1. Get a job
2. Hone your craft
3. Do what you do best

It’s more complicated than these 3 steps may imply, but these steps are a solid wireframe for starting your own business.  Please, allow me to explain…

Around three years ago, I left a really good job to start a business.  At the time I had no idea if it would work, but after three years of operating a successful business, I can look back now and see clearly what made it possible.

Step 1: Get a job

Starting a successful business begins by getting a job working for someone else.  I know that probably isn’t the first step you were hoping for, but it is a must in my opinion.  The reasons are many, but there are two reasons that stand out.  Those reasons are:

1. To make connections
2. To learn a skill/craft

I worked for a large interactive company in Dallas for about three years.  I learned more in those three years than I learned at all of my previous jobs combined.  However,  and this is just as important, I met people.  I met a lot of very talented, intelligent people.  Over seventy-five percent of our current client base comes from those people I met while working for someone else.  Almost all of those past colleagues have now moved on from where I used to work.  In fact, they have branched out across the country working at some of the largest and most influential digital agencies.  I had no idea back then that the relationships I formed while pulling coding all-nighters would lead to a vast network of future business partnerships.  So, step 1 is to get a job.  In your job search, look for opportunities where you can learn a lot and work with people from all disciplines.  The more interactions you have with project managers, account managers, designers, other coders, etc, the better off you will be.

Step 2: Hone your craft

By trade, I am a multimedia developer.  I specialize in The Flash Platform.  However, I’ve learned to do a lot over the years like how to work with databases, servers, various coding languages, audio, video , yada yada yada.  Point being, I spent years getting good at what I do and I did it on someone else’s dime.  I became an authority in my field.  It wasn’t easy.  It took a lot of time outside of work too, but eventually I became good enough at my craft that everyone I worked with trusted me to solve problems and always deliver.  This is essential.  The professional relationships I built would have never grown into client relationships if I sucked at my job.  Business partners will always compare you to the other people they work with.  So unless you standout, you don’t have any business trying to start a business.

Step 3: Do what you do best

So, you went out and got a job.  You held that job for at least a couple of years.  You laughed, you cried, you worked, made friends, and then you quit to start a business.  Well, you may not want to quit until you have some work lined up for your new venture, but that is up to you.  What you must do though, is focus on what you do best.  Start by yourself.  There will be plenty of time to manage contractors and lease an office.  What you need to do first is spend as little money as possible and only take jobs that you can deliver on.  So, do what it is you do best.  Reputation is everything when starting a business.  So, get off to a good start.

I realize there are many details left out of this short article.  If anyone is interested or has questions about those details, please leave comments.  If there are enough comments about anything in particular I would be happy to write some follow ups.  Also, if you are starting a digital business or already have one but could use some helpful insight, I highly recommend the book Rework, by the people from 37 Signals.

Snoogins.

P.S. I would be remiss if I didn’t promote my business in an article like this.  Ovrflo Media

Of course I am kidding about the relationship I have with front-end developers. I’m lucky enough to say that the people I collaborate with are very bright people who understand that the end game is to program something that is user friendly and meets it’s intended goals. Sometimes The Flash Platform is the answer, sometimes it’s jQuery. Sometimes the answer is .NET, sometimes it’s your mom. The moral of the story is that every situation should be evaluated before you choose what technology to use. You should never shoehorn a solution for your challenge.

“Way to avoid the issue,” you might be saying to yourself. Fair enough. So, what impact do I think HTML 5 will actually have on The Flash Platform? Well, the short answer is that I think the impact will be minimal. As you may have noticed, Flash isn’t referred to as “Flash” anymore. It is now officially “The Flash Platform.” It encompasses a world of technologies that has over a decade of developer communities behind it. The Flash browser plugin has been installed on 99.0% of Internet-enabled desktops in mature markets as well as a wide range of devices. Developers can build fully functional desktop applications using The Flash Platform via AIR. You may not know it, but you have probably installed an app on your iPhone that was built using The Flash Platform. The RIA space is dominated by FLEX, a flash actionscript framework. Thanks to sites like YouTube, Flash Video is the primary format for video on the web. Finally, let us not forget that you can make one hell of a great cartoon using Flash. Get the picture? The Flash Platform is to the web what Mr. Burns is to Springfield. Whether you like it or not, it has a stake in everything. Because The Flash Platform is so diverse, there is very little HTML 5 can do to dethrone it.

As you can tell, I am a strong proponent of The Flash Platform. However, I am not a freak about it and as I previously mentioned, HTML 5 will have an effect, albeit a small one, on Flash usage. I believe the impact will be a shift away from using Flash for traditional user interfaces and a return to using HTML and JavaScript for those interfaces. What do I mean by this exactly? The simplest example is a form. Forms are used for everything. When you sign up for a new service on the web, you fill out an online form. In the days of Al Gore and the birth of the internets, forms were built using HTML. However, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to build a form in Flash instead, because I could make the form look better and be more user friendly. I can make a text box glow red if you leave it blank. I can make new options on the form appear based on your current selection. Not only can I make those new options appear, I can make them slide in from the right side of the page and then have their font change color to be sure that you notice them. The possibilities of making a form more user friendly in Flash is limited only by my imagination. So, if I can do all of that using Flash, why would I use HTML? Well if HTML 5 delivers, creating actions like the ones I just described will be possible and supported in all major browsers. So, this brings us back to the shoehorn. If I can do all of this functionality in the native environment, HTML, why would I use a plugin? The answer is that I wouldn’t. So, that’s the impact.

In a nutshell, The Flash Platform is not going away. However, I think HTML 5 will recapture the traditional interface, which means that “Flash people” will have to focus on what they should be focusing on–the cutting edge.

Code Behind:

I realize that I didn’t talk much about what HTML 5 actually is. Please, investigate it. You won’t be sorry. HTML 5 will do nothing but help “the browser experience” and that is something we can all support.