Iarfhlaith Kelly - Code agus Craic

Since starting my blog in March, the amount of time I have spent online has exploded. I’ve become addicted to news and am a fully signed up member of the blogosphere. I twitter, I blog, I comment, I am LinkedIn to business colleagues and I Facebook my friends. I’m constantly reading new sources of information relating to all aspects of the web game. To put it mildly, I’m hooked.

Sound familiar?

If you’re nodding your head, I know how you feel.

Taking an active role in the online community is now an absolute necessity for anyone involved in any kind of web based business. It’s also very enjoyable.

Despite it’s importance however, it’s not without its draw backs:

1. It is very time consuming
2. It influences my judgement and opinion
3. It does not help me reach my goals
4. I use it as an excuse to postpone the really important things (I’ll just read one more blog post)

To be honest though, these are only mildly frustrating issues and nothing that some self discipline and a good dollop of time management couldn’t handle. However, there’s one more problem that all this information consumption causes and I believe that for entrepreneurs it’s the most serious. It stifles original thought.

True Innovation is Revolutionary

It took me a couple of months to confirm my suspicions but after reading the 4 Hour Work Week (kindly sent to me by Gordon Murray) I firmly believe that knowing too much information in your area of business will have a fiercely negative affect on your ability to think outside the box whilst trying to be innovative.

I started blogging with the belief that if I connected with the online community and engaged in interesting conversation while also keeping up to date on the latest news from the web industry that I would be perfectly positioned to invent the next best thing.

After 5 months of exactly this sort of activity I am happy to say I no longer believe this to be true.

Knowing the state of the art will not help you define it in the future.

This is not a new idea, it’s been discussed before:

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking”

- Albert Einstein

I can’t help wonder how the great man would have fared had he been glued to his feed reader for two or three hours a night.

Thinking Outside The Box

I have come to the conclusion that the only way to think outside the box is to forget what’s inside it.

If I am constantly updating my knowledge on the state of the art then I am playing a game of perpetual catchup. One that I will never win. What I really need to do is blur the lines, think outside the box and take my own approach.

Do you think that Steve Jobs spends his morning on Twitter micro blogging to his followers? Or that Richard Branson loads up his feed reader for an hour before bed every night? I doubt it. True innovation comes from independent thought and great execution.

Question The Status Quo

I constantly read news on new web startups, social media tools, data aggregators, web services, data portability, and other similar topics, but have found despite how interesting and compelling I may find all this information, that it has a large influence on my efforts at original thought.

Does my new killer app really have to integrate with the Twitter API? Probably not. Must it use open data standards? That’s probably overkill. Do I really need to leverage it’s viral potential? If it’s a genuinely great tool it won’t need to. And does it really need to integrate with my desktop calender? Maybe in version two.

Much of the ideas that I produce during a brain storming session are evolutionary not revolutionary. They build on existing technologies and use adopted standards within the web development community. Shame on me for not being more original.

So, what am I going to do about this problem? Simple. I’m going on a low information diet. I’m going to cut out as much noise as possible to help me focus on my real goals.

The Low Information Diet

In an effort to fight this constant stream of influential news and commentary I’m going to cull large portions of my subscribed feeds. I’m going to shut out as much of it as I can and cut myself off from the constant flow of information that sways my decisions both consciously and subconsciously.

By dramatically reducing the amount of news I consume on a daily basis I hope to become more productive, more efficient, more innovative and more original. As for the news that will undoubtedly pass me by, I’ll just have to live with it.

If it’s really that important, I’m sure I’ll hear about it one way or the other.

New ideas are great. For me, they’re like the adrenalin you feel going through the first big loop on a roller coaster. Ever been on Air at Alton Towers? It’s just like that. The buzz you get from that initial bright spark and the subsequent rush of unlimited possibilities is something that every entrepreneur thrives on. It’s what keeps us going. The only problem is staying focused.

I’ve been tempted in the past to drop one project half way through only to pick up another one that I thought to be more exciting. And, if I’m honest with myself, I’ve been guilty of that more than a few times.

The number of unfinished projects that are gathering dust in some remote folder on my computer is reaching an embarrassing level. I bet some of you are in exactly the same boat. You know what I’m talking about. How did the project that began as a world changing idea somehow fall out of favour and eventually become forgotten about and abandoned?

Well, I’ve been putting some thought into this very problem and I’ve come up with a few ideas that identify the causes of ‘project abandonment’ in the hopes that it’ll help to curb this tendency in the future:

Confidence of Success - Having doubt on the possible success of the current project often makes new ideas look more appealing, simply because they’re new and unexplored.

Negative Feedback - Receiving negative feedback is never easy, even if you’ve asked for it. Having people tell you your idea isn’t as good as you thought it was can be a hard pill to take.

New Competitors - Throughout the development of a project it can be very disheartening to see new entrants to the market with a similar project launch themselves directly at your target market.

