Shirts and 30×500
It started a few months ago when I was lucky enough to sit down with Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs to have a cup of coffee. I’d read some of Amy’s articles about being awesome before this sit-down, and they really stuck with me. Probably because of how awesome I am. Anyway, it was a very motivational cup of coffee and I walked away wanting to do something much more for myself. I wanted to make things.
I walked away from that meeting motivated and confident. I was ready to make some kind of change, so that same day, I asked my boss to go part time and have a raise to make up for the loss of hours. He agreed and wanted to help me in any way he could. I have an awesome boss.
That was a few months ago. Since then, I’ve had to dedicate a bit more time to important projects at work, but I’ve learned a ton. I started (and stopped)Ideainator, I teamed up with an awesome designer to make even more awesome-ier things.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to bring in any regular extra income. I’m really close to barely breaking even, thanks to the ridiculous amount of stubborn private student loans. I pay more for student loans on an associates degree than I do my rent and utilities combined. It sucks, but I make it.
Coasting is fine, until you want to speed up and realize that you don’t have any gas.
Two weeks ago, Amy announced the next session of her 30×500 product development class. It’s a very practical course on how to develop an idea for a product and turn it into something. I’ve wanted to take this class since I heard about it over a year ago.
So I’ve made a commitment to take this class, and I could use your help. I made some shirts (check them out) that I’m selling for $30 a pop from zazzle. I had hoped to find a better way to implement these, but unfortunately, this is the quickest and easiest way to do it. They are available in men’s american apparel, women’s babydoll and women’s spaghetti top and there are three prints:
So, go ahead and buy a shirt. Everything I make from these will be going towards my tuition in Amy’s 30×500 class, and every one sold helps me out. Who knows what I make once I’m done with this class, but I’m sure you will like it.
I love you all.
-Eric
Inexperienced and Ready
I started writing on ideainator with one purpose: to figure out what the hell I was doing. This has been an incredibly useful learning experience for me, which I hope has turned into something useful for you, dear reader. This is why I want to impart an important lesson I learned in the last few months:
It’s ok to be clueless, as long as you’re aware of it
Knowing that you’re clueless is the beginning of becoming clue…ful. Knowing that there is much more for you to learn about a certain topic is a better starting point than thinking you know enough. Never be satisfied with knowing enough. Always be victorious.
The Original Sketch for Twitter
One night in July of that year I had an idea to make a more “live” LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road. Akin to updating your AIM status from wherever you are, and sharing it. For the next 5 years, I thought about this concept and tried to silently introduce it into my various projects. It slipped into my dispatch work. It slipped into my networks of medical devices. It slipped into an idea for a frictionless service market. It was everywhere I looked: a wonderful abstraction which was easy to implement and understand.
This piece of paper is almost 11 years old. It took almost six years for the ideas that were put down on that piece of paper to become something real. The idea of twitter (or stat.us as it was back then) haunted Jack and found its ways into all the projects he was working on.
If you have a good enough idea, you’ll find a way to turn that into a product.
Interview with Amber Weinberg from Codesnipp.it
I had a chance to sit down and talk with the lovely and talented Amber Weinberg, freelance WordPress developer and founder of the Codesnipp.it Social Coding about how she started Codesnipp.it with her fiance, how she chose what features to add, and how to approach stagnancy.
So, Tell me about Codesnipp.it.
Well, I was wanting to work on a site with my fiance because he is a back-end programmer. We were trying to find a project to work on together and I realized that there are so many sites for designers to share there work, I mean you had dribble and all those css gathering sites, but nothing really for in my mind for code sharing. You had some code repository sites like git, but there wasn’t really a social aspect for developers. Now, this was before Forrst came out. Actually, I think they came out around the same time, but I thought it would be cool if there was a site where you could follow your favorite developers and see what they were working on and share snippits of code and plugins and be able to ask questions and get answers. I thought of it like a Dribbble for developers.
How long from the point where you had the idea to the launch of version one did it take?
