Losing site of the project scope

I'm shocked. I've looked at my original business plan and cash flow forecast. The system that I am building now is far beyond the orginal first version. At some point I had changed my mind over a major feature which was going to be in version 1. That feature was very specific, for a very niche market. I changed my mind and went for another feature that was broader and had a large market potential. I thought it made sense on a technical level to do the basics first before adding advanced features.

I'm shocked because I changed the market I was aiming for technical reasons. That sounds bad. I lost site of the project scope, so it was enevitable that I wouldn't keep to any deadlines.

Am I proving that I am just a programmer and don't have a head for business?

Have I aimed for a too broader market?

Do I have enough time to salvage my mistakes?

People matter more than anything

I came accross a blog post with advice from Marc Hedlund, co-founder and CEO of Wesabe.

A couple points he discussed really struck a cord with me.

"Write someone and ask them for help every day"

Friends, family, strangers on forums, anybody. If they could help, I think it's worth a try. This ties in with my last post about being too quiet. I try and solve all problems myself. Most of the time people actually like to help. I'm going to act on this advise and try to contact at least one person every day.

"Don’t get caught up thinking you need someone, just anyone, to support you. It’s far better to wait for a star."

In the early days I was concerned that I was lone founder. I thought a lot about ways that I could get another founder on board. What I never considered was being open about what I am doing. By being open, people may actually want to join me or help the company in some way.

I'm working on rectifying my mistakes by launching the website with a basic blog and writing about my story so far.

Don't Keep Quiet

Like most programmers, I use forums and mailing lists all the time. Some people post hundrends of times a day on various websites, others lurk silently in the background.

I'm one of those lurkers. Most of the time I manage to get the answer to my question without asking for help. Only when I'm desparate I tend to post. What I should be doing is joining the conversation when I have something to say. If something inspires, angers or provokes some kind of emotion, I should say something.

When I do say something I should have a link to my website and blog in the signature, so people that have interest in me can find out more. I should post messages using my company email when possible.

Obviously this blog post won't apply to everybody, but if you do own your own business you should be using every opportunity to promote it, including message signatures!

Should I Open Source My Code?

I'm not talking about all of my code. Just part of it. I can see several benefits.

• I can release something to get me out of my 10-month-no-release hell
• Boost in motivation
• Early feedback from users/developers
• Good for my personal reputation
• Coding help from other users
• Can publicise my web application to all developers/users of the open source project
  
• Can lead the project in the direction I want it to go
• Reduce work load for this part of the website (not guaranteed)
• Reduce cost of this tool to $0. Competitors will (hopefully) struggle to keep up improving their propriety versions.
• Get to know developers that might want to help with my site.
• Lowering the risk of total failure. If my site fails, but this open source project succeeds, at least I've achieved something.
  

As for the draw-backs:

• This tool would be a particular selling point of the whole web application.
• Less profit?
  

This part of code that I'm talking about is JavaScript - a significant amount of JavaScript code. It's a large project in it's own right. I can see other open source projects wanting to use this as part of their applications.

If somebody did want to copy my web application, having this open source code would clearly help. However, after building a significant amount of my site I feel copying it would still be pretty difficult.

Clearly by writing this post I have convinced myself that going the open source route is best.

Producing for the Public Domain

I've recently been listening to the Stackoverflow podcast. Jeff Atwood has commented a couple times about how he feels he has not produced anything until it's public. That's how he gets his satisfaction at the end of the day - knowing something is out there that can be read or reused.

I've been focusing far too much on code. I thought I would start blogging as soon as I get the web application online. This is too late. Start blogging before releasing any software. There are four real benefits of getting stuff out regularly onto the web.

Your Users
By talking about something you usually gather interest. If these people like what you are talking about, then they should like the software once its released.

Reputation
You will build a reputation of expertise in your particular area. This is great for networking and future job prospects.

CV / Résumé
Having a well written blog on a subject relating to a job is bound to impress prospective employers. It's going to put you ahead of that other candidate without the blog.

Content Is King
All webmasters should know that content is king on the Internet. Regular postings of content will build up to substantial amounts over years.


Oh dear. Looks like I've made another big mistake. Why didn't I start blogging from day 1? I did release my company blog a few months ago, but nobody will be interested in the company until they have interest in the company's products.

Always Being 90% Done

I've only just posted about one of my biggest problems, always being 90% done or 2 weeks away from completion.

Now I've just coincidently come across Jeff Atwood's post On Our Project, We're Always 90% Done. Since this describes me completely, I'm going to make a new project plan. This time breaking tasks down into at least daily chunks of work. Last time I did this I kept up with my month plan for 2 weeks - and it felt good. So why didn't I do it again?

Perhaps I'll have to give the book, Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management a closer look too.

Hitting the wall

There comes a point when your motivation for something dies.

We all need people behind us, encouraging us in what we do. I've certainly had my ups and downs over the last 10 months. Hitting many dips and overcoming them. I read Seth Godin's The Dip a while ago. It's a great little book about recognising when to quit and when to hang in there. Should I quit? What should I quit?

I feel as if I've come to a point where something has to change. Perhaps that means quitting something. I've been battling hard and this website still hasn't been released. Yesterday I finished a large new feature and still had the feeling that this site didn't have enough features to be useful and wasn't easy enough for novice users. I suppose I am a harsh self-critic. I don't want to put something out there which makes me and my new company look bad.

I've got lots of options.

1. Continue as normal.
I can rule this out straight away. I've done this for the last 10 months and I still haven't released this web app.

2. Quit. Find a job.
Perhaps a little extreme. Although I'm running low on funds (I'm funding this business out of my own pocket), I don't want to get a "proper" job until absolutely necessary. Also I feel potential interviewers might be a little concerned with my record if I do this.

3. Quit. Do freelance work.
I could earn some money by doing contract work again. Like #2. I feel as if I can leave this as a back-up option after trying #3. or #4.

4. Release the website now.
What's the worst that could happen? People get annoyed with site, publicly criticise it and never come back.
What's the best possible outcome? People actually like the application and are willing to provide helpful feedback.

Even if I do release the site now, I won't earn any money from it. I still need to code a payment system. I still think its several man-months away from being a tool worth paying for. My biggest concern is that the site (currently) attempts to do too much and achieves very little. I'm confident that if my site is implemented very well, it can earn a lot of money. A lot of features are required and required to work well to encourage users to use my web application rather than desktop equivalent software.

5. Release a small useful utility

I have done a lot of coding in the last 10 months. Some of which would make a very handy little application. Perhaps one worth paying for. I know this since I've been contacted several times about some buggy open source code I contributed that does a similar thing.

If I do not allow any feature creep from this little application it might be possible to release it in under a week.


Are there any other options? What would you do?