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Rekindling the flame: the love of startups.

Nov 10th, 2008
by Jennifer.
1 comment

This weekend I took time off from my “side project” to participate in the Atlanta Startup Weekend.  For those of you unfamiliar with the event.  It was essentially 100+ entrepreneurs with varying skills (technical, marketing, design) getting together to see how many “startups” they could start in a weekend – 54 hours (Friday 6pm – Sunday 9pm).

I signed up for it, at the encouragement of a friend whom I had shared my desire to get more involved with the entrepreneurial community.  I had no real expectations; but, I was pretty sure that trying to build a startup in 54 hours was not necessarily going to be “fun” by normal people’s expectations. (Which may mean I’m not normal?)

The event went like this.  On Friday night, we all gathered, heard pitches on people’s ideas, voted and chose teams.  Late Friday evening, we met with our teams and had to start figuring out how to tackle the project: define the scope, choose the platform, decide roles, etc.  Saturday and Sunday – get to work.  Sunday evening – present your product.

I joined the GivingTi.me team.  The idea guy is/was Sanjay Parekh, a serial entrepreneur, and is being partially funded by the BMW foundation. We developed a website to essentially allow people (entrepreneurs) to barter time, one hour at a time.  We had 16 amazing people on the team, a blend of business (marketing, design, product management folks) and technology folks.  So, after defining the scope of the project, we divided into 2 teams.  I was on the tech team.

We had our fair share of issues.  We had a heated discussion on project scope. We chose Ruby on Rails as our platform, and then, lost one of our Rails programmers.  Leaving one senior guy and a bunch of newbies, until we picked up 2 part-time senior guys.  We chose HAML as our markup language (to create HTML) and only one person knew it. It took HOURS to get our development environment set up.  I was the only one with Sphinx installed, so I was the only one who could test “Search”.  We installed a “fix” 30 minutes for the demo, which broke a pretty critical piece of functionality.

I coded for about 28 hours in a language that I “played” with for about a total of 12 hours prior to this weekend.  I’m, now, almost proficient.  Certainly not an expert, but, past the curve…

I worked with a team of amazing people whom I consider friends.

For me, this past weekend was a reminder of what is possible when you get a bunch of talented and passionate people all focused on the same vision.  I haven’t had that for years, not since eTour.com (1997 – 2001).  Now I really miss it.

Posted in: ideas, web design, web development, web site.
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Building a Blueprint – Development Plan

Oct 28th, 2008
by Jennifer.
5 comments

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.” – Alan Lakein

Just because I am not going to write a full business plan, does not mean I am not going to have a plan.  In fact, I’m going to have a plan for both the development of the site and the marketing site.

First, the development plan.

If I was developing a site for a client, I would develop a full requirements document including a site map, a set of wireframes (document describing the features of each page), and design notes.  I would also provide a  project schedule with deliverable dates for both the client deliverables (content) and myself.

Now I am both client and developer!

First, the site map:

Site Map for a Social Networking Site.

Site Map for a Social Networking Site.

I used an application called ConceptDraw: MindMap to develop my site map.

In the site map, I have identified all the web pages that are necessary for launch. This is important.  FOR LAUNCH.  I am scaling down the feature set and capabilities to get to launch quicker.  A website is NEVER done.  So, what is absolutely necessary to be there from the get go, and what can be added later?  In order, to get here, I used my features list from the Competitive Analysis, and I focused on my mission, as defined in my Executive Summary.

Next, the wireframes:

The above wireframe describes what features/content is necessary on the home page. The home page must have the logo, top navigation, a way for users to login to, a marketing message and a short version of the registration form.

I will do a wireframe for each page on the site.

Lastly, I will develop a project schedule.  As this is a side project, I have somewhat limited hours per day/per week.  My plan will be to work on it one weekend day and a minimum of 2 weeknights per week for a total of approximately 14 hours per week.  This will allow me to continue to have some sort of social life.

Simply using an Outlook calendar, and a spreadsheet that I have developed which calculates the amount of development time based upon the sitemap and the complexity of each page, I calculate a tentative launch date: January 1, 2009.

Posted in: web development, web site.
Tagged: · · ·

Quote of the Day

Oct 14th, 2008
by Jennifer.
No comments yet

“Anywhere the struggle is great, the level of ingenuity and inventiveness is high.

We spend most of our lives cutting down our ambitions because the world has told us to think small. Dreams express what your soul is telling you, so as crazy as your dream might seem—even to you—I don’t care: You have to let that out. ”

-Eleni Gabre Madhin
Eleni Gabre Madhin is director of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Madhin studies market reforms, market institutions, and structural transformation in Africa, and works to create “a world free of hunger and malnutrition.”

Quote from Oprah.com

Posted in: ideas.
Tagged: · ·

To plan or not to plan.

Oct 13th, 2008
by Jennifer.
2 comments

So, do you need a Business Plan?

If you’ve been following this blog and my advice, you’ve done some of the necessary research to start your Business Plan.  But, do you need one?

I’ve written more than my fair share of business plans, and I do believe they are a beneficial exercise. That being said, I NEVER intend to write another one again.

