To view my presentation at Speaker Deck, click here.

My startup is called Minuteglass and it is quite simply a tool for tracking time. I’ve used or tried dozens of time tracking applications over the years and Minuteglass is our response to the question of “what could be better in time tracking.”

I’m so excited by time tracking that I started a blog devoted to the topic.

Currently Minuteglass is in private beta. We’ve released to a few select friends and as soon as we have our bug list whittled down we will be releasing to our 500+ person beta invite list. Right now we have 49 bugs / improvements we’re working on.

Most startup founders are programmers or business guys. I’m different in that I’m a user interface designer. While I’d love to be a developer I wouldn’t trade what I do for the ability to code. I love approaching the world from a design perspective.

In the coming months, I hope to share more about Minuteglass and the process I’ve gone through to get to this point (along with my excellent team).

Basecamp (above) does not charge incrementally. If you upgrade your plan a day after your billing cycle you’ll have an entire month at the previous rate.

FreshBooks (above) on the other hand charges you incrementally based on changes you make. So if you add extra staff to your plan for example, you’ll have to pay.

Both ways are fine, but it’s just an interesting thing to consider when you build your own web app.

But I think I’ve had the bug from the start. The consulting business has been good to me, but at times I get frustrated by the very nature of consulting and how nothing you do has residual earnings potential.

With consulting, it unfortunately has to always be about the next project (and hopefully with existing clients, otherwise you have to find new customers). In our consulting business, we’ve managed to acquire 1.1 new client every month. Which is an amazing average (over 10 years).  Our business is going strong and we’ve had some time over the last year to focus on our own startup.

I’ve written about our startup before – it’s a new time tracking application. I wish I could share screenshots and specifics but I can’t until we launch (we’re still in development). We’re building Minuteglass in Ruby on Rails. It’s rather interesting and I like how it offers fast development (I’m more of a designer myself). We’re hosting all of our code on GitHub and we’re hosting our development server on Slicehost. I don’t know if that will be our final hosting company or not.

One of the best resources for new discussions and topics surrounding startups is Hacker News from Y Combinator. It used to be a site called Startup News which frankly was a better name. The site focuses on web startups.

A new networking group has formed in Phoenix called OpenCoffee Club. The idea behind OpenCoffee Club is that entrepreneurs and investors meet on a regular basis over coffee just to connect and talk about share about their startups. I’m really excited about the group and have already met some cool people (and even done some business with Flatterline, the company that is organizing the events!). I think it’s a fabulous beginning to more frequent and interesting discussions in Phoenix about startups.

Anyways, I haven’t been blogging much because I’ve been so busy working on client projects, building Minuteglass, and working on my house (check out this video of my home office!). I’m hoping to start blogging more regularily again.

Alongside of main application, we are now working on a desktop widget for Minuteglass! It is being developed in Adobe AIR and we’re pretty excited about the prospects. We designed everything in Photoshop first to get a feel for how it would work.

We’re realizing quickly that the widget will be a major part of our application’s success. Because it’s in Adobe AIR, we will be able to roll it out on all the major platforms and at the same time.

Screenshot: Widget sign in page.

As we get closer to launching Minuteglass we’ll show you the rest of the widget. It has two major features: a stopwatch mode and a manual time entry mode. But you’ll always be able to use the web based tools as well.

Feature Lockdown

For about 6 months now we’ve been in a bit of a “feature lockdown” meaning no new feature is added if we think it will take an extra day of work. This allows us to concentrate on launching our product, and keeping our code debt to a minimum.

In the world of web startups they say “launch early” for a reason. The longer you work on your application the more details and ideas you have. Before you know it your simple idea has turned into the next bloated version of Windows.

We’ve recently picked up a lot of development momentum (5 people now working on it). We don’t have a launch date yet, but we’re really excited about our progress.

1) Squarespace
Squarespace
This is my favorite of the bunch. It’s not free. Pricing starts at $8 per month. That’s what a lot of us pay for shared hosting, so it’s pretty reasonable. This system is very user friendly and the menus and dialogs are very Applesque. One of their claims to fame is that Kevin Rose uses it. They also feature some really nice designs.

2) Brightegg

Brightegg is also a paid service (they do offer a free package) with pricing starting at $19 per month. If you happen to be a designer, they have a program where you can make money by submitting your designs. Another great thing about Brightegg is that they have a private label service.

