Posts Tagged ‘Business’

Docavedia Turns Two

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

Docavedia is 2 Years OldI can not believe it has been two years since I started my own web (design) services company.  In just a few weeks Docavedia will celebrate it’s second birthday. Now it took me longer than two years to finally make the decision to start my own part time business, however I learned more than I would of otherwise by making it official two years ago. To better understand what Docavedia is I have to give you a little history.

I had been building small websites as a hobby (for no $$) for quite some time and was developing my own content management system (CMS) to make it easier to update the sites. At first I was developing the CMS to share with others and maybe build a online community to supprt it. As I quckly discovered during the research I was doing during my project there where already too many systems out there for users to pick from, so why build another one. Somehwere along the line this discovery lead me to the decision to develope the CMS for myself.

It was almost two years ago to the day that I recieved a lead for someone looking to start there own business and they needed a website to accept appointments online. This looked like a great fit, I needed someway to test my CMS and this business owner needed a CMS to run an online presence. A few weeks later Docavedia was born; officially Oct 2006 was when Docavedia Information Services LLC was formed.

Now two years later I have more than a fist full of clients, more work than I can do on a part time basis, and I am currently develpoing a new Content Management System to better suite my clients needs. I can’t wait to be celibrating Docavedia’s 5th, 10th and so on…

Managing Business

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

As many of you know I started a business a little over a year ago now in web site solutions. I have been doing freelance design and development for years and decided it was time to organize something official. I formed Docavedia Information Services LLC and the projects started to pile in. Most of it being referrals, but all of it being enough to keep my part time business busy. I have made mistakes here and there and probably undercharged for some of the projects; all part of learning how to run a small business. One of my biggest fears ended up being one of my mistakes; how to keep things organized. I had spreadsheets and documents for everything I did, but how to organize it all along with my thoughts. It was easy when I had a few projects, but now I have many, all at some stage, being developed concurrently. Why was this a problem? I actually forgot to invoice on a couple of projects when payment for hosting services was due. That’s just wrong!

dot.Project LogoSo I began the search for some sort of project management software. My requirements where, something flexible enough to work with the nature of web development, something mobile (as I am not always at MY computer), and something cheap (preferably free). After a few hours research I found a fit. dotProject is an open source, web based application for project management. It is written in PHP *bliss* and completely web based, making it accessible from anyplace that I can get to the web. Now dotProject is not another content management system, it is a true project management application; much like Microsoft Project. This little application helped me organize all that was going on between projects, and most importantly how much time was being spent on each project. I recommend it to anyone who has access to a web server with PHP and MySQL installed.

In the months I have been using it I already have noticed a difference. I am no longer worrying about what I forgot, or what stage I am at on a project, I just develop. Best I all, if I every need to hire an employee (I would have to be doing this full-time first) it would be easy to collaborate from multiple physical locations. So go and try it for yourself, www.dotproject.net.