It has been six months since we created Shepherd Dog. In that time we’ve built four websites, created 3 iOS apps, and learned a handful of useful things. I’m thrilled with what we’ve accomplished so far, where we are right now, and really excited about where we are heading.

Today I’d like to share the three most important things that we’ve learned.

1) We were right to assume that other small business would find our services valuable – A common theme we keep hearing from business owners is that technology is foreign to them and that they are paying too much for mediocre results. Our pricing model, only charging the number of hours worked but not more than our original estimate, has resonated with them.

2) Building a business takes time – Finding clients and building trust with them is a slow process. We’ve volunteered in the community, joined local technical and professional groups, and talked to people about what we do whenever we’ve been able to. It took about 4 or 5 months for that effort to start turning into work.

This slow ramp up has depleted our savings and, while we remain positive about our future, it has caused some stress over paying the bills. Because of that, Brandy has decided to get a part time job so we can make sure that we can keep Shepherd Dog alive. We love the work we are privileged to do and will do what it takes to keep getting to do it.

3) Businesses are finding awesome uses for iPhone and iPad apps to serve their employees and customers – Six months ago I was afraid that we’d get businesses asking for simple wrappers around their website as apps and that we’d have to repeatedly talk people out of those ideas and come up with ways to use the technology to truly serve their customers rather than only serving their marketing interests.

That hasn’t been the case. We’re working with some great companies that see how mobile technology can make their customers’ lives easier and that know that that customer focus will lead to more business. It has been great to see, and I’m going to have to change the copy on our website to reflect what we’ve learned.

So we’ve been busy the last few months and we haven’t been sharing what we’re up to as much as we’d like. Hopefully we can improve upon that because I’m sure we’ve forgotten some of the smaller lessons along the way – things that seem obvious to us now. One of the hardest things about running this business is figuring out how to split our time appropriately between everything that needs to be done and every day we’re figuring that out a little more.

Over the next few days we’ll be sharing the stories behind the most recent website and a simple but super helpful iPhone app we built over the last few months.