3) Weebly

This site builder is totally free and features some nice designs. They offer a developer API that allows some extended functionality.

4) Synthasite

Finally we have Synthasite, a completely free site builder that offers (like the others) a design, hosting, and custom domains (custom domains cost money).

These are all great products and for canned websites, they have some very impressive designs and features. For free or for the cost of hosting, you can slap nice site together in minutes.

Zombies in Plain English

Social Networking in Plain English

Twitter in Plain English

Wikis in Plain English

You see, I’ve been saving files to my DropBox for a few months now. It’s become such and integral part of my daily computing experience that I don’t think about it. The reason I don’t think about it is because it’s a trouble-free product and the experience is totally natural.

I think this is probably the high-point of any product or service; the ultimate benchmark for quality and usefulness. When something is so good you totally take it for granted an forget about it. That’s when something is truly valuable.

Another example of this phenomena is with my hosting company. I really put a lot of time into researching what host to use for my product, but no matter how great the deals were at competitors, no matter how good the reviews where, I still had to deal with a nagging truth in the back of my mind. I have never had to think about my current host. I don’t think about them because they are so good that I forget about them. Because of that, I stuck with them and I’m glad I did.

I’m not sure what this means, but it seams like there’s a pattern here. While not every product is best forgotten, there are some things in life you just don’t want to think about (like web hosts and file syncing) and when you don’t have to think about them, you probably found a good one. What do you think?

There’s a real problem with content management systems. I’m not talking about the big enterprise platforms. I’m talking about the basic content management software that simple web sites need and use. They often do too much. That’s right. Modern content management software does too much.

For example, I have a friend with a pretty average technical acumen. This friend needed a simple website for an organization that he had started and I, being a web nerd, decided to help him set up a site. So we did the usual. I went to Godaddy and bought a suitable domain along with a basic Linux hosting account, while he stared over my shoulder in wonder. I found a template for his site and we paid a fair price for a nice pre-made design. So the next step was to get him up and running with a cms so he could manage all of his content without needing any further assistance from me.

My first instinct was to go with Drupal. I have tooled around with Drupal in the past and it has a good reputation among the web-savvy. So I installed Drupal, started configuring the site and I soon realized, this is way more functionality and configuration than my friend needs. Not to mention, it’s way more than he can handle. A little time with Joomla presented the same dilemma. These systems have too much complexity; too much functionality; too much configuration. Not only that, but working with the template frameworks of these systems was going to be a nightmare. Remember, I already spent some money on a pre-made template for this site. I was going to have to make the template fit the cms. Not fun.

So, with all these issues before me, I realized why so many developers end up rolling their own cms system. It’s because what’s out there is more than a simple site needs. A simple website needs a simple cms. Don’t get me wrong, Drupal, Joomla, Worpress and the like are all great systems and they have their markets, but often they are more complex than necessary for small sites. Another major issue with the standard content management system is the need to have a database running on your server and the need to install software. It’s always a problem to have to patch your cms because of some update, or deal with setting up a database to run your cms.

Just like software is moving more and more from the desktop to the cloud, it seems advantageous that server based systems might do the same. Instead of installing 10 versions of WordPress on the sites of 10 of your clients, on 10 different servers (all separate, all requiring maintenance), why not host your content in a central location? This way all of your client’s content is in one place and there are no software installations or databases to maintain. Centralizing content makes good sense. Using a CMS as a services makes good sense.

I realize there are lots (thousands) of content management systems out there and there’s no one system that’s right for everyone, but I think that Clover Content is right for most small sites and for people who manage a lot of sites for clients. Anyway, that’s why I boostrapped this startup and entered the arena. Let me know what you think.

Now, Mint has one of the best user experiences on the web. From a developer’s standpoint, I’m amazed at the things this app can do and just how smooth it is. The design is great as well. If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend you give it a shot.

Our product has had a few names during our development process. Picking a name for a product is incredibly tricky. Not only do you need to come up with a good name that everyone likes, but you have to find the domain name.

Previously, the product was called Roundup, and before that Windstorm.

Now, we’ve come up with a name we’re happy with. It’s Minuteglass. It’s like “hourglass” but for minutes. Get it? We like it and we’re working on logos and also working on the product. The product is coming together faster and we’re excited to release it. At this time we don’t have an ETA. Stay tuned!

