I just finished the beginning of the preliminary “Done Stage” of something I’ve been working on since February. The (mobile and desktop) site is:
http://putit.co
After buying some leather with the idea to cut out a shadow for my new iPhone to rest on so it wouldn’t scratch, and then using it a couple of days, I figured other people might also have a use for it.
That small “thought” translated into tons of time planning and working – close to half a year now. My guess is that I could have knocked it out in a few weeks if I hadn’t had a full time job to cover also – but, that’s the magic of tiny business. Definitely I have come to more robustly appreciate the power of delegating than before (and I thought I had had a pretty good idea), realized through the negative, as nothing I did had a budget so delegating wasn’t optional. As an already ultra time-aware person, I somehow became even more aware of the consequences of choosing to do one activity over another. Wax the car also/really meant a guaranteed week delay of the next tiny-business-related task that needed done.
The numerous tasks weren’t themselves particularly challenging, though of course there were things I didn’t enjoy, like taking pictures and editing (so tedious!). It was the time management that was most challenging. Even an hour’s difference sleep developed a very real identity for me as, say, “no decisions will be possible on anything for the following 24 hours due to the 1 hour sleep deficiency.”
I decided to create a standalone site instead of using amazon or eBay because those markets are trolled by copycats, and it would be nothing for someone to copy this idea. I wanted my chances to be as good as possible for my site to get credit. As such, I also tried to make things memorable with an off-beat name, and with design that didn’t look like a total hack-job. And finally, in the event that I receive an amount of luck, I can better control a site I own if expansion and growth become possible. A site can also serve as a way to provide a customer with information in the event that I wind up selling another way.
While these first major pieces have finally been finished and organized, work is probably far from over. With basically any level of sales, I am looking at the problem producing more of them myself (especially with the release of a new iPhone) – the next round will still have no budget for delegating, even with money made from sales of existing quantities. So, more time and money will be required. Also, I will likely be producing one kind of advertisement or another fairly soon here, meaning more pictures and editing (argh!).
Still, I am proud of what’s done so far – especially of having followed through with an idea.
.