Features

Gregory Piatetsky: What was the last business or technical book that you read and liked? What about a last fiction book?

James Taylor:
The last business book I read was the IT Value Stack (I reviewed it here), a nice discussion of how to get more value from IT through a more thoughtful and thorough integration of the business and IT worlds. Ade does a nice job and his ideas are definitely ones of which CIOs should take note.

The last fiction book I read was Empire of Ivory, book 4 of the Temeraire series. These books are a wonderful re-imagining of the Napoleonic Wars with the interesting additions of dragons and thus of air power.

Gregory Piatetsky: You have left a large company (Fair Isaac) and started your own company.
What advice would you give to KDnuggets readers and data miners contemplating starting their own company?

James Taylor:
Well it's very different, that's for sure. The good news is that you don't have all the infrastructure and bureaucracy of a large company and the bad news is that you don't have all the infrastructure and bureaucracy of a large company! Doing your own tech support and handling your own expenses etc can be a drag as can funding your own travel to shows etc. I do like being able to act more independently and being more in control of my own destiny, though.

In terms of advice I would say make sure you know where your first client(s) are coming from and think about how to scale/build a pipeline of new business as soon as you can. There are lots of things you can spend your time on so carving out time to focus on business development and sales is a must for those of us who have been used to having others doing that. Personally I would also encourage blogging - it's a great way to create brand awareness and show off your knowledge. Try to write a blog for the kind of people to whom you want to sell and make sure you read and comment on lots of other blogs to get people connected to you. Even if they don't generate leads directly, blogs become a sort of online resume.