Jul 23, 2011
Jul 10, 2011
Midsummer Update
This summer has been very productive and going as planned. I completed every checklist item on my End of June sprint for my website, resulting in several enhancements to my marketing and application, including the ability to use barcode readers to take attendance.
My model airplane has fallen behind schedule too many times, so I’m currently dropping everything except health and fitness in order to complete it. It should be ready to fly this week. It’s been a very fun project but I underestimated the time required to build it. I really can’t wait to fly it!
I’m in the analysis phase of the Growers Local project, which I’ve planned to launch in January. This move puts Best Attendance on the back burner. I’m currently seeking a cofounder for Best Attendance so that it continues to get the attention it deserves. The application is profitable and growing, and I know that bringing someone else on board will help tremendously.
Tomorrow, my model rocketry class starts for the STEM program. I’m putting the finishing touches on the model rocket that I’ll use as an example in class and making final preparations today.
My class schedule for the fall is still quite uncertain, but I’m aiming for five sections.
We’ll be moving on the first of August and taking a hiking vacation the first week in August, then my classes start up on the 20th. August will be spent doing some curriculum writing to add rigor to the courses I teach.
Jun 29, 2011
Launched: Best Attendance Onstage
Community theater is one area for which I originally envisioned Best Attendance to be useful. Stage managers typically carry around bundles of binders and paperwork, including constantly changing schedules and event calendars, and have for a long time been demanding a software solution.
Some stage managers are using Google Calendar and some are using Microsoft Office, but these general purpose applications leave a lot to be desired when it comes to the specific job of stage management.
There is one prominent player in the stage management software industry now, Virtual Callboard. They launched about four years ago and have been slowly gaining a real foothold among community theaters.
I think that my solution for stage management software does an even better job. Where it really shines above Virtual Callboard is in how clean and easy to use it is. Its attendance tracking and reporting capabilities are much more powerful, and it leaves out lesser used features.
For example, Virtual Callboard allows actors to enter their availability into the system, and it takes this into account when scheduling rehearsals. The problem is that in the real world, actors often forget to do this. The result is that many of those advanced features don't work the way they were intended to.
My focus is simplicity. Best Attendance is ridiculously easy to use, and I'm sure stage managers will love it.
Jun 20, 2011
Three Years, Three Products
I’ll be launching my second product in as many years this January. I already have a minimum viable product built and plan on getting it market ready within a few months. Baring a nuclear disaster, I have some part time teaching jobs and personals savings to get me through at least that long. It’s in ultra stealth mode at the moment, but it will be bigger than the Segway, which, as you know, was bigger than the Internet.
I’ve had another idea in the back of my head for about four years and am stealthily conducting some market research for it. I’ll be launching that one the following January. The market for this product is huge. Also in stealth mode.
The only hints I can give is that all three products (my attendance application included) serve the purpose of building strong local communities.
Jun 6, 2011
Best Attendance: First Five Months
The web version of Best Attendance launched in January. This is a recap of some of the things I’ve tried during the past five months, what results I’ve gotten, and things I’ve learned.
I did manage to get a press release published on a popular website after buying a banner ad from them. Other than that, I received a small writeup on one person’s blog after sending over two hundred solicitation emails. Either I’m doing something drastically wrong, or there’s some inherent force against product reviews in the youth ministry blogosphere.
Since this is such a large market, and my app has the potential to become well-positioned in it, I’m not going to abandon it completely, but I think a strategy other than emailing random bloggers is called for. I’ve also done some commenting on other people’s blogs and forums, which has produced a small amount of traffic, but as Patrick McKenzie has also discovered, that strategy simply does not scale as a long term solution.
I mentioned purchasing a banner ad. It sent some traffic my way for the first week, but the other three weeks that I paid for were completely worthless. I ultimately got no sales from the ad. Advertising does have a purpose other than direct sales conversion, and perhaps it did slightly increase brand awareness for my software.
I looked into sponsoring conferences, but this proved prohibitively expensive. I do eventually want to secure some speaking slots at smaller conferences.