More at our blog for the product: www.trackthetime.com and at www.minuteglass.com

What’s it about? It’s a review of marketing efforts that have worked for other web app companies mixed with marketing topics and ideas geared especially for people who need to spread the word about their web application, software, or web site.

It includes marketing insights which I have personally received from the founders of Campaign Monitor, Brightkite, Dogster, Geni, JumpBox, Viddler, Tumblr, JotForm, Harvest, SmugMug, Ma.gnolia, Beanstalk, Wufoo and Cashboard. Not to be missed!

If you live in Phoenix, be sure to come!
When: Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Cost: Free
Location: See Refresh Phoenix web site

I would highly recommend this book if you are involved in anything to do with the Internet, and startups. It’s kind of refreshing to know that there are other insane people out there, with similar goals, like me.

The Apple Blog also turned up a surprising number of good results (and a few locally). Then Webware just launched a new job board (and it is free for the first 30 days). Those are some great ways to take advantage of the current boom in job boards.

If we don’t find someone through these routes, we will pay to post on one of the larger boards.

I have been working on the documentation for our app, and decided to use Google Docs to make it happen. I am more than pleased with Google Docs. It’s very robust, allows me to update the documentation from wherever I am at, and I can share it with everyone involved. So far I have about 8 pages of documentation.

I’m breaking my documentation into the following categories:

1. URL Structure
2. Usernames & Profiles
3. Login/Logout (cookies, etc.)
4. Future Development Considerations
5. Tentative Development Schedule
6. Features For Launch
7. Post Launch Features
8. Marketing
9. Desktop Widgets
10. Owning a Category
11. Exporting
12. RSS
13. Help and Support
14. Payment Gateway

As you can see, I have not even begun to document things on a page by page level, that is my next step. One of the interesting things about our schedule is that it has slipped a bit. We have been so very busy with other projects for clients, that it was unavoidable. The good news is that we’re past the stage when we are the only ones involved (bringing in coders and developers is next on our agenda).

I’d say we’re shooting for a June launch at this point, but it could be sooner. I’m trying to ensure that it is sooner.

I haven’t told you what our web app is all about yet! Don’t worry, that’s coming soon enough. In fact, I’m putting the final touches on the marketing ideas I’ve been jotting down. I’m wanting to be sure of a few things before we do that, and not announce too early.

It’s all very exciting to be making progress like we are. We’re VERY excited about our product. We think there is a huge gap in the market right now for a tool like we will be offering. We really think that what we’re building has some important ideas.

Thanks and stay tuned!

We have made an amazing amount of progress today and this last week. Two major sections were changed on paper a few weeks ago (much better). Literally, two sections were created in Photoshop from sketches just today (yeah, I am now way behind on some other projects, ugh).

To summarize, we are out of “design” and into “front end development” which means we’re that much closer to development (we plan to meet with developers in early January about developing the app).

In total, their are 13 Photoshop files which as templates make up the brunt of the application. The difficult part about building an app like this is making the complex stuff easy to do. That’s what I hope we have accomplished, and I can’t wait to hear back from the people I emailed.

People are asking me when I will “announce” what our application is about. I’m still trying to figure that out, but likely sometime soon after backend development begins. At that point, we’ll be transitioning to our marketing (which is planned to some extent) and we’ll be able to keep things managed better. We shall see.

Maybe work interferes, or some other event in your life.

Maybe your personal project is to start up a new business, or as it was in my case, develop a set of web applications.

Side projects get delayed a lot, I have found. Usually because at the end of the day they don’t have an immediate payoff.

Or maybe you force yourself to deal with client projects first, and put your own projects aside for spare time.

I’ve been doing this for far too long. So long, that now, a couple of my personal projects have been pushed back 4, 5, even 6 years. I often come up with ideas and never actually invest the time they would require due to work commitments.

A few months ago I hit a critical point where all that I could think about was missed opportunities. Usually it happened this way: I’m browsing the internet, reading blogs, and then stumble across a brand new web application that does exactly what I wanted to do. And they’re making bank.

It was so bad, that for a while, all that I could think about was how, by accepting any new projects for other clients, I would just push back my own project yet again.

Two quick thoughts:

1. Ideas are not worth very much. It’s the execution of those ideas that is important.
2. Does accepting a $1,000 project (or whatever amount) actually cause me to defer potential thousands of dollars in residual income if I would just make my ideas into reality?

In conclusion, I ended up making the decision to spend time on my projects. Every weekend for the last few months I’ve been working on our web application. It’s been amazing. I have renewed enthusiasm for the other projects I work on, and I have my own “dream” becoming reality.

