Checking in from the basement...

After 8 weeks working from the basement, one starts to lose their social skills.—I just realized my last real post was a month ago and I owe you folks some updates!  It’s easy to blog when things are going well and you are feeling optimistic and omniscient,  but much harder when you feel behind.  –Partly because it’s hard to justify the time spent to write, but mostly because my personal tendency is not to whine  er, share, but rather to STFU, redouble my efforts and focus on putting things back on track.

Anyway, the kids don’t have swimming lessons today so it’s a great time to catch you all up.  It’s going pretty slowly as I work alone, and hence, serially, but pretty well If I step back.  Here’s what’s been accomplished:

• We have a new logo (see the top of the blog)  It’s snazzy (imho) and clean yet hopefully playful and family friendly.  A tall order to ask from an Adobe Illustrator file, but we’re happy with it, for now anyway.  (btw: Did you see the little ‘F’ in the leaf, or did I just waste half a day learning to do that with a graphics tablet?  -On second thought, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know)  Anyway, it probably needs a little tweaking from a pro, but is a good starting point.
• We have the start of a Style Guide.  All of our subsequent apps will have the same clean (but not sterile) look, with the same sort of orange/green UI elements against white, fonts, icons, and other styling.  This is one of the reasons the first design is taking so long. –Getting the styling close for all other apps.  It’s something we can easily change in the actual product by using CSS, but the closer things are when you start designing the user experience (Ux) the better feel you have for whether the app flow works.  (You don’t make assumptions this uncertain feeling you have will go away when someone else pretties this up…)
• We chose a backend architecture.  LAMP +RubyOnRails on Amazon Web Services (AWS). We have an AWS/EC2 account and played around with putting images up and tearing them down.  Very slick stuff, and a great sandbox to play in where you don’t have to commit to a server stack day one to even start playing around.   I highly recommend going the AWS route for anyone starting out.  To get this far the last time I started a business, I had to spend about $10-15k.  With AWS, I’m still in the free Micro-tier and can experiment for zero cost. We may switch to node.js and forego LAMP long term, hard to say right now, but again, the beauty of virtualization in AWS-we can play with both and run A/B tests and cut-over with relatively little pain. When we have more experience on the ins and outs of configuring AWS, I’ll blog about it.
• We have 90% of the design of the first app done.  This should mean that the actual coding will go smoothly, because by doing *every* screen and permutation, I caught most of our Ux issues before they ever made it into code on phones.  Whenever I am in doubt, I call Margaret down, and walk through the app by touching my monitor like I’m using the product on a smartphone and turn Photoshop layers on/off to simulate the app flow.  If she looks confused or underwhelmed,  I know it’s too complex.  If I find myself wishing the screen were wider, or switching to a smaller font, it’s too complex.  If I get up to get coffee, and come back, and I don’t intuitively know what to do as a user of the app by what I'm staring at, it’s not the right design. (More on the design process I've been using in another post soon, I promise.).  Once I have some near final comps, I can hand jpegs over to Margaret to start writing the promotional materials for the app (screenshots for AppStore, the corp website, family-oriented media publications, etc.)
• I did deep dives on Photoshop, Illustrator and HTML5. I am now using the first two pretty effectively and we’ll find out about the HTML5 soon. FWIW I highly recommend Safari BooksOnline to anyone that does dev or design. I have saved at least $400 on the materials I would have needed to spin up.  Totally worth the $18/month. And taking the time to do full video tutorials was totally worth it.  I’ve easily recouped that time by not fumbling around CS4.

Sooo, am I happy with the progress?  Sorta, but it’s hard to be more than halfway through the 14 weeks and not be coding yet. I feel a lot better when I subtract the time spent spinning up on tools and technology.  I will say it's very rewarding though to see the screenshots on my iPhone and show others and they laugh and instantly get the app and 100% of parents so far WANT the app and to be in the beta. (Will share with you all soon, I promise, still have the patent issues to sort out...) and  I do think taking the time to do the full design in Photoshop first is going to pay off long term since I’ve scrapped a lot of screens and started over that would have just been wasted time and code.

