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.

I just read these interesting tips on Rediff, so sharing it with you. My favorite lines are highlighted below -

• It’s customers that made Dell great in the first place, and if we’re smart enough and quick enough to listen to customer needs, we’ll succeed.
• I learned very early to surround myself with talented people who challenge convention, offer new ideas and relentlessly drive for improvement. And to let those people thrive. Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people… or find a different room.
• Don’t spend so much time trying to choose the perfect opportunity that you miss the right opportunity.
• There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.
• One of the things I benefited from when I started this business was that I didn’t know anything. I was just instinct with no preconceived notions. This enabled me to learn and change quickly without having to worry about maintaining any kind of status quo, like some of my bigger competitors.

I hope you will find this useful.

I read this fascinating post by Charlie O’Donnell titled In this economy, we’re all entrepreneurs.

This is a must read post for all students, recent graduates, and job seekers. We have always been taught to seek out for jobs after we graduate from schools. No one tells us to start a company right after the school. We’ll be fortunate if we get surrounded by people during our graduate studies who promote entrepreneurship. Either it’s because of less awareness about entrepreneurship or clear visibility about what to do, we generally don’t take the startup route right after the school. Most of us follow the corporate job route. It’s certainly not a bad option if that corporate opportunity is challenging and lucrative one.

But this economy and recession do not leave many challenging and lucrative job opportunities for recent graduates or job seekers. And that’s when Charlie’s advice come into picture -

The whole recruiting process is built around the idea of matching–that there are enough openings to digest everyone into the workforce and its just a matter of matching the right people to the right positions.

Well, what if there are no openings come this May–literally none. No job postings. No on-campus interviews. No job fairs. This isn’t a fantasy. It’s happening right now. Even the companies that are showing up to job fairs aren’t hiring–they’re just there for branding. Let’s not even talk about the number of people getting laid off everyday.

You know what that makes all these students and everyone else out there in the job market…

…besides screwed?

Entrepreneurs.

That’s when you have a product–yourself–that you are solely responsible for. You have to discover, target, and pitch your prospects to survive. It’s like a new market where there aren’t any established sales channels and you’ve got to convince your first customer that spending money with you will bear both immediate and future benefit.

This is a fascinating advice. Why do we have to wait for the big corporations to offer us a job? It’s good to have that as a one of the options, but we should not completely depend on it. Especially in this economy, irrespective of job opening from big corporations, we should keep brainstorming, exploring and experimenting our own ideas and business opportunities. We need to create our own brand. We need to create our own future. We should stop getting worried about this economy and financial crisis. Our thinking bandwidth better be invested in creating next ideas, products and services. So happy starting up!