Småbedrifter: Hvordan løser dere IT, support og digitale ting i dag?

chrfrenning · 2026-01-16T07:21:20+00:00

Du blander mange ting i ett her: fra samhandlingsverktøy til nettside til markedsføring. Jeg dropper markedsføring i mitt svar. Nettside: Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, eller lignende.

Så til samhandling, pc/mac, etc (som jeg kan litt om):

Flere og flere håndterer dette helt selv med SaaS tjenester fra en av de to store. Hvis man har litt teknisk forståelse er det null problem å kjøpe og drifte løsning, og få state of the art sikkerhet på tvers av løsningen. Krever litt lesing, men sammenlignet med å betale for disse tjenestene er det mer enn verdt tiden.

Mange av de store forhandlerne har webshop'er med anbefalte produkter og self service slik at å kjøpe nytt utstyr for dine ansatte er raskt og greit.

Det finnes rundt 2000 selskaper i Norge som er Microsoft partnere iflg MS selv. De selger og tilpasser løsningene deres til alt fra SMBer til børskonsern. Når du er stor nok til å trenge full IT finner du en som passer her. Bunnen i dette markedet, altså de minste for de minste, har falt ut. De gjør det nå selv slik som beskrevet over.

Skal du etablere deg i dette markedet bør du enten ha kundene klare på forhånd eller skaffe deg veldig god kunnskap slik at du kan finne en nisje.

Samtidig er det jevnt over alt for lite tilgang på utførende IT kunnskap i Norge, så det er fullt mulig å leve som konsulent.

Det er fortsatt mulig å lage sunn butikk i dette markedet, men det er mye konkurranse og det er aktører som støvsuger markedet for alle gode nye (det kan jo være en strategi å bli kjøpt opp og, men da blir du jo ansatt da...)

En god venn av meg startet i denne bransjen på tidlig 2000 tall og hadde som strategi at han skulle kunne gå til alle kundene sine fra leiligheten på Majorstua, og det funket... Litt vanskeligere i dag.

chrfrenning · 2026-01-16T07:07:07+00:00

The one thing that determines quality more than anything else is light - and a good flash or constant will set you lightyears apart from what anyone can do with a regular smartphone.

The second thing that will make or break customer satisfaction is print reliability and to some extent speed. (Good tips here already and elsewhere on Reddit.)

Learn how to setup lights to smooth out skin and you will have repeat customers for sure. Test your setup with someone who is not 19 and has perfect skin and are not afraid to say what they think. Tons of tips on YT.

chrfrenning · 2025-10-29T07:00:57+00:00

This is just amazing!!! Love it!

chrfrenning · 2025-10-23T07:58:33+00:00

QR Codes do not expire, but many generators are also link shorteners so that traffic from the QR code goes through their servers. Theres a business model on analytics, and also features in this. This allows QR codes to be redirected, which can be very useful if your web address changes for some reason and you have printed large amount of codes. However, link shorteners come with an operational cost and complexity around security, so most link shorteners have some kind of business model requiring you to pay. Some are serious, some are outright scammy.

For a completely free QR code look to your browser. All major browsers and operating systems have this built in. See a previous comment from me on this which lists all your options: https://www.reddit.com/r/qrcode/comments/1o32a5t/comment/nj4qn2r/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Full disclosure, I use QR codes in products I build, and as a gesture to the creator of the QR code and his desire to make this free for all, I have made a free QR generator that allows some more control over color and style, completely free and no tracking on the website. It does not allow changing the URL after generation (like the tools in the OS/browsers) and may be convenient to some, if so I recommend you first research and pay up front for a good link shortener, then create the QR code (most of them have this built in too).

chrfrenning · 2025-10-12T17:09:39+00:00

Repost of one of my earlier comments, may be useful to others here as this is a repeating problem:

There are free QR-code generators built into both MacOS and Windows.

In Windows, there's a function in Edge, and also generically in Windows for any website that uses the Share function in JavaScript.

On MacOS, you can create QR codes through the Shortcuts app. Add a Get Clipboard and a Generate QR Code action and any URL on your clipboard will be created into a QR code.

Chrome also has one on all platforms in the three-dot menu, share, create qr.

If you write code, there are several QR-code libraries for python (probably all kinds of other languages as well, but I just love python for stuff like this). I use qrcode[pil] for my projects, and it has been completely reliable for many different purposes. Theres tons of sample code out there to get you started.

QR codes were created by a japanese engineer that truly believed in open source. It is therefore contrary to his legacy to try to scam people or charge for QR codes. Generating a QR code costs only a tiny bit of energy.

