Differing Goals

It's been another learning experience this week on how to manage people's expectations and personal interests. After the team meeting on Sunday morning, we left with differing views on what/which idea would be the main objective for the team.

We had two differing camps: Condor or Doberman. Though the Condor idea continued to evolve, this time to remove a critical differentiator for the idea, my gut was still telling me that Condor has a real market opportunity. Doberman was being favored by RG because it was more byte-sized and the expectations for a high-tech solution are lower. I don't think we agree on the size of Condor's market or the problem-space that it may solve. For you readers, I haven't explained Condor and Doberman on this blog, yet. Remember, I only reveal the details after I've set the idea on a shelf and have moved on; see ideas Angus and Bison.

We talked it over again and we came up with a gameplan. We will focus on getting Condor's concept and perhaps a demo ready for the Y Combinator Winter Funding Deadline of Oct 11th. The sooner we get this application into them, the sooner we can apply our energy towards launching Doberman.

The reason for two separate approaches is to appeal to the investment/networking opportunity at YC. Condor may have a greater upside, though it would require more time to implement, so unless we're funded by an angel for a few months, allowing us to quit our day jobs and bang out the product, Condor will have to take a back-seat to Doberman come October. Doberman on the other hand is almost too easy. The upside and potential isn't as great, and since the concept is very low tech, I can't imagine YC would be interested in the venture... Imagine, the solution requires a person to be involved with operations, too!

- I sent out the Condor survey for comments yesterday, so we'll see what feedback we get.
- I borrowed DE's PHP and MySQL Web Dev book, looks like I'll be coding this weekend.

The fun continues!

-john