Being, by profession, mostly technical, the ’softer’ aspects of starting and running a new business present the more .. novel challenges to us.

As such, a relative of mine generously lent me her copy of Marketing: An Introductory Text (ISBN:0333625870).

Since it is, thus far, the only book on marketing I’ve read, it’d be meaningless for me to proclaim it the best. But it is easy enough to read, and has prompted me to think about the work we’re doing in new ways, so it’s not hard to recommend it to others.

Last Friday we were given a copy of “Startup.com” to watch. It’s a documentary following a couple of guys who raised over $60M(!) for a portal to help people connect to their local government in the US, grew their headcount to over 200 people and then fairly rapidly went belly up in the .com bubble.The story itself is interesting enough and in some places hilarious (we thought, though this may have been unintended) but the documentary had a lot of gaps in the story particularly near the company’s end.One of the more absorbing aspects of it were a number of breakdowns in personal relationships betwen friends. So it was interesting that we came across an article on OnStartups.com titled “Important Questions Startup Co-Founders Should Ask Each Other” the very next day.

It’s a good starting point for anybody considering setting up a business with a friend: we’ll certainly be discussing it with regard to Waveson.

I had occasion the other evening to transfer a few dozen Waveson-related e-mail messages from Apple Mail on my personal Personal Computer, as it were, to Outlook 2003 on the Dell which I’ve been mostly using for work these days (if only because it has a larger display).Looking on the web, I found that most of the advice available had to do with transferring e-mail in the other direction, but the following work well for me:

1. I exported the messages from Apple Mail to mbox format. I found it useful to export to two mbox files, one for received and the other for sent messages. Equally, I found it useful to save the files with a .mbox extension, the better to be picked up by the next step.
2. I converted the mbox files to corresponding folders of .eml files using IMAPSize. (See the mbox2eml option on the Tools menu.)
3. I imported the .eml files into Outlook Express (OE); you can just drag and drop the files into the application window.
4. I imported the e-mails from OE into Outlook 2003, by selecting “Import and Export..” from the File menu, then “Import from another program or file”, and “Outlook Express 4.x, 5.x, 6.x”. At this point, Outlook warned that “No internet accounts were found to import”, but the next option prompted me to import e-mail messages and addresses from Microsoft Outlook Express, and this only took a second, or two, to run for three dozen, or so, messages.

To try out some of the ideas Dave and I have had, I’ve been putting together some command-line tools with Visual C++.NET 2003 SP1 and the Platform SDK.

Although these tools built without error using the IDE-provided ‘Debug’ build configuration, when I initially tried building them with the ‘Release’ configuration, the linker spat out a ream of errors along the lines of:


Tag.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: void __thiscall std::_String_base::_Xlen(void)const " (?_Xlen@_String_base@std@@QBEXXZ)

TaggedFile.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: void __thiscall std::_String_base::_Xlen(void)const " (?_Xlen@_String_base@std@@QBEXXZ)

Tagger.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: void __thiscall std::_String_base::_Xlen(void)const " (?_Xlen@_String_base@std@@QBEXXZ)

Main.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "class std::basic_ostream > std::wcout" (?wcout@std@@3V?$basic_ostream@_WU?$char_traits@_W@std@@@1@A)

Main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "public: void __thiscall std::locale::facet::_Register(void)" (?_Register@facet@locale@std@@QAEXXZ) referenced in function "class std::ctype const & __cdecl std::use_facet >(class std::locale const &)" (??$use_facet@V?$ctype@_W@std@@@std@@YAABV?$ctype@_W@0@ABVlocale@0@@Z)

Main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol "public: class std::locale::facet const * __thiscall std::locale::_Getfacet(unsigned int)const " (?_Getfacet@locale@std@@QBEPBVfacet@12@I@Z) referenced in function "class std::ctype const & __cdecl std::use_facet >(class std::locale const &)" (??$use_facet@V?$ctype@_W@std@@@std@@YAABV?$ctype@_W@0@ABVlocale@0@@Z)

Main.obj : error LNK2001: unresolved external symbol "public: static class std::locale::id std::ctype::id" (?id@?$ctype@_W@std@@2V0locale@2@A)

Main.obj : error LNK2019: unresolved external symbol __Getwctype referenced in function "protected: virtual bool __thiscall std::ctype::do_is(short,wchar_t)const " (?do_is@?$ctype@_W@std@@MBE_NF_W@Z)


A user on the Valve Developer Community wiki recommends removing references to the Platform SDK from the IDE to resolve a not dissimilar problem.

