Wow – big gap, lots of happenings. Update time. March 4, 2008

Man, I really let this slide, eh?  Well, hopefully I can be more consistent in the future, but I wouldn’t count on it.  Here’s what’s been going on…

Idea #1 is in a holding pattern.  The original product idea I had only did meekly in some testing situations and some prelim market research.  It’s still a viable idea, just needs more time, money and refinement.  I don’t have two of those three, so I’m moving onto something more “in my wheelhouse”.

Over the past 4 weeks, I’ve been building a website.  This website will service entrepreneurs in a really cool way, and I think will provide some awesome opportunities for others like me who are trying to get a business of some sort off the ground.  Everything, as usual, is under wraps right now, but I hope to be in a beta stage by June, so everything will come out then and I’ll let on to the exact nature of what this is.

In the meantime, I’ve been teaching myself PHP and MySQL from scratch to try and build this site.  I’m a web developer by day job anyway, so doing this type of thing is a slightly better fit at the moment.  I’ve worked through almost 1000 pages of two books on PHP/MySQL and I’m happy to say that I’ve learned enough to be dangerous and actually build a functioning, and somewhat complex website.

At the moment, I’ve built out about 50% of the functionality (maybe closer to 60%) and I’m starting to work in on beefing up some securuty holes and fine tuning a few processes.  It’s nice to have the framework built and be able to move into actually fine tuning.  Definitely a big step.

For those who want to follow along as I randomly post updates of progress here, here’s the timeline I’m working with:

• March 08 – Function build.  Get all functionality built for the site with no visual element.  Skeleton site, but fully working.
• April 08 – Visual Design.  Design visual for site, and apply to functionality.  Work out bugs in getting functionality to play nice with the looks.
• May 08 – Personal testing.  This will be a month of me putting the site to the real test.  Here, I’ll be going thru the site myself, trying to think thru every possible problem, hiccup or overload scenario.
• June 08 – Beta 1.  I’ll assemble a small group of real testers to start using the site behind a password protected front end.  I’ll continually interview and monitor their experience.
• July 08 – Beta 2.  Same thing as Beta 1, but I’ll be working hard to fix any usability issues, implement new desired functionality that folks want from Beta 1.  I’ll be out of town for 10 days during this time (and no, I won’t be working then), so I’ll have a short month.
• Aug 1, 2008 – Launch.

So, follow along at home and hope that I meet all my deadlines.  Doing well so far.

Again, I’ll try to be more consistent in the future.  Look for a post coming up that explains a bit about a revelation I’ve had about my purpose and calling, and why I figure my appropriate title to be something along the lines of “serial entrepreneur”.

Another “How to Start a Business” workshop January 9, 2008

Last night, Mollie and I attended a workshop on how to start your own business, put on by the Tennessee Small Business Development Center.  Now, I’ll admit, I feel a bit silly attending these workshops – it seems strangely akin to attending a workshop on “How to Ask Someone Out”…if you can’t do it somewhat by instinct, maybe you aren’t cut out for it altogether.  However, sometimes you pick up a morsel or tidbit that might help, and sometimes it just makes you think a bit deeper – and that’s well worth the price of admission (which, in this instance, was free )

So, what I took out of this particular class was a renewed urgency for writing a business plan for launching this product.  I’m not new to writing summaries, plans, abstracts and all that – I’ve done half a dozen of them for various business ideas I’ve had along the way.  The valuable part of it, for me at least, isn’t to get funding.  I could care less about funding/loans/investors.  This is a debt-free startup that will be bootstrapped from the ground up.

The valuable part is instead the feasibility testing that writing such a plan allows.  When you start to write out a detailed plan of action about how you’ll develop, market, sell, postion, and grow your product/business…you start to see any holes in the net, and you can start plugging them.  This is precisely what I hope to accomplish by writing out a plan.

I’ve got a nicely abstract view of our development/marketing/sales approach to this product.  That said, I haven’t gotten down to actual numbers, true marketing strategy (down to the detail level of which media outlets to utilize) and real sales projections.  Since I have a goal for leaving the 9-5 for my own company by the end of this year, it’s paramount that I assure the numbers will support the idea by Dec. 31.  Enter the plan.

So, that’s what I got from the workshop.  Did I learn anything new?  Nah, not really, pretty basic stuff.  However, it made me think, and that’s worth a hell of a lot.

More updates later.

Monday Morning Update January 7, 2008

Well, we’re back around to another Monday.  Here’s what we’ve been doing, and what we’ve got planned:

Over the weekend, we didn’t do a whole lot.  I did, however, test one design idea out (an engineering type thing) to find out that what I wanted to do won’t work.  Part of our product uses Velcro to attach removable elements.  I wanted to employ the use of magnetic strips, for various reasons, to replace the Velcro.  Come to find out, however, the magnetic strips simply don’t have the strength that Velcro does.  In fact, the magnetic strips won’t even stick to each other at all.  Guess I’m back to the drawing board on that one.  I’ve either got to find stronger magnetic strips, or go with Velcro.  Using the Velcro won’t be a deal-killer, the magnetic strips would have just been a nicer, sleeker design.

As for this week, here’s what’s on the docket:

• Finish emailing contract manufacturers about prototypes and secure some solid quotes.
• Finish working thru the design and commit to a concept that we’ll submit to the manufacturer for prototyping.
• Tomorrow (Tuesday), Mollie and I are attending a free class called “How to Start Your Own Business” put on by the Tennessee Small Business Development Center.  Now, I admit that these classes can be somewhat simple in scope and I’ve attended my fair share of them.  However, it’s always nice to throw our idea against the wall and see what other people think.  Networking, tips and tricks never go out of style.  Never think you’re beyond going back to learn basics – don’t get cocky.
• By the end of the week, I’d also like to have commited to a name and start the logo design process.  We’ll need a logo design for stamping on the product, as well as for the website.

So, by the end of the week, we should have a name, start on a logo, have a prototyping manufacturer in mind and have a solid design to give them in the next two weeks.   I’d say if we get that done (and we’ve got a short week…going out of town on Friday-Sunday), I’ll be pretty happy.