Catherine Eibner

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day (I’ve Lost count!) Report

ceibner — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:39:48 GMT

There has been much focus on the application development over the last few days so I guess I have been overly quiet on the blog posts but the good news is that things are going well.

We have once again completely redesigned out back end and now have locked down the design for our back end accessible data points and have updated versions of the iPhone/iPad app & Windows 7 app working! Whoohoo!! We are just finalising the testing loop now. I expect that this will be finished in the next few days.

In the interim we have also been working on an updated PR piece that is way way way too long (who knew we had so much we could reference around our app that made for interesting stories – such as the projected increase in Childhood obesity, the increase in instances of Adult depression, the stats from the Cancer Council proving that (some) active time outside is actually really really good for you! ). We are now looking at consolidating that into an aggressive PR kit to use once the application is available on the iTunes & Zune marketplaces.

I also today attended a seminar held by Marcus Tarrant of http://www.businessplanninghq.com/ where we learnt about the value of a formal business plan and followed a surprisingly simple “wizard” that to be honest allowed me to create a much more professional and comprehensive Business Plan in the sessions than I did in the hours and hours I spent with my initial plan that was overly vague and missing massive chunks. I’d love to share the document with you – but I don’t think Marcus would overly appreciate that – so here is a snapshot of the sample document he provides to show what you get at the end… Well worth setting aside the time to do.

Beside the benefit of meeting other early stage companies and sharing the ideas, questions, businesses with each other (I cannot iterate enough HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS!) I picked up a few great tips for my app around adding a geocaching feature, creating a targeted app for golf courses and an introduction to someone looking to help with PR. Another valuable tip came from one of the attendees who shared during the lunch discussions a tip he was given which was that: “A good photo in your press kit can mean the difference between a page 43 listing & a page 3 listing! “. I am now thinking off all the interesting photos I can add to the press kit!

We have a finite timeline to work towards now with the upcoming Anthill Awards – so am not going to add too much more tonight – as we make our next milestone… you will hear about it!

I also want to say a special thanks to Gary Twomey of IMC for our recent Guest Post on the key Government programs for Startups! Check it out here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bizspark_au/archive/2011/11/16/launching-a-startup-mobile-app-in-australia-guest-blogger-gary-twomey-outlines-the-key-government-funding-programs-for-start-ups.aspx

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? Guest Blogger Gary Twomey Outlines the Key Government Funding Programs for Start -ups

ceibner — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:25:04 GMT

Gary & the team at IMC have sponsored the last two Startup Weekend Events and are a fantastic support to our many startups in BizSpark. Gary has kindly put together the below advice on the Funding support available to Startups in Australia.

Innovation Management Consultants Pty Ltd (IMC) is a professional services firm with extensive experience in providing high quality management consulting services. They assist their clients to grow by accessing government assistance programs to help them plan, research, develop and commercialise their technology. A summary of the key government assistance programs that they assist clients to access are listed below. Further information is available upon request.

Program

Source

Purpose

Overview

GRANTS FOR PROOF OF CONCEPT & EARLY COMMERCIALISATION ACTIVITIES

Skills and Knowledge &

Experienced Executives

Commercialisation Australia

Grants up to access specialist advice and services. Also can engage an experienced CEO or other executives

Ø Up to $50,000 for the specialist advice and services.

Ø Up to $200,000 for experienced CEO or other executives

Proof of Concept Grants

Commercialisation Australia

Grants are to assist with testing the technical and/or commercial viability of the business model or idea for a product, process or service

Ø The program provides grants of up $250,000 for each project

Early Stage Commercialisation Grants

Commercialisation Australia

Grants to undertake activities focusing on enabling a new product, process or service to be developed to the stage where it can be taken to market

Ø The program provides grants of between $250,000 and $2 million for each project

TAX INCENTIVES FOR R&D ACTIVITIES

R&D Tax Incentive

Commonwealth Government

1. AusIndustry &

2. Australian Taxation Office

R&D activities must meet certain criteria to be eligible and are categorised as either Core R&D activities or Supporting R&D activities.

