Watchable: We Live in Democracies and We Work in Dictatorships

Some serious food for thought about why you don't like work. You live in a land of freedom but the place you spend the most time is not free.

Checking for Trademark Issues

As you know, I got bit by the The Entrepreneurial Bug.  The first thing we did after exploring the idea was to try and come up with a product name and a domain name.  We tossed out ideas then ran them against whois.  We settled on one and changed it a few days later.  The end result was one that we've been quite happy with.

It was brought to my attention today that just because the domain was open and Google didn't return much that I might still have a trademark issue to overcome.  So off to the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a quick search.  I found a few interesting trademarks but nothing impacting us.  *phew* We're safe.

Seems like a nice thing to add to the checklist when working with a new startup as a client.

What UX is All About

Today I got an inter-office email sharing a link to an article about how one very well known website is approaching death due to their horrible user experience.  My associate Victor responded by first sharing a definition of what UX is all about, then pointed out how the site had blatantly turned their back on it:

"UX is about listening to customers, being empathetic to them and responding accordingly with features that benefit them in the biggest way possible."

I don't know that I've ever heard it summarized better.

To me this seems like a no brainer - listen to and observe customers, build what they want/need, and as a result you ultimately enjoy greater success.  I'd love to hear someone's argument against doing this sort of UX work.  No, the budget argument doesn't count.  It's an investment which yields results and it can be done on the cheap.  It's not sensible (financially or otherwise) that you jump right in to building and thus start leaking money like a sieve into development when you're not even sure what you're building will achieve your goals (provided you're defined/articulated your goals - which is an often negligently skipped).

Watchables : End Human Suffering as it Relates to Technology

Here is the video from Rick at TEDxDetroit which will give you the freedom to stop feeling like a stupid user, understand why they pursue anthropology, and what people really know about your software.

The Entrepreneurial Bug

I work for a software consulting company.  We make software for other people.  I'm particularly fond of making software for start-ups.  These customers are people who have interesting, creative solutions to human problems that can be solved with software.  Software product start-ups are perhaps one of the most popular start-ups in the US right now and often talked about among software developers as we work at helping them.

Each client I've worked with walked away with the product we built to for them to sell and I walked away with some interesting insight on what works and what doesn't for these entrepreneurs.  I've listened to the start-up buzz around the industry with little interest... until now.  Now I've caught the bug!  Driving home from work one day I realized that the software I had wanted to build for just me could be used by many more people if I generalized it a bit more.  So here I am... starting a little side business.

I don't know when (or if) I'll ever ship a product.  What I do know is that I have an itch to scratch, a registered LLC, and the help of my husband (a software developer) and a friend (a designer) to make it happen.   Now it's time to hit the streets.

Goal one: Validate my idea by finding 10 business that would buy my product if it existed.