One Doctor's Journey

[Iwokeup]

Really love this thread! Very informative, and inspirational! Keep up the good work!

Thanks!

Now working night 3/5, with one day off then four more. Pretty tiring. Crazy pathology though which is awesome. You would not believe how much alcohol, drugs and blood can go into and out of a single person. That is all.

Anyway, back to the salt mines. Since I can't do too much at work, I'm just reading: how to advertise on Facebook.

 

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[Iwokeup]

One day off, and now starting night 2/4. I can't sleep so I'm popping onto the sight but otherwise reading "Traction."

I did manage to get a contact to see if I can get this hospital system to implement our solution.

 

[Iwokeup]

Headed to work but wanted to quickly update:

We've had the first two of our dev proposals come through and, independently, they're each about $50,000. GULP. Of course, the best dev we've interviewed also seems to have put together a more compelling offer. We'll have to see what the others offer and those proposals should be coming in soon.

I simultaneously love and hate my job. I love being The Man and actually saving lives, which is what this current gig is all about. But I hate selling my time to work for others. It's depressing to miss so much of my family time AND working on the enterprise. I'm just not as effective over such a long stretch when I'm trying to work things in after a 12 hour night shift.
.
.
Anyway, time to hitch up my pants and stop whining.

 

[tafy]

Im going through finding developers for my web app also, pm me if you need some advice or alternative places to look

I would suggest hiring a senior dev/architect on hourly and not on a project basis.

 

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[Iwokeup]

Im going through finding developers for my web app also, pm me if you need some advice or alternative places to look

I would suggest hiring a senior dev/architect on hourly and not on a project basis.

Thanks. I'll take you up on that.

I thought that by bidding an "all in" price on the project we avoided the hourly "nickel and dime."

 

[tafy]

I thought that by bidding an "all in" price on the project we avoided the hourly "nickel and dime."

All in price is very difficult for developers as what you expect and what they expect are different, they are also not sure if anything is going to slow them down or any technical difficulties therefore they have to pad the quote by a certain percantage just incase something goes wrong, this can be like 50%.

By getting someone really good and paying by the hour means that they will do the work the right way as theres not much point taking shortcuts to save time, if you know any trade people like electricians, painters or plumbers you can ask them about the difference as its much the same.

Theres time tracking software you can use that helps you see what they are doing on your time and they take screenshots every 10 mins. Odesk uses software like this for all its developers.

My uncle is a painter and he always says get hourly if you want the best job for the money, many of his jobs are price jobs and if he thinks its a 4 day job he will price for 5 days as you never know if there are any holdups, if he has underestimated the job and its looking like 6-7 days he will go faster and cut corners to get it back to 5. You really dont win with price jobs if you have a small budget, this is assuming its a one man job, if you need a team then price may suit you better than hourly.

 

[TTG SS]

So this is for a software program that will be used in house right? Not a web application, is that correct?

 

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[Iwokeup]

All in price is very difficult for developers as what you expect and what they expect are different, they are also not sure if anything is going to slow them down or any technical difficulties therefore they have to pad the quote by a certain percantage just incase something goes wrong, this can be like 50%.

By getting someone really good and paying by the hour means that they will do the work the right way as theres not much point taking shortcuts to save time, if you know any trade people like electricians, painters or plumbers you can ask them about the difference as its much the same.

Theres time tracking software you can use that helps you see what they are doing on your time and they take screenshots every 10 mins. Odesk uses software like this for all its developers.

My uncle is a painter and he always says get hourly if you want the best job for the money, many of his jobs are price jobs and if he thinks its a 4 day job he will price for 5 days as you never know if there are any holdups, if he has underestimated the job and its looking like 6-7 days he will go faster and cut corners to get it back to 5. You really dont win with price jobs if you have a small budget, this is assuming its a one man job, if you need a team then price may suit you better than hourly.

Interesting perspective. I've been reading this thread and Dane Maxwell's AMA thread (specifically post 29) and the take home message seems to be, bid on the project as a whole.

I'm so confused.

