Part of the reason it has been a bit quiet around here is that we are busy taking the advice of Guy Kawasaki and others and have started a company.* Refactr is just a weblog no more. Now we are poised to take our message and skills to the masses (starting with the Twin Cities), develop powerful new software with people, and change the way people who do what we do for a living are perceived.

The truly exciting thing for us is that we get to utilize much of the process and methodology we bring to rapid software development and apply it to starting and running Refactr. Guy (if I may call him that) has outlined many ways of starting a company in an agile way.

Take a look at the Great ideas for starting things chapter from the Art of the Start (PDF). It is great stuff - making meaning, making mantra, and especially, the advice you hear from most entrepreneurs, “just start”.

There has been a lot to do to get ready for this point: There’s incorporation, drafting operating documents, filing federal tax documents, opening bank accounts, setting up payroll services and accounting systems, purchasing equipment (15.4″ MacBook Pros woohoo), and lining up projects - but we don’t let that stuff bog us down. We are outsourcing anything that is not in our core set of competencies, we are going to stay small, and we are going to form lasting relationships with everyone with whom we work. Oh yeah, and we’ll probably get a trio of those sexy Apple iPhone’s when they come out as well.

So that’s it, Refactr is open for business. We hope to find some people out there who are as excited about software as we are, but have, perhaps, had less than ideal experiences with software development or software developers. We’ll change their minds.

* OK, so Guy didn’t give us this personal advice but his great books and blog pretty much pushed us off the cliff on which we were standing.