25 May 2007, Posted by Matthew Reinbold , 6 Comments

What am I Going to Quit Today?

Yesterday I had the privilege of listening to Seth Godin speak about his new book, the Dip. As the person who seeded the original idea to bring him to Salt Lake and an active member of the volunteer group that made it happen, WordMob, I thought I was familiar with the book’s gist. However, after hearing an hour and a half worth of elaboration I have a lot to think about today.

While the book’s tag line of “winners do quit, and quitters do win” is attention grabbing it doesn’t tell the whole story. Seth’s argument is really against making a business average through horizontal stratification – that is, doing a lot of different things only semi-successfully instead of focusing on one area and growing the business vertically. By finding this area, or niche, and completely owning it one can gain a cumulative advantage that only increases dominance over time. The Dip, as Seth has labeled it, is that point at which more effort, time, and/or money must be summoned to become an area leader. It is at this point which a person must honestly evaluate the cost verses benefit. If the cost of becoming a leader is too great Seth argues that one must immediately quit and move onto to something where one can be great. To not do so is to expend resources in a futile effort – resources that could have been better used somewhere else.

When I got home I pulled up a mindmap I had made of Vox Pop Design’s ‘experiments’. Vox Pop Design (the web development part) has always been about serving as a money making arm so that I could be free to play with new technology and business ideas. In the mind map below the ‘bubble’ items represent projects that I haven’t started yet but had intended to try in the next six months.

After yesterday there are several items I’m examining. An example is the MilitantGeek T-shirt experiment I launched last year (and blogged about here). It was a fun project and I learned some new skills. I added a blog in order to help build ‘stickiness’. Since last September I have let the T-shirt portion of the site stagnate while continuing to spend considerable time updating the blog with the pithiest tech news I could find. To apply Seth’s talk to the project I need to make decisions: is MilitantGeek going to be the best geek t-shirt business, the best technology infotainment site, or should I stop trying to be an average hybrid and shut the doors? If it does continue do I have what it takes to push through the dip and make the site a leader in the field that I choose?

MilitantGeek isn’t alone. Quickly scanning from the upper right and going clockwise it would appear that I’m well on my way of being an average jack-of-all trades and master of none:

• I’ve spent time this week ‘talent scouting’ in order to allow Vox Pop’s Hollywood Model to diversify beyond ColdFusion projects. I now wonder if moving that direction makes Vox Pop just an average web-dev ‘we can do it all’ shop instead of a great ColdFusion one. Further, I’m not even sure that being the best CF firm is what I want to do – can I be the best in the world there or do I need to find another niche?
• The intention with ‘code resources’, like ColdSparx, was to assert authority as a leading ColdFusion shop. However, there is a huge difference between writing code for oneself (or clients) and creating a usable product flexible enough for the masses. Is this taking time away from other efforts?
• After enjoying video blogs (or ‘vlogs’) for quite some time I really wanted to do something so that I could play in that space. I need to ask myself whether simply ‘playing’ can justify the time and effort taken from other interests.
• The canned storefront was going see how well taking an off the shelf ecommerace platform and applying it to a small gaming community would work. Interesting, for sure, but if I’m not interested in devoting the time to make something best-in-class for the community will it just end up like MilitantGeek? Something that saunters along and consuming resources?
• Neopops.com was going to be a blog/community for the ‘new dad culture’ launching on Father’s day. However, rather than launching yet another blog perhaps it would be better to focus on making the existing Opinuendo better. Either that, or one of the existing sites should probably be shuttered (even if temporarily) so that what’s there stops been ordinary and starts being great.
• Finally, there were a number of brainstormed writing projects – ebooks, language guides, etc. that would be vehicles for playing with self publishing. I need to re-evaluate their place supporting the larger end goals.

Doing analysis like this isn’t fun -something that is exactly the point of what Seth was talking about. We need to stop thinking about quitting projects as a sort of ‘moral failure’. We need to think of it as a natural, iterative process leading to better uses of our time. Seth’s talk yesterday wasn’t just good – it was applicable. That little difference is huge.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have projects to evaluate.

04 Oct 2006, Posted by Matthew Reinbold , 0 Comments

Online Business: Militant Geek Update

Rather than just drop kick the project into the ether I thought it would be fun to nudge it along and continue posting updates at regular intervals. One of the biggest advantage that a store front like this has over a traditional brick and mortar edifice is that, once established, maintenance costs are nearly zero. The various services purchased range anywhere from a few months to a year in length. I could do nothing from this point on and potential buyers could still purchase items – but what's the fun in that? While it won't have the attention that I spent on it through September the Militant Geek store is too valuable a sandbox to give up.

