Great documentary by the BBC: Steve Jobs – Billion Dollar Hippy.
Steve Jobs, the billion dollar hippy
December 18, 2011 in
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The Future Check-In. Up Next?
Most used social media is all about what you did or what you are doing. Facebook wants to know “what’s on your mind”, Twitter asks “what’s happening?”. Both mostly describing events that already occurred.
Then Foursquare launched. Ignoring the past, Foursquare is about the present: where are you now? Inviting your friends to drop by and say hi. Having covered the past and present, it was only waiting for the new wave of social apps covering the future.
What are you up to?
When you see your friends party pics on Facebook the day after, you might think: I would have joined that party. And how many times did you actually went to a bar because one of your Foursquare friends checked-in? Most people didn’t and for the few times it actually happened, a big chance it was awkward (running into a breakup, or accidentally joining a business meeting).
Ditto
Ditto is trying to fix this. Founded by Jyri Engeström, who before Ditto was co-founder of Jaiku (acquired by Google), Ditto is about what you’re up to. Using Facebook to register for Ditto you immediately start of with your current social network. You can see what your friends plans are or share what you are up to. For example see a movie. Add a location and a small text (did you already see the latest Harry Potter?) and share this plan with your friends via Facebook and Twitter to get them to join your future activity and make it happen.
Forecast
Another notable example in the future check-in space is Forecast. As for Ditto, Forecast is now only available on your iPhone and is using the Foursquare API to build the future layer on top of the already existing and successful check-in network. Via Forecast you can let your friends know where you are planning to go and immediately check yourself in on Foursquare once you are there.
How sustainable is this third layer?
Don’t we have more than enough ways to connect with friends to make plans for the weekend? And aren’t websites like Meetup and Plancast – though always linked to events and conferences – already kind off covering the future space? Let alone the Facebook Events feature or, as some of my Foursquare friends tend to do: check-in an hour before with a short message “let’s meet here at 21h”.
Forecast, as already based on the Foursquare API, is a logical feature to add to Foursquare. Ditto is trying to be more useful to friends making plans by also moving in the recommendation space, helping you to find the best pizza place and adding features to make the planning process easy (which movie is showing where?). Features that are already available in dedicated mobile apps, only now being combined into one tool.
Jyri Engeström is definitely right, we have more than enough apps that cover the past and the present. And the ‘future’ market is not yet defined and dominated, so changes are there is place for another player. However, with Foursquare drastically improving the Explore feature, is there room for a dedicated app in this future space? Maybe a nice buy for Groupon – combining future planning with coupons 
Startup Weekend Amsterdam: Askbox
This weekend i’m attending Startup Weekend Amsterdam. After going through 74 pitches, 25 ideas where selected and we are working in different teams to build a concept in 54 hours. We are building Askbox, bringing you answers, instantly:
Have a question about plumbing? Trouble getting your application to work? Problems filling out your tax forms? Askbox is the number one application for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing. Use Askbox to share your questions with a crowd of leading experts. You’ll get high quality answers instantly using text, speech and images. Askbox is running on your smart phone, your tablet and in your browser.
Check out our website at http://getaskbox.com/ and follow us on twitter @getaskbox
From Zero to a Million Users – Dropbox and Xobni lessons learned
This presentation is already 2 years old, but still really useful and applicable to most startups and web-applications. The story of Dropbox and Xobni, how the got from zero to a million users. Their lessons learned. Via @ronaldmulder.
Projects next to a day job, how to make them successful?
People that know me in person are aware of the fact I like to start & do new things. Next to having my normal ‘day job’ I like to think of/develop/start/concept/design new things/websites/companies/apps (let’s call them projects to keep it simple).
Are these projects ‘real businesses’? Not yet, and most of them never become a real business. Projects are small ideas, concepts, plans or pre-startups with great potential. Or not. I like to figure out as soon as possible if an project has the change to become a real business. How? By starting quickly, improving quickly and failing quickly.
After almost 10 years of projects I learned quit a lot. Had a lot of fun, made mistakes, learned about success and about failure. To prevent me from making the same mistakes and have more success in the future, I came up with a few basic rules that have to help me making the right decisions about new projects:
- Only join a project if there is at least one person fully committed in time (the project leader)
- Only join a project where you can become at the same page with the team within 2 weeks (if you join a existing project)
- Only join a project where you can get at least 15% ownership
- Only do projects where you can commit at least 10 hours a week and meet with the team on a weekly basis (face to face!)