Lessons:
Soliciting links from bloggers is a slow and frustrating process, and so far has not been worth my time.
Banner ads did not pay for themselves, but did allow me to get a press release published and possibly improved brand awareness for my software.
Facebook ads are a great way to get a big shot of traffic to your site quickly. The conversion rates are tiny, but because the sheer numbers are so large, I did get some conversions to trial and sales from this advertising channel. It’s also a great way to test your software against a specific market. My conversion rates were acceptable while running the youth ministry ads, for example, but near zero when running the boy scout market ads. For getting a quick shot of traffic, testing, and getting a few initial signups, Facebook ads are good, but they are not a long term strategy.
There are pronounced diminishing returns with Facebook. After a week or two, people get sick of seeing your ad, while your competitors start bidding up the ad prices. Even after a two month pause, the ads did not return to their initial level of effectiveness.
I have been consistently running pay per click ads on Google, Bing, and Yahoo for the youth ministry and boy scout markets. Here too, there have been no signups from the boy scout side, but there has been a slow but steady trickle of trial signups from the youth ministry side. I’m staying the course with both of these ads, the goal being not only to directly convert on sales, but also having people start to recognize my name.
Lessons:
Facebook ads are great for a short initial shot of traffic but have quickly diminishing returns.
I’m going with my gut that text ads on Google and Bing are a good long term investment.
There are other sources of free traffic that I could be getting, such as from Squidoo, eHow, Twitter, stumbleupon, and other sites. I haven’t had the time to do much with these. I don’t believe that they’re as high a priority as the other marketing work I could be doing instead.
One of my priorities will be to add content to my blog. I’ve been surprised at how much traffic I’ve received by people stumbling upon my blog posts from Google searches. I have several plans on how I can dramatically increase the volume of content on my site, bringing in more and more hits. Patrick McKenzie has had great success with this approach and it’s definitely on my list.
Lessons:
Having a lot of specialized content on your site or blog can bring in qualified traffic.
What about the software itself? I’m happy to say that it has stood up very well to public use. I had a wave of hackers trying to do all kinds of nasty things to my server the first week I went live, and I’m happy to say that the software successfully defended itself against all attacks. I’ve blocked the offending IPs and there has been no trouble since.
There was a rather nasty bug which affected the email system which a user discovered. It was fixed within two days.
Other than that, the software has remained very stable. My design skills leave much to be desired. Based off of my experience with the desktop application and the experience of this guy: http://tbbuck.com/, I know that improving the look and feel of the application could double (or more) conversion rates. I’m currently in the middle of converting the site to use a professionally designed theme. Hopefully that will be completed this week. I have three other goals for the application this summer, which I described in the last post.
Lessons:
No one likes ugly websites.
What’s the bottom line?
Since January, I’ve made $3,048 of income NOT from a job. Most of that was income from a previous website, and then revenue from selling that website. I sold the old website to finance the startup costs of Best Attendance, which I think has a rosier long term outlook than the other site did. About $600 was from my attendance software. It’s pretty cool when people pay you for their stuff; they’re saying to you that they value what you have to offer. It’s a feeling that, unfortunately, most people never know.
This was on expenses of $2,130. The advertising portion was $1,543. Most of the other expenses were for supplies, payment processing, web services, and hosting. My current cash flow rate is about -$100 per month, and I’ll have no problem staying solvent for at least the next year. I have fewer than ten paying customers and don’t get much traffic, on the order of 20 or so visits per day.
So, here’s the summary:
• I’m spending more that I’m earning.
• No one knows about the software.
• I’m not getting any traffic.
Pretty distressing at first glance. But consider cases like these:
Case 1
One of my original ideas back in 2006 was to develop stage management software. After researching the market and seeing that there were a few competitors, none of whom were making any money, I decided not to pursue it. Well, that’s one reason. Another reason is that at the same time I was doing this, a brand new business entered the scene and released a product that was pretty much exactly the same one that I had in mind.
