I just launched FEEDJIT. It took me about 10.5 hours (4pm until 2:30am) from the first time my hand touched the keyboard until I fixed the last bug and went live. I got a question on the Seattle Tech Startup list about how I spent my 10.5 hours. So here’s a brief summary:
- I drew a mockup in Fireworks. It started getting complicated with user registration and so on. So I basically binned it and just wrote the software, but the mockup gave me an idea of the most basic value prop. So I made a decision to go out the door with the very very basics and see if it’s something users actually want. (1 hour)
- I designed the database schema in SQL commands using a text editor. I mentioned this CompSci quote to a friend yesterday: “Get your data structures correct first, and the rest of the program will write itself.”. Doing the data structures in the form of a schema forced me into making all the hard decisions of what features I’m keeping and what I’m not going to have time to implement. (1 hour)
- I wrote the functional app. I find that if I do graphical or UI work early on it can become very time consuming as I try to get just the right dropshadow on some element. So I just dove in and wrote the Javascript and server components. The app doesn’t require any registration so I could just write the widget and the server code to store and deliver the stats that are displayed. (roughly 6 hours)
- Then the last thing I did was create the home page (the only page on the site). After cranking out code for 6 hours I was too tired to faff with dropshadows and so on. So it became purely functional. (roughly 2 hours)
I already have a server set up at serverbeach where I host this. It’s on a 10 megabit backbone connection but doesn’t cost me much. So I basically added a virtualhosts section to the httpd.conf file and copied the source code into the proper directories. I then compressed the javascript and used my SQL text files and the mysql client to dump the schema into the database. I brought it online and couldn’t figure out why everything was appearing to be in Denver, Colorado. Then I realized I’d hard-coded my own IP address into the Geo location routines. Shows you how you can screw up when you’re rushed. I fixed that and it worked perfectly.
I hope there’s some value in that. I think the smartest thing I did was to drop everything except the features that would test whether this is a product my target market would actually find useful. That remains to be seen of course, but I’m hopeful. We’re adding quite a few new blogs per hour now.
23 Comments
Kudos Mark,
Very cool piece of software, very fast process.
Well Done.
Nice! I’m wondering tho… What’s the story behind the “TM” next to the logo?
I don’t pretend to know a lot about that sort of thing, but I was under the impression you had to register a trademark, and that it took time. Just curious!
Hi Marshall,
Using TM means you intend to enforce your claims to your trademark. You don’t have to file with the USPTO to do that.
You gain certain rights by simply using a mark publicly. You’ll notice when you do file, your TM attorney will ask you when the first public use of the mark was and he/she will try to make that date as far back in the past as possible.
Regards,
Mark.
Hi, like too much English people, your support for unicode in town names is broken (actually, I don’t know if this is really supported by the DNS). Take the IP address I use for this post as a sample if you wich, it should say “Besançon”.
nraynaud is right…Which programming language are you using? If it’s Python, unicode should be really straight-forward to use.
Working on this now guys. Thanks very much for the reports. I should have a fix out within the next few hours.
If you could point me to a test page that reproduces the bug that would help a lot.
Thanks!
mark> I saw it on feedjit.com
Nice post.
You didn’t just “launch a startup”…you created a cute little widget. There is a difference… With that said, it is pretty cool.
Hey guys,
I’ve just rolled out an internationalization fix. I tested it on some swedish cities and it seems to work well. Please let me know if you see any more garbled chars. And let me know if you see international characters that are non-western and work correctly so I can verify this. Thanks!
Mark.
Cool widget. What’s your business model going to be? That’s what I find had about launching a startup.
Hi Rob,
I generally find that marketing is the hardest part of a startup (I’m on my 6th) – but that may be because I’m a geek.
Monetizing tons of traffic is not hard. At some point we’ll work with our community of bloggers who are using feedjit to figure out something that can benefit both us and them.
Regards,
Mark.
If this counts as launching a startup then I’ve “launched” about 27 startups over the past 8 years. Others might call this a feature or clever hack. (not to denigrate at all what you did here – it’s cool stuff, just not a startup in the traditional sense)
Seed of a good thing: I launched a similar site/idea a while back (it took me more like 2 weekends of work) and it now grosses a passive $2,500 a month for me. You could be well on your way, esp. with widget monetizing options now blossoming finally.
This, Sir, is not a startup. It’s a widget.
very nice . . . if i needed it but still cool!
mark> It now works fine for me, congratulations.
Alas I’m in a western country (so my town use a western alphabet).
Kinda nice… and yes, the usual 2.0 business model should apply here too.
Nice Post
it’s a great tool
very simple to use
i wonder if you think
the blogs who you it
can get extra traffic
apearing on each other
widgets from time to time
good be a nice network
add a very small banner
to promote blogs who use
the widget randomly that
would be good for the bloggers
becuse link exchange networks
just like youe service needed
annoting registration
and for you add google adsense
to it
and be friendly to users
f some one writes he blog
adress so you can visit the
blogs who use your service
there is no need to erase his
comment
rc
oh sorry i see it’s not
erased now
great widget!!!
Good stuff mate!
Nice work Mark.. wish u lots of success keep it up . Really liked your widget.
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