Ø Core R&D Activities are experimental activities: whose outcome cannot be known or determined in advance on but can only be determined by applying a systematic progression of work

Ø Supporting R&D activities: An activity is eligible as a supporting R&D activity where it is directly related to a core R&D activity or for certain activities, it has been undertaken for the dominant purpose of supporting core R&D activities.

To be eligible the R&D expenditure must be greater than $20K.

After this threshold the R&D Tax Incentive has two core components:

Ø Entities with an aggregate annual turnover of less than $20M- are eligible for a 45% refundable tax offset (equivalent to a 150% deduction), provided they are not controlled by income tax exempt entities.

Example:

o A company which is in profit will receive a reduction in tax of $150,000 for every $1M of eligible R&D;

o A company which is in tax loss will receive a cash payment of $450,000 for every $1M of eligible R&D.

Ø Entities with an aggregate annual turnover of greater than $20M- are eligible for a non-refundable 40% tax offset (equivalent to 133% deduction). Unused non-refundable offset amounts may be able to be carried forward to future income years.

Example:

A company which is in profit will receive a reduction in tax of $100,000 for every $1M of eligible R&D.

MARKETING & COMMERCIALISATION GRANTS

Export Market Development Grant (EMDG)

Commonwealth Government

To assist firms to undertake market development and promotion of products and services in overseas markets excluding NZ.

Ø Grant up to 50% of the expenses incurred up to a maximum of $150K p.a.

Ø reimburses promotion expenses above $10,000 provided that the total expenses are at least $20,000.

Ø Eligible applicants must have commenced export activities during the year with turnover less than $50M p.a.

Ø Can access this for 7 years.

Windows Azure BizSpark Startup Camp – Brisbane

ceibner — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 03:53:04 GMT

Abstract
On December 2nd- 4th we are holding an Azure Bizspark Start-up Camp in our Brisbane office in the lead up to the launch of our Innovation Centre. This unique opportunity will showcase the potential when Government, Incubators, Universities and Microsoft come together to help Startups.

Microsoft's Windows Azure Dev Camps will allow you to learn about the Windows Azure Platform and the foundation concepts through comprehensive presentations, hands-on labs, and supported development time.

The first day will cover training in depth thanks to Azure MVP Steve Nagy and the second two days will be an opportunity for you to work in groups to build your own projects with the support of business & technical experts. The event culminates in a pitch to a panel of judges & investors who will decide on the overall winner. Prizes include xBox Kinect Packs.

Note that hands on Labs will be available if you do not have a business idea you would like to build but still want to test out your new knowledge.

Things to bring
Here are some personal items you might want to bring to the Windows Azure Dev Camp.

· Notebook computer

· Notepad

· Identification

Event Details

Dates 2^nd – 4^th December 2011

Location

Microsoft Brisbane

Level 28,

400 George St BRISBANE

Time
Friday: 9:00am -5:00pm

Sat/Sun: 9:00am – 7:00pm

Event Questions

This is a unique opportunity and places are limited – please register immediately.

If you have any questions, please contact Catherine Eibner at caeibner@microsoft.com.

The event is specifically targeted to BizSpark companies, however developers that are not part of the BizSpark program are more than welcome to attend to gain access to this valuable training event.

Event Agenda

Day 1

Time	Topic
9:00 – 10:15	Getting started with Windows Azure
10:30 – 11:30	Using Windows Azure Storage
11:30 – 12:30	Lunch
12:30 – 1:30	Understanding SQL Azure
2:30 – 3:30	Securing, Connecting, and Scaling
3:30 – 4:30	Application Scenarios
4:30 – 5:00	Launching your app

Day 2

Time	Topic
9:00 – 12:30	Day #2 Kickoff Development - Build your own app using the Windows Azure Platform
12:30 – 1:00	Lunch (Business Session)
4:00 – 7:00	Build your own app using the Windows Azure Platform

Day 3

Time	Topic
9:00 – 12:30	Day #3 Kickoff Development - Build your own app using the Windows Azure Platform
12:30 – 1:00	Lunch (Business Session)
4:00 – 4:15	Pre Judging Business Session
4:15 – 6:00	Pitch to Judges
6:00 – 6:30	Judges Adjudicate while Networking commences
6:30 – 7:30	Winners announced, prizes awarded and Networking continues.

