As I’ve mentioned in a couple of my posts, I’m working on a startup. This wasn’t technically true until this week. Before, I had an idea for something to do but I hadn’t even done anything resembling working on it. Now, I’ve at least done something resembling work! So far I have:

• setup the virtual server on my shared hosting account
• setup a couple email addresses
• setup a gmail address that those addresses forward to (I have no interest in running a mail server)
• picked a name (will be discussed later on the startup blog)
• registered the domain
• setup WordPress to blog
• wrote a welcome post on the site

So, I know at this point, the suspense is killing you, right? Right!?! Ok, here goes. The statup is called SmallPunch and it’s the motto is:

“SmallPunch is a job search tool that Doesn\’t Suck.”

Why did I start with these tasks? Why am I messing around with blogging when “wrote the code” and “got feedback from users” are conspicuously absent from my list above?

I’m a single founder (who’s married), so that’s two strikes for time. I also have a day job, a commute, and a baby, so I have 1-2 hours a day to work, max. That means about 10-15 hours a week, as opposed to the 100+ that a pair of hackers working full time have. Since I have to deal with a 10x disadvantage in working time, I need to leverage my time as much as possible. That means that I need to build assets that work for me.

So what does announcing SmallPunch on this blog do? I mean, I only have 4 or so readers. But, those 4 readers are the GoogleBot, the YahooBot, the AskBot, and the MicrosoftLiveBot. That means that by writing in advance, I can have some established links and organic search results sprinkled in when it comes time to launch. Look for the SmallPunch blog for details about the startup, and here for more about the process used to create it.

In then next post, I’ll announce some of my plans and schedule for SmallPunch as a startup.