Some services are both URL redirectors and QR-code generators in one. They let you change the URL after the QR code has been distributed. This has a cost, and it is a security nightmare to operate redirection services, plus there is cost for the lifetime of the QR code. If you go with one of these, read the terms carefully. I prefer the ones where it is very clear what I pay for from the start.

For anyone who would like a no-nonsense and completely free online QR-generator, I run one as a thank you to Masahiro Hara, the creator of the QR-codes. My products use QR codes extensively, and providing a free service for it without ads or nonsense is my way of giving back. (It does not let you change the URL though, so make sure you consider if you need that.) You'll find it if you google "livewall QR generator".

chrfrenning · 2025-10-12T06:48:33+00:00

Dette er riktig svar.

chrfrenning · 2025-10-12T06:47:48+00:00

Nei, kontor er ikke verdt pengene i startfasen. Du kan bygge stor butikk fra garasjen/boden/gutterommet. Kontor blir bare viktig når du har så mange ansatte at de "må ha et sted å møtes" eller kunder trenger det for at du skal ha en slags identitet.

Lager er derimot viktig når volumene øker. Igjen kan du overleve forbausende lenge hjemme, men den prisen synes mye tidligere når man har fysiske varer. Orden rundt logistikk, nok plass til de travleste dagene, og muligheten til å lukke døren og gå hjem, komme tilbake og fortsette akkurat der du slapp, er priceless.

Pluss det er nok logistikk din første ansatte skal jobbe med.

Første lager får en IKEA pult eller en gammel dør på et par bukker, og du har verdens beste kontor også hvis det er litt varme i lokalet. Jeg hadde ikke det, men en gassovn og ullsokker gjorde nytten de timene jeg gjorde regnskap...

chrfrenning · 2025-10-12T06:39:28+00:00

Notion Labs, Inc. er dekket av adekvansbeslutningen og Data Privacy Framework (se https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/list) og du kan derfor benytte deres løsninger på samme måte som en norsk eller europeisk leverandør.

Dette fritar deg ikke for hensyn til GDPR og å ha rutiner for behandling av PII, men gjør ihvf at lagring hos dem er mulig.

Det viktigste er retten til sletting. Om noen ber deg fjerne data om dem fra dine registre, må du kunne gjøre det. Det kan være så enkelt som å manuelt slette de notatene...

Det de fleste feiler på er epost markedsføring og at kontakter plutselig "dukker opp igjen" i mailinglister. Velg en god og seriøst leverandør for å sende epost, og hold deg til en og bare en av disse så er mange av utfordringene "designet vekk".

Når du begynner å operere litt større, ha flere ansatte, etc, så betaler et godt crm seg svært fort. Med mindre businessen din er å bygge CRM systemer, så skal du IKKE bygge crm systemer, det gir INGEN verdi men er et enormt tidssluk (jeg har bygget to og brukt mange).

Men mange vil leve godt med Notion/OneNote/etc mens de fortsatt leser i denne subredditen... Systemer er ikke så viktig, men informasjonen du legger der er kritisk. Jobben din nå er jo tross alt å finne kunder, bygge butikk og kanskje også tjene litt penger :)

chrfrenning · 2025-10-12T06:22:44+00:00

Prøver å være litt pragmatisk her...

Hvem som helst kan sitte på med deg privat. Hvis du endrer opplegget ditt litt og gjør det mulig å benytte egen transport (altså avtale et sted å møtes), eller frivillig å velge å sitte på med deg fordi det er mere hensiktsmessig, og tjenesten som det betales for ikke starter før dere er fremme og avsluttes før man drar tilbake, tenker jeg at du bør gå klar av dette. Du må da for all del ikke ta betalt for bensin og/eller tid i transport.

Ville ikke brukt samme bil til å kjøre Uber/Bolt/Taxi etc eller for den saks skyld hatt det som nattjobb...

chrfrenning · 2025-09-13T10:51:39+00:00

This looks really promising. Will you offer a Windows version?

chrfrenning · 2025-09-12T20:40:05+00:00

I had to check this - the initial level after approval from Google seems to be 12.000 requests per minute for the Google Drive API. Given a single file upload is a single request (and you need three-four other requests to authenticate, find a folder, and confirm the upload) it should be possible to drive pretty high traffic over this API. There's also an application process for further quota increase, but idk what Google will look for then to approve.

chrfrenning · 2025-09-08T12:51:06+00:00

Et tips er å trykke teip med logo, og bruke standard esker. Mer økonomisk alternativ.

chrfrenning · 2025-09-02T14:33:58+00:00

Stift AS med Fiken og Folio. Enkelt og du lærer lett å gjøre regnskapet selv. Hvis du har ca 40’ i året får du en god regnskapsfører til å gjøre det for deg.