Adding to the confusion, is that our original dev was allowed to bid competitively along with everyone else. AND as a result, he may be able to deliver a really solid product at less than half the cost of the others. More importantly, he is willing to get into the weeds with us discussing Rete networks, system architecture, etc. He brings no design skills though. I'm probably going to have to break out Balsamiq and get to work if we choose him, LOL.

@tafy , what's been your experience with hiring developers? What scale product?

 

[Iwokeup]

So this is for a software program that will be used in house right? Not a web application, is that correct?

I'm not sure what this question means.

 

[Iwokeup]

So much of this whole process is the mind game: "I'm a physician so of course I don't know anything about code."

Bullshit.

I may not ever become a developer, but I figure that if I want to head a software company then I need to pull my head out of my a$$ and actually get down in the weeds and understand the language of my developers. So two nights ago I started reading about Rete networks, .Net architecture, etc and it's already paying dividends in terms of being able to have a good conversation with our dev candidates.

Lesson: if you say that you can't then you won't. SMH

Going to work in a bit (day 8 of 9 12 hour shifts filled with death, destruction, blood, pus, and drug seeking. Yay!) so I want to Pensieve out these thoughts before their gone.

I really need help with Marketing. *sigh*

Currently listening to the "Marketing for Founders" podcast. Lots of value there!

 

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[Iwokeup]

And also, I finally got back into doing bulletproof coffee. It really, really does work. Wow.

 

[TTG SS]

I'm not sure what this question means.

Is this a software program that they will be using to manage in-house information or is it a website?

Think "mircosoft excel"(software) vs fastlanefoum.com(website). Now I know they both are technically different types of software but that is what I'm getting at...

Sorry if my question comes off as confusing.

 

[Iwokeup]

Is this a software program that they will be using to manage in-house information or is it a website?

Think "mircosoft excel"(software) vs fastlanefoum.com(website). Now I know they both are technically different types of software but that is what I'm getting at...

Sorry if my question comes off as confusing.

In house cloud based software

 

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[tafy]

Look at it this way

The reason one dev is half the other is because they all think its going to take different amounts of work to get done, the could all be wrong in that it could be way harder or easier than they thought.

Whats your plan when the prototype is finished? do you want to add features and keep it updated?

These are your options as I see it

1. Hire a dev fulltime, he comes to an office or works from home and is 100% yours
2. Hire a dev on hourly (contractor)
3. Pay for the project cost

1 & 2 is the most flexible as what you planned for your app today may change midway through or you may want a killer feature you didnt think about, no3 is very inflexible as its hard to change anything to the plan and if you do you will be charged extra.

Its nearly impossible to do lean startup techniques with no3 as they will deliver what you asked for, 1 & 2 you can release often and learn and change way easier.

 

[Iwokeup]

Look at it this way

The reason one dev is half the other is because they all think its going to take different amounts of work to get done, the could all be wrong in that it could be way harder or easier than they thought.

Whats your plan when the prototype is finished? do you want to add features and keep it updated?

These are your options as I see it

1. Hire a dev fulltime, he comes to an office or works from home and is 100% yours
2. Hire a dev on hourly (contractor)
3. Pay for the project cost

1 & 2 is the most flexible as what you planned for your app today may change midway through or you may want a killer feature you didnt think about, no3 is very inflexible as its hard to change anything to the plan and if you do you will be charged extra.

Its nearly impossible to do lean startup techniques with no3 as they will deliver what you asked for, 1 & 2 you can release often and learn and change way easier.

Great food for thought, Tafy. Pondering to do. Thank you.

 

[Iwokeup]

Okay, lots to update:

First, thanks to @tafy for the recommendations viz hiring a developer. We're not going to end up using the service that you recommended because we ended up finding good dev who'll do the alpha for $7,000. He's got a great track record, knows our space really well, and even if he screws it up, it's not like we've flushed $50K down the drain.

