George has provided a copy of his slides, ODP or PPT.

This month, George Wu will speak about Launching Your Own Business. Starting your own business is pretty common among techies, but especially that first time it can be a little daunting. George will talk about the general mechanics of starting your own business, and then cover two of the more common techie startup scenarios - starting your own consulting practice and trying to launch a new startup with grand ideas of early retirement. Starting with consulting, George will cover the basics of starting a business from a legal and tax perspective. Moving on to the tech startup scenario, George will share some of what he learned from participating in successful and unsuccessful startups.

George Wu is a software developer with over two decades of experience in the computer industry. He spent much of his early career writing software as a consultant, finally branching out on his own with a solo consulting practice. The end of that practice came when one of his clients became so interesting that George converted to an employee. That company, GetThere, Inc., successfully went public, and was later purchased by one of the travel industry giants. More recently, George helped start LeisureLink, Inc., an electronic reservation network for the vacation rental industry. George was the third employee and first developer at LeisureLink, where he held the title of Chief Technology Officer. His duties ranged from main developer to system administrator to coffee barrista, and he saw the company through several rounds of angel investment and eventual success in raising venture capital. Today, George is riding out the economy as a software manager at a large multinational, but his true passion is the crazy chaos of a startup.