I believe the main benefit of writing a business plan is the fact that it forces you to do your homework. It forces you to think about/define:

  • your mission
  • your market
  • your competitors
  • the “opportunity”
  • your marketing plan
  • how you make money
  • how you fund the idea
  • the team
  • the financials
  • your exit strategy

A business plan is also probably a necessary evil if you are seeking outside funding (which is highly unlikely in our current economic environment). 

But, writing a brilliant business plan also takes a LOT of time.  Time spent writing and re-writing, instead of taking the steps to actually launch the business.

So, I’m going to skip this step and instead I am going to write a one page executive summary, with a sentence or two about the above topics. 

My true intent for writing the executive summary is to provide me with focus and clarity of mission.  This will keep me on the straight and narrow when new ideas come up that may be distracting.

Posted in: ideas, web site.
Tagged: · ·

Vetting the idea – Financial Analysis

Oct 9th, 2008
by Jennifer.
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OK, so you have an idea. It’s keeping you up at night. You understand the competitive landscape.  But, does it make sense financially?

I have to be honest, at this point, if the idea is keeping me up at night, this step is more about figuring out what it’s going to cost me to build it, launch it, market it; versus how much money I’m going to make from it.

So, what’s it going to cost?  It’s time to build a cashflow statement.  Again, I usually use Excel or someother spreadsheet application and across the top I list the months/years.  Down the side, I list the monthly expenses and (potential/estimated) revenue streams.  I, then, calculate what my ending cash is. 

Expense Categories might include:

  • rent
  • salary
  • taxes/benefits (if paying salaries)
  • recruiting fees
  • commissions (on sales/affiliates/joint ventures)
  • credit card processing fees (for subscription or product sales)
  • travel, meals, entertainment costs
  • advertising, promotion costs
  • conference, seminar costs
  • consulting fees (accountant, attorney, other experts)
  • dues/subscriptions
  • equipment leases
  • insurance
  • postage
  • repairs & maintenance (cleaning company)
  • supplies
  • software support
  • telephone
  • utilities
  • capital expenditures (computers and equipment)

Income/Revenue

  • Subscription Fees (based on estimated # of subscribers)
  • Product Sales (based on estimated # of sales)
  • Advertising Revenues
  • Consulting Fees 

Lastly, document the assumptions that you use to calculate the revenue.  You may want to run both worst case and best case scenerios.  This is typically easy if you use formulas in your spreadsheet.

I usually do at least one year, just to see how it plays out.  If you are looking for funding, you need to do 5 years. (More about that next post.)

Posted in: ideas, web site.
Tagged: ·

Vetting the idea – Competitive Analysis

Oct 7th, 2008
by Jennifer.
1 comment

Once an idea is keeping me up at night, the next step is to do a competitive analysis.

And yes, no matter how great your idea, you do have competitors. For a website you might consider a competitor any one that is in your space (ie. search, social media, blogging, etc.) or you might consider it as any site that competes with you for revenue. If you can’t think of any competitors, it might be that you don’t have a market it all.

I tend to make a competitor matrix using Excel or another spreadsheet type document. Across the top, I list all the competitors. And down the side, I list all the features, then the revenue model, investors, and other info. I typically sign-up for the competitor services, and try it out to make the feature list. Some of the things I look at:

  • what are the steps to register for the service
  • what types of information are they capturing
  • what are the payment options, payment methods, pricing levels
  • what features does the site have once you’re a member
  • how do they support members (customer service)
  • how do they make money
  • how were they funded
  • how much funding did they receive
  • what do you like about their site
  • what do you not like about their site

Yes, this is time consuming; but, the feature matrix is going to help you down the line, when you’re defining your requirements to the web design and programming staff.

Once you’ve got a thorough understanding of your competitors, you can start thinking about how to differentiate your site from their site. 

Question: What is your “special sauce”?

Posted in: ideas, web site.
Tagged: · · · ·

So, you have an idea….

Oct 4th, 2008
by Jennifer.
No comments yet

Great!  You have an idea for a new website or web application!  Now what???

Well, that’s exactly what this blog is about.

The first step is vetting the idea.  It is about determining whether it is an idea worth pursuing.

My first step in vetting an idea is all about sleep (or lack thereof).  Is the idea keeping me awake at night?  Am I waking up in the middle of the night thinking about it, or ways to improve it?  (At the end of the day, this may be enough for me to pursue the idea – as it’s better to build and sleep, than not get any sleep!)

If an idea is keeping me up, it’s time to discuss with the people I trust.  This could be friends, mentors, co-workers, other technology entrepreneurs, etc.  Bottom line, is it’s people I trust.  There are no NDA’s (Non-Disclosure Agreements), just ideas and feedback.  Ideally, some of the people I share the idea with are in the target market.

If you can’t sleep and your friends like the idea, it’s time to really vet the idea.  More details on that to come….

Posted in: ideas.
Tagged:

Hello world!

Sep 30th, 2008
by Jennifer.
1 comment

Launch is about taking an idea for a web site or web application and making it a reality.  I am currently working on two ideas:

  1. the re-launch of www.buytough.com as a next generation ecommerce site.
  2. the launch of an idea I’ve been playing with for a new social networking / dating site.

This blog will chronicle the steps I take to get these new websites from my head to live. And in doing so, hopefully provide a road map to other people with ideas for web sites / applications.

Posted in: web design, web development, web site.
Tagged: ·

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