Summer ’08 wrapup
The issue here is really big ideas vs little ideas. We (i) went into this summer with the full belief that we would have a fully functioning site up and running by late june and july and august would be spent refining it for a for a big fall rollout. I jotted down some goals when we started:
- Define our idea – some beyond just online video is a big space
- Build / launch a beta-esque site
- Feedback loop
- Market, market and market…
Now that the program has “officially” ended, I have spent the last few days taking stock of the situation. Basically I think the whole think comes back to big ideas vs little ideas. Summer is a great time for little ideas – things that are simple – simple to execute, simple to market. I had a confidence in our ability to refine and execute on “big” market idea. We are close now, but goal was definitely not met. On the plus side we have a strategy that I feel very strongly about and I believe is being validated in a number of spaces and we are going to be the ones to execute in the video space (it’s the feed/activity stream concept for those of you who haven’t been paying attention).
When I did corporate projects most everything has a 18 month rollout schedule, agile development the internet pace has changed all that. People are routinely putting out prototypes in a matter of weeks (e.g. we did tinydb.org in an afternoon). But big ideas need a lot of thought. More akin to newtons law on inertia – they take a long time to get rolling as there are a lot of factors involved in their execution. The summary for the summer here is that now we have some real momentum – the idea is strong, the underlying tech is worked out (mostly) and we have some solid feedback on how to present the UI/experience in way that creates value. So what has the summer been worth, well for us (and again in my opinion) its been us finding our stride and building our momentum for the race ahead.
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