Build a Business Plan in a Day? Heck yes!

ceibner — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 02:40:27 GMT

BUSINESS-PLAN-IN-1-DAY (Sydney): Create your own 40-page, Investor Grade business plan in one day. Need to raise capital, get a grant, get a loan or just work out where you are going?! Get it done in one-day at this incredible, dynamic event! (76 business builders can’t be wrong!) http://www.antmart.com.au/?p=3569

I am registering for this! Although I already created a business Plan for Picknic App – over the last few weeks the goals have changed & adapted – and I want to revise the business plan. For $295 this is incredible value!

Picknic has been named one of Australia’s ‘Coolest’ businesses in Anthill Magazine’s Sixth Annual Cool Company Awards.

ceibner — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:40:30 GMT

While I was away I got this very exciting news in my inbox I am now planning a trip down to Melbourne to attend the awards! I think its a fantastic example of why you should take the time to nominate your company for awards – as the extra visibility will be invaluable!

I now also have the below lovely looking Media release to include in my launch plan – which also provides more value to the story I am putting together and hopefully increases the uptake of the idea.

In other options to get more (free) publicity – I suggest you subscribe to alerts from a great site called Source Bottle. SourceBottle is an online service that connects journalists, writers and bloggers with 'sources'. For example today, the great team at Shoe String Launch magazine listed a request for Startups that have just launched or that are just about to launch to contribute to an upcoming publication. http://www.thesourcebottle.com/query.asp?iid=30&qid=11174 Did I respond to this request?? Of course I did! You should too!

Media Release

November 08, 2011

Picknic has been named one of Australia’s ‘Coolest’ businesses in Anthill Magazine’s Sixth Annual Cool Company Awards.

Picknic has scored a place among Anthill’s Top 50 in its 2011 Annual Cool Company Awards, a national program developed in 2006 to recognise Australian companies that are doing things differently to bring about positive change.

Over 700 aspiring ‘cool companies’ were nominated for the 2011 awards, making ‘The Cools’ one of Australia’s largest business awards programs. The winners will be announced at an award’s function on Thursday 24 November 2011 and published on AnthillOnline.com.

“The Cool Company Awards are extremely egalitarian,” said James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine. “Previous winners have included two-person start-ups, not-for-profit social enterprises, large private companies and publicly-listed corporations.”

“Judging takes into account far more than mere business variables, such as revenue and wealth. The criteria is geared to consider other qualities, from the disruptive nature of the product or service to the culture of the organisation.”

“Applicants either nominated themselves or were nominated by peers, work colleagues, family, friends and other ‘admirers’. A field of hundreds was examined (and cross-examined) before our judges were able to isolate three Finalists for each of our seven categories.”

What are Cool Company Awards?

The Cool Company Awards was launched in 2006 as a way for Anthill Magazine to publicly acknowledge and celebrate Australian organisations that are doing things differently to bring about positive change. In its sixth year, the awards attracted nominations from over 700 organisations, making it among the largest business award programs in Australia.

What is Anthill Magazine?

AnthillOnline.com is a digital business magazine that celebrates creativity, inspiration and commercial ingenuity, providing a fresh, exciting and practical perspective on Australian business in a global world. It is among the Top 50 Business & Finance websites in Australia, as ranked by Nielsen Online Ratings, and is home to the Cool Company Awards, the 30under30 and the Smart 100. It’s where ideas and business meet.

