Improvement in Blackberry Developer Program

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It has been quite some time since I last pointed out the problems in the Blackberry Developer program. Since then a lot has changed and I feel that RIM is making serious effort to make Blackberry development lot more attractive to the developers. I will point out the following two incidences:

Instance 1: I released updates of  two more blackberry programs and guess what RIM didn’t charge a single credit for that. This means that the cap of charging credit even for minor or major update to a program has been removed. At first I couldn’t believe it and had to cross check but finally had to digest the fact that RIM has finally done what all of us have been asking for long. So if you release updates of your existing program RIM won’t charge credit for that.

Instance 2: RIM waived off the developer fees required to signup for the Blackberry Development Program. This might be a temporary window of opportunity but this definitely means that RIM is very much interested in getting as many developer as possible on its App Store eco system. I am sure this will go long way in ensuring that more developers get involved in developing applications for the Blackberry App Store.

With the recent synergy being demonstrated by RIM I am sure we will see a flurry of new apps on the Blackberry App Store. Way to go RIM!

Blackberry Appworld app approval

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I recently uploaded an application to the Blackberry Appworld through the Blackberry ISV portal and the feeling has been mixed with the experience I had.

The first thought that came to my mind is that the process is a bit expensive and takes quite a while. First you need to make a 200$ investment for getting the relevant credential for the ISV portal which by default gives you “only” 10 credits to upload application to the app world. So basically for every application submission attempt you do you are charged 20$ / 1 credit. I also found out that if I try to update the application which I just uploaded into the Blackberry ISV portal I am again charged 1 credit / 20$. If you run out of credit you got to spend 200$ more for additional 10 credits.

So you see after uploading my application for the first time I found out that I had to make a textual change (just rework a String displayed in the application) and I had to upload the application couple of hours after I uploaded the original app into the Blackberry ISV portal. Well I must say that I wasted 20$ because Blackberry ISV portal doesn’t give a damn if you made one line change or 1000 line code change; an update is an update and you got to pay!

I am not surprised that Blackberry Appworld right now has under 10,000 applications only. A hobby programmer won’t spend 20$ to maintain an application frequently (20$ to upload, then 20$ for 1st update and so on and on and on). However one thing is for sure that if anybody intends to write an application for app world then they got to be very careful that they get it right the very first time in terms of quality and stability. In a way this can prevent people from uploading junk applications into the app world but I have my reservations about this.

The good thing is the application got finally approved after nearly 10 days of review time by RIM and it is up and available for download in the app world.

Link: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/14110

If anybody from RIM is reading this; please make the application upload process less expensive and less time consuming. Allow a healthy developer ecosystem to flourish which is inexpensive and encourages developers to develop and update applications. There are loads of money to be made if you have 200,000 applications targeting your handset and that itself becomes a big selling point. Milking developers ‘too much’ for developing and updating applications doesn’t make sense as these are the people who give you this kind of edge!

Funding for an Entrepreneur

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A few days back I got an opportunity to attend a meeting hosted by TiE. These guys are active players in funding market and have been doing some decent amount of venture funding as well as angel funding off late. I went here with a cautious attitude expecting more of a marketing campaign on the part of them. However I came back with a unique experience and some information which I would not have got in my regular schedule and circle. I am listing below some excerpt from the meeting for future reference as well as for anybody interested.

Points that an entrepreneur should know

  1. On a scale of 1 to 10 a business plan accounts for no more than 2 as success indicator.
  2. Ask yourself many times “Do you really need others money to succeed?”
  3. Get operation quickly
  4. Look for quick break even and cash generation
  5. Offer high value products
  6. Forget about crack team. Go ahead with whatever team you have got.
  7. Keep growth in check. Too much growth in short period might sometimes be suicidal.
  8. Focus on cash not profit, market share or anything.
  9. Cultivate banks before the business becomes credit worthy
  10. Bank credit is the cheapest source of financing.
  11. Banks are conservative as they operate on very thin margins (sometimes as low as 1.5%).
  12. Banks raise funds from depository and have hence have to be very much responsible about money.

The C’s of a Banker

  1. Character
  2. Capacity
  3. Capital Structure
  4. Collateral
  5. Coverage

Some facts about VC funding

  • It is a fact that only 1 in every 100 ventures who apply for funding are actually funded by a venture capitalist. More often than not a VC looks for letter of referral from someone who is well known.
  • It is more important to decide from whom you actually raise your capital rather than the terms of the funding.
  • If you are lucky to get funded then be ready to push the plan into action ASAP and please don’t expect Ferrari/Porsche to land in front of your door just because you got funded. Remember that the real job has ‘now’ begun.

While committing yourself into a new venture:

  1. Invest in industry where growth is high
  2. Create and protect value
  3. Making money is far more valuable skill than technical skill.

While making a business plan:

  1. Market Research.
    A proper market research should be done by doing an expert panel study. If you don’t know the exact numbers then estimate. Make sure you don’t burn your hard earned and scarce cash on purely market research. Always go for a cost effective approach.
  2. Do it yourself.
    An entrepreneur should always be involved in the business plan making process. Either the entrepreneur should make it himself or be very actively involved in every step of the business plan. Please remember that Intel’s plan was 1 page long, Sun Micro systems plan was 3 pages long. So the lesson is don’t cross 50 pages limit for a business plan and usually a 30-40 page business plan is quite sufficient. Remember that the VC might decide to omit your plan just be cause it is too bulky!
  3. Have a good cover and make it visually attractive.
    More often than not a business plan with a good cover and attractive design stands more chance of attracting a VC’s attention when he is having 100’s of business plan’s lying in front of him.
  4. Write the content in a way that reflects your passion and yes avoid heavy jargon.
    You have think of ways to really make the VC understand your point without boring him with a content that looks like a sermon.
  5. Don’t get lost in being a techie.
    There is nothing wrong in being a techie but don’t expect the other person to be techie.

While making a presentation:

  1. 10 minutes is an absolute deadline.
  2. Give a small introduction.
  3. Indicate growth.
  4. Be clear whether you are going for Product / Service.
  5. Indicate that you have a core set of management.
  6. Clearly outline the Financial projections.
  7. Give a proper conclusion.

Hello iPhone

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After years of development on J2ME I finally decided that it was time to gain good expertise on iPhone and boy it is a revelation for someone like me who has worked around the sandbox model of J2ME for years. The amount of API I can access and use is simply mind blowing. I will post my insights and ideas about this wonderful platform in this blog.

Hello world!

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I finally sat down and decided to make a blog out of cyberaka.com

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I have been procrastinating a lot about this website and once it is done I feel why I had not already done it many years ago. It is so simple but yet it kept getting postponed to tomorrow which finally came today. Anyways I intend to keep posting on this site on a regular basis about all things necessary and necessary in my (work) life.