I thought he wouldn’t go anywhere, and for a long time, he didn’t. His Facebook page looked depressingly lonely, and his testimonial list was tiny. It stayed this way for about three years. However, slowly but surely, he was getting customers, and he’s at the point now, five years later, where he has a very viable business. He was exactly where I am now. Success did not come overnight, but gradually.
Case 2
I’m reading Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope, and his political career started the same way. During his first campaign, he spent an entire year giving speeches to rooms of three or four people at a time. He cold called asking for donations to his campaign, and everyone said no. He was only able to raise about a tenth of the money that he would eventually need.
Case 3
Tim Pawlenty announced his candidacy for president to an indifferent crowd of a couple hundred people. It remains to be seen where his campaign will go.
I did manage to get a press release published on a popular website after buying a banner ad from them. Other than that, I received a small writeup on one person’s blog after sending over two hundred solicitation emails. Either I’m doing something drastically wrong, or there’s some inherent force against product reviews in the youth ministry blogosphere.
Since this is such a large market, and my app has the potential to become well-positioned in it, I’m not going to abandon it completely, but I think a strategy other than emailing random bloggers is called for. I’ve also done some commenting on other people’s blogs and forums, which has produced a small amount of traffic, but as Patrick McKenzie has also discovered, that strategy simply does not scale as a long term solution.
I mentioned purchasing a banner ad. It sent some traffic my way for the first week, but the other three weeks that I paid for were completely worthless. I ultimately got no sales from the ad. Advertising does have a purpose other than direct sales conversion, and perhaps it did slightly increase brand awareness for my software.
I looked into sponsoring conferences, but this proved prohibitively expensive. I do eventually want to secure some speaking slots at smaller conferences.
Lessons:
Soliciting links from bloggers is a slow and frustrating process, and so far has not been worth my time.
Banner ads did not pay for themselves, but did allow me to get a press release published and possibly improved brand awareness for my software.
Facebook ads are a great way to get a big shot of traffic to your site quickly. The conversion rates are tiny, but because the sheer numbers are so large, I did get some conversions to trial and sales from this advertising channel. It’s also a great way to test your software against a specific market. My conversion rates were acceptable while running the youth ministry ads, for example, but near zero when running the boy scout market ads. For getting a quick shot of traffic, testing, and getting a few initial signups, Facebook ads are good, but they are not a long term strategy.
There are pronounced diminishing returns with Facebook. After a week or two, people get sick of seeing your ad, while your competitors start bidding up the ad prices. Even after a two month pause, the ads did not return to their initial level of effectiveness.
I have been consistently running pay per click ads on Google, Bing, and Yahoo for the youth ministry and boy scout markets. Here too, there have been no signups from the boy scout side, but there has been a slow but steady trickle of trial signups from the youth ministry side. I’m staying the course with both of these ads, the goal being not only to directly convert on sales, but also having people start to recognize my name.
Lessons:
Facebook ads are great for a short initial shot of traffic but have quickly diminishing returns.
I’m going with my gut that text ads on Google and Bing are a good long term investment.
There are other sources of free traffic that I could be getting, such as from Squidoo, eHow, Twitter, stumbleupon, and other sites. I haven’t had the time to do much with these. I don’t believe that they’re as high a priority as the other marketing work I could be doing instead.
One of my priorities will be to add content to my blog. I’ve been surprised at how much traffic I’ve received by people stumbling upon my blog posts from Google searches. I have several plans on how I can dramatically increase the volume of content on my site, bringing in more and more hits. Patrick McKenzie has had great success with this approach and it’s definitely on my list.
Lessons:
Having a lot of specialized content on your site or blog can bring in qualified traffic.
What about the software itself? I’m happy to say that it has stood up very well to public use. I had a wave of hackers trying to do all kinds of nasty things to my server the first week I went live, and I’m happy to say that the software successfully defended itself against all attacks. I’ve blocked the offending IPs and there has been no trouble since.
There was a rather nasty bug which affected the email system which a user discovered. It was fixed within two days.
