This post originated from an RSS feed registered with .NET Buzz by James Avery. Original Post: What I learned from Eric's Mistakes Feed Title: .Avery Blog Feed URL: /blog/Install/BlogNotConfiguredError.aspx Feed Description: .NET and everything nice Latest .NET Buzz Posts Latest .NET Buzz Posts by James Avery Latest Posts From .Avery Blog

Eric Sink wrote an article for MSDN called "Make More Mistakes" in which he talks about a number of different mistakes that he has made while building his business, SourceGear. His goal with this article was to show people that you can't be successful without making mistakes and taking risks, but I learned something else very important from this article. If you are an ISV you need a flagship product. Eric mentions that throughout all of this his flagship product SourceOffSite sold well and helped to support the company. I looked around and almost every successful ISV I know of has a flagship product that keeps it going. For every ISV you have heard of I am sure you will find a flagship product that brings in the majority of their income:

Altova - XMLSpy

Fog Creek Software - FogBUGZ

Red Gate - SQLCompare

The list could go on and on.

This is also true for even the largest of software companies. Windows and Office give Microsoft the ability to take large risks and make mistakes, it is because of these two products that the majority of what Microsoft does ever gets done. So if you want to start an ISV, your first goal should be to design a flagship product that you can build your company around.

-James