Periodically she wanted to hire me to work onsite for her as a contractor; but I had more work than I could handle and earning more consulting than she could pay me as an hourly contractor; and once or twice she said “I wish I could find a contractor who can do what you do.”

Those comments were the spark for a startup which has burned a hole in my head ever since.  I finally decided “now is the time, this is the year” to take it to the next level but will also bootstrap fund it myself.

Start ups come and startups go, but Loic Le Meur founded uBlog (merged with Six Apart), organizes the annual Le Web conference and created Seesmic.  So his advice, when given, is worth listening to.

His ten rules for startup success:

1. Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
2. Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
3. Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
4. Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
5. Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
6. Be the first to recognise a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
7. Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
8. Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
9. Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
10. Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.

So – stay tuned for Matryoshka – the next generation of … <the new new thing>.