Ideas are dime a dozen, execution is key. Yea yea, I know. I've heard it a dozen times.
I'm convinced that I have something on my hands (or rather in my head) that could be my Passive Income earner. No more big ideas, or over-ambitious thoughts. I have too many sticky-notes with those on my desk. I recently came across a business that is very successful and falls in my space of skill and understanding. I'm going to mimic every move and apply it to the niche that I know. Thats my idea. Pray for me.
The niche that I'm talking about is Movable Type, an Open-Source CMS/blogging platform I have been breathing day and night for the past 2 years. I know the language markup and it's infrastructure capabilities. I've worked with enough clients to understand the user/administrator needs in this space, and on this platform.
If all goes according to plan, it will be a scalable business that revolves around recurring fees. But experience and some reading tells me nothing ever goes according to plan. The only way I know how to prepare myself for a strong launch and eventual success is to read all that I can from the teachings of Steve Blank and Eric Ries. I have tremendous amount of respect for these guys and their genius. Both have built highly successful businesses, had great exists as well as failures, and they're one the rare technology guys who have the gift of public speaking (read: teaching while they speak).
the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. ~Eric Ries
I've had a few runs with start-up projects before, and something I always dreaded was the fact that my technical limitations could only get me so far in building a prototype or a Minimally Viable Product (MVP) which is critical for a founding member. But not this time. I am fully capable of building the product myself, and this luxury has allowed me to think about the strategy and business side of things with clarity.
Though I am at a crossroad right now; whether to build the product right now or pre-plan every move from start to finish on a white-board. I didn't think this would be something I would have to over come, but the decision itself is proving to be a difficult task. I really want to start building, but being the pixel-perfectionist that I am, I know the design and development of it will be long enough that I could suffer a burn out or veer away from the big picture.
And thats where I am now, at the point of deciding what the appropriate next step is. Swaying towards strategy first.
I may have just answered my own question while drafting this entry, which itself is a great encouragement for me to continue this blogging experiment, but If you are reading this, expect future entries about my start-up/microISV endeavour and the lessons learned along the way.
I'm also simultaneously reading about The Pomodoro Technique which is a nice method of achieving maximum productivity that I will be experimenting. Will update later.