Other than that, the software has remained very stable. My design skills leave much to be desired. Based off of my experience with the desktop application and the experience of this guy: http://tbbuck.com/, I know that improving the look and feel of the application could double (or more) conversion rates. I’m currently in the middle of converting the site to use a professionally designed theme. Hopefully that will be completed this week. I have three other goals for the application this summer, which I described in the last post.
Lessons:
No one likes ugly websites.
What’s the bottom line?
Since January, I’ve made $3,048 of income NOT from a job. Most of that was income from a previous website, and then revenue from selling that website. I sold the old website to finance the startup costs of Best Attendance, which I think has a rosier long term outlook than the other site did. About $600 was from my attendance software. It’s pretty cool when people pay you for their stuff; they’re saying to you that they value what you have to offer. It’s a feeling that, unfortunately, most people never know.
This was on expenses of $2,130. The advertising portion was $1,543. Most of the other expenses were for supplies, payment processing, web services, and hosting. My current cash flow rate is about -$100 per month, and I’ll have no problem staying solvent for at least the next year. I have fewer than ten paying customers and don’t get much traffic, on the order of 20 or so visits per day.
So, here’s the summary:
• I’m spending more that I’m earning.
• No one knows about the software.
• I’m not getting any traffic.
Pretty distressing at first glance. But consider cases like these:
Case 1
One of my original ideas back in 2006 was to develop stage management software. After researching the market and seeing that there were a few competitors, none of whom were making any money, I decided not to pursue it. Well, that’s one reason. Another reason is that at the same time I was doing this, a brand new business entered the scene and released a product that was pretty much exactly the same one that I had in mind.
I thought he wouldn’t go anywhere, and for a long time, he didn’t. His Facebook page looked depressingly lonely, and his testimonial list was tiny. It stayed this way for about three years. However, slowly but surely, he was getting customers, and he’s at the point now, five years later, where he has a very viable business. He was exactly where I am now. Success did not come overnight, but gradually.
Case 2
I’m reading Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope, and his political career started the same way. During his first campaign, he spent an entire year giving speeches to rooms of three or four people at a time. He cold called asking for donations to his campaign, and everyone said no. He was only able to raise about a tenth of the money that he would eventually need.
Case 3
Tim Pawlenty announced his candidacy for president to an indifferent crowd of a couple hundred people. It remains to be seen where his campaign will go.
Case 4
LinkedIn started about the same way, floundered for a number of years, and just issued a fat IPO.
The point is everyone needs to start somewhere and success does not come overnight. Five years from now, I can either have an online business or not. Since five years is going to pass regardless, the prudent strategy is to stay the course. The business is for the long term, not to get rich quick.
One thing that’s been a struggle is that there are so many things that I know I should be doing, but simply don’t have time to. Here, too, a long term strategy helps. You can only do what you can, when you can. I believe that success comes a little bit at a time. Not by being great, but by being consistent.
The point is everyone needs to start somewhere and success does not come overnight. Five years from now, I can either have an online business or not. Since five years is going to pass regardless, the prudent strategy is to stay the course. The business is for the long term, not to get rich quick.
One thing that’s been a struggle is that there are so many things that I know I should be doing, but simply don’t have time to. Here, too, a long term strategy helps. You can only do what you can, when you can. I believe that success comes a little bit at a time. Not by being great, but by being consistent.
May 31, 2011
Summer Sprint Begins
My college classes ended two weeks ago, and after cleaning up some loose ends and taking a self-imposed one week break from all forms of work, today it’s time to begin my “summer sprint”!
I’ll have about two months and $1700 this summer to invest in the business, and I’ve been coming up with all kinds of different ways of using it. First the money. My first inclination was to pay off some personal debt and reduce my monthly debt payments quite significantly. I still haven’t totally ruled that out, but I’ve all but decided that the money should go into my marketing budget instead, as this could quite likely yield a higher rate of return than paying off the debt would. One of my first tasks is to come up with a marketing plan. I have the basic ideas established already, but I need to come up with some specifics for the budget that I have. That’s actually the first milestone I have scheduled.
