ho hum…………………..BORING!!!!

This is one of those urban myths that seems to never go away. People are always trying to stumble on that next killer idea. But the thing is, you and I probably have these great “wouldn’t it be awesome if…..” ideas almost every second day. And so does everyone. Since I am in the business of making ideas come to reality, I get my share of friends (also known as nut cases that think I am waiting for them to bombard me with their next great idea) calling me with their idea and are surprised by the fact that I don’t drop everything to work with them !?!?

So if this is not important, what is?

Your Customer!!! Its that simple…

Its much easier to fill an existing void for your customer than it is to convince your customer that they are in need of this fabulous invention. And timing is key, if you get it out too early, there will be no demand (you are trying to convince them they need it); too late and you have missed the market (someone else has beat you to it and your customers already have the product).

Its also important to extract the idea into reality. How much will it cost to build and distribute. “I can get it into every household in the country over the next 5 years!!!”, but when you do the numbers, the revenue you make never catches up to the cost of marketing and distribution (or maybe in 20 years it does) #FAIL.

You need to get ‘real’ customers in front of your product; get feedback, evolve, refine, more experimentation and testing, and work on filling that need.

Although this was always part of my 2009 plans, they never eventuated Mainly because “paid work comes first”. I think that is a problem we all encounter when we want to work on our own pet projects. We have best intentions, but we get caught up with commercial deadlines from other customer (paying customers) and these take precedent.

And what happens is “another year goes by” and we don’t realise that its another year where we haven’t achieved or even worked on our dreams. Its4aCause is a project that I have now been working on for 18 months. I have gone little further than the initial planning.

So 2010 is the year!!! Time to make a change (sounds like a Michael Jackson song), but I have decided to make sure I prioritise my own projects in the same vein as paid projects – no exceptions!

I have decided that I am going to dedicate one day a week to my project. It may be broken out over several nights/days, but I want to at least dedicate a good 8-12 hours (at least) to my project. You may think that is not enough, and it probably isn’t, but the main thing that I want to ensure is that there is momentum. Bottom line is that 8 hours a week is 416 hours in the year, or equivalent to 10 full working weeks!!!! I didn’t do anything near that last year.

The key here is momentum, losing it means that a week goes by, a month goes by and finally the year goes by and nothing has been achieved. Like a freight train with a full load, it goes slow, but it eventually gets there!

Basically the idea was a bunch of developers, business guys and designers got together and delivered a startup, from start to finish in 24 hours. And I mean START to FINISH! They get together and don’t even have an idea, take it through to the point that on the 24th hour they launch the site live. The launch included a blog, twitter account and facebook page. “I love it when a plan comes together”

Then if that was not enough, they then list the startup on eBay and within 7 days get $5,100 for it. Not bad for a day’s work (sure, a long day and they have to split amongst a dozen of them)!

It reminds me of all the developer camps that go on, but I love the energy of this and how they deliver it.

Its a real inspirational story, and makes me want to lock myself in a room for a weekend to see what I could achieve!!!

Check ou their final product http://www.drhue.com – a shop-by-colour website

After going around in circles within this legal for some time now, I have managed to start getting a positive result. With the help of the Philip Argy (@philipargy) I have now hooked up with the team at Optim Legal. We had our first meeting last Friday, and it was great to chat with like-minded individuals!

They seem to understand what I am trying to do, and how I am trying to do it!

I really am after three things from my engagement with them;

1. Advice whether there are any gaping holes in the Business Model
2. Advice on how the whole thing needs to be structured correctly (legally and from a business perspective)
3. And finally, help with the Terms and Conditions for the site

I anticipate that they will get back to me in the next few days with a plan of attack and I do look forward to working with the team at Optim legal, they really are a breath of fresh air in the legal world!!!

Recently I have been toying with a small change to my business model. Although it is a small material change in regards to the technical implementation of one of the features, but there is a significant effect of how potential users would interact with the site. I have thinking about this for the last few weeks and I can’t find a clear benefit (or detriment) to either approach.

So today over lunch with my good buddy my best mate Joe from EmediaCreative (today is my birthday by the way ), he mentioned the idea of a Focus Group. I had thought of this before, but I thought as a one man show, how can I manage (or afford) to do this? But Joe mentioned something quite important “Between us, I am sure we could muster a dozen friends to sit down and do this with”. And he is right!!

But I then thought, why stop there? Why not work the social sphere. Time to mention it to people on twitter, followers to this blog etc etc! These random people are going to be more impartial than my friends that might be afraid to offend me.

So the offer is going out; Want to be part of a focus group for an exciting new start-up? Complete the form below!!!

Over the last year, I have gone through 4 lawyers with mixed results. Not because they were not able to help me with what I needed, but they seemed to have a mixed commitment to the project. I don’t know why, but I just could not get a result of any sort out. The closest I got was  50% of the work I needed done, but not in the structure I liked.

So after some twittering, I finally came across @idealaw (Kay) in Brisbane, and she was extremely understanding and helpful. Kay was honest enough to tell me that although she could probably able to help me, that I was better off working with someone local (in Sydney), and recommended @philipargy. I spent one morning with Phil last week talking about my idea and project, and he got it right away!

So I am feeling rather optimistic about this. I hope to hear back from Philip in the next few days on how to progress!!!

I plan to update this blog look and feel and provide some updates over the next few days. There is actually quite a bit to report. Firstly, I have finalized a logo with a design company, and essentially have 2 colour variations that I might go with. But that’s certainly done a done deal.

Secondly, after several false starts, I think I have finally found a lawyer that I can work with and provide me wit the advice and business structure to get the business side of this project over the line.

Thirdly, rather than relying on myself to work on the UI totally, I have engaged a UI designer to help me with the User Interface, and I also have plans to engage a Usability expert to help me work through the screen flows.

Fourth and finally, I have made a small change to the business model that I think was a slight flaw in the in the original model. It is slightly simpler, and I think that is a good thing.

So expect a whole series of posts discussing all those aspects. I hope to get some momentum behind this as I go!!!

Cost per year to achieve basic health and nutrition for the entire world:  $13 billion

Amount spent on perfumes each year:  $12 billion

Clean water for all the world:  $9 billion

Amount spent on cosmetics in the US:  $8 billion

Basic education for the world’s children:  $6 billion

Total amount the US spends on Christmas each year:  $450 billion   (or 16 years worth of food, water, and education for the world)

Initial cost of the US Government bailout of failing financial institutions:  $700 billion   (or 25 years worth of food, water, and education for the world)

Coming to grips with the alarming disconnects of our consumerist society:  Priceless

Anyway, the main reason for this post is to announce that Its4aCause is going to go under the banner of Organic Software. Organic is a new website and organisation that helps match entrepreneurs with exciting projects to developers and designers in return for equity. I am hoping that this will bolster the project along and I can get an initial release out in the newt few months.

Watch this space!!!

Virgance, a new startup headed by Powerset co-founder Steve Newcomb, is looking to change the world – and make some money doing it. The company, which features the tagline ‘Activism 2.0?, has announced that it has closed a round of seed funding and is already profitable. Now it’s ready to reveal itself to the masses, and hopefully make the world a better place in the process.