Greetings! Christopher Hawkins of Cogeian Systems here

Hey everyone.

My primary day gig is running Cogeian Systems, a consulting company I started from nothing in 2003 and have kept running ever since (holy cow, it’s been ten years?!?).

I’m here to share in bootstrapping conversation and soak up knowledge that will help me transition from consulting into product; or rather, from consulting into consulting AND product. And while I’m here, if there’s anything that I’ve learned in ten years of consulting that might help someone else, I’m happy to share.

Here are some of the other things I’m working on:

My blog, although not recently updated, is a pretty decent encapsulation of my thinking about the software development industry. If any of you have heard of me before, it’s probably due to my blog.

SmallSpec, which is my product. Remember Spolsky’s “Painless Functional Specs” articles? SmallSpec is a Saas app that helps you build and manage painless functional specs. It’s still in very, very early development; if you leave your e-mail I’ll keep you posted on progress and give you a chance to sign up when SmallSpec is ready to roll.

ChasingProduct, which is my upcoming podcast wherein I’ll chronicle my transition from consulting to products. This is still in the planning stages, but if you leave your e-mail you’ll be the first to know when it’s about to go live.

Alright, enough self-promotion. I’m going to go browse around and see if I can learn something from you lot. :slight_smile:

Howzit. I enjoyed the Bootstrapped podcast episode you appeared on… looking forward to your written contributions :smile:

Glad you enjoyed that episode. I’m hoping that some of the items Carl & I discussed with Ian and Andrey are useful to other consultants, moving to products or not.

Great to have you here! Looking forward to you dropping some knowledge.

@Christopher, welcome. I can’t wait to hear the podcast.