I run a website for my home town. Its basically an events calendar plus some basic community information. I'm trying to raise awareness of events and opportunities there. The the least I can do for the town I grew up in, a town that has interesting things to offer, but a town that faces a steady, continued population decline.
Quick aside: population decline is a very tough nut to crack, but I think I'm onto something here. In my (as yet) unqualified opinion you can stop the bleeding by carefully controlling perception. Its non-trivial, but possible, even for a small group. Point being, I should write more about solving this. I think I will.
A few problems arise when you want to raise visibility of things already in motion.
1) "You Shall Not Pass!", Gatekeepers are suspect to your activities.
That's a nice way of saying that there are people out there with vulnerable fifedoms that they'd hate for you to wreck. Suggest a technology solution that has even the chance of undermining their tiny kingdom, and they'll balk and label you a trouble-maker.
Solution: become the secretary of the gatekeeper. That is, let them stay hard in the loop.
In my case, the gate-keeper tried to come up with lots of reasons why technology wasn't the answer, though clearly, it would improve things quite a bit.
2) "Not Invented Here", No one wants another solution to a problem that they feel like they have already solved.
Basically, if pen and paper are working, then why mess with it? Lets ignore that vital information is locked in there and cannot be easily distributed without leveraging technology.
Solution: Involve the process they are already using.
Are they using email to communicate/coordinate things? Maybe if you involve that medium, you can take advantage of that.
3) I don't want to be YOUR secretary.
Even if you have a whiz-bang app that gives joy to millions, very few people within existing groups are going to want to commit to funneling the bits of joy into your system on a regular basis. They want you to have to work and earn the flow of information you've started, and they aren't going to be the one that milks your cash cow for you.
Solution: Automation.
If I'm honest with you right now, I will admit that I don't have the time to spend supporting even this little website for my hometown, but I need those gatekeepers and knowledge-holders to believe that I believe this is important enough to devote a considerable amount of time to.
So, I've automated my interaction with these folks. They (hopefully) believe I am in the loop, constantly nagging them for information, spending my sweet free time to extract very small amounts of value from them.(small value, that is, in the grand scheme of things). In reality, they reply to my automated emails and I automatically ship the grunt work off to very helpful people elsewhere in the world (in the US, even) who are putting in the information I need in exchange for a few nickles. It works for them, it works for me.
Are those folks clever? Yes, they are, but we often take at face-value the reality we are given unless we have reason to believe that there is something wrong. That's why I have to keep the automation very fresh, even at scale.
Lots of developers automate data collection by scraping content from websites. Some of the best data, however, is still under lock and key. You must be willing to do some social engineering up front to unlock the data, and after that, you can automate.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Ship Everything, Charge for It
So you started making a product. Your initial vision seemed good, you slept on it, you mulled it over here and there for weeks before diving in. You did some rudimentary competitive analysis, and then you got to work.
So, you're still building. You performed a sanity check and your market still seems to be able to support the kind of business you want to build. You don't know how you're going to promote this or find paying customers, but you think you'll find a way.... eventually. You just keep building.
But, then you get to a point that makes you reconsider it all. Maybe first-contact with customers went badly during the pre-alpha phase. Maybe you ran into a technical sticky-bit that you can't seem to get past. Maybe all progress has well-and-truly stopped. Or maybe you're discouraged because you haven't found a go-to-market strategy that will work for you.
No one will blame you for quitting here. This is the valley of the shadow of death. Many good intentions have passed this way and fallen victim to human nature's siren call to give it up. Only the most determined people will push through this valley. But, push you must if you hope to ship.
It turns out that there are many such valleys that lie beyond even this point. Shipping is only the first milestone of any significance that you will meet. There is a second, greater valley that lies beyond. Its called the valley of the shadow of "Well, I shipped, now what the heck do I do now?" Beyond that, are the valleys of the shadows of
* "So few people want to pay me, so few"
* "There are so many fun things I could be doing now"
* "I am making enough to be frustrated, but not enough to do anything about it yet"
* "My overhead is eating me alive, I should refactor this platform to save money"
* "No one wants to invest"
* "No one wants to invest without taking a serious chunk of this play"
* "Hey, look at that other startup idea over there. Great idea, lets do that instead!"
There are more still, I'm sure. I'll tell you when I've crossed them.
But you, you can't slow down and rest in these valleys. You have to ship, and you must put a price on it.
If you put a price on it, then people can pay you. If they pay you then you can re-invest in your product and make it great. If you can make it great, you'll find more people willing to pay you. Move up market, rinse repeat.
If you started out on an idea, what does it hurt to ship it and put a price on it? Only one thing can prove it is a viable idea, and that's with paying customers.
Beware, however, of entangling yourself in too many idea/starts. That is a bad move. Choose your top idea, and go make it happen. Then, move on to the next. Observe your outcomes closely. Automate what you can. Before long you can pick your winners from the lot and double-down.
Imagine, create, dabble, build, ship, charge.
So, you're still building. You performed a sanity check and your market still seems to be able to support the kind of business you want to build. You don't know how you're going to promote this or find paying customers, but you think you'll find a way.... eventually. You just keep building.
But, then you get to a point that makes you reconsider it all. Maybe first-contact with customers went badly during the pre-alpha phase. Maybe you ran into a technical sticky-bit that you can't seem to get past. Maybe all progress has well-and-truly stopped. Or maybe you're discouraged because you haven't found a go-to-market strategy that will work for you.
No one will blame you for quitting here. This is the valley of the shadow of death. Many good intentions have passed this way and fallen victim to human nature's siren call to give it up. Only the most determined people will push through this valley. But, push you must if you hope to ship.
It turns out that there are many such valleys that lie beyond even this point. Shipping is only the first milestone of any significance that you will meet. There is a second, greater valley that lies beyond. Its called the valley of the shadow of "Well, I shipped, now what the heck do I do now?" Beyond that, are the valleys of the shadows of
* "So few people want to pay me, so few"
* "There are so many fun things I could be doing now"
* "I am making enough to be frustrated, but not enough to do anything about it yet"
* "My overhead is eating me alive, I should refactor this platform to save money"
* "No one wants to invest"
* "No one wants to invest without taking a serious chunk of this play"
* "Hey, look at that other startup idea over there. Great idea, lets do that instead!"
There are more still, I'm sure. I'll tell you when I've crossed them.
But you, you can't slow down and rest in these valleys. You have to ship, and you must put a price on it.
If you put a price on it, then people can pay you. If they pay you then you can re-invest in your product and make it great. If you can make it great, you'll find more people willing to pay you. Move up market, rinse repeat.
If you started out on an idea, what does it hurt to ship it and put a price on it? Only one thing can prove it is a viable idea, and that's with paying customers.
Beware, however, of entangling yourself in too many idea/starts. That is a bad move. Choose your top idea, and go make it happen. Then, move on to the next. Observe your outcomes closely. Automate what you can. Before long you can pick your winners from the lot and double-down.
Imagine, create, dabble, build, ship, charge.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)