if they even remotely try it, I bet each country will have their own dns server and broken internet. this clearly show that How gradually, USOFA do not have any intention to keep internet open. so it would be wise to move away from them while we can. ( only sometimes, once in a while, why it seems that china is better ? )
They've been acting as though they had jurisdiction for a while; there have been tons of .com domains seized for non-US sites. This is just a confirmation of their position.
patent should include AMOUNT OF INNOVATIVENESS. AND RESTRICT THE REWARD INVENTOR CAN ASK FOR IT. ( IN TERMS OF TIME, FOR SOFTWARE PATENTS, TIME OF PATENTS SHOULD BE REDUCE HEAVILY, IN TERMS OF MONEY, IN TERMS OF NUMBER OF REPLICATION ETC, IN TERMS OF NEGOTIABLE AND UN NEGOTIABLE REWRADS ) . think about this. <-- THIS WILL REQUIRED MORE EFFORTS. but overall , it will ease the pain on both side later. ( in terms of cost of lawsuits and discovery of patent infringement cost )
Every successful enterprise requires three men – a dreamer, a businessman, and a son-of-a-bitch. ( Every opensource project required three people. Linus. Jacob. Asshole. ( kidding... ( before you stop tolerating me ) ) yes. lisp. )
(1) Patents should be analyzed for level of difficulty in coming up with solution. If I had a website like amazon, more than 50% chances that I would have come up with single click idea. But since I didn't had problem, I could not have solution. so such patent should be allow only "acknowledge" status <- that means, a software that is using such patent must "acknowledge" the original creator somewhere , but it can use the patent freely. (2) if patent is used, it is liable for max 5000$ ( for e.g. ) charge. or (3) 500 Million $ charge. It all depend and subjective. current system is go and no go. patents should analyze for level of ingenuity too.
I hope you are not mistaking "hired" for "acquired".
that said, your value proposition is "the team". a group of people familiar with each other and working with each other. so, the value of company directly depend upon how each member is committed to work after the company get acquired.
All the current members would be committed to working for the new company. "Hired" is probably the right word, but with a huge bonus, which you typically will not get by directly going for a job. Heck, none of the startup CEO's I work with would probably even look at my resume, if I had submitted it through normal channels. However, now I can call them or IM them and talk.
We probably bring more than just the tech skills. Building a team and delivering projects is not easy. It is about 10 times harder than I initially thought. I now have much more respect for all the small independent software consulting shops.
These thoughts actually started in my mind after I saw two ROR firms that recently got acquired. I think LivingSocial acquired one of them. That and the fact that we are not making enough money to justify the hours we put in. Slowly coming to the realization that I might not be tha good of a businessman.
You need to make a minimum of 50% gross margin in services. This means if the team members make 50/hour, then you need to charge at least 100/hour. One way around this is to do fixed fee projects, but this is risky without strong processes. Also the danger zone is around 3-5 people because you dont quite make enough to hire one full time overhead person but you need half of one. Once you get to 8 or so it gets a lot easier because you can afford some overhead.
Also cash will always be a problem because if your profit margin is only around 10% you will continually be short of cash as you try to grow.
You may actually be making a lot of money, but cash could be tight. It may actually be hard to tell, because it is easy to let your receivables get too large. If everyone is busy, maybe no one is bothering to collect the $. Or at least you wait too long to collect the $