I believe exactly three months was our deadline before the launch because we had an alpha and then a beta. We worked several weekends. It isn’t really a big app, so it didn’t really take us that long. I mean we launched without a lot of the features too to give just the basics of posting, sharing code, and following people.
I was in the beta for codesnipp.it and it was certainly a minimum viable product. You’ve added a lot since you’ve launched. How did you decide what to add and when?
We had a list that we wanted to add. I tried to go the 37signals route and think about what I would want and what I would use. And I also wanted to make it a minimum app because if you look at the code sites that are out there now, there just so cluttered. I know freelance switch just bought a coding site and it looks terrible so the goal was to keep everything simple all the time. Of course we had people asking for features all the time and we had our own ideas and we had to kind of filter everything through and think what would people use the most, and what is the most important.
I’ll admit, I was one of those people that sent you a nice long bulleted list of features that I wanted and suggestions, so I’m sorry about that.
No, no that’s good! It’s good to get suggestions from people because even thought I’m building it to the way I want to use it, it’s great to know how other people want to use it.
So, Codesnipp.it has a paid aspect of it. Can you explain the pricing model for version 1?
We actually had two types of accounts. We had a free account that allowed you to post 10 snippits a month and you could invite 5 people per month, back when we still had an invite system, and we had a paid account that would let you post an unlimited amount of snippits and you could invite 10 people per month and you had a private snippit timeline. The pro account was a single $10 fee.
We’re slowly going into the second version, and we’ve changed the accounts a lot to where all accounts have unlimited posting and we did away with the invite system, because you can now sign up for a new account.
So with version 2, what pain points are you trying to address?
Well, we really don’t have the kind of activity that I want, so we are trying to give the free accounts a few more features, and the paid accounts a lot more features. We’re talking about maybe a chat system where you could see who’s online and could maybe do a private chat. We’re trying to think of a couple more things to entice people to sign up. I mean, I’d love to make money on this site, but that’s not really my main goal. We do have paid advertising and I’d like to sell some more advertising, but most of the money I make towards the site, I’d like to put towards growth.
You just wrote an article about learning when to scrap your app. What made you look at codesnipp.it and say “Hrm, this isn’t working?”
To be honest, we had picked up a third developer, my buddy Isaac, and last year we did a lot of work on the site, and then all of sudden, work just stopped. We went something like five months without doing anything to the site at all. To me the site wasn’t finished and it was just sitting there, stagnant. I had to seriously think to myself “Do we just leave the site stay up and stay stagnant and hope people continue to use it, do we shut the whole thing down, or do we do something different?” because both my fiance and Isaac decided they didn’t want to continue to work on the site. I’m not a backend developer so there’s not a lot I can do by myself. So, I thought abut it for a little while. We have a core set of users who just love this app that asked me to not shut the site down and continue development. I started to look around twitter to see who would be interested in taking over the backend programming, because of course we can’t pay or anything. I ended up finding one of codesnipp.it’s biggest users, John Clarke, who decided he wanted to be the programmer for the site.
So you couldn’t pay him. What did you use to bring him on board?
I just asked him, “Hey would you be interested in working on this? I can’t pay.” And he was like “Heck yes. I love the site.” He has taken initiative. He set up a demo site to show me things he’s working on and ask what I think. All I can say is “Wow, that’s awesome!”
How did you promote Codesnipp.it when it launched?
I tried to get several famous people to try it out. I talked to Dan Cederholm from Dribbble, Chris Coyier and a couple other people to see if they would try it out and give me their thoughts. Some of them did it and some didn’t. I followed a ton of people on twitter and asked people to check it out. I got a retweet from NetTuts about it, and I got a few interviews. I paid for an app review on Appstorm.net so mostly I tried to do a grassroots kind of thing. I haven’t actually promoted anything, and I think that’s why I have been so successful as a business, because on twitter I don’t actually promote myself. It was different for Codesnipp.it. I had to get out there and quickly get a large following. It’s been a nice lesson. I just decided to try paying for some Facebook ads. I started doing that on Monday and I’ve already gotten few new signups from that.
