Essential for Starting a Company Website.

If you have a company, then it goes without saying that you must have a Company Website; or More importantly Portfolio website which highlights all the works and achievements of your company. It has to be:

1. Elegant Design.
2. Light weight (Not taking enough time to load).
3. Good Navigation (Visitor can visit as much pages as possible from a given page).
4. Comphrensive (Must have all the details required).

There is always the option of designing one from scratch. It can have the following advantages:

1. Then one can have the total control over the code.
2. Any customization to be made will be easy.

But then

1. It will be time consuming.
2. Much technical expertise will be required.
3. You might skip some of the important elements, which you could have added based on the experience.

So its always suggested to use one of the already available open source CMS (Content Management System) for the same. Then we can have the following advantages:

1. We can save much time, since the code is ready, we just need to cutomize.
2. We can add functionalities by adding plugins which are readily available.
3. We can add theme files, which are available for free.

So I would recomend the following code/Programming languages for the same:

1. Wordpress (CMS).
2. jQuery (Javascript Framework, to add UI and Ajax effects).
3. CSS to add style elements for the same.

Plugins for wordpress which can come handy are:

1. Breadcumb navigation.
2. Pagination.
3. GD Star plugin.
4. Contact 7 Form plugin.
5. Tag Cloud Plugin.

Plugins for jQuery which can come handy are:

1. Tabs plugin.
2. Ajax form submit plugin.
3. Form Validator plugin.
4. jCarousal plugin.
5. LightBox plugin.

The list can be furthur updated with your suggestions and recomendations. Please help me with it.

Promoting your Company.

After setting up your company or even before doing it, promoting it becomes the main concern. People are needed to be made aware of the Company, so that they can refer it to potential business partners or bring business to you directly. The various methods which can be adopted to promote and advertise your company are as follows:

1. Verbal advertising. There is no substitute to verbally propagating the existence of your company. Is its easy and it is free. Companies like Google and Barista have adopted this method. You can never see an ad for Google and Barista in Media. The better the Friend Circle you have and the better the friend circle your friends have, the better is the promotion cycle. In this method, allow the work to speak for you.

2. Make Profiles in the following websites:
a} Orkut
b) Facebook
c) Myspace
d) Hi5
e) Twitter
f) LinkedIn
g) Apnacircle

Invite friends and tell them about the company. Make the profile public, so that they can be accessed by everyone interested.

3. Send mails to interested friends so that they can follow your progress and may communicate the same to their friends. You can never know from which direction the help might come.

4. Blog about the progress of your company, the beliefs, the strategy adopted and post the link in Twitter, Social Networking websites, Tag line of Chats etc.

5. Maintain a website of the company and keep your contact information up to date. Give a professional look to the website.

6. In the above website, use Google Analytics, Cluster Maps, Hit Counter, to keep a track of the number of users and their locations.

7. Maintain a forum, in which maintain the codes. So that it may interest other inquisitive minds to appreciate your approach and efforts, so that they main consider bringing you business.

Advertising and Promotion requires dynamic approach and innovative ideas. Along with the present methods, there can be numerous others which can contribute to the progress of the company. Please feel free to contribute your ideas.

Quality Process in the Company.

Quality seems to be a Trivial matter as far as startups are concerned, but in the long run, they really do matter. I am listing down a series of practices, which if followed can improve the productivity of the company and help keep track of the processes.

1. An Excel sheet needs to be shared amongst the employees in LAN, with the setting that multiple people can work on that at the same time.

2. Use Excel sheet as the time sheet for the employees to enter their daily actual hours.

3. The time sheet should have the details of the work on each day and the version of the files checked in the VSS after every day against each work.

4. Supporting documents for each work done can be attached as a future reference.

5. There should be a Sheet in the last page, which will contain the links in an formatted manner, which can give insights to problems encountered in work.

6. Code repository should be maintained in the Server with the links in an Excel sheet with a small description of how the code can be used.

7. All financial Transactions and Appointments should be maintained by the HR/Finance guy/girl of the Company (For a startup, single person has to do multiple jobs, moreover transactions would nut be huge).

Maintaining the Quality is taken seriously in many companies which are certified as CMM5, CMMI5 level companies. They have their own benefits which can be witnessed in the long run.

Anyone who want to add something to the above existing link is always welcome.

Software Usage for Maximum Productivity.

Now with all the hardware and software in place, the next main component for starting a company is the effectiveness with which the resources can be utilized. The main practices to be followed are as follows:

1. Have a VSS (Visual source safe) or SourceOffSite to manage your files. Every day before doing any code changes, the latest files need to be checked out, the changes are to be made and the files needs to be checked with correct comments for better maintainance of code history.

2. Every PC in the company should have a particular folder structure. Files should not be stored haphazardly and should be well maintained.

3. A dedicated folder needs to be maintained for Cheat Sheets for referring them when required.

4. All the required folders should be present in form of shortcut icons in the quick launch bar, so that the browsing becomes easier and time saving.