But I am very antsy and just about every day have the urge to just start coding.    None of the progress matters if I run out of money before the app is done..  The good news is that it looks like I can put together some short term consulting gigs to keep throwing down pavement at the end of the runway, but even that is a slippery slope that devolves into full time consulting as I know from the last time I started a company.

Actually, reading this I do feel a lot better about the progress and should do this (blog) more often to get perspective back. For one guy in a basement, this isn’t a bad 7 weeks when you consider I have also been looking for full time work and consulting gigs as well.

But still, none of it matters if I don't finish.   Tomorrow we're taking the day to head out to the tulips and Deception Pass as a family to unwind, and then I'll get back at it Monday 5am.

I promise to do a better job bringing you all along with us for the second half.

-Chris

The coming age of Dedicated Tablets

Photo by Lifehacker

One of the trends we're betting on here at Fruhla is that tablet prices will drop hard and fast allowing for dedicated tablets in the home. This means that instead of one $600 iPad you all have to share and pull up and down off the wall, you have at least one other tablet mounted on a wall in the kitchen, or hallway or other location for dedicated usage for a smaller set of context appropriate apps. (e.g. a recipe or grocery app in the kitchen, etc.) which is much more practical than carrying your phone around in the house or clearing the space (and budget) for a 20" all-in-one touchscreen PC mounted in those same spaces.

Gartner sees the average selling price (ASP) of a tablet going from $543 in 2010 to $263 by 2015.  I think it's going to drop further and faster.  Here's why:

First, that prediction doesn't even come close to keeping pace with Moore's Law which roughly says you can put twice as much computing power in the same space every two years, but most folks think about the other resultant equation which is, if you hold the computing power/space constant, the manufacturing costs for an identical device should fall by half.

So we can have more power and smaller for the same price, or same power and form factors for half.  In the case of tablets, do we need smaller?  Maybe for detachable/embedded usage in consumer appliances, manufacturing and the Enterprise, but probably not for consumer handheld or dedicated usage. (It's pretty much just a big smartphone when you get down around a 4.5" screen, right?)

In fact the iPad 2 is already so slim that a further size reduction would probably make it less ergonomic to carry and use. I love the ingenuity of the Smart Cover, but it keeps the overall thickness so small that my hand actually cramps trying to carry it around securely without dropping it.

So do we need more power?  Tabets can already do most things a high-end media pc can do, such as play 1080p video, run graphics intensive games, etc.  Dedicated uses in both enterprise and the home won't need more than this to connect and consume media or view HTML5 enterprise apps.

As far as storage, one of the factors that seems to be missed in the forecasts I've seen is that cloud services allow you to order a *cheap* tablet so you can stream your media and download only the docs you need.  All you need is to be able to render graphics, a capable browser, Wi-Fi and capacitive multi-touch touchscreen.  (Many of the already sub $275 Android tablets like the Creative ZiiO have resistive touch which requires contact with a stylus or your fingernail and is less natural to interact with and difficult to use multi-touch gestures)

And I think other consumers are reaching the same conclusion and comfort level with the cloud. One of the things that was not taken into consideration in the ASP iPad2 forecasts by Piper Jaffray is that at launch of iPad2, the baseline model 16gb+wifi ran out first. --So people bought the 32GB model or higher model they didn't want, making the ASP less useful for predicting the pricing and demand of a cloud only tablet.

If you are a consumer who wasn't already on board with the cloud, your consumer confidence got a big boost  this week when a trusted brand like Amazon announced theirCloud Drive and Player.

And as a last data point, Costco already has a 7" WiFi Android tablet from Velocity Micro at $199.   It's resistive touch and doesn't run Bananas-Foster or whatever the latest version of Android OS is called, but it's sitting right next to a $589 Motorola Xoom.  Which price point do you think the Costco customer will go for?

Time to get back to work designing apps for those Dedicated Tablets.  They're going to be here under $200 by 2013 at the latest.

-Chris

Sharing vs Protecting your IPR? Discuss amongst yourselves...

Wanted to keep everyone updated on progress, but I'm stuck in an odd place.