Takeaway
Amber’s iterative feature rollout worked well for her. I think the biggest thing I was afraid of before I started ideainator was not having enough features at launch. Be like Amber and just get your idea out there. Your audience will let you know what they need and when they need it. Hell, they might even help.
Your Idea Isn’t Original
Your idea isn’t original. Get over that and just turn that idea into something awesome.
Ideainator is certainly not a completely original idea. Other people out there are writing about ideas and creativity and inspiration. That’s not stopping you from reading this, though.
Trust me, every time I find a site or book talking about ideas, I feel a short sting. Even though I’m putting so much time into creating this thing, it still surprises me that other people have had similar ideas.
This hasn’t stopped me and it shouldn’t stop you, either. Instead, I want you to learn something from those who have come before you. Ask yourself a few things:
- What are they doing different?
- Is that difference intentional, or did you forget something?
- What aren’t they doing well?
- Can you do that better if it’s relevant?
- What are they doing well?
- Can you compete with them directly?
- If you are competing directly, why would someone choose you over them?
Honestly, the only reason you should reconsider your idea is that someone is doing exactly what you want to do, and there’s no way you can compete with them feature-to-feature. At this point, you should think about what you can do to stand out against the competition.
Mixergy Interviews Amy Hoy
Amy Hoy was interviewed on Mixergy about, in so many words, why she is so awesome.
Andrew: Okay. All right, that’s great. Let’s go back and dig even further back in time. The very first thing that you created on your own without having to be hired by someone else to do it, without being told that you’ll get paid if you create this, what was it?
Amy: It depends on what the definition of thing is. So, I had become somewhat well known in the Ruby on Rails community a few years ago, because I had written some tutorials and made a couple free cheat sheets that you could download and print. They became quite popular. There wasn’t a lot of information out there on Rails to begin with. Now, granted, I wrote three tutorials. That was it. We’re not talking book-length opuses. They were short blog posts, like, “This is what confused me and because I pestered people on IRC, this is what I found out was the way it actually worked.” So I basically took what I struggled with and turned it into blog posts and a couple single page or two page cheat sheets. That was the first thing I ever really did on my own.
In terms of something larger or more product-wise, Thomas and I made Twistory.com, which is a Twitter emotion visualizer, and we just built that in a day after I kind of pitched the idea to Twitter headquarters and they said it wasn’t really their thing. So I was like, “Why am I waiting for someone to pay me to build it? I could build it.” So Thomas ended up helping me, and that got us quite a lot of exposure.
Watch the interview over at From “Kept Woman” To Ruler Of Her Own Product Empire – with Amy Hoy on Mixergy
A Brief Note on Taking Action
A great little blurb on Creative Something about taking action:
The next time you have an idea, whether your initial feelings are that it’s a good idea or a bad one, do something about it right away, immediately. Whatever you can do to take action on your ideas, sketching, writing it out, sharing the idea with a friend, working on a prototype, anything that isn’t idle thinking, will take you to places you can’t imagine.
Saving Ideas
You can be inspired to have an idea at any time. Unfortunately, you can’t execute on that idea at anytime. It’s because of this that I encourage you to put together a system for logging and storing ideas for later review.
Information About Your Idea
After that moment of inspiration you need to capture a few things about the idea to make sure when you review your ideas, you are able to pick up right where you left off. In order to do that you want to be able to create a narrative about your idea by logging some key information.
Describe the Idea
Write a short blurb about the idea. It doesn’t need to cover every aspect of your idea, but the parts that you are most excited about. This is what my description for ideainator looked like:
Ideainator is a resource for ideas with articles written from the perspective of someone learning these concepts for the first time. The site will be for people who are looking for advice about developing their ideas further. Ideainator will generate enough content and enough focus to develop a book or other long-form writing. Ideainator will also offer personal microconsulting sessions to those who need help reaching the next step
Your environment
Again, to put you back in the mindset you were in when you were inspired, try to make a note of your environment. What you are trying to do is create a narrative about your idea that reminds you why your idea was so awesome.
