Comments on: The Idea Chart

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:29:52 +0000

Yes we are launching a Groupon like business, and while a group buy site is nothing new the concept of applying it to local services/events rather than the more typical products and making it geo-location based is fairly new. The concept of a daily deal for a group is nothing brand new, but the application in this sense has been around for less than 2 years in America. Additionally, I don’t know for certain, but I suspect the margins for this type of model are significantly higher then those that came before – I was FLOORED when I learned about Groupon’s margins.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:52:21 +0000

Figured it might be something like that. Not sure about only being two years old though, there used to be a company about 10 years ago that did the kind of swarm purchasing to get discount rates. They had an advert with lots of ants in, working together. Wish I could remember what they were called!

By: Adam McFarland

Adam McFarland — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:43:32 +0000

I’ll let Tim answer in full if he gets a chance, but it’s basically a variation of the Groupon model.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:12:04 +0000

@Tim
I’m intrigued. What /is/ your business model?

By: Adam McFarland

Adam McFarland — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:39:40 +0000

Totally Rob. On a purely interest level, I’m more interested in physical product design than I am in web stuff. Towards the end of college I tried to get a few products off the ground. One was something developed during an internship, another was with a good friend of mine who was a brilliant engineer. It fizzled out when he graduated and took a job, and then I decided to start SportsLizard. We learned how tough it was to go that route – patents, funding, manufacturing, getting your product in stores, the web side of stuff to go along with that, etc etc. In both scenarios you have to be very good at some form of engineering, but the digital world seems to have much less resistance between idea and success. The barrier to entry is lower, and the time to market is much less (months instead of years).

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:40:55 +0000

I think that programming is an interesting one – in addition to the reasons above it gives you the ability to craft a product from idea right through to completion. If you wanted to sell hammers for instance, there’s a whole lot of work that has to go into that. Sourcing the right parts, supply issues, inventory issues, production, quality control and repeatability etc. If you were to produce something new and complicated, like an electronic device or a product that required complex machining etc. then there’s a mountain of work to do. With only knowledge and time, a program can be written that acts as a complete product, and you have none of the inventory, supplier or stock-control issues that come with physical products, granted a few other problems, but at least you can get to a point where things can tick along by themselves and you can remove yourself from the mundane work sooner.

Totally OT there, just something I was mulling over today..

By: Adam McFarland

Adam McFarland — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:48:49 +0000

Agreed on programming. I looked at it as a means to an end when I started SportsLizard. For each of our projects, I’ve continued to learn what I needed to learn to help us achieve our goals. I rarely learn something for the sake of learning it. Right now I’m really passionate about HTML5 and CSS3 because I see how much they can do for our business.

I suppose with a web project you can look at it as two “trades” you need to master – the web side of things (programming, web marketing, etc), and the actual industry itself (in our case, detailing and sports). It’s probably OK to be learning one or the other, or some aspects of one or the other, but if you’re taking an idea from scratch with no knowledge of either I think you’re screwed.

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 14:05:04 +0000

Programming represents an interesting exception to the rule, it’s continually evolving and at this point there are so many ways to accomplish the same goal it’s impossible to say who’s “right.” Additionally programming is typically a means to accomplish a specific goal, I don’t know anyone who creates complicated code just because they can, they design the code to solve a particular problem, looking at Detailed Image for example, I am quite confident that Adam would have NEVER created this coding if he didn’t have a specific purpose for it. I hope that makes sense!

The second part of the equation is a very interesting point, it’s kind of where I fit into the equation. While I have an enormously diverse base of knowledge(I don’t like to toot my own horn, but this is one case where I think it’s warranted) my real expertise is the business side of the business. In a post I made a week ago in this blog I mentioned that I have very little to do with day to day operations of my new project, I do keep an eye on what’s going on, but it’s not the best use of my time or in the best interest of our business for me to focus on operations. While for most businesses basic needs I can handle all of the set-up and organization better than an attorney, in this case we are treading in a whole new direction, taking a company in the USA to a national level with people working in a number of States across the country it presents some new hurdles to overcome. I chose to set things up this way because I know as we start rolling out new locations rapidly I simply will not be able to keep up with every detail and I don’t want to get in the habit of doing so now, I need to focus on being 3-6 months ahead of where we are and laying the tracks down so when the train comes through it’s going to make it! Not to mention our business model is less than 2 years old, so it’s hard for anyone to really be an expert.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 23:01:10 +0000

I see what you mean a bit better there, and although I don’t have the skills I need quite now I do have a strong programming background (just more mathematical/analytical than web or database stuff), but I guess that’s not so bad.

Also a good point about learning the trade at the same time as learning the business. It’s got to be something you’re passionate about. What about learning the trade once you’re more familiar with a business, perhaps as a second business once you’ve acquired those skills?

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 22:58:01 +0000

When I hear friends say this it makes me pretty sure they’ll never start a business. Especially when it comes from the ones who are also in well paid stable jobs, with mortgages but are waiting for “the right time”.