an international audience. That was kind of funny to a guy with an accent, but with a dictionary at hand.

And there was much more. It was a great conference, and hopefully we will see a Business of Software 2008. And thanks to Neil for pulling all this together.

Safewhere was formally founded on May 19, 2006. Since then we have been busy developing our software, recruiting a few more developers, showing at Microsoft TechEd 2006 in Barcelona, making new friends and turning their need into our cash flow. And we are now close to our 1.0.

We have a few customers of which SEB Pension is one and two other financial institutions are almost signing (hubris?) as I write. To us this is really good news, as is the fact that we have secured venture funding to finish product development and initiate broader marketing efforts.

And why is the venture part good news? Shouldn’t we be going like suggested by Joel Spolsky in 2003? That is, pace our investments to match our revenue stream. His post is eloquent and, as always, well argued. The most important point to me is the observation that founders have just one company as opposed to the VCs who have portfolios of companies. In the case of our VC, it’s our one company against their 66! Their bet is hedged and ours is not.

But to us extra capital is a must. We are building a products company, and we want to bring the benefits of all our wisdom and abilities to a lot of organizations all over the place. When you run a consulting company, or maybe even a niche product company, you can afford the luxury of growing your company at the pace of your client base. But when building a software products company catering to every service oriented infrastructure in the world, you are pretty focused on your window of opportunity, your total market, your addressable market, etc. – and not least how to protect your position as you advance.

To us that means develop world class products (= hire software engineers), secure patents (=pay patent attorneys), and acquire a selection of reference customers (=put your money where your mouth is). That is, strategize, execute – and pay up.

So although we may be opening up our own window of opportunity, it still opens up to a crowd all facing the other way (identity management, role based access control). We want to attract the attention of this crowd, show them the great view from the window – and convince them that we will be the best guide for the land that lies beyond. That costs money now – and only later makes so much more. Therefore this first round of venture capital – and therefore also subsequent rounds in the future.

Safewhere is a young software products company with a lot of ground to cover on our ambitious journey to become a viable and profitable player in the international markets.

Viable in the sense that we succeed in creating and maintaining an organization of highly skilled people, who are motivated to make an outstanding effort to turn out products that people actually want.

Profitable in the sense that owners - which include many employees - may rest safely that our products are generating - constantly growing - revenues above our - constantly growing - spending.

As a frequent reader of Joel Spolsky's and Eric Sink's web logs on the various aspects of running a software company, I appricate their insightful posts. Joel's mostly for his views on recruiting and keeping good people. Eric's primarily for his views on how to market your wares in a world dominated by big guys.

But Safewhere is not an American company. Safewhere is located in the city of Copenhagen in Denmark. Denmark is almost socialist by American standards, but also consistently on top of the lists of global competitiveness such as the Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007 by the World Economic Forum. This is primarily because of our liberal labor laws, which makes hiring and firing very straight forward, thus letting companies grow without running the risk of being caught with a huge salary burden in a down-turn. And the reason it is accepted by the labor force of Denmark is, of course, because of our well functioning public welfare system.

So, however Safewhere fares, I intend to document some of our experiences relevant in the context of building a company from the perspective of an entrepreneur - and sometimes also with a more political angle.  The latter because I genuinely think that politics and running a business obviously do go together, just as politics and being a citizen go together.

Updated: Image removed.