- Our alpha product won't have internet connectivity because we want it to be playable by all of our customers on a laptop without worrying about internet connectivity
- About 75% of the alpha code should be transferable to the beta version
- We're using the following for each of the segments:
o UI: Bootstrap, KendoUI, KnockoutJS, and C
o BLL: .NET framework, C#
o DAL: .NET framework, C#
o Database: SQL server

- Alpha should be one in 30 days! Woo hoo! It's finally getting real!
- Plan is to get 100 pre-sales/early investors so that we can have most of the cost to develop our Beta product. Would like to get the Beta going by the end of January.

(I'll be honest, now that this is becoming something other than vaporware, I'm actually REALLY excited to work on the sales and Marketing plan)

Marketing & Sales strategy:

- So we're going to shoot for customer play sessions/Beta ask in early December.
- I'm going to try and get some speaking engagements for the Fall. Want to get the word out regarding our product and also position ourselves as thought leaders in our space.
- Going to work on the FB page and use that to act as a second blog site
- want to get @Gale4rc 's advice about social marketing
- Is there a venue where we can meet a bunch of potential customers? Looking into this....
- Email our early contacts in order to update them on our progress and to make sure that they don't forget about us.
- Still need to set up a landing page.

Things have been a little rough this week since I got back...baby had really bad diarrhea and we ended up at the doctor's office. All is well now but it was close for a while.

 

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[Iwokeup]

Also, I signed up for an Audible account and have been listening to Zig Ziglar's "Art of Closing the Sale." Wow. Simply GOLD

 

[tafy]

We're not going to end up using the service that you recommended because we ended up finding good dev who'll do the alpha for $7,000

With a price like that you cant go wrong! Good luck man!

 

[Iwokeup]

So the last few days have been pretty interesting (at least to me) and prove again the wisdom of those who have gone before:

o The value (or frustrations) of having a partner
o Action faking, wantrapreneur like actions, etc. versus what really matters (getting paying customers, etc).
o Living life the Ice Cream Way (give give give value and love and it will return to you)

So anyway,the Partner, who comes straight from Corporate America went big guns out of the gate and formed our LLC, went and got us a post office box as our "Corporate address," had business cards printed up, set up our business bank account and has been hounding me to establish a corporate CC.

Of course, as with everything that I've learned here, in good books, and multiple podcasts,none of that necessarily matters until you have a paying customer & sales. But it makes wantrapreneurs feel good, right? I've told the Partner before that none of that is necessary at this point but perhaps not as forcefully because after all, he came from a Real Business background and I'm just a doctor. But now I'm pretty sure that I'm right and he's wrong and it's because he's never been an entrepreneur before and his experience has always been as part of a big, established corporation. And "real businesses" always have all these details in place first because that's how it's done.

As stated earlier, we've found our developer. The operating agreement that the Partner and I have had states that all monies to developers come equally from each partner. Which is the way that it *should* be. However, partner calls me and says, "Well, I've already put X amount into the business (on the aforementioned action faking BS) and I want you to pay the first installment to the dev rather than 50/50." Which really pissed me off. Not the dollar amount (which is nothing, really) but because here the Partner is already swerving away from the operating agreement. Hell, I've probably already spent more than him in cash, time spent working on the company, domain purchase, etc and yet it doesn't occur to me to violate the agreement. This plus the other action faking stuff...it's made me uncomfortable.

Ice Cream...so the Wife and I went to visit her friend/my mentor (the businessman mentioned a while back) who was in the hospital unexpectedly. It was our anniversary but hell, what's more important than giving to others? So we spent a couple of hours at the bedside and man, what a great thing. Mr. Mentor and Wife were extremely happy, I felt great for doing something for others, and at the end of the visit Mr. Mentor started asking tons of questions about the business (it had been about a month since we talked). He had GREAT insights, and totally validated my misgivings about the Partner's actions wrt finances. He suggested a sit down between the three of us where he shares his decades of developing successful multi-million dollar enterprises with both of us. I think this is a great idea. And Mr. Mentor would like to be an active advisor to the company which is great as well.

