Aditya Kothadiya's Blog

Few days ago I mentioned about starting a new journey – building Shopialize application in the part-time. I was busy with following activities in the last week -

Getting feedback

Till last week, it was just an idea in my head and I was the only one who was excited about it. So first step was to share that idea with others and get their feedback. And as you guessed it right, I shared it with my friends and interestingly they also liked the idea very much, and they too are excited about its potential. But as we know, friends are always supportive and always give us positive feedback.

As I wrote in my previous post – what I really need is “loving critic” – someone who care deeply enough about me to give me honest feedback – both positive and negative about what I’m doing. So in next few weeks I’ll be discussing the idea with more friends and advisers (which I need to look for as well) and try to get their feedback and refine the idea as much as possible in early stages itself.

Formalizing the idea

Idea in head is of no use. It’s important to write it down and formalize it more structurally. I tried to write it’s scope, what problem it’s solving, what are its possible solutions. Interestingly, there are many ways to solve the problem I’m trying to solve. So I listed down all different solutions. But some are complex and will take lot of time and resources to build. So finally I prioritized the scope of solutions I’ll be implementing. I’ll start with comparatively simpler solution and then I’ll keep adding complex features as application grows.

Creating product plan

Once I decided which solution approach I’m taking, I’ve started listing down the product features I’ll be implementing. I know, in part-time projects you don’t want to waste time in writing down these things, but instead want to code it. But I’m taking balanced approach – I think it’s the right approach. I’ve followed user stories approach i.e. listing features based on different types of users of your application.

Customer development

I’m also working on identifying potential customers and listing down their contact details. I’m still researching about customers and trying to understand what they use currently and how can I help them by providing better solution. This effort will be ongoing. My plan is once I’ve basic prototype, I’ll contact these potential customers and will validate the idea from them.

Evaluating technology

I’ve also spent some time in evaluating the technology I’ll be using to develop this application. I’ll be using Symfony 1.2 – a PHP MVC framework and MySQL database. I’ve used Symfony 1.0 previously to develop few other applications, but Symfony 1.2 is lot different than Symfony 1.0, so there is some learning curve is involved. I could have dropped the idea of learning Symfony 1.2 and could have started coding the features right away using Symfony 1.0. But Symfony 1.2 is lot faster and better, so decided to invest some time to learn it now rather than investing more time at later stage in migrating Symfony 1.0 code base to Symfony 1.2 platform.

Tools I’m using

I’m using Pbworks application to write down everything, of course its free version. I really like Pbworks. It’s amazingly simple service with great features and usability. I’ve created many sections like – Business Development, Marketing, Product Management, and Engineering and it’s helping me a lot to organize my documentation in early stages. Though wiki might look over-kill for a one-person project, I believe that this will be useful when more team members will join me.

For project planning I’m using free version of Basecamp. I’m fan of 37Signals product and I love Basecamp’s simplicity. I use it to list down milestones and detailed tasks – and it helps me to get things done.

Next week’s action plan

The same activities will continue in the next week. Primarily Customer development and Technology development will be prime tasks. Another important task is to look for teammates and advisers. So I’m going to meet few people and going to pitch my idea to them and get their feedback and opinions. There are lots of things to work on so I’ll get back to work now.

Beta Signup

Don’t forget to signup at Shopialize for it’s beta launch. I’ll keep sharing more details on this blog so stay tuned.