2002/04/10

Guerrilla Marketing

For reasons that are explained in today's ship date article, my company's current marketing efforts are focused on low profile, word-of-mouth marketing, not Superbowl ads.

As a company founded by programmers, it's no surprise that a lot of what we do for sales and marketing is done by writing code, not by making phone calls or hiring ad agencies! In that spirit Michael has finished setting up an affiliate program for Fog Creek Software. A little ASP code, some database magic, three thousand pages of lawyer-approved legalese, and hey presto! an automatic sales program that costs very little.

If you have a web site, you can link to CityDesk or FogBUGZ and earn 15% any time someone buys our software through your link. We also decided to actually allow you to link to Joel on Software and TechInterview with the affiliate program. A lot of people hear about our software through these sites. So web sites that would link to JoelOnSoftware anyway can make money if anyone they refer eventually buys software from us (it works using a 30-day cookie).

To get the new program off to a good start, I'm going to raise the commission to 20% for anyone who signs up by Friday. And if you make your first sale before May 1st, we'll boost your commission to 25% permanently. You could make almost $500 if someone you refer to us buys a single FogBUGZ site license.

Today's Article: Picking Ship Dates

One of the best reasons to make a detailed schedule is because it gives you an excuse to cut features. If there's no way to make the ship date and implement Bob's Singalong MP3 Chat feature, it's easy to cut that feature without making Bob feel bad.

But -- how do you pick a ship date?

My new book is here! Apress has just published a new collection of 36 essays from Joel on Software, aptly named More Joel on Software. Get yours today! Available from Amazon.com or wherever fine cheese is sold.

About the Author: I’m your host, Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City. Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet on this site. For my day job, I run Fog Creek Software, makers of FogBugz—the smart bug tracking software with the stupid name, and Fog Creek Copilot—the easiest way to provide remote tech support over the Internet, with nothing to install or configure.

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