I’ve found it sufficient to remove “libcp.lib” from “\Lib” under the folder/directory into which the Platform SDK is installed; seemingly, the Platform SDK ships with a version of libcp.lib which conflicts with headers and/or libraries included in some versions of Visual C++.

If you know of a better solution or workaround, please share it in the comments.

As you can probably guess we only recently incorporated Waveson so I thought I’d share my experience. Once myself and Steve thought we needed to incorporate I asked a contracting friend, who I believed had a company, how to go about it. It turns out that he’s actually self employed so that forms the first question you should ask yourself: Do I need to setup a company or register as self employed (or a partnership)? My advice is to check on the Web for the differences and failing that seek professional advice.

This friend recommended I speak to his accountant who in turn gave me contact details for a formation agent. In the meantime I had checked out the Companies Registration Office website, www.cro.ie, which I have to acknowledge is actually very easy to use.

Setting up a company is actually very straightforward. Along with the registration fee only three documents are needed:

1. Form A1
2. Memorandum of association
3. Articles of association

In putting together the application you must also decide a few things about the company:

1. The type of company.
2. The name of the company.
3. The registered office of the company.
4. The activity carried out by the company in the State.
5. Who are the directors and secretary of the company.

Also on the site you will see that there are basically two ways to register a company: apply yourself or get a formation agent to do it for you. Since I had not done this before and in particular didn’t have any copies of the Articles and Memorandum of Association the formation agent was opted for. It also happens to be quicker.

How much?

The formation agent recommended by my friends accountant charged €345 (incl. VAT). At the time, May 2006, I checked a number of other agents who were charging more or less the same but quite a few were charging more.

What did we get?

1. Certificate of Incorporation.
2. Four bound copies of the Articles & Memorandum of Association.
3. Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors.
4. Company Register / Minute Book.
5. Company Seal (Embosser)

Value for money?

Not great, we thought. Why? Well, now if you search for company formations you should see some cheaper prices now than what we originally paid. Some sites offer you just the documents for €75 (which you get download elsewhere for free – towards the end of this page, for example). The CRO charges €100 plus 0.5% of the issued capital but just check incorporation costs in the UK; far less than Ireland even taking the CRO charges into account. There are two reasons you should use a formation agent and even then try to get them at €260 or less:

1. You are in a hurry. (It’s faster for an agent by up to two weeks.)
2. You don’t have a copy of Articles & Memorandum of Association.

In the future this is what I’m going to do, it’s slower but cheaper:

1. Download, print and fill out the A1 form which is here.
   You also need to figure out which NACE code (which signifies the company’s activities) to use. The list is here.
2. Download these three files and adjust them for the new company (items to change are in yellow):
   1. Memorandum of Association
   2. Articles of Association
   3. Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors (to be kept and not sent to the CRO).
3. Visit a Commissioner of Oaths to witness some signatures on the A1 form and Memorandum & Articles of Association. (For the extra cost, ironically, in our case, our agent had a very, very loose definition of witnessing signatures.)
4. Send the completed A1 form, the Memorandum & Articles of Association and fee (€100 CRO fee + 0.5%).
5. Buy a company seal embosser and Company register / minute book. You can find these on the Web for well under €100 including delivery.

Waveson is a company founded by Stephen Higgins and David Copithorne. The blog is intended to relate our experiences in both developing our products and running Waveson. We hope you find it useful!