To share or not to share… March 28, 2008

Decision time. 

The building of the site is coming along, but plateauing somewhat.  I’m reaching what I think is the extent of my knowledge as far as the coding goes, in a time when I need to add some features and functionality to really make the site work well.

Last night, I heard Donny Deutsch say “I’d rather own 51% of a company that is worth $10 million than own 100% of a company that is worth $2 million”.

Well, I’m coming closer that line of thinking every day.  If I let my greed rule me, I could potentially end up severely stifling the potential of the company, even perhaps resulting in a company that never gets off the ground.

If I give up some of the share to someone else, a few great things happen:

• The quality of the site is immensely improved, resulting in a better experience
• My time is freed up to concentrate on the things I want to concentrate on – building the company, the vision, developing the systems, marketing, etc…
• Future maintenance and development is delegated off to someone else, freeing me up to do more of the above point.

Obviously, the benefits are pretty great.  I’ve got to squash that little greed monster and realize that in sharing, better things can be accomplished.

So, if that’s the case, and I decide (which I think I will) that I’m ready to share some of this…there are a few things I need to do/think about:

• The company needs to be “formed” legally, probably as an LLC.
• I need to do a bunch of research and put together some revenue projections so that a potential shareholder will want to commit some major time to the project.
• I need to do some major research and networking to find the perfect company to make the offer to.
• I need to figure out what % of the company I’m both a) willing to give up and b) think this work is worth.

Some major tasks there.  As visual design progresses (still looking for a visual mockup come mid-April), I may shelve my work on the coding and concentrate on these important tasks.  However, once I make the decision to do that, I can’t really go back.  I mean, I can, but it’ll wreck my timeline and schedule, and I really don’t want to do that.

So, I’ve got some thinking to do.  I need to make a decision fairly quickly tho, probably within the week, so I can refocus my attention.

Ahh, the joys of starting a company!  It’s a blast, but scary as hell!

Tags: entrepreneurship, startup, strategy, partnership, outsourcing, business, critical thinking

Visual design about to begin March 17, 2008

Back to updates about the site I’m developing.

I’ve been feverishly writing the PHP/MySQL to make this thing go.  Luckily, I’m about 85% there with regard to functionality.  There are a few small gaps, but they’re not mission critical at this point.

The big issue at stake now is the visual design.  I’ve known since day one that I wouldn’t be doing the visual piece of this site, so thinking of how I’d get that done, for cheap, and from someone I trust, was weighing heavily on my mind.

Luckily today, the answer revealed itself and we’re off and running.  A colleague of mine that used to work for the same organization I work for will be doing the design.  He’ll be doing a templated visual treatment that I can use to plug all the functionality into.  I’ll still need to build the HTML/CSS to make the site go, as well as plug in my functionality.

So far, according to my scope document, I’m ahead of schedule slightly.  I had blocked out March for function build, April for visual design, and May for integration of the visual treatment into the functionality (i.e. the actual build).  If we start visual design this week or next, we may be done by mid-April, which will put us about two weeks ahead.  This is good, because I anticipate needing every bit of May for the integration tasks.  Being that I’ll have to get everything working perfectly during that period, having a couple weeks of “slide time” may prove to be very, very helpful.

Luckily, this works out in a perfect arrangement.  In exchange for the visual design he’ll do for me, I’ll be helping him with some coding tasks.  A nice trade of services.  Incidentally, this will be my first real time doing work as a “freelance” developer, so I’m understandably anxious.  I’ve got no doubts, but it’s certainly a step off the road of normal into the kind of life I’m trying to build.  Doing this work for him, however small, is going to be a gigantic mental leap for me, and I hope (I know) it’s going to change things pretty drastically in terms of my future attitude and apprehension about going out on my own.

I’ve still got the safety net of the day job, but this is going to be a fun introduction into what it’s like to manage your own work and be a freelancer.  I’m incredibly excited…and incredibly terrified.

More updates as we progress!

More thoughts about using students January 4, 2008

We’ve got a quandary.

Last night, we were discussing the use of students, after the two pretty positive responses from universities that I emailed.  It became clear to us (and I mentioned this earlier) that the timeline of the student projects would be somewhat problematic.  This comes with some tradeoffs:

• The students produce the prototype, for either really cheap or free (big plus)
• The students do rounds of feasibility testing or market testing (also a huge plus)
• The students produce CAD drawings and get leads on manufacturers, perhaps.

I really don’t know what type of stuff would be involved in these project, but those are my predictions.  If they did all those, it’d be great.

Now, time isn’t money.  Time is time, and money is money.  However, I want a lot of both.  Plus, the goal is to be out of here by Dec. 31, and to do so entails not piddling away time waiting for months while a product prototype is built.  I’d like to have the prototype built, test marketing done and initial rollout of the product by mid-Feb, early March.  Waiting on students to complete a semester long design project before I can rollout means a bunch of squandered time.  Something I don’t want.

So, I have to figure out what to do.   Obviously, I can just abandon the idea of using students and go back to straight up prototyping by contract manufacturer…the original plan.  However, if I’m getting some free help…who am I to turn that down?

So, my thought is this.  If it turns out that I’m right about the timeline for this project, we may explore having them prototype and design out a second product, probably closely related to the first.  Perhaps something with a few more design enhancements, or something of the like.  This has a the great advantage of being able to position two products, or at least have one in the hopper ready to go.

However, a few words of warning about this approach:  Creating two tandem products can be somewhat dangerous.  One, it has the possibility of dividing focus, by ourselves and the customer, among two things…making both more likely to fail.  If we produce one product, dump all we have into it and concentrate there, we have a more likely chance of success.  I’m all for success, so I’m all for focus.

The other option is to have the students design an alternative design to the same product.  This is appealing, as it would capitalize on the same energy as was put into the initial product.  Also, it might present us with an interesting opportunity to do some A/B testing between two designs of the same product.  I love testing, so this is an appealing option to me.

So, those are my thoughts.  This is all speculation right now, as I don’t know what the projects will even entail, or if they’ll even use this product for their project.  However, keeping the end in mind is never a bad thing.

More probably coming today after I check my email at 11 AM CST.

Email back from the Universities January 3, 2008

Looks like at two of the universities I emailed yesterday are moderately interested in working on the project with me.  Here are the emails I received this morning (names have been removed):

We will be happy to work with you on your project. Just I need a further details about the project so I have a clear idea about what I am talking about with my students.

Thank you very much

and:

Thank you for your interest in our engineering program & the senior design project. Professor *********** is the instructor in charge. Please get in touch with him regarding the possible incorporation of your product with this course. I think the projects already been chosen, but we may be able to contribute in other ways.

Please let me know if I can be of assistance.

Sweet.  This is definitely promising.  I’ve emailed the first back and will email the second back with information about the project in detail.

There is one thing I’ve learned over the past few years, and as a student at a university for 6 years: use students as help whenever possible and practical.  Student help is a veritable goldmine of possibility.  First, the help is almost always free.  Also, the quality is generally quite good, despite what you may think.  Anything from graphic design, web design, copy editing, audio/video editing, prototyping….anything that is project based can generally be used by a student for a project.

The advantages for using students aren’t just for you, the entrepreneur.  The students also benefit greatly: they get a project idea handed to them without having to scrounge something up, plus they get the experience of working with a real life client.  Arguably, the latter is perhaps the greatest benefit in the mix.

Continue reading to find more information on how to find students for projects.