Lack of Strategic Focus - Having a plan with realistic, achievable milestones takes a lot of work. Keeping to them takes even more effort and a new project lets you avoid that (at least for a while).

Code Soup - As a project gets more and more complicated, so does it’s source code. No system has a perfect architecture and despite best efforts, I sometimes take short cuts which I pay for later!

A New Big Idea - Having a new idea can put pressure on your ability to focus on what’s in font of you. We can only do so much at the same time and we need to acknowledge that.

This last point is different from the rest in that it is in no way related to the state of the current project. What you’re working on right now might be going perfectly and success with it could be just around the corner, but simply because this next idea for a project is ‘new’, it can appeal on this one point alone.

A Vow To Stay Focused on Existing Projects

Clearly, I’m struggling with this so I’m going to make a little pact with myself. I’m going to vow to complete all of the projects I’m working on large and small before taking on any more. Everything else will just have to be put on hold for another day, because despite how tempting they may look, it’s better to have two finished projects then four unfinished ones.

To mark Webstrong’s new tenancy in the Hothouse, I’ve created a teaser web page for Footprint, my newest software project.

For the moment, the site doesn’t say too much. It simply collects names and email addresses of people who want to find out more. But over the next few months I’ll be releasing more information on the whole thing.

I don’t want to give the game away too soon, so apologies for the lack of information. But if you’re keen to know what it’s all about, or even slightly intrigued then why not add your name to the list and I’ll tell you more about it shortly.

I’ll also be looking for alpha and beta testers in the not too distant future. So if you like to poke around new Web2.0 type stuff and get your hands dirty during the early stages of a project (particularly if you’re a web designer), then please register your interest and you’ll receive an invite soon.

You can visit the site at www.footprintapp.com.

If you want to give any immediate feedback, leave a comment here or email info@footprintapp.com.

From time to time I get asked to work on different projects for a portion of the resulting revenue share in lieu of a cash payment. Any time this happens alarm bells go off in my head. Taking a risk on your own project is one thing, but taking a risk on someone else’s needs to be dealt with severe caution.

Ideas Hold No Value

When someone calls me up and asks me to build them an application or an e-commerce site and offers me a share of the revenue from the product I would be creating, I have to wonder if they’re aware of how risky that sounds. An idea on it’s own holds no value. If you can’t execute it, bring it through to completion, and find a market for it then you may as well be dreaming.

I mean, if I went to a property developer and said I had a great idea for building a new housing estate that would ensure a massive ROI, he’d probably say he was interested. But if I mentioned that I didn’t have any land, money, skills or building materials he’d be crazy not to tell me to take a hike.

Getting Burned

I’ve been burned by this once before (back when I was a student), and I certainly learned my lesson then. In hindsight I think it was better in the long run that it happened early in my career when the stakes were still low, but then again, I really shouldn’t have fallen for it at all.

For a long time now I’ve refused to do work using these types of payment terms and I think that today, I’m doing far better because of it. If anyone needs to hire me for a project I’m more then happy to hear all about their idea, but in keeping with my risk profile I’ll only accept payment in cash.

Exceptions to the Rule

The only time I would ever consider getting involved in a revenue share agreement instead of charging a fee is if I was convinced that the proposed project had been fully researched, there was a completed business plan and there was real evidence that it was a viable business. If someone comes to me with an idea and little else, then their time would be better spent talking to another developer.

The Lucky Few

Despite my personal experiences though, I’m sure on the odd occasion, this type of arrangement does actually work. I’d love to hear from anyone who has had success using this method of payment so I can ask them how they managed it. Because I far as I can tell, you’d be crazy to agree.

Today I gave a presentation to Enterprise Ireland as part of my CORD grant application. If my attempt to convince the panel was successful, I’ll be given approximately €30,000 to spend on my startup over the next 12 months. But, I’ll have to wait until next week to find out.

In the mean time, I’ll be contemplating the best ways to spend the pending funds so it gives me the best possible start to my new venture.

Deciding What To Buy

Now I may be counting my eggs too soon, but lets imagine that I get approved and the funding is provided. How should I go about using the money as effectively as possible? Here’s a few ways I’ve considered putting the cash to good use:

• Offload some of the development work by hiring a junior developer. This would free up my time a little and allow me to work on other areas of the business.

• Run a PR campaign once I’m ready to launch. Getting press coverage and a decent bit of buzz around your product can be a great spring board for success.

• Spend on online advertising like Google Adwords. The higher your budget the more people see your ad. Provided it’s relevant, this should give a decent measurable return on investment.

• Go to an overseas web expo (and possibly launch from there). Something like the recent Web2.0 Expo in San Francisco would be the perfect way to launch.

Obviously I’d love to do all of the above, but I’m sure I’ll have to make some concessions and cut the budget in places. The thing is, I’m just not sure where make those concessions.

Looking for Advice

If you had €30,000 to spend on developing your product or service what would you spend it on?