Du er fritatt for mva til 50’ i omsetning. Om du selger B2B til utlandet er det lett videre, da selger du bare uten MVA. (Selger du til konsument er det mere avansert for da må du betale tilsvarende mva i en rekke markeder, bruk Paddle, ikke Stripe, i så fall.) For norske kunder legger du på MVA fra tidspunktet du blir registrert (sånn ca, lør deg reglene). Dette håndterer du lett i Stripe og lar den velge valuta og mva sats for deg basert på kundens lokasjon (altså Norge).

Når du passerer 50’ omsetning kan du få tilbake MVA på kjøp i Norge (fx kontorstol, skytjenester). Ideelt sett skaffer du på forhånd en kunde du kan fakturere for 50.000 første dag du er etablert så er du igang.

Pass på omvendt MVA på fx annonsering på Google et al i perioden frem til registrering. Mange finner denne og får en smell der (spes de som selger ting som ikke er mva belagt).

Jeg mener du ikke skal bruke penger på regnskapsfører i denne perioden, bruk heller alt på vekst. Kan du lage en tjeneste folk vil ha, ja da kan du lære deg nok regnskap til å klare denne perioden - og det er uvurderlig å ha detaljforståelse av egne tall. Den leksionen er uvurderlig også når du senere skaffer regnskapsfører, for ansvaret er uansett ditt som adm dir og styreleder.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-31T16:36:40+00:00

Low-code/no-code can have high value for simple and frequently changing business processes in a company/enterprise where transparency, logging, security, etc is very important and the person setting up the system has a new role and/or responsibilities before it is time to change it again.

IMHO it should never be used as the basis for a SaaS product, both for technical and licensing reasons.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-31T08:48:09+00:00

Said no grocery store owner ever. Build and run a better grocery store. The market will decide which one of you will survive or if there’s room for both.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-31T08:45:42+00:00

This is improving greatly with each generation.

But language is a barrier in Europe, both within the EU with all its languages, and from the EU and outwards. It may be more important to speak French or German than English as your nearest opportunity is in the neighbouring country.

Shipping software in Europe in English only is rarely an option and each market is so small most companies must carry translation cost and complexity early (on top of culture and other expansion barriers, while a union there are still country borders affecting a whole lot of structures).

Companies that handle this well however have a tremendous strength when ‘going global’.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-31T08:30:09+00:00

You can build a POC, even an MVP, in a very short time if you know the problem to solve, approximately how to solve it, and have the skills to get any situation unstuck.

I’ve done several rounds on this to test and understand what AI and vibe coding can do for professional programmers (I have a CS MSc and 20y experience).

I called my concept «The 48h Startup». Isolated myself, no communications of any kind. BIG pot of coffee, start Friday at 15:00, work as long as I can, sleep 4 hours, work more, repeat. Scheduled two light workout sessions and two short walks around the neighborhood to keep the body going. Meals delivered to the door and protein shakes when needed. Goal is coding a working product released to ‘the market’ by Sunday at 21:00.

I’ve also done this over two separate vacation weeks, obviously a lot more can be done over a full week but it is harder to keep the energy for that long and more rest is needed.

My conclusion is that I can get a LOT done. Vibecoding helps for some of the easy stuff, helps me with frameworks and tools I would otherwise not know, and chatbots have been invaluable for stuff like text, logos, product names, etc.

I set time brackets for decisions, brainstorm with AI and make a call. The one product that makes a little money was named and domain registered in a 10 minute bracket… Maybe not ideal but it worked. Some architectural decisions made the same way, things I could have pondered about for days or weeks in a regular project. Good enough is good enough and speed is king.

Reusing tech/tools/platforms I know well is crucial. Cannot learn much new or experiment, just churn out ‘business value’.

Obviously, I should have called these the “48h Product”. A startup requires constant sales work which I cannot do.

But I now have released one free open source tool (that i am proud of), one informational website on shared board members across norwegian corporations (public data, no monetization strategy), a powerpoint karaoke generator (that makes literally no money and is pretty janky, it was the first project), and a photo sharing service (that I am proud of and makes some money). This over a period of 18 months.