For further information:

Catherine Eibner, picknic@live.com.au

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 11 Report

ceibner — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 04:26:30 GMT

The first thing I want to point out here about the upcoming posts is that although I am going to mention some of the toolkits & great helpers I have used for the development of the WP7 app I do not consider myself a professional developer anymore so this is NOT a how to build a Windows Phone App Tutorial. I am not going to waste your time by talking about the details of building the actual app as that isn't one of the goals of this series either. There are more than enough already in existence (that I have reused code samples from!). There are some upcoming in person events & webinars that you should tune into if you want to learn more about Windows Phone development: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bizspark_au/archive/2011/11/04/windows-phone-training-workshops-webcasts-and-application-clinics.aspx

I am busily focusing on building the application at the moment so there isn’t too much new to report except that we are looking for a few more iPhone users who would like to test the beta version.

I expect to have the Phone 7 version ready for beta testing late next week (as I am disappearing offline on leave from Sun – Wed).

In the development so far I have used the following very helpful resources & Tips that you may also find useful:

Map your development machine keyboard to the Phone 7 emulator:

Note: The Windows Phone Emulator supports mapping of the keyboard on your development computer to the hardware keyboard on a Windows Phone (by default is not enabled). To enable the keyboard in the Windows Phone Emulator press the PAGE UP or PAUSE/BREAK key. To disable it, press the PAGE DOWN or PAUSE/BREAK key. For more information, see the following article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ff754352(VS.92).aspx.

Bing Maps Development

Get Started with Bing Maps development:

Step 1:

To get started with Bing Maps, you’ll need a Maps Developer Account.

Get an account | View tutorial

Step 2:

Get started with the SDKs for Windows Phone 7, Android, iOS, and use the REST APIs

Step 3:

To keep up-to-date with the latest Bing Maps news, read the Bing Maps Developer Blog. For help from the Bing Maps community, use the Bing Maps Community Forums.

Pasted from <http://www.microsoft.com/maps/developers/mobile.aspx>

Windows Azure Toolkit

The Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone really saved me a lot of time. I have mentioned it before but I want to re-iterate the value once again. The set up wizard put all the connections, and architecture in place so all I needed to do was define the functionality specific to my application. http://watwp.codeplex.com/

OData:

There is a great video here on setting up Phone 7 (and other apps) to utilise oData from SQLAzure: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/showcase/details.aspx?uuid=083d55f4-c0d4-4309-8996-49d63ce14c60

The oData Client for WP7 is here: http://odata.codeplex.com/releases/view/54698#DownloadId=161862

SQL Azure Security Requirements

I also ran into some trouble where my application suddenly stopped working when I was working on it in the office. It turns out that we have a pretty thorough firewall setup in the office so the ports I needed access to to access SQLAzure where locked down. Check out the ports you need open (such as TCP port 1433) to work with Azure / SQL Azure before you spend a day debugging an application that isn’t broken :/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff394108.aspx

[Windows Phone Training] Workshops, Webcasts and Application Clinics

ceibner — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 02:17:02 GMT

Windows Phone Developer Deep Dive Workshop

This workshop is presentation style and will dive deep in to creating amazing user experiences with Expression Blend for Windows Phone, tips and tricks for managing application lifecycle, engaging end users with smart Live Tiles, optimising app performance and working with structured data.

We'd also like to hear from you what topics you'd like covered, so please make a note of your topic suggestions in the comment section when you register.

Windows Phone Developer App Clinic

Want to discuss your application projects and issues in more detail then the app clinic is for you, so register and bring along your developer laptop/app and discuss.

Windows Phone Developer Deep Dive Webcasts

For those who can't make the weekday Deep Dive Workshop then this series of webcasts will run over 3 evenings at 8pm EDT on Nov 17, 21 and 23 running for 30 to 45 minutes covering a compressed version of the workshop content.

So tune in to learn how to create amazing user experiences with Expression Blend for Windows Phone, tips and tricks for managing application lifecycle, engaging end users with smart Live Tiles, optimising app performance and working with structured data.

The online events will be run over USTREAM, Live Meeting or similar technology, to be confirmed closer to the date by email.

We'd also like to hear from you what topics you'd like covered, so please make a note of your topic suggestions in the comment section when you register.