I had just gotten off work after spending the entire week trying to lay out a design for a project I was working on. It was friday night and my mind was clear of worry about what I was going to do tomorrow. It was then I decided to do some research into idea development techniques.
Idea inspiration
It’s important to remember why you had this idea. The common thread in this advice is to be able to put yourself back in the mindset you were in when you were inspired. Talk about the problem you were having and any existing solutions that didn’t satisfy you. Here was my inspiration for ideainator:
I was trying to find tutorials about brainstorming techniques but was having a hard time finding anything that didn’t assume you already knew the end product. I thought it would be incredibly useful for me to start collecting information, digest it, and share it in a way that people in my situation would be able to understand. I wanted to make something that I could learn from.
The Idea Notebook
Now that you have an idea of what you should be recording, you need a place to put that information. Enter the idea notebook: your repository for ideas. Of course this doesn’t have to be a physical notebook. The only requirement is that you have it on you at all times so you can quickly jot down some notes when you are inspired.
Digital Notebooks
Digital notebooks can range in complexity to a bunch of text files in a folder to applications built specifically for note-taking. When using a digital notebook you are really setting up a system for saving data for review later. Your system should meet some, if not all of the following requirements listed by importance:
- It is easy for you to use
You want to be able to focus on capturing the idea - You can use it anywhere
You never know when inspiration will strike. There are a ton of mobile applications and solutions out there that will get the job done. - You can organize it
When you review your notebook, you don’t want to struggle to find that awesome idea. - You can search through it
Search is as important as organization if you are looking for a specific idea that time forgot. - You can share it
Eventually you may work with someone else. Being able to show them your initial notes is a fantastic collaborative starting point.
Real Notebooks
Of course, there’s something romantic about carrying around a notebook filled with your great ideas. Having an idea becomes a tactile experience. You have to slow down your thoughts to match the pace you write which forces you to focus more on the idea in your head. As long as you get a small enough notebook to carry with you at all times, a paper notebook is just as good as a digital notebook.
My Setup
I’ve lost more ideas than I care to admit because I wasn’t able to log them away for later review. I have a system in place to make sure that I can easily log, organize and find ideas later.
I use Dropbox to keep all my files in sync. For my broad ideas, I have a gigantic mindmap that I created with iThoughts HD for the iPad. I open and edit my mindmap on my macs with MindNode Pro. Using these mind maps, I sort my ideas by platform when I’m logging them.
When I log details about my ideas, I almost always use a plaintext editor that syncs with dropbox, like iA Writer for iPad or PlainText for iPhone. I organize these files in folders that mirror my mindmap hierarchy.
I also carry a Pocket Moleskine Notebook
Takeaway
Putting together a system for saving my ideas has been the most productive thing I’ve done with my ideas. I’m not in a position to act on most of my ideas yet, and won’t be until I have the skills to do so. By logging as much information about my ideas into a system that I trust, I can ensure that a good idea won’t be forgotten.
Shirt.woot’s Advice to Shirt Designers
I love shirt.woot and own many of their shirts. They posted some advice to designers looking for inspiration for shirt ideas, and some of the themes apply to anyone trying to come up with an idea:
Keep a sketchbook, scrapbook, or journal. Constantly be thinking and doodling instead of waiting around for inspiration to hit. As artist Gerhard Richter says, “It is a danger to wait around for an idea to occur to you. You have to find the idea.”
Where’s the Big Idea? on the shirt.woot blog.
Jason Fried on Simplicity
Dave Grey talks to Jason Fried of 37 Signals about keeping ideas simple.
When you look back at 37 signals, what are the things that never failed to work for you?
Always build the simplest version of something first. Whatever it is, if you can do it in a sentence instead a paragraph, you’re better off. If you can write two lines of code instead of 20 lines of code, your better off. Of course, there are exceptions to that rule, but for the most part that’s where we’ve found most of our success.