Now for the time. After fleshing out my marketing plan, there are four specific things that I’d like to get done before July 1st: reskin the application using a professionally designed theme, add support for barcode scanners, add mass texting capabilities by integrating my app with Twilio, and finishing some miscellaneous bug fixes. Based on prior experience, I believe that these changes will double my conversion rate.
So I really have two main foci: develop and implement an advertising plan, and complete those four enhancements to my application.
Beyond that, I have a number of things I’d like to do this summer, but I’m not sure that I’ll have time to do them all. I have two ideas for technology projects that could vastly improve local food distribution. I’d like to start on these so that I can roll them out next spring. One of those ideas could possibly be viable already this year, but I’ve made the decision to focus my time on the attendance software instead.
I’d also like to dramatically improve the SEO for my business. This includes continuing to link build in the youth ministry market, although this has proven to be a slow and frustrating chore. It also includes testing some other markets.
I did a $200 test Facebook ad campaign for the boy scout software market, and am still running Google and Bing ads for that market, but have not received any sales so far. I’ll continue the Google and Bing ads, but I don’t think this market will be profitable enough for me to invest my time in too much.
I’d like to test out some other markets, too: first, yoga and martial arts studios. There is heavy competition here, but it is a big market and I had some success with it when selling my desktop application.
I need to spend about a half a day sometime to optimize my AdWords campaigns. I have some ideas which, based on some evidence, I think could double the CTR while keeping the cost the same.
So those are my main goals for the summer. June will be very work intensive. I’ll be teaching a three work course in July and will be moving at the beginning of August. I’m also building a model airplane which I hope to have finished and flying by July. So it will be busy but fun!
I’ll have about two months and $1700 this summer to invest in the business, and I’ve been coming up with all kinds of different ways of using it. First the money. My first inclination was to pay off some personal debt and reduce my monthly debt payments quite significantly. I still haven’t totally ruled that out, but I’ve all but decided that the money should go into my marketing budget instead, as this could quite likely yield a higher rate of return than paying off the debt would. One of my first tasks is to come up with a marketing plan. I have the basic ideas established already, but I need to come up with some specifics for the budget that I have. That’s actually the first milestone I have scheduled.
Now for the time. After fleshing out my marketing plan, there are four specific things that I’d like to get done before July 1st: reskin the application using a professionally designed theme, add support for barcode scanners, add mass texting capabilities by integrating my app with Twilio, and finishing some miscellaneous bug fixes. Based on prior experience, I believe that these changes will double my conversion rate.
So I really have two main foci: develop and implement an advertising plan, and complete those four enhancements to my application.
Beyond that, I have a number of things I’d like to do this summer, but I’m not sure that I’ll have time to do them all. I have two ideas for technology projects that could vastly improve local food distribution. I’d like to start on these so that I can roll them out next spring. One of those ideas could possibly be viable already this year, but I’ve made the decision to focus my time on the attendance software instead.
I’d also like to dramatically improve the SEO for my business. This includes continuing to link build in the youth ministry market, although this has proven to be a slow and frustrating chore. It also includes testing some other markets.
I did a $200 test Facebook ad campaign for the boy scout software market, and am still running Google and Bing ads for that market, but have not received any sales so far. I’ll continue the Google and Bing ads, but I don’t think this market will be profitable enough for me to invest my time in too much.
I’d like to test out some other markets, too: first, yoga and martial arts studios. There is heavy competition here, but it is a big market and I had some success with it when selling my desktop application.
I need to spend about a half a day sometime to optimize my AdWords campaigns. I have some ideas which, based on some evidence, I think could double the CTR while keeping the cost the same.
So those are my main goals for the summer. June will be very work intensive. I’ll be teaching a three work course in July and will be moving at the beginning of August. I’m also building a model airplane which I hope to have finished and flying by July. So it will be busy but fun!