· Register for Expression Blend Webcast: Thurs Nov 17, 8pm to 8:45pm EDT

· Register for Application Lifecycle Webcast: Mon Nov 21, 8pm to 8:45pm EDT

· Register for Live Tiles and Performance "tips and tricks" Webcast: Wed Nov 23, 8pm to 8:45pm EDT

Refer a Friend

· Windows Phone Developer Community Registration

· Get started with Windows Phone Development

· Join "The List"

· Feel free to forward this email to others you think maybe interested

Events across the country

Windows Phone Developer Deep Dive Workshops

This presentation style workshop will dive deep into Expression Blend, application lifecycle, Live Tiles, performance tips and tricks and working with structured data.

· Register for Brisbane Deep Dive, Wed Nov 16th 9:30am to 4:30pm, Microsoft Brisbane Lvl 28, 400 George St

· Register for Sydney Deep Dive - Tue Nov 22nd, 9:30am to 4:30pm, Nokia Nokia, Lvl 21, 1 Market Street

· Register for Melbourne Deep Dive - Thurs Nov 24th 10am to 5pm, Microsoft Melbourne Lvl 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank

Windows Phone Developer App Clinics

Want to discuss your application projects and issues in more detail then the app clinic is for you.

· Register for Brisbane App Clinic: Wed Nov 16th 5:30pm till 7:30pm, Microsoft Brisbane Lvl 28, 400 George St

· Register for Sydney App Clinic: Tue Nov 22nd, 5:30pm to 7:30pm, Nokia Nokia, Lvl 21, 1 Market Street

· Register for Melbourne App Clinic: Thurs Nov 24th 6pm to 8pm, Microsoft Melbourne Lvl 5, 4 Freshwater Place, Southbank

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 10 Report

ceibner — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:31:46 GMT

As I mentioned I have had a bit of time off work (and this project) while recovering from a little accident I had last Tuesday. I got back into things again today and so have a few things to report on today. My biggest concern at the moment is that my week off has meant that the Phone 7 version is way behind the delivery of the iPhone/iPad version which is currently in testing stages and about ready for Beta launch. I have to make the decision very shortly if I launch with just that version or wait until I finish my “hacking” on the Phone 7 version. Still to be decided!

Made to Stick

I have been reading a great book recommended to me by James Tuckerman founder & editor in Chief of Anthill called “Made to Stick”. Having time off (and the handiness of my Kindle!) gave me the chance to read a great deal of this and reframe and refine some of my thoughts around the goal of the application into a single, simple Commanders Intent: To enable parents of young children to discover, rate and share information on local parks. Having this simple goal has made so many decisions much clearer. It also gives some great tips around framing a marketing message so that its memorable and “sticks”.

Building a PR Strategy

While I had time off I also spent time thinking about and refining our Marketing strategy. Based on the book above combined with some great advice from one of our Network Partners, Founder of Technology venture firm Blue Chilli, Sebastien Eckersley-Mason, I have been able to focus on locking down our PR story lines.

“Firstly, like everyone else, Journalists like it when you do their job for them - so write a press release like it was an article. Good press releases use facts and are relevant to current themes and issues. Best way to get facts is to write your own survey (surveymonkey), get 100 people to fill it out and include a few crazy questions to tease out some remarkable facts. Also look into infographics. “

Taking this advice on board I started to do some research. I had already had a great response to my SurveyMonkey survey – which has allowed me to get not just information about the features of the application, but about the habits of the target market – parents of young children.

The biggest “lead” that seems to tie to current topical issues is the lack of physical activity of children.

I have reached out to some contacts who work with children in health services to get some “qualified” statements to support this idea.

I also went on the hunt for “quantified” research. I didn’t have to look far.

Looking at this graph released by NSW health, even just locally, the NSW government is concerned about this issue. The current projection is that approx 35% of boys and girls will be obese by 2016. Now that’s a scary projection!

They released a plan in 2009 to address the concerns around increasing Childhood obesity.

