Things are Rolling...

So this week is the first week in a while where I feel like things are really rolling again - full speed ahead. In the beginning of starting this venture, there were always things to be done which required my attention. Milestones I'll call them. But recently...there's only one really major milestone that I'm keeping my eyes on. And that's our alpha release. For a lookback, here are some of the milestones that kept me cranking away. These are mostly in order though some things certainly overlapped.

1) Agreeing to start this business. Check.
2) Researching our ideas. Check
3) Writing our business plan. Check
4) Getting some legal help. Check.
5) Getting people to help us. Check. Well, we're still finding people to help out in a different capacity. But the initial help was the hardest! Those psychologists were tough to find. Fortunately, we found some great people. Half check (since we still are looking for expertise all the time)
6) Designing and developing the website (ongoing)
6) Incorporating. Check.
7) Getting more people to help. Half check.
8) Entering the business plan competition. Check.
9) Losing the business plan competition. Check.
10) Redeveloping our approach. Check.
11) Starting some things over...website development, UI development... That piece sucked! But it's better recognize your problems ahead of time and making changes than being stubborn and stupid. Check.

Now starting over wasn't starting completely over. It was taking our learning from the previous 6 months and applying them towards a different and far better approach. And talking through our ideas with some people who were outside of our little bubble who gave us insight into how to approach this (Thanks Kenny C!).

When we began with our new approach... I realized that it was time to get involved in the development efforts. This was a slow and painful realization for me. I resisted. Afterall, I had gone to business school so I didn't have to code anymore. Now I had to learn a new language. I had to learn how to write Ruby (and Rails). And I had to realize that there were going to be some nights where I'd be coding again into the wee hours of the morning. But I succumbed.

I'm actually enjoying it. So far. Surprise surprise. I've been seeing a lot of progress on the development side - thanks to our other developer (Fajar) and my trusty and excellent UI guy (Abe) who have been helping. And I love RoR. And I see a light at the end of the tunnel. The product should be ready for some alpha testing come September... as long as our algorithm is complete by then. That's our next major milestone and the one that's finally going to put the last year of work to the test!

Looking forward to a busy few months...