Talk by Paul Faix.
Biggest things at the start: confidence that you can deliver on your promises, and marketing; both are a problem as a one-man-band just getting starting.
Used BusinessCatalyst, a hosted CMS solution which allows you (makes it easy) to re-brand it. You can brand it, and take it to your customers. Gives confidence of having a solution (that’s branded as yours). Using this system, projects generally take three days:
- Design: making with the pretty pictures
- Implementing: not so much programming, as making use of existing modules, etc.
His site is built using BusinessCatalyst: Fortix. Showing us, per-region editing through the front-end (login, click on regions, edit in pop-up). Lot’s of modules providing features like FAQs, blog, form submissions, CAPTCHA, CRM, etc., etc.
Questions…
Is there an API? Yes, you can, but it seems restricted. You can’t code at all, but you can use a web-services API to exchange data with it.
How much is it? Ranges from $300–$900 annually. Paul’s customers see it as amazing value for money, given that it’s got workflow, roles, etc. Handles e-mails, etc.
Can I have my data? There is an import/export interface. Not sure how much gets exported, but he mentioned Excel so maybe just the forms?