This weekend has been a tough one. From finding out about a newly filed patent from Apple that directly conflicts with what I’m doing, to a demo/survey that I made which suggests users don’t find my product appealing enough, and then finding out there is a competitor that is doing 2/3′rds of what I have planned.
Now, I’m not too worried about the patent because there is a ton of prior art in various formats making the patent a huge waste of companies time/money in the end. I’m not worried about competition since that can be a good thing and they aren’t focusing on the consumer like I had in mind. The biggest concern I have is the “quality” of the product. Safe to say, I’ve saved myself and others a lot of time and money by backing out now. No sense in having a grand opening if everyone comes inside and doesn’t buy anything.
I was about 25% complete with the business plan, it was coming along well. One fact does remain, Internet news junkies (like myself) are left with a disservice when it comes to offline news, or better put, the ability to get their online news while offline during a commute or exercise.
You may be saying “what are you doing telling everyone what your doing, just wait, the technology will get better”. Well, I’ve talked with the vendor that makes this product in particular (mostly a B to B product) and there is no road-map currently or planned to improve their product in the way that it needs to. And while I’m a web application developer it’s a far cry from being a computer scientist that can actually create a better product from scratch.
For starters You Be The VC is a site where anyone can submit their business idea which eventually is widdled down to 20 remaining participants where “you judge the entries and help us decide who gets their idea catapulted from concept to functioning company. Winners will receive guidance from some of the top entrepreneurial minds in the country.” So, if you want the full skinny on You Be The VC head their way, if you want some idea about the who,what,why of my idea then keep reading.
I thank Mark Modzelewski at Bang Ventures for actually reading what I submitted, and, that his company sees what it can become. A HUGE THANK YOU!
What Is My Idea And Whats Next?
While my career over the last 10 years has shifted from client side technologies (the web browser) and into server side technologies I still have a passion for good user experience design, without it your web site will die. This passion seems to be shared by one of the judges, specifically Marissa Myer (Google VP of Search Products and User Experience). Her impact at Google has been huge. So much of what you take for granted in Google’s products came from the teams she ran.
Below I outline specific quotes during an interview last November on CNBC with Marissa and Mark Modzelewski (Managing Director and Co-Founder of Bang Ventures).
When Marissa was asked to comment on the scope of what kind of applications were going to be submitted she said the following…
“I think we are going to see a lot of different companies in a lot of different spaces…natural language, mash up and social applications.”
After hearing her say that last November I just new it was time to dig up an old project of mine that encompasses exactly those three things together and give it a shot.
When she was asked “What’s in the DNA to make a successful startup” she responded with the following statements
“focusing on the users…working on something that really matters to people… where they use it every single day…”.
“building a technology that can be deployed in a bunch of different ways…”
“strength of the founding team and early players…”
Use it every single day indeed. The old adage of “there must be a better way to do this” is the why behind what I submitted. I was and still am experiencing a problem that needs a better solution and no, this isn’t one of those “my idea for web site x is better than web site y because of abc” but rather the way I go about doing this thing in particular and the need for a better method of actually doing it.
The reason why I didn’t build this myself out of my garage (other than the fact its not insulated) is related to her comments on having the right team. I could’ve made an attempt, and you never know it may have panned out. But I wanted to do it right vs. working in a vacuum. And the only way to do it right is to get the funding for a complete team, the right talent, smart talent.
What you can do to help
For starters subscribe to my blog via rss or email so that you know the instant the Judges accept my project as one of the final 20 ;-). Once that happens voting begins and your vote will make this much needed technology come to fruition.
One last note, my other posts on this blog relate to other smaller projects of mine started prior to being notified about being one of the top 100 finalist and have nothing to do with my You Be The VC application.