I encourage you to do the same. Stop delaying, and just start.

Our process has been to design a quick mockup in Photoshop so that we can get a quick idea as to how the screen would look. Once we have those, we pass it around the team here and gather feedback.

This weekend I designed the settings page for our web application. On this page you can enter and change your username and password, view billing receipts, change your credit card, export your data (in CSV format), and also upload a user picture.

For the user picture, we’ve decided to go with the typical square image, since that’s what everybody is familiar with. We’re thinking about trying something unique, and that is to also allow you to upload an image of your logo. It’s unique because only you will be able to see it. More on that later.

As you can see, we allow people to upload two images. The image of the cowboy just might be our default user profile picture. We’re still trying to decide.

That’s an example of how it will look once you integrate both images into the header. It’s a nice and clean look, and is one of the ways people can personalize their experience.

As such, I’m trying to determine whether we should create our products logo to fit that mold, or if we should find some careful balance between traditional and Web 2.0.

And don’t worry, it doesn’t have any reflections (*yet*).

I spent some time at LogoPond today. Check out this neat logo for The Limelight Group. And this one for Bulb.

It’s obvious that designers and programmers feel differently about this.

Take this perspective, for example (all quotes from comments here):

As a programmer, I produce ugly-but-functional designs for the HTML monkeys to tart up however they like. Trying to do it the other way around is a recipe for disaster.

And this one:

I would say both things have to be done in parallel rather than first coding and then designing or the reverse way. The final product has to be clear enough so that the designer can work on how to present it while the coder is implementing each functionality.

What do you think? Can it be both ways? With our web application that we are building, our process has been to design everything in Photoshop before writing a single line of code. This may sound backwards to some people, but it has allowed us to see what the user will see, and show people our application.

Our web app would not have been as cool as it is if we hadn’t started with design.

There have been a large number of design improvements, and functionality improvements that have been made as a result of seeing something designed.

It’s quite possible that many people think of the design as purely aesthetic, when I see both the beauty side, as well as functionality and ease of use.

What do you think? In your projects, do you begin with code or with design?

Continue Reading:

• 10 Things That Will Make Or Break Your Website

I wrote about this after I returned from Brasil, and observed the huge market down there. I couldn’t figure out why more companies don’t do this.

• Firstly, we have the beginnings of a marketing site. It’s only a design concept at this point, however it’s something and it looks great. Realizing that we really need a copywriter at some point.
• I installed WordPress for our product blog. We’re going to be running our blog on a completely separate domain name for search engine reasons. We are going to begin posting to that blog now, but not tell anybody about it until the beta begins. We were able to pick up a cool domain name that has some good keywords in it.
• Spent some time working on the logo type treatment.
• More time was spent tweaking the actual application design. There are several key sections we still need to work on.
• We decided to simplify our sign up process and have just a few key things (username, password, name, email) required in order to get an account. Then in the settings section, you’ll be able to further customize the application. We have this currently drawn out on our whiteboard and we need to move it into the product design.
• We need to begin formulating the marketing plan on paper — right now, it’s all in our heads. We’re going to be approaching marketing in a grassroots sort of way, at least, that’s the initial plan.

We were pondering whether we should have a demo or not for our upcoming web application. If we were to provide a demo account, people could click once and immediately be taken to a demo they can interact with. On the flip side, this would potentially lower the number of people that actually sign up for our product.

The free sign up idea works great, especially if you have a free version of your product.

I wonder how many thousands of people have signed up for Basecamp accounts, only to abandon them moments after logging in. It’s great for boosting your customer count.

Being able to say you have 500,000 customers is impressive (source: Basecamp homepage). I just wonder how many of those customers actually pay.

1. Began serious design work on our new web application
2. Came up with a new name for the product, and it even has a code name (the original name)
3. Bought the domain name (and it’s a hot name!)
4. Created final version of web application site map and promotion site map
5. Hashed out final user-relationship issues
6. Feeling so energized about a project for the first time in a year, I feel like I’m making progress…

Next steps:

1. Finish site design concept #1 and run it up the flagpoll
2. Design logo
3. Design and build development blog to track progress and get something online
4. Decide if the nature of the application will stay a secret until released
5. Begin writing content for site
6. Create additional wireframes and documentation
7. Finalize product pricing model
8. Find developer(s)