The Smart, the Dumb and the Painful
Feb. 29th, 2004 10:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupAlthough not really in that order. Today was an interesting day in that it felt like a lazy sunday, but I actually got some stuff accomplished. To start with, I was up my 2:00 pm. Considering the hours I've been keeping lately, thats really very good.
Shortly thereafter![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_sps_ and I went for a walk. It was a lovely day for it, even if my legs aren't really in shape yet. I had promised to cook Taco's for supper, but we needed onions and lettuce and we had to stop by the bank to put some money into the biz account for our partnership.
After doing the errands, we stopped at a Second Cup on the way home and had coffee and chatted while my legs regained some strength. While we were there, we discussed an old business idea that we had a few years ago, and considered what changes we would make to it today. This was one of the 'lighter' weight ideas in that the up-front software development cost was not enormous. While chatting, the Smart think happened. We hit upon an idea for a related business that could grow to become the other idea. The thing is, this idea has a much simpler ramp up.
Most of our business plans have the same basic form: You write some software, you hook it to the internet, money pours out. The big problem has always been the time and the money needed to write the software. In this new plan the initial software can be reduced to almost zero. All that is required is getting some help with web design, some simple data entry, lots of phone calls, and maybe the aid of a few friends fluent in certain key languages. I really should sit down and make a business plan (for personal use) because unlike the complex version of the plan, the simple version has an existing (well... closely related) market that one can research.
The disadvantage of the plan is that if it works it will require continuous upgrades for the next couple years, until it evolves into the other plan, its not 'fire and forget'. Still, if it works even half decently it might pay our living expenses long enough to write the software for one of the BIG money making schemes. As usual, its the boot sequence that is tricky to figure out.
Anyway, we got home from the walk and toldtaxlady the new idea to see what she thought of it. She seems to figure it will probably fly, and is at least worth trying out. So, the next step is to figure out what kind of income potential it has, so I'll know if I can afford to hire some friends to help set it up (or offer them a cut, or whatever) or if its gonna be sufficiently tight that I'm going to have to do most of the work myself.
While we were having this discussion I made Tacos, and they were Nummy, even if I am claiming so myself. After that,taxlady drove _sps_ to the stop for the express bus home, while I put away the dishes. That was the painful part. I don't have normal depth perception so I have to move my head a fair ways to judge distances from the induced paralax. In particular, I'm really not good at judging the distance to the ends of pointy knives sticking up in the cutlery slots of the dishwasher. For this reason I usually ask taxlady to put all point things point-side-down, but this time she forgot. I stabbed myself twice while filling the dishwasher.
This distracted (and disgruntled) me sufficiently that I then did the DUMB thing. I turned on the dishwasher, and let it run for about 10 minutes, without ever turning on the water feed for it. When I realized what I had done, I quickly shut off the machine and checked to see if I had done any harm. Everything looked okay, so I set it up again (properly, this time) and restarted it.
Now, its probably about done the noisy washing,taxlady has returned home, and we have a new episode of Startrek on tape to watch. After that, I shall most likely go to sleep "early" for once, as I really did not get enough sleep last night.
Hopefully that means I'll be up good and early for doing some market research and talking to some friends about possible business arrangements.
Shortly thereafter
_sps_ and I went for a walk. It was a lovely day for it, even if my legs aren't really in shape yet. I had promised to cook Taco's for supper, but we needed onions and lettuce and we had to stop by the bank to put some money into the biz account for our partnership. After doing the errands, we stopped at a Second Cup on the way home and had coffee and chatted while my legs regained some strength. While we were there, we discussed an old business idea that we had a few years ago, and considered what changes we would make to it today. This was one of the 'lighter' weight ideas in that the up-front software development cost was not enormous. While chatting, the Smart think happened. We hit upon an idea for a related business that could grow to become the other idea. The thing is, this idea has a much simpler ramp up.
Most of our business plans have the same basic form: You write some software, you hook it to the internet, money pours out. The big problem has always been the time and the money needed to write the software. In this new plan the initial software can be reduced to almost zero. All that is required is getting some help with web design, some simple data entry, lots of phone calls, and maybe the aid of a few friends fluent in certain key languages. I really should sit down and make a business plan (for personal use) because unlike the complex version of the plan, the simple version has an existing (well... closely related) market that one can research.
The disadvantage of the plan is that if it works it will require continuous upgrades for the next couple years, until it evolves into the other plan, its not 'fire and forget'. Still, if it works even half decently it might pay our living expenses long enough to write the software for one of the BIG money making schemes. As usual, its the boot sequence that is tricky to figure out.
Anyway, we got home from the walk and told
taxlady the new idea to see what she thought of it. She seems to figure it will probably fly, and is at least worth trying out. So, the next step is to figure out what kind of income potential it has, so I'll know if I can afford to hire some friends to help set it up (or offer them a cut, or whatever) or if its gonna be sufficiently tight that I'm going to have to do most of the work myself.While we were having this discussion I made Tacos, and they were Nummy, even if I am claiming so myself. After that,
taxlady drove _sps_ to the stop for the express bus home, while I put away the dishes. That was the painful part. I don't have normal depth perception so I have to move my head a fair ways to judge distances from the induced paralax. In particular, I'm really not good at judging the distance to the ends of pointy knives sticking up in the cutlery slots of the dishwasher. For this reason I usually ask taxlady to put all point things point-side-down, but this time she forgot. I stabbed myself twice while filling the dishwasher. This distracted (and disgruntled) me sufficiently that I then did the DUMB thing. I turned on the dishwasher, and let it run for about 10 minutes, without ever turning on the water feed for it. When I realized what I had done, I quickly shut off the machine and checked to see if I had done any harm. Everything looked okay, so I set it up again (properly, this time) and restarted it.
Now, its probably about done the noisy washing,
taxlady has returned home, and we have a new episode of Startrek on tape to watch. After that, I shall most likely go to sleep "early" for once, as I really did not get enough sleep last night.Hopefully that means I'll be up good and early for doing some market research and talking to some friends about possible business arrangements.
