Quick update

I've been ploughing on with the consumer facing part of MLTA. I was previously using the Dojo toolkit within Struts2 for AJAX stuff, but I've just ripped it all out and replaced it with my own custom code. The reason is this: the toolkit takes forever to load and initialise, and I really only wanted to use a couple of the features. My own code may not have 100% compatibility, but I guess that will come out in the testing. For now, I've probably dropped about 10 seconds off the load and initialise time. Not bad IMHO :)

Live ... ish

MLTA is up on the live server, so my business partner in Brisbane can test it. I'm still finalising the formatting and logo, but it should be all done by the end of the week. I've had a quick look at some performance tweaking too. There is a major piece of work to do to really save some processing time, but it's on hold for the moment unless its really noticeable in testing. Oh well, back to it!!

Functionally done!!

OMG!!! I've "functionally" completed MLTA. I poured in a lot of hard work (except for Sat. night when I decided instead to watch both the Wallabies and Socceroos lose) and now it's looking good. Well, it's looking crap, but it does everything so tomorrow night after Real Job I'm going to put the site up and let my business partner test it. Cool!! This is a real milestone, and I'm feeling pretty good. I know that there's still a lot of hard work ahead, but there's a solid base to move forward with now.

One big secret that I'd like to share is that of manageable scope. MLTA was in danger of never seeing the light of day for a number of reasons, not least of being the amount of work I had to accomplish in the evenings after Real Job. One big turning point was reading Seth Godin's nook (mentioned in another post). Another was when I decided to cut out a lot of functionality in the initial release. The best decision I made was to drop or delay a lot of bells and whistles and focus on the core functionality that will deliver value to MLTA's user. So, the most important lesson I've learned so far is not to bite off more than I can chew :)

When to release

I'm currently struggling over when to release MLTA. I don't want to rush it, but I also don't want to keep adding "just one more thing" and never release. I think what is behind this "crisis" is my desire to see some fruits of my labour, live and not just on my Mac. It would also be nice to start chatting about MLTA to other people ... the secrecy is killing me!!

What I am going to do is take a night off, and have a real think about what features I think are essential, and then go from there. Other planned features that aren't essential can always show up at a later date as a nice bonus for early adopters.

Structure

Just trying to work out what shape I want MLTA to take. I want to partner with a friend, but I also want to retain ownership of the IP (seeing as I'm creating it all). I have sent my accountant an email outlining what I think will work, so I am waiting on her feedback. I've read a couple of books while I was 'disconnected', and so now I have just enough accounting knowledge to be terribly dangerous to myself. I'm glad I have an accountant I can trust.

On another note, I've specced out an idea for another Web 2.0 site, and it shouldn't take long to knock up a prototype. However, I'm going to try and stay focussed on MLTA for now. It's nice to get the creative juices flowing on a new idea every once in a while during a project, just to stay fresh, but the challenge is not to get distracted and have 10 incomplete projects lying around. MLTA is my priority for now; the finish line is getting closer and closer, albeit slowly. Anyone want to kick in $100k so I can quit my job and work on MLTA full time? lol

Maths maths maths ...

I've just finished coding up some geographical calculations ... blech!! Now I know why I never go back and read my old High School mathematics books. Good thing I have Google, as it allowed me to search for formulas I needed very easily, and when I needed to solve a formula for a different parameter, Google helped me again and saved me ages of trying to remember how to do it for myself. I guess some people will bemoan the fact that it's easier to Google things than think for yourself, but hey, it saved me a lot of time and it's not something I want to be an "expert" in anyway. I'm an entrepreneur, not a mathematician :)

Ah ... connected again

Finally back and wired, and ready to start rolling MLTA. Logo work is proceeding. I think I'm going to be a real pain in the arse about it, but I want it to be perfect. The site redesign is going well, though it's still in what I like to call the "pre-pretty" stage. Once the logo design and colour is finalised, and the code is more or less complete, I'll begin the task of laying out and applying styles.

One thing that does have me perplexed is what charging model i should adopt. It's going to be free to use from a consumer point of view, because otherwise it would be a disaster, but from a "participating business" point of view I still have no idea how to structure. Should I have some free components and charge for "premium" services, or should I just charge a flat fee for inclusion. Decisions decisions, but I think it is going to be crucial to get right.