- Don’t join a project that already is active more then 6 months (because it is a failure or becoming a real business)
- Care about the legal stuf: get things on paper (only 1 page is more the enough) but do it early in the project
Most of the failed projects I was in lacked one of these points. And the most successful projects met (most of the) points. Is this list a gaurantee for success? No, but it helps me to make the right decision. And one final point: it is never to late to stop. Pull the plug early, but not to often.
Concept: Dashboardy
Posts in the Concepts category are ideas, business plans and projects I start working on but never executed. Feel free to read, give feedback, try out and contact me if you believe you can make it. Most of the times I lack the power to build, i’m a product manager, a business man, a marketing expert. Are you a builder? Contact me.
Dashboardy: The Business Dashboard for SME’s
People can sign up for their own Business Dashboard. They can add the tools they use (Google Analytics, MailChimp, Salesforce, etc.) in a ‘module’ way to the dashboard. Creating one screen with all the important information. The dashboard is optimized to be hung up the wall on the work floor and the CEO’s office to always be up-to-date with the company’s status.
- Create a new dashboard
- Add modules to the dashboard
- Default modules can be selected, API is in place so data transfer is really easy
- Custom modules can be build with XML feed for data
- Choose ‘alert’ mode:
- Steady Benchmark
- Growth Benchmark
- Comparison to previous period (day, week, month, year)
- Advanced settings on metric level
- Dashboard settings (size, template)
- Add dashboards to set
- Publish
- Private (password security before view)
- Public (URL is freely accessible)
- Upgrade for more updates per day, custom modules and dashboard sets
Business model
Freemium. Users can sign up for a Free account and upgrade to a Plus or Premium account:
| Trial 0 |
Basic 14 p/m |
Plus 39 p/m |
Premium 99 p/m |
|
| Guaranteed Add Free | * | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Number of data updates per day | 6 | 12 | 48 | 144 |
| Switch between set of Dashboards | * | * | ✓ ( max 2) | ✓ (max 6) |
| Add custom modules | * | * | * | ✓ |
| Maximum number of modules per dashboard | 4 | 6 | 10 | 16 |
| Maximum number of dashboards per user | 4 | 6 | 10 | 30 |
Extra Money Making Options / side-revenue:
- Hardware (sell Dashboardy compatible screens via Amazon affiliates) (10 – 20%)
- Dashboardy iPhone/iPad/Android app (E 3.99)
Distribution
The App will be directly available on www.dashboardy.com and the future iPhone/iPad/Android Apps will be promoted in the relevant stores (iTunes and Android Market). To be easy accesible for our target (business) audience, a link with the Google Apps Market and direct Google Apps integration will be a huge plus.
Competition
‘Old Boys’ (not direct, different target audience, dull, not web savvy):
- SAP
- Oracle
- Microsoft
Data sources (we are using their data, we could have problems if they improve their own presentation):
- Salesforce
- Google Analytics
- MailChimp
Cool Apps (direct competition/could enter the market quickly and are already cool):
- Roambi http://www.roambi.com/
- Unilyzer http://www.unilyzer.com/
Product/Feature Roadmap
- V 0.1 Alpha: small tests and demonstrations to friends / professionals (max 5)
- Registration and user profiles
- Google Analytics module
- Basic design (wireframe level)
- V 0.2 Private Beta: alpha group+ (max 15)
- Multiple modules per dashboard
- Multiple dashboards
- Design elements in basic
- 98% uptime (real use ready for alpha users)
- V 0.3 Private Beta: max 50 after pre-registration (UX, Usability and RoR pro’s)
- Multiple Benchmark options
- Drag & Drop on grid functionality
- Text & RSS module
- V 0.4 Private Beta: max 100 after pre-registration (industry, clients, press)
- Templates integrated
- Custom modules
- Full design
- MailChimp module
- V 0.5 Public Beta
- Publish public feature
- Salesforce module
- V 0.6 – V.09 Public Beta
- Set of dashboards
- Plus and Premium memberships added
- V 1.0 First Official version
- V 2.0 Add-ons
- Custom modules
- V 3.0 iPhone / iPad version
Impressions