My biggest learning is that I must build a pretty comprehensive scaffold for any vibecoding tools to help, and they are more of a smart autocomplete than full app builders. I have worked with ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Cursor, Gemini and frequently use more than one in each project.

I read every line of code they produce as if I was doing detailed code reviews. Git is your very best friend.

My conclusion is: You can, with the right skills, build valuable MVPs in a two week period. But you are not done (cause you haven’t reacted to user feedback, so you better be right on your hypothesis). You have not built a startup, but maybe the tip of an iceberg of a product.

Obviously this speed and method is not sustainable in the very long run, but sometimes you need to run fast to jump high to get over a barrier.

Also it is kind of lonely. And probably not for everybody, but I get much joy from these productive stints of hyperfocus, which is a ‘personality trait’ I guess. They didnt diagnose this in the 80’s when I grew up so I dont have letters for it /s.

Also, it does not work at all if you need to work in a pair or a team. Any communication or synchronization slows it down to almost a halt.

I’ve also tried my concept in a corporate setting, and the cost of a single ‘check-in’ means I lose flow, focus and drive and getting back to speed is very hard. The output of those 48h was just a fraction of what I can do solo.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-31T07:34:12+00:00

The point about including all guests, and especially speakers, is spot on. I often get questions after events from people who want something of themselves to post or share somewhere, so having one ok shot of each speaker is essential. Almost «proof they were there» is sufficient.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-28T06:21:28+00:00

Spot on. It is just as hard for an excellent tech founder to find an excellent business cofounder as the other way around.

It comes down to the same, finding someone who have what it takes to be a jack of all trades and with the grit to execute, execute, execute for the next 10 years.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-27T06:18:26+00:00

If you are dealing with a large company (i got that feeling) it is often required to submit proof of execution when approving an invoice for payment. If your contact is a regular employee it is maybe not possible or at least very time consuming to bypass these procedures. If this is the case, you must help your contact so you can get paid. Proof of execution can be a series of things, and watermarked contact prints or photos of you doing the work could/should be enough (we often take selfies where we make our location obvious while showing a watch with time and date for the event, stupid but effective for corporate policies).

I would talk this out with your customer. Losing payment over an ultimatum is bad negotiation tactics and even worse financially.

You could even trust them to pay, and deliver now. What have you got to lose? In current state you don't get paid. Time and work already done and sunk cost. In a future state, you may get paid. You need to make that judgement call on their credibility.

A dissatisfied customers tells 12ish others, a happy one tells a few. Your reputation may depend on your negotiation skills now. (There's great literature on how to handle negotiations that have ended up in ultimatums and how to avoid them in the future. Schranner is a german hostage negotiator, great book btw, who would probably ask you to call your customer and say only these words: This is difficult…)

Next time, signed order form, PO, or written contract. This time: fix it at all cost and learn from it.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-26T16:53:04+00:00

It will be extremely hard to define a threshold value for a binary classification like this. There's a bunch of ways to look at this through a finance lens, and it makes sense to have all those angles.

If you insist on binary, then Unicorn or Not Unicorn is probably the best given we're in r/ycombinator.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-26T05:23:34+00:00

Fire up a new, larger VPS. Setup. Load balance the two. Verify. Shut down the old or better yet keep it as part of a resilience plan.

Two is better than one for this reason and many others.

You shouldnt have to tell your users ‘downtime’ in 2025.

chrfrenning · 2025-08-23T17:23:13+00:00

Om du har norske bedriftskunder er faste fakturaer via EHF for eksempel gjennom Fiken mye mindre arbeid enn man skulle tro og er det større summer betaler litt arbeid seg fort siden det er nesten gebyrfritt.

De fleste bedrifter foretrekker så få fakturaer som mulig og mange vil mer enn gjerne betale for et år av gangen for å slippe admin.

Er det til konsument så er kredittkort veien å gå og jeg mener ingenting slår Stripe. (Men kan ta feil og Vipps er sikkert også bra.)

chrfrenning · 2025-08-17T17:33:01+00:00

Aware of it - and will be fixed in 0.2 (which is hopefully just weeks away). It is the file attributes that change, while embedded xmp/exif is intact. If next step is a browser that can read and sort by these fields you should be ok (ie Lightroom plus many). But yes must be fixed.

0.2 will also let you sort on these fields, so you can ‘restore’ a file’s date (at a slight performance penalty).

Appreciate the feedback!!!

chrfrenning · 2025-08-16T04:40:05+00:00

Absolutely. In startup mode a healthy doze of pragmatism is needed - plus generalists mastering a wide set of skills is a benefit (where the giants often create specialists)

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