(I'd also like to add that I've been working really hard lately living the ICK way in my marriage and it's paying enormous dividends. Hadn't realized how selfish I'd been in our marriage until I started to consciously give give give...wow. Results have been amazing. )

So. Going to have a conversation with the Partner on Monday and get down to brass tacks. Time to stop doubting myself as the leader of this little enterprise.

I also want to add that I have a lot of respect for the Partner. Just need to correct a couple of misconceptions.

 

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[jon.a]

So the last few days have been pretty interesting (at least to me) and prove again the wisdom of those who have gone before:

o The value (or frustrations) of having a partner
o Action faking, wantrapreneur like actions, etc. versus what really matters (getting paying customers, etc).
o Living life the Ice Cream Way (give give give value and love and it will return to you)

So anyway,the Partner, who comes straight from Corporate America went big guns out of the gate and formed our LLC, went and got us a post office box as our "Corporate address," had business cards printed up, set up our business bank account and has been hounding me to establish a corporate CC.

Of course, as with everything that I've learned here, in good books, and multiple podcasts,none of that necessarily matters until you have a paying customer & sales. But it makes wantrapreneurs feel good, right? I've told the Partner before that none of that is necessary at this point but perhaps not as forcefully because after all, he came from a Real Business background and I'm just a doctor. But now I'm pretty sure that I'm right and he's wrong and it's because he's never been an entrepreneur before and his experience has always been as part of a big, established corporation. And "real businesses" always have all these details in place first because that's how it's done.

As stated earlier, we've found our developer. The operating agreement that the Partner and I have had states that all monies to developers come equally from each partner. Which is the way that it *should* be. However, partner calls me and says, "Well, I've already put X amount into the business (on the aforementioned action faking BS) and I want you to pay the first installment to the dev rather than 50/50." Which really pissed me off. Not the dollar amount (which is nothing, really) but because here the Partner is already swerving away from the operating agreement. Hell, I've probably already spent more than him in cash, time spent working on the company, domain purchase, etc and yet it doesn't occur to me to violate the agreement. This plus the other action faking stuff...it's made me uncomfortable.

Ice Cream...so the Wife and I went to visit her friend/my mentor (the businessman mentioned a while back) who was in the hospital unexpectedly. It was our anniversary but hell, what's more important than giving to others? So we spent a couple of hours at the bedside and man, what a great thing. Mr. Mentor and Wife were extremely happy, I felt great for doing something for others, and at the end of the visit Mr. Mentor started asking tons of questions about the business (it had been about a month since we talked). He had GREAT insights, and totally validated my misgivings about the Partner's actions wrt finances. He suggested a sit down between the three of us where he shares his decades of developing successful multi-million dollar enterprises with both of us. I think this is a great idea. And Mr. Mentor would like to be an active advisor to the company which is great as well.

(I'd also like to add that I've been working really hard lately living the ICK way in my marriage and it's paying enormous dividends. Hadn't realized how selfish I'd been in our marriage until I started to consciously give give give...wow. Results have been amazing. )

So. Going to have a conversation with the Partner on Monday and get down to brass tacks. Time to stop doubting myself as the leader of this little enterprise.

I also want to add that I have a lot of respect for the Partner. Just need to correct a couple of misconceptions.

Your partners experience of "real businesses" having all those details in place is spot on. From his point of reference.
Your partners experience has been as an employee of established businesses.
He might be a great employee, what makes him believe that he's a great entrepreneur? Ask him.
Your business might not be ready for him, yet.

What color of business checks does he want? (inside joke)

 

[Iwokeup]

Your partners experience of "real businesses" having all those details in place is spot on. From his point of reference.
Your partners experience has been as an employee of established businesses.
He might be a great employee, what makes him believe that he's a great entrepreneur? Ask him.
Your business might not be ready for him, yet.

What color of business checks does he want? (inside joke)

Yep, Spot on man.

This might be an awkward conversation...but it's one that we need to have.

And LOL @ the business check color.

I hope that it IS ready for him.

It's funny,but I gave him my copy of TMFL, and recommended Ultimate Sales Machine, 4HWW, and have mentioned scads of really excellent podcasts....crickets. Hasn't read or listened to any one of them. *sigh*

 

[jon.a]

A great entrepreneur might not make a great CEO.
A great CEO might not make a great entrepreneur.