The current plan of attack to address this problem includes driving awareness of the problem, encouraging healthy and activity lifestyles and resulting in changing behaviours.

Two behaviour changes that stood out to me were the decrease of sedentary small screen behaviour - which I believe has become an even bigger problem since 2009 with the increase in consumerisation of IT, the prolific adoption of smart phones and tablet/iPad style devices. The second factor of interest is the increase in moderate to vigorous activity – so getting out & about!

Both of these factors appeal to my target market and are certainly aligned to the goals of the application. It also aligns to the results of our market research which showed distinctly that parents would take their children to more & a greater range of parks if an application like the one we are building existed.

When we finish the Press Release in the coming days I look forward to getting feedback from you all on it!

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Downtime report!

ceibner — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:25:22 GMT

Just a quick post to mention why I have been offline for a few days.

One of the hardest lessons I learnt when I ran my own business was that you needed to be sure to take time to look after yourself and keep yourself healthy. In fact something seemingly small can send your business off the rails – as in small business and particularly in the early stages of setting up – if you are not able to work, then nothing happens! I always recommend people to make sure they get enough exercise, sleep & time with their loved ones to keep their quality of live and passion for their projects alive.

But even if you do all these things…. Sometimes accidents happen.

As for me, while playing with my son a few nights ago, as I was throwing him around and over my shoulder I did some damage to myself. It wasn’t too bad that night but I awoke to acute pain in the early hours of the morning. I visited the Osteopath as soon as I could get an appointment to discover I had pinched a nerve in my neck and inflamed the surrounding vertebra & muscles. I guess that explains why the pain was so bad. Anyway, have been instructed to ice it & rest for a few days so am taking some time off everything while it heals.

In this case it only a few days off and there really wont be a great deal of impact, but it reminds me of when I was in the midst of running my own company with a team of staff and series of projects happening: I broke my wrist. It was almost 3 months till my business was back to resembling anything like where it had been previously. Although it was a hard way to learn a lesson, it was through that experience I found out about & implemented Key Person Insurance (actually it was referred to as Key Man insurance which drove me mad!). Interestingly, StartupSmart ran an article talking about this very same thing 2 days ago: http://www.startupsmart.com.au/managing-people/small-businesses-warned-over-sickie-impact/201110254317.html

The experience of being unable to function in my business for an extended period of time also made me realize how I had created a business that required me to be in it to make it function. i.e. it also taught me some VERY valuable lessons about “Founder’s Syndrome”. Understanding this made me reassess my role in the business which resulted in many positive changes that ended up improving the company and allowing us to grow more successfully.

Anyway – there is much interesting reading available about both Key Person Insurance & Founders Syndrome so hopefully they keep you entertained until I re-emerge from my pain killer induced haze and get working on this project again!

Key Person Insurance:

http://www.iselect.com.au/life/key-person/

Risky Business

Founders Syndrome:

6 Startup Founder’s Syndromes That Can Kill Your Startup

Founderitis – A Ten Step Recovery Program

There will also be a few upcoming guest posts to keep the content flowing so stay tuned!

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 9 Report

ceibner — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:56:35 GMT

So here we are a good week and a half into this little project and I think it’s a good time to take a few moments to reflect on the feedback I have been receiving from so many of you and to give some guidance on where we are heading as there has been so much positive feedback & suggestions on ways to generate even more value from this series. I have about 1 week left of this series so it’s also a good time to talk about what to expect in the coming posts.

I have decided to quote something someone sent me in an email today as it seemed like a really great way to explain what one of the goals was: “Fantastically illustrative of the organic, unstructured ‘sometimes it’s only passion that keep you going’ insight into starting a venture” (Thanks Dean!)

I also think it’s a good time to chat about the startup ecosystem we have here in Australia and who this exercise is meant to be helping.

There are many different ways of defining entrepreneurs, and the stages of Entrepreneurship and business in general. A lot of articles also delve into defining the personality types of entrepreneurs. The Next Web founder @Boris defines what he sees as the 7 stereotypes of Entrepreneurs