Apr 30, 2011
Don't Forget
Here are some resources I've been meaning to look at. When I have time, I'll take a look at them:
Meetups in the Twin Cities:
http://www.meetup.com/twin-cities-lean-startup-circle#calendar
http://www.meetup.com/Bootstrappers-Breakfast-Minneapolis
Good SEO resources:
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
http://randfishkin.com/blog/50/what-i-learned-about-sales-but-foolishly-forgot-when-raising-vc
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/10/about-author.html
http://theleanstartup.com/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-story-of-seomoz
Also don't forget:
St. Paul CoCo coworking space
Wordpress All-In-One SEO Plugin
Meetups in the Twin Cities:
http://www.meetup.com/twin-cities-lean-startup-circle#calendar
http://www.meetup.com/Bootstrappers-Breakfast-Minneapolis
Good SEO resources:
http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
http://randfishkin.com/blog/50/what-i-learned-about-sales-but-foolishly-forgot-when-raising-vc
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/10/about-author.html
http://theleanstartup.com/
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-story-of-seomoz
Also don't forget:
St. Paul CoCo coworking space
Wordpress All-In-One SEO Plugin
Apr 21, 2011
Learn HTML5
Well I think it's inevitable that I'll have to learn HTML5 and CSS3 and break my old XHTML1.0 Transitional ways. I found an EXCELLENT resource online that explains everything you'd ever want to know about HTML5:
http://www.diveintohtml5.org/table-of-contents.html
http://www.diveintohtml5.org/table-of-contents.html
Apr 16, 2011
SEO
I got a lot done in just a few hours today. First, I made some security enhancements to my database to make potential attacks against it much more difficult.
The bulk of my work centered on SEO. Rather than link building, I'm on a new project to add lots and lots of pages to my site which are optimized for very specific search terms. Patrick McKenzie has had great success with this method with his Bingo Card Creator software.
I was just able to create one such page today because much of my time was spent designing the layout. I now have a really good template to go off of, so I'd like to add more pages at the rate of about three per week.
I also started a new Adwords campaign. This campaign was specifically for keywords with very little competition that are very relevant to my site. Depending on how this goes, I have many more lists of similar keywords that I'll be trying.
The last thing to note is that I'm at the point where I really need to be tracking my conversions more closely. I'm getting traffic from Adwords, Microsoft Advertising, organic searches, and Facebook. I need a much better way to track where the sales are coming from. My next step will be to set up conversion trracking for each of these systems.
The bulk of my work centered on SEO. Rather than link building, I'm on a new project to add lots and lots of pages to my site which are optimized for very specific search terms. Patrick McKenzie has had great success with this method with his Bingo Card Creator software.
I was just able to create one such page today because much of my time was spent designing the layout. I now have a really good template to go off of, so I'd like to add more pages at the rate of about three per week.
I also started a new Adwords campaign. This campaign was specifically for keywords with very little competition that are very relevant to my site. Depending on how this goes, I have many more lists of similar keywords that I'll be trying.
The last thing to note is that I'm at the point where I really need to be tracking my conversions more closely. I'm getting traffic from Adwords, Microsoft Advertising, organic searches, and Facebook. I need a much better way to track where the sales are coming from. My next step will be to set up conversion trracking for each of these systems.
Apr 14, 2011
Focus
Last summer, this blog really helped me focus on my business. As a single founder, I don't have a boss to report to, but I still needed some accountability. Knowing that I had to update this blog every two days (a self-imposed rule) really motivated to actually get stuff done.
I launched my web app in January and am already turning a profit, not counting advertising expenses. The key to success will be perseverance over the long term. I think that three years from now, with slow and steady growth, the business will be in a really good place. Since three years will pass whether or not I decide to work on the business, it only makes sense to do it.
The school year has been very busy, allowing me to only make slow and incremental changes to the business. As long as this is done consistently, I don't see that as a problem. My FogBugz list is chock full of stuff that I want to get done this summer. I'd like to do a bit of consulting work this summer as well.
During the school year, I'll be lucky to post here every two weeks or so. This summer, though, I'm planning on regular posts again.
