DOOM DOOM part 2

[Robby Russell]

Hi all,

So... it's been just over four months since I asked the following
questions to the list.

* http://rubyurl.com/QxNh

Those questions being about how the economy may or may not be
impacting your business.

Thought that I'd check in to see how things were going with you all..
because at the time that I originally asked, there responses were
limited and didn't really hint at people being too concerned.

* Are you concerned?
* Have you been impacted by this yet? (personally and/or professionally)
* What steps are you taking?

Personally speaking, we saw a minor slowdown in new leads over the
holiday season (but had witnessed similar things the previous 4
years), but it seemed to be more consistently quiet. Unlike the past
few years, we're seeing less start ups contacting us than usual. We've
been noticing that more established companies (with existing projects)
have approached us quite a bit more than in previous years. However, a
few years ago.. there weren't as many companies using Rails.. so
that's not surprising. Our hunch on less startups is that people
aren't really wanting to take the plunge/risk of their startup dreams
right now.. but those are just theories.

The good thing is that we're staying busy but suspect we haven't seen
the full impact yet and are working on other avenues to maintain
adequate cash-flow int he future.

Would be interested to hear how other people/firms are doing/coping. :-)

Cheers,
Robby

--
Robby Russell
Chief Evangelist, Partner

PLANET ARGON, LLC
design // development // hosting w/Ruby on Rails

http://planetargon.com/
http://robbyonrails.com/
http://twitter.com/planetargon
aim: planetargon

+1 503 445 2457
+1 877 55 ARGON [toll free]
+1 815 642 4068 [fax]

[Obie Fernandez]

Robby, I have to echo your response somewhat. Hashrocket hasn't seen a
slowdown yet (reaching for the nearest table and knocking on it!)
December and January were kind of tough utilization-wise, but now
we're going like gangbusters. Feels like maybe a bit less of the
individual entrepreneurs contacting us now and more of the slightly
larger operations and enterprises making wholesale migrations to Rails
from legacy systems in Java and .NET.

The holiday period was definitely quieter than usual, but as of a few
weeks ago it started picking back up and we usually get anywhere from
2 to 8 incoming leads a week.

[Benjamin Curtis]

I'm not seeing a slowdown in the small guys -- the 1-5 person startups that are my main clients.  In fact, I'm seeing a bit of an uptick in the 1-2 person teams that have a small idea and want something built to explore the viability of a concept.  Being a one-man shop, though, I think I self-select for this size of client, and I'm happy filling that niche.

I did see a lull in December-January, but that just made more time available for side projects and income stream diversification. :)

--
Benjamin Curtis
http://railskits.com/ - Ready-made Rails code
http://catchthebest.com/ - Team-powered recruiting
http://www.bencurtis.com/ - Personal blog

[Rick Bradley]

On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Robby Russell <ro...@planetargon.com> wrote:
> Thought that I'd check in to see how things were going with you all..
> because at the time that I originally asked, there responses were
> limited and didn't really hint at people being too concerned.
>
> * Are you concerned?
> * Have you been impacted by this yet? (personally and/or professionally)
> * What steps are you taking?

Well, I'm knocking on wood as I write, but we've not really seen a
slowdown. Perhaps there are a bit fewer
I've-got-a-great-idea-for-a-facebook-for-<silly
demographic>-site-leads-that-never-lead-anywhere-anyway folks knocking
on the door, but revenues have been solid and we seem to be having
some luck diversifying further and increasing recurring revenues.

We try to always keep a bit of spare capacity, but there was about a
month at the beginning of the year where we were working so much we
didn't really get a break. Of course, that means more revenues so
noone's complaining. We had one customer who stopped paying as
quickly, but it turned out to be due to a personnel change in the
invoice paying seat primarily; otherwise we're not (knock on wood)
even seeing a slowdown in payments; in fact, we're not even collecting
late fees these days (for better or for worse).

Hope everyone else is doing as well,
Rick

[tmor...@gmail.com]

Same here as for everyone else, pretty much.

We did have a bit of fallout in October or whenever this mess really
became acute, then it was right back to the races.

Where's the nearest *LARGE* block of wood? :-)

--
-- Tom Mornini
-- Founder and CTO
-- Engine Yard, Inc.

On Feb 12, 6:47 pm, Robby Russell <ro...@planetargon.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> So...  it's been just over four months since I asked the following
> questions to the list.
>

> *http://rubyurl.com/QxNh

> http://planetargon.com/http://robbyonrails.com/http://twitter.com/planetargon

[Jonathan Weiss]

Robby Russell wrote:
> Thought that I'd check in to see how things were going with you all..
> because at the time that I originally asked, there responses were
> limited and didn't really hint at people being too concerned.
>
> * Are you concerned?
> * Have you been impacted by this yet? (personally and/or professionally)
> * What steps are you taking?

Here in Berlin, Germany, I'm not seeing a slowdown in the Rails market.
The general IT market is down a bit but Rails projects from small
startups and big companies are still coming in at the same rates.

Jonathan

--
Jonathan Weiss
http://blog.innerewut.de
http://twitter.com/jweiss