There's not enough talk about that here.

 

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[Iwokeup]

A great entrepreneur might not make a great CEO.
A great CEO might not make a great entrepreneur.

There's not enough talk about that here.

No, there really isn't. I've often wondered about how prepared I'll be when we get this company where we want it..will I have the chops? Which is why I read continuously! It's so overwhelming but I don't want to be caught unprepared.

 

[Iwokeup]

Today's accomplishments:

o set up FB page
o Put up my first post
o Filled out the content creation calendar have topics for the next month.
o ordered logo from Fivrr. Nothing fancy and not going to spend any of my own time designing one. Just need something basic up.
o Had the conversation with the Partner. Went pretty well:

- Compromised on the CC. His argument was that by having the CC, we streamline bookkeeping and record keeping. And later, if we decide that we need a business loan we can get it on much better terms than without it.
- He completely agreed about the 50/50 argument and we're now on the same page.

So, we'll send out the money today and have our developer start later in the week.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Per request, thread has been moved from INSIDE to OUTSIDE, and yes, it's worth reading.

 

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[Iwokeup]

- Money sent and our dev notified us that he's begun.
- Downloaded wordpress and set up a localhost account per this awesome thread and am working to improve our ugly a$$ website to look more like Zendesk's.
- We've got our user focus group date set for the first weekend in December. Yikes!
- I'm feeling kind of lost as to how to get going with the marketing thing. Do I work on a landing page? Do I blog and build social presence? What's the best way? Feeling like I need to phone a friend to get some direction....
- Worked on the next blog post and it should be done for tomorrow.
- Got the partner to get involved and add his own unique perspective to the blog.
- Worked out the details of loaning money to the company so that I can get paid back later (rather than just making a cash contribution).
- Fretted about Ebola, a little bit.

 

[jtmoniii]

This thread has been awesome to follow!

My fastlane business is a SaaS and it's extremely tough to sell, but MAN is it awesome when you take a month off and you still have customers paying you!

Keep us updated!

Semper Fidelis

 

[Iwokeup]

This thread has been awesome to follow!

My fastlane business is a SaaS and it's extremely tough to sell, but MAN is it awesome when you take a month off and you still have customers paying you!

Keep us updated!

Semper Fidelis

Thanks man. Appreciate the props.

 

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[Iwokeup]

Okay, so some progress, bit by bit:

o Partner wrote up and I posted his first blog post. Looks good!
o Got a decent logo and we're done with that for now.

o Had an epiphany: I'm a terrible web designer and I don't have time to spend the HOURS necessary to make a nice web site when my time is better spent on the sales/marketing aspect.

Realized that I could spend about $400 and have someone design a nice, clean page and move on from there. I have to admit that I'm feeling guilty and that I should be able to do it, but part of being the leader of this little enterprise is knowing when to fish and when to cut bait. I am reluctantly cutting bait. Anyway, got some excellent and cost effective proposals and I know just the look that I want so there we go.

Also had to spend some time this morning on ER doctor-related stuff. Signing charts, reading up on Ebola and our hospital's Ebola Action Plan, etc.

Back to work. It's a "Miracle Morning".....

 

[Iwokeup]

Little update:

* Down working for The Man. Been sick as a dog during this time (vomiting, etc) but still plugging along. Pattern: See pt, vomit, gobble Zofran, see another patient, water, phenergan, put in a central line and resuscitate the dying dude, go vomit, rinse and repeat. Thankfully things are finally improving. Just creeping along during today's shift.

* Developer gave us his first update & we'll be able to look at some screen shots on Saturday.
* Found two website dev's using @healthstatus' recommendations. Will make a final decision today. Just want to be done with it already.
* Have decided that I'm going to visit 10 dentist practices next week in order to see if I can presell this product. I have been watching a lot of Shark Tank lately, and I realized that they guys I like the most get out there and hustle. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

That's all for now.....