Have some nice pixel-perfect Photoshop comps of our first app done which I am just dying to show you guys for feedback, as well as discuss the first app, but I have fallen waaay behind on the patent side of things while I worked on these. The catch here is that if I show and discuss the app in public before filing, even if I get the patent, you are more or less are assured that your patent will be invalidated should you try to enforce it.

The other consideration is that this is pretty much a 1.125 man dev shop. So if we disclose too early, we can get beat to market by competitors in a similar space. (Hence the reason we are looking into a patent for this app's utility in the first place)

So once I figure out whether or not we're going to file something (and file it) , I'll have some pretty pictures soon. For now, here's a touchscreen screenshot which has been approved by legal.

Anyone else been caught in this situation? Would love the feedback.

-Chris

Black Ops: Fruhla's 7 Day Purchase Order Process

1. No.
2. Can't you borrow one?
3. What can you do without in order to get this?
4. The <insert major appliance or electronics>  just died. Do you really need this now?
5. Seriously, you're going to be out of things to do and blocked if you don't get this *now*?
6. I heard an even better one is coming out next month...
7. No, boys aren't wearing Capris this year, your son needs new pants. You really need this now?

Ok fine. Initial here:

____ I fully acknowledge that I am potentially accelerating the timeline until we are out of money.

Black Ops: GAES (Generally Accepted Elementary School) Accounting

Black Ops posts will talk about the daunting operational side of starting a company, like taxes, incorporating, accounting, legal, and pretty much everything else that doesn't have a damned thing to do with shipping software to help parents.

Last time I started a company I used the best accounting firm in the city, spending thousands only to learn they were just mucking with the QuickBooks files which I provided.  On top of that I received two different IRS office actions based on their work and counsel.  So after two years of that, I just used their prior filings to tweak my own QuickBooks setup and used TurboTax and had NO office actions thereafter.

This time we're going even simpler and will be using GAES (Generally Accepted Elementary School) Accounting as shown in Figure 1.

Fig 1. GAES Profit Algorithm

If you are well versed in Net Present Value, Expected Commercial Value or other financial models that predict future revenue streams, GAES can be a little tricky, so bear with me:

The theory essentially says that you need to make more than you spend to feed your family and stay in business.

If you can't do that, profitability in year 5 means shit.

-Chris

Panic and Fear! Panic and Fear!

Okay, maybe that headline isn't completely accurate.  In fact my wife Margaret and I got most of our panicking out of the way when we discussed doing this over the past few weeks.  On top of that we have this uncanny knack of never losing it on the same day, so one of us is usually there to talk the other one down off the ledge. -And to do the morning routine and get the kids off to school when the other had a restless night.


But as excited as I am, I did get the feeling last night as I left work for the last time that I just walked off a cliff and have just 14 weeks before I hit the ground, so I better keep my wits, and my purple crayon, and come up thinking fast.  -And organize my time and tasks linearly, which as my friends know, may require Ritalin.


So for me, the first step is figuring out a work-from-home routine that works because,  as anyone with kids can tell you, you barely get enough uninterrupted thought to complete a relatively straightforward task like making a cup of coffee, so attempting to do a deep dive on say, Head First iPhone Development without sequestering yourself just isn't going to happen.  (As I am writing this, I've had to ask my son to stop singing a made up a song about his Lego Star Wars AT-AT no less than four times.)


So, after experimenting with various ideas to defrag my day as much as possible, the routine that seems to work is to get up at 5am and sneak down to my desk in the basement. That gives me 3 quiet hours or so before taking the kids to school, then another 4 1/2 before our daughter gets home from preschool, runs downstairs and turns on her Smoosh CD and plays next to my desk, which is the mental equivalent of a buffer-overflow attack. When that happens I call one of three audibles: (a) Hang here and switch to manual half-brain tasks like configuring PCs and web servers, integrating all the crap I just hauled home from my work office, etc. (B) Head up to my wife's office and squat there while she runs interference for me, or (C) Head to a coffee shop.  I also try to batch any meetings and calls for the afternoon as well.


So far so good.


-Chris

Welcome to 14 Weeks to Fruhla

Want to follow the action as we go from zero to  product in 14 weeks?  Follow our blog at 14wks2Fruhla, on Twitter @14wks2Fruhla or Like Fruhla on Facebook.