I launched my web app in January and am already turning a profit, not counting advertising expenses. The key to success will be perseverance over the long term. I think that three years from now, with slow and steady growth, the business will be in a really good place. Since three years will pass whether or not I decide to work on the business, it only makes sense to do it.
The school year has been very busy, allowing me to only make slow and incremental changes to the business. As long as this is done consistently, I don't see that as a problem. My FogBugz list is chock full of stuff that I want to get done this summer. I'd like to do a bit of consulting work this summer as well.
During the school year, I'll be lucky to post here every two weeks or so. This summer, though, I'm planning on regular posts again.
Dec 29, 2010
Business Ventures
I currently have two operating businesses:
bestattendance.com
This site just launched. My goal is to have 25 customers by June. This means getting five new customers per month. If my COCA is $60 or less, I'll be doing very well. Getting to this point will mean taking a loss at first, but there will be a payoff if I can get some loyal subscribers.
highschoolwebdesign.com
I'm currently selling downloadable lesson plans from this site and am seriously considering adding AdSense. AdSense could probably add $50 per month to my bottom line; this would help offset the costs of running bestattendance.com.
I have a few others in the pipeline:
The first one I can vaguely describe as a marketplace for food.
I'd like to start a juicing blog. This will motivate me to actually make juice every day with my new juicer. This might be monetizable or perhaps sellable.
Consulting might be something else I can try.
I'd like to greatly expand bestattendance.com beyond youth ministry into other market segments.
It will be a challenge finding time for all of this stuff; having the summer off will be very beneficial.
bestattendance.com
This site just launched. My goal is to have 25 customers by June. This means getting five new customers per month. If my COCA is $60 or less, I'll be doing very well. Getting to this point will mean taking a loss at first, but there will be a payoff if I can get some loyal subscribers.
highschoolwebdesign.com
I'm currently selling downloadable lesson plans from this site and am seriously considering adding AdSense. AdSense could probably add $50 per month to my bottom line; this would help offset the costs of running bestattendance.com.
I have a few others in the pipeline:
The first one I can vaguely describe as a marketplace for food.
I'd like to start a juicing blog. This will motivate me to actually make juice every day with my new juicer. This might be monetizable or perhaps sellable.
Consulting might be something else I can try.
I'd like to greatly expand bestattendance.com beyond youth ministry into other market segments.
It will be a challenge finding time for all of this stuff; having the summer off will be very beneficial.
Dec 22, 2010
Launching January 1
Well, I definitely made some progress today. I fixed two bugs, one of which was due to an incredibly stupid mistake with PDO, and it was difficult to track down because it was intermittent. Got it though. I do think that the app could benefit from some more testing. I’m considering spending the extra $40 or so it would cost for 8 hours of functional testing. I think it would be worth it.
I do have the dashboard done, and everything in the app is generally production ready.
Today I spent some time researching tax issues for my business. I have the estimated and self employment tax all figured out. I got a state tax ID number so that I can collect sales taxes to subscriptions delivered to Minnesota customers. I probably won’t get any; my sales tax liability is extremely low, but I have the tax ID number now just in case I do get accounts from Minnesota.
Yesterday I was approved for a merchant account. My authorize.net account is all set up, and I just have to hook it up to my Chargify service. I have a checklist of things I need to complete before I launch, but it’s getting shorter. I’ve decided to finish the checklist before I start work on any new features. I won’t start advertising or collecting orders until after the new year. Partially this is to make the tax reporting and accounting easier; partially, it’s because sales in December for software are usually quite terrible.
I do have the dashboard done, and everything in the app is generally production ready.
Today I spent some time researching tax issues for my business. I have the estimated and self employment tax all figured out. I got a state tax ID number so that I can collect sales taxes to subscriptions delivered to Minnesota customers. I probably won’t get any; my sales tax liability is extremely low, but I have the tax ID number now just in case I do get accounts from Minnesota.
