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’m very excited to share a new journey with you – Shopialize.com. It’s my journey towards building an innovative, valuable, and fun solution for shopping enthusiasts on the web. To start with, it’s a part-time project. Many of you must have already raised your eye-brows saying can we start something successfully in the part-time? Frankly speaking, I don’t know the answer. And that’s exactly my motive behind sharing this journey with you – to see if we can start a project in the part-time or not? And if yes, how? It’s going to be a long journey and I hope the end is fruitful.

What I’ll be doing?

I plan to share the experiences that I learn, challenges I face, and accomplishments I achieve while building a part-time project with you. Since it’s going to be a part-time project, the challenges that I’ll be facing will be different than working on a full-time project. But I don’t think they will be less in any manner. In fact they could be more as well.

My goal is to write a weekly or bi-weekly update about my progress on different activities involved in running this project. I’ll mainly write about -

• progress on product development front
• progress on business and marketing front
• lessons learned in both technical and business world
• processes I follow to achieve my goals
• and more…

At this moment, I can’t really dive into the details of the idea, but all I can say is it’s going to be in the social shopping space.

For many of you, Shopialize.com is not new. Yes, I had started a social shopping application before with the same name, but unfortunately that idea didn’t quite work well. I had to shut it down before I launched it to the masses. There were some flaws, so I needed to rethink the idea and the business model as well. As they say – the best entrepreneurs know how to fail fast. I hope that was the same reason for me

After brainstorming on idea and business model for quite some time now, I came up with a very innovative and fun idea into social shopping space. I’m continuing with the same brand – Shopialize for “shop and socialize”, but I’ll be developing a completely new product from the scratch – with the new focus and the new energy.

Why I’ll be doing it?

The main reason behind sharing my journey with you instead of working on it in the stealth mode is – my believe that this information will be useful to potential wanna-be part-time entrepreneurs.

I also wanted to be answerable to someone while I work on this project. Since it’s a part-time activity and there is no boss who will monitor my progress, it’s very likely that I may fall short of my promises and may skip the deadlines. So I thought it’ll be great if I become answerable to my readers. This will help me to stay focused and get things done as promised.

I also hope if I share my day-to-day activities and thought process with you guys and if there is something wrong with it, then you can correct me by discussing it in the comments section or emailing me.

Another reason is that I want to sit down every week, retrospect about the things that I achieved and things I couldn’t, and think about the next action plan based on my progress in last week. Writing things down will help me to streamline my thought process and be more effective.

As of today, I’ve just created a invite sign-up page at Shopialize.com – enter your details for beta invites. I’m just getting started, but I’ll finish soon.

Few things that I’ll be working on in immediate future are – formalizing the idea and product plan, getting legal things on the paper, evaluating and studying necessary technologies and forming a team. So I’ll get back to work and will update you the progress in the next week. Wish me your best luck