Event Launch Strategies » Engineering

Product Development Time Line

writer — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:25:55 +0000

This is the third step in the planning sequence that I discussed in my post yesterday.

The event we are planning this launch for is the Events Listed social networking website launch. Since the event is effectively a product launch with the product being the website, the product development phase becomes very crucial to a successful and timely launch. The event Launch plan must be built around the product development timeline.

The product development in this case must become our working clock that ticks away with everything else being built around it. If you are finding ways of applying these principles to your event launch, the best comparison would be that of launching the opening of a new venue. The launch plan must be plotted around the venue building development plan (or else there won’t be any launch party!)

If you’re interested, here is what our development timeline looked like.

Module I 17^th April 2008
1. Static Pages
2. Event Category/Subcategory
3. Banners
4. Registration
5. Forgot Password
6. Manage Promoters/Super Promoters (Admin Control Panel)
7. Affiliates…..

This post has been included in our “Event Launch Guidelines” training program. Click for more information.

Engineering Specifications

admin — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:10:24 +0000

Once we had the functional specs ready along with our design mindmaps, we had a fair idea where to go from there. The mindmaps outlined how each page needed to be designed in html and as we documented each page into our master specifications that listed every function - I knew that we had something really exciting going. The value of our product became more and more clearer during this process and I felt closer to building just what our market needs at this time.

After 3 months of solid work and dealing with all the issues, complications, anomalies that came our way - we ended up with a fully detailed and complete functional specification that included links to pages already fully designed containing all of the functionality of the entire application in them.

We searched for the best ranking developers on RentACoder which is an art in itself, we approached more than 20 and sent them a job description asking if they would send me a proposal for doing the development and a bid. The more specific your requirements, the more easier it will be to filter out prospects. I always write a 2 page outline of what it is we are looking for and I ask each bidder to reply by sending back a detailed outline of what they understand about the work and how they plan on tackling it. Trust me, only serious bidders will take the time out - those are the people you want to be talking to.

You can count on 60% of the bidders dropping out the minute you ask for this and of the 40% who don’t you can count on 80% of them ruling themselves out - because the detailed answer they present are either copied and pasted from some other work so non specific to your request or the writing and presentation is second rate.

We ended up with just 2 suitable candidates out of 20 bidders after this process. After interviewing them both the winning bidder was clear, it didn’t even come down to a choice. There was only one man standing and so far so good in regards to the work we are getting back…

This post has been included in our “Event Launch Guidelines” training program. Click for more information.

Sourcing Engineers To Build Our Product

admin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:09:25 +0000

Sometimes you come across people who seem like African guides walking you through a game park at night. These are gems that you need to have on your team to become successful. They’re people who have already treaded the path and know it well enough to be able to make good decisions.

In the case of Events Listed I have been the guide. Years ago I had walked the same park without guides and was mauled by lions - so I learned how to tread it through experience. Ever since this experience I dedicated my life to learning everything their was to know about the park, its risks, dangers & pitfalls to ensure I became a guide who could navigate it without depending on others.

The best lessons in life are the most expensive ones and I can assure you that the cliche that failure leads to success if experienced by an optimist is also quite true.

Where should you find engineers? There is a lot of discussion in India pertaining to the value in using Indian Developers for development. I can tell you this for FREE, Indians are great mathematicians who just have a different culture. There outlook is different to western people because their values differ. Social and cultural norms may differ but the corporate world has been flattened out so much that it hardly matters.

Even in the States, if two different people look at the same piece of art they will in all probably see different sides to it. Every perspective varies. Have you ever watched an interaction between two people then discussed it with someone else who saw the same thing you did and to your amazement, what they perceived to have happened was completely different to what you perceived. There’s a cool movie that came out recently that demonstrates this called Vantage Point. Do see it if you get a chance…

This post has been included in our “Event Launch Guidelines” training program. Click for more information.