Yesterday I was approved for a merchant account. My authorize.net account is all set up, and I just have to hook it up to my Chargify service. I have a checklist of things I need to complete before I launch, but it’s getting shorter. I’ve decided to finish the checklist before I start work on any new features. I won’t start advertising or collecting orders until after the new year. Partially this is to make the tax reporting and accounting easier; partially, it’s because sales in December for software are usually quite terrible.
Dec 5, 2010
Programming Is My Hockey
I love watching hockey games because it’s a chance to watch experts be awesome at something they love doing. The players don’t even have to think about skating; their legs just move naturally. Forward, backward, sideways, turnarounds, instant stops – their feet just naturally carry them. They are so comfortable. When they run out on the ice, it’s like, “I’ve done this a million times before, let’s go do it again, this is nothing.” As they skate around, they make these minor adjustments to their gear, and they stretch out, and they skate around, until everything is comfortable and just right.
And they love what they’re doing. They’re having fun and they’re completely focused on the game. This is a skill that took them a lifetime to master. They’re good at it and they know it. It’s their thing.
So yeah that’s sort of what programming is like for me.
And they love what they’re doing. They’re having fun and they’re completely focused on the game. This is a skill that took them a lifetime to master. They’re good at it and they know it. It’s their thing.
So yeah that’s sort of what programming is like for me.
Dec 2, 2010
Feature Complete
I have all of the features coded that I planned for my Phase 1 release, otherwise known as my MVP (Minimum Viable Product). The feature list is about fifty lines long, but here are the highlights:
- Members can sign themselves in at the computer
- Both events and members can be tied to multiple groups
- Five different attendance report views allow users to filter by date, group, and event type
- Private and public event calendar
- Email particular members, particular groups, or all members attending a particular event.
- Print sign-in forms, membership rosters, and reports from your browser.
- Cool, slick design and highly secure
There's a ton of stuff I'd still love to add:
- Recurring events
- Track families
- Track fines and fees
- Add one more layer of grouping for members (this is needed for stage managers)
- Online event registration
- Prearranged absences
- Bulk text messaging
- Event integration with Facebook and Google Calendar
- File sharing
- Documents tied to events (ex: agendas, minutes, performance report, rehearsal report)
- Print membership directories (with addresses) and mailing labels
- Plus a host of usability enhancements
But really, the bulk of the value people will get from this program is there. I started my first usability tests a month ago and am ready to start the second round while I fix some known bugs.
Next week I'll be opening a bank account and setting up my online payment gateway.
So in other words I'm getting very close to launching!
I think I'll postpone launching until after the holidays - my marketing campaign will be more effective then - and it will give me some time to maybe bang out a few more features on the list above.
- Members can sign themselves in at the computer
- Both events and members can be tied to multiple groups
- Five different attendance report views allow users to filter by date, group, and event type
- Private and public event calendar
- Email particular members, particular groups, or all members attending a particular event.
- Print sign-in forms, membership rosters, and reports from your browser.
- Cool, slick design and highly secure
There's a ton of stuff I'd still love to add:
- Recurring events
- Track families
- Track fines and fees
- Add one more layer of grouping for members (this is needed for stage managers)
- Online event registration
- Prearranged absences
- Bulk text messaging
- Event integration with Facebook and Google Calendar
- File sharing
- Documents tied to events (ex: agendas, minutes, performance report, rehearsal report)
- Print membership directories (with addresses) and mailing labels
- Plus a host of usability enhancements
But really, the bulk of the value people will get from this program is there. I started my first usability tests a month ago and am ready to start the second round while I fix some known bugs.
Next week I'll be opening a bank account and setting up my online payment gateway.
So in other words I'm getting very close to launching!
I think I'll postpone launching until after the holidays - my marketing campaign will be more effective then - and it will give me some time to maybe bang out a few more features on the list above.
Nov 18, 2010
Email email go away
My web host smartly disables php's fsockopen function, but this makes the Swiftmailer library I just downloaded not work. I might have to connect to my email provider with curl instead. Such joy, trying to navigate through other people's design decisions.
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