5. Maintain a template for website. e.g. maintain a folder path like

d:\Projects\Website\

in d:\Projects\Templates the following folders needs to be present.

a)CSS - for having any css files or css frameworks e.g. 960 degree.
b)JAVASCRIPT - for having any js files or javascript frameworks e.g Jquery.
c)BUSINESSLAYER - For having all the class files for logic of code.
d)DBLAYER - For code to connect to the database and manipulate them.

and Code files e.g index.aspx

These files and folders need to be copied into the folder d:\Projects\Website\SiteName every time a new website is created.

6. Last but not the least, use file comparison tools like SourceGear DiffMerge, for comparing files and merging them before taking or uploading any file from VSS.

Following these practices can increase the productivity of the project. Any suggestions are welcome whole heartedly.

Softwares Required.

Now is the time for selecting the sophisticated weapons to prepare for the war. It depends on basically 3 factors.

1. Supporting Open Source.
2. Supporting propitiatory software.
3. Ok with the express/demo editions. (Not advisable)

Since an IT company can be of many types, but basically I will be covering the web development part, because that seems to be easy while starting a company.

So the advisable tools of the trade are:

1. Windows XP (98 is outdated and Vista is slow). People are more familier with windows.

2. Visual Studio 2008/Php, Depending on which language you are comfortable with.

3. Mozilla as the browser. With Plugins installed (I will give a list in my next post).

4. Thunderbird E-Mail Client (With the Event Calender plugin Installed).

5. Microsoft Office 2007 (Word, Powerpoint, Excel).

6. SQL/MySQL, depending upon choice.

7. VLC player. It can literally play anything.

This list will be updated with each passing enlightenment I get about Softwares. Hopefully you can also contribute in the Comments section. I will add the same to the List.

Hardwares & Utensils

Hardware is a highly flexible investment which may depend on various factors as follows:
1. Size of the company (Number of People).
2. Clients of the Company.
3. Service based or Product based company.
4. Budget for the Start up.
5. Location of the company. etc.

Many Companies like Google, Microsoft had started their office from Garage. It has become a jinx for every company to follow them. But not necessarily that can lead to success. For that you need to be either a Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Larry Page or Sergy Brin.

Personally I feel the following stuff are enough to get a company to run decently for a long period of time.

1. A big conference table in a descent 300 Sq Ft. area. It is also supposed to be the main development room. The alignments must be in form of 1,2,1,2 on the four sides of the table, where the sides with single people are the persons who started the company.

2. The room should have a white/glass board with a marker/duster. It is utmost necessary to develop ideas and to explain them.

3. Probably a projector can do wonders during presentations (Even sometimes to see a movie for relaxation).

4. A coffee vending machine with provision for tea, coffee, soup or health drink. Those guys in IT knows that, a software engineer cannot go through a complete day without having coffee, tea.

5. A/C (Air Conditioner) is necessary for that fact that, with so many PC's operating in the same place, the head needs to be replaced to make the place comfortable.

6. Descent lighting facility. Dim lighting can put stress on the eyes and Heavy lighting can make you uncomfortable.

7. Attached Bathroom facility with automatic door lock to prevent odour from entering the room. Probably a double door facility can help in this regard. The bathroom needs to be clean, well maintained and spacious with all utensils available.

8. A small reception area, where every incoming person can be scrutinized so that work should not be disturbed by mail man, courier man etc.

9. One printer/scanner for obvious stuff.

10. Stack of utensils like papers, notebooks, pencils, pens, stickers, scissors, gum, pins, clips etc available in abundance.

11. One server PC, with assembled high performance parts. probably a CPU without Screen and Keyboard/Mouse should do. It should have the best quality motherboard. around 1 TB of hard disk, best processor, No CD/DVD rom (So that data cannot be written some where else), good heavy quantity of RAM etc.

12. One 1 TB hard disk to take the backup from main server when required.

13. 7 PC (6 for working + 1 in the reception). Desktop PC are preferred over Laptops, because they are robust, speeder, easily upgradeable, easily customizable, cheapness and Data security (Data in office and not carried home in laptop).

14. One central phone with speaker phone facility with VOIP in the development room and one phone with just speaker phone facility in the reception. Any calls to the office are to be received in the reception and transferred to office room, not to create any disturbance during working.

15. Couch/Sofa for visitors.

16. Some wall hanging and plants to enhance the beauty of the place.

17. A soothing surround sound speaker is an optional luxury.

18. An internet Connection, something around 2MBPS will be good. Probably a wireless one to avoid wire congestion.

If I have missed any thing, please feel free to add in the comments so that I can include that in the post.

Naming the Company

The next important component for a startup company is to have a Name.
It helps you and others to identify the entity you are working for.
The name should satisfy the following criterias :

1. The name should be small and compact and not complex.
2. It should be easily pronounced. So that when others refer to it, they won't face any difficulty.
3. It should not clash with any existing name.
4. It should highlight the work you are doing and should relate to the context of the work.
5. The name should be followed by a punchline or motto of the company.
6. A logo can add to the beauty of it and bring a professional bent to the company from the beginning.

I must add that this was a tough task for me to search for a name for a company and till now zeroed upon none, considering that fact that what will be selected will last forever.