2 huge projects 7 months along the way.. the things I've learned
Posted 1st November 2013 at 08:04 PM by SteveSRS
I started in the IM business in the last quarter of 2012. As most people I spend a bunch of money on WSO's and information products even though I already had a lot of experience in my own (technical) niche were my internet career was born.
It took me a few months to decide how I wanted to continue my business and what my area of operation was going to be. I finally decided I didn't like those small products and restricting myself to the IM niche so out of my list of many ideas I picked 2 huge -in my eyes evergreen- projects (SEOproject.com & Trustomer (name will likely change) ) and I started building them. I've hired 2 programmers whom work a fixed set of hours every month (1 full time one part time) and a whole bunch of freelancers and of course my own time and we got started.
Now about 7 a 8 months down the road I wanted to share some things I've learned.
The first thing I mostly noticed with the project that is furthest down the road 'trustomer' is the importance of Mock-ups (they were missing in the beginning). Mock-ups give such clear direction on where to go to all members of the project including yourself that I can't stress enough how important it is to create these.
After a lot of searching I found a software called 'Balsamiq Mock-ups' which is the answer to my Mock-up needs. I've been creating a ton of mock-up with this software and I love it (no affiliation).
Don't discard creating mock-ups as a waste of time!
Then secondly as I've mentioned in a previous blog post here on WF as well the documentation of a project. Luckily I did a good job with both projects so I'm very happy with that. If I haven't worked for 1 or 2 weeks on one particular project I just take the project doc and read it and within 10 minutes I'm completely into the project again visualizing the end product and able to lead and steer the project in the right way.
Although for me being a programmer it is easier for me to screen another programmer on his / her abilities it still took me a long time to find the right people. Websites like freelancer, elance etc are fine for simpler jobs but not so much for high quality programmers. I solved this problem by looking at myself, which sites do I often visit while programming. Then I created an ad on a few of those sites and in no time I had a whole bunch of awesome contacts.
I now have one amazing women working for me (I believe having a female programmer is almost a must in every programming team because they bring such a different perspective which makes the project that much richer) and a brilliant guy.
I can't wait to keep moving forward and when the new projects are ready provide you all with pre-launch discounts and create very profitable long-term JV relationships!
It took me a few months to decide how I wanted to continue my business and what my area of operation was going to be. I finally decided I didn't like those small products and restricting myself to the IM niche so out of my list of many ideas I picked 2 huge -in my eyes evergreen- projects (SEOproject.com & Trustomer (name will likely change) ) and I started building them. I've hired 2 programmers whom work a fixed set of hours every month (1 full time one part time) and a whole bunch of freelancers and of course my own time and we got started.
Now about 7 a 8 months down the road I wanted to share some things I've learned.
The first thing I mostly noticed with the project that is furthest down the road 'trustomer' is the importance of Mock-ups (they were missing in the beginning). Mock-ups give such clear direction on where to go to all members of the project including yourself that I can't stress enough how important it is to create these.
After a lot of searching I found a software called 'Balsamiq Mock-ups' which is the answer to my Mock-up needs. I've been creating a ton of mock-up with this software and I love it (no affiliation).
Don't discard creating mock-ups as a waste of time!
Then secondly as I've mentioned in a previous blog post here on WF as well the documentation of a project. Luckily I did a good job with both projects so I'm very happy with that. If I haven't worked for 1 or 2 weeks on one particular project I just take the project doc and read it and within 10 minutes I'm completely into the project again visualizing the end product and able to lead and steer the project in the right way.
Last but not least. Don't try to do everything alone!
Although for me being a programmer it is easier for me to screen another programmer on his / her abilities it still took me a long time to find the right people. Websites like freelancer, elance etc are fine for simpler jobs but not so much for high quality programmers. I solved this problem by looking at myself, which sites do I often visit while programming. Then I created an ad on a few of those sites and in no time I had a whole bunch of awesome contacts.
I now have one amazing women working for me (I believe having a female programmer is almost a must in every programming team because they bring such a different perspective which makes the project that much richer) and a brilliant guy.
I can't wait to keep moving forward and when the new projects are ready provide you all with pre-launch discounts and create very profitable long-term JV relationships!
Total Comments 0