Yesterday was the Day Against DRM – you might remember that this was one social media promotional bit that paid large traffic dividends. The site was again picked up by Boing Boing in a recap piece. After that, numerous sites re-broadcasted the story which had the nice side effect of also linked back to the T-shirt shop.

There is also good cause to expect business to grow, with little help, in the next several months – spending some time with Google Trends shows two very noticeable cycles:

1. a bubble over the summer months when T-shirts would be preferred clothing

2. a sharp spike around thanksgiving, indicating heavy holiday shopping.

Trying to garner traffic in the month limit provided for myself was extremely challenging for a number of reasons. A large one happened to be that it can take several month for natural search engine traffic – the kind from all mighty Google, to begin coming to a site. By starting the project in September will have 'primed the pump' for this chief buying time.

Spreadshirt, within the last day, also launched their categories feature. It was one feature that I wish I would have had at the onset of the project – the ability to group designs logically along different themes. Amazon also send a friendly reminder email that their affiliate program was available. Like I said, there are plenty of programs to try out.

Next: What I did Wrong (prepare for a long post )…

Total Spent: $38.95
Total Shirt Revenue: $16.27
Total Ad Revenue (all sources): $ 4.91
Total Revenue: $21.18
Total Visits/Pageviews: 2010/ 3526

27 Sep 2006, Posted by Matthew Reinbold , 0 Comments

Online Business: Day 23

This is the latest in a line of posts about an online business. The rules are simple: (1) I can’t spend more than $50, (2) must be software development related (3)  built ‘in the margins’ (the three hours or so after my toddler goes to bed) and (4) needs to make a car payment by October 1^st (net revenues of $495.01). It's all part of an experiment in how far some talent, determination, and web based dinking can go. The project is MilitantGeek.com, a geek T-shirt site with bite.

Yikes! I got busy with various Vox Pop Design related projects heading into the weekend and before I know it my business experiment had been setting dormant for almost a week!

The need to devote time to other projects combined with an unplanned trip to Washington D.C. for an indeterminate amount of time means that this project will sadly ‘end’ with a whimper. As can be seen from today’s totals it is highly unlikely that I’ll accomplish the goal of $495.01 – in fact, I haven’t even made my $39 back. As an observer on StartupNation commented:

“I would hate to see the project fail because it didn't make $500 dollars in a month of being online.”
 

Another commentator on the SpreadShirt forum (login required) stated:

“You can make money on the internet, a lot of money – but a month?  That's going to be hard if its your first month.”
 

It’s true; the final goal was very ambitious given that it was starting from scratch and in a time frame too short to hope for any ‘natural’ search results (i.e. traffic from search engines). But if the experiment doesn’t meet $500 by October 1^st is it a failure? Certainly not. For less than what a family spends on an evening out I had a chance to learn a tremendous amount about design, blogging, hosting, 3^rd party fulfillment, social media optimization, building buzz, and on, and on, and on. I would argue that for as little as it takes to get started developers, designers, and entrepreneurs can't afford not to try something like this.

It is my hope that in the next few days, between projects and travel, I’ll be able to dismantle these last four weeks with a critical eye. I hope to identify what went right, what could have been done better, and what I currently still has me stumped. 

Let’s go to the numbers (through September 26^th):

Total Spent: $38.95
Total Shirt Revenue: $5.59
Total Ad Revenue (all sources): $ 4.11
Total Revenue: $9.70
Total Visits/Pageviews: 1260/ 2285

21 Sep 2006, Posted by Matthew Reinbold , 0 Comments

Online Business: Day 17

This is the seventeenth in a line of posts about an online business. The rules are simple: (1) I can’t spend more than $50, (2) must be software development related (3)  built ‘in the margins’ (the three hours or so after my toddler goes to bed) and (4) needs to make a car payment by October 1^st (net revenues of $495.01). It's all part of an experiment in how far some talent, determination, and web based dinking can go. The project is MilitantGeek.com, a geek T-shirt site with bite.

While there are a number of things in the air that I’d love to talk about I’ve got to make this little more than a quick update. I’m in the middle of building out a community site with lots of streaming media. It’s tremendously exciting stuff but it does take time.

As I alluded to before, the custom T-Shirt creators are incredible. I would strongly recommend that if others get bitten by the desire to do this check out (in no particular order):

• Preshrunk (T-Shirt review blog. Semi-regular updates but highlights the cream.)
• T-Shirt Countdown (entire community built around customized T’s)
• Thread Reviews (TShirt aggregation site. Allows voting Digg style)
• And look for TShirtMetropolis (to be launched soon)

I spent much of yesterday trying to soak in much of the quality advice shared on the numerous boards. Taking a cue I went and made a series of lower priced T-Shirts that use the ‘Circumvent DRM’ and ‘Explicit Contempt’ logos. These design categories are linked to from the ‘Day Against DRM’ page. Now if curious random surfers happen upon the page and click on either of those designs they are presented with a more options with a range in prices. Too much choice can confuse. However, I hope that I’ve managed to introduce some purchasing flexibility that wasn’t there before. It’s also something that I could do until I get a chance to rework the storefront into a ‘design first’ model; not ‘product first’ as it currently is. By going ‘design first’ more images can fit on the screen, they can be tailored to the look of the site, and each piece can be a stepping stone for numerous items; all in all, it’s a superior organizational method than having users linearly click through all items displayed randomly (as it is now).

Finally, traffic is starting to wane. I need to pop another social crusade soon to keep momentum going.

Day 17 – September 20^th

Total Spent: $38.95
Total Shirt Revenue: $5.59
Total Ad Revenue (all sources): $3.93
Total Revenue: $9.52
Visits: 112
Pageviews: 181
Total Visits/Pageviews: 1078/1951

20 Sep 2006, Posted by Matthew Reinbold , 0 Comments

Online Business: Day 16

This is the sixteenth in a line of posts about an online business. The rules are simple: (1) I can’t spend more than $50, (2) must be software development related (3)  built ‘in the margins’ (the three hours or so after my toddler goes to bed) and (4) needs to make a car payment by October 1^st (net revenues of $495.01). It's all part of an experiment in how far some talent, determination, and web based dinking can go. The project is MilitantGeek.com, a geek T-shirt site with bite.

Today I promised to talk a little about my research and exploration of the communities surrounding T-shirts. Because the budget for advertising this project closely resembles a goose egg I have tried to engage targeted groups of people. I wasn’t kidding when I stated that customized online T-shirts are huge. The first community that I checked out was the T-shirt Forums. This is a major site devoted to all things T- not just those using fulfillment services (CafePress, Spreadshirt). The forums were a treasure trove of information; how people were promoting their work, design tips, possible off the shelf artwork for sale[1], and new shirt ideas.

SpreadShirt has also just re-launched its forums. While they are sparse right now the traffic from the site has been a steady 5.53% of total unique visitors. Providing thoughtful answers and posing quality questions do cause people to check out what a person is about. More valuable than the traffic, however, was seeing how people were organizing their store fronts. I’ve talked about sucking the store into an iframe to try and retain at least something of the MilitantGeek ‘chrome’[2] and provide basic traffic details. What others have done is create custom images of their designs and arranged them to best fit their site. For example SnarfShop or AtomicJellyFish both start with a block of designs. Clicking on the design then loads up all shirts with that design, sometimes loading the store in frame (SnarfShop) or seamlessly passing the user off to the SpreadShirt domain (AtomicJellyFish). Rather than have just one design per color the stores are loaded up with the same design on a wealth of colors. I’ve mostly tried to avoid this thus far because I didn’t want people having to scroll through pages and pages of similar items. However, by reworking the store I could make navigation much easier while providing greater variety in shirt selection.

I foresee some html/css storefront rework in the immediate future.

Finally, some quick quibbles:

• The ‘Day Against DRM’ set of banners are far and away what is bringing traffic to the site. However, it is also the biggest exit point (81.14% of the people that hit that page then end up leaving). I need to come up with better ways of diverting flow to other parts of the site. Of course, I do have links to multiple T-shirts at the bottom but I have no clue whether those are being hit since they are dumped into the SpreadShirt site’s statistical black hole.
• I added social networking buttons (Add to Digg, Add to Del.icio.us, etc) to the bottom of Militant Geek posts. I used the Sociable plugin for WordPress. Incredibly easy to configure and get running with.

Day 16 – September 19^th

Total Spent: $38.95
Total Shirt Revenue: $5.59
Total Ad Revenue (all sources): $1.28
Total Revenue: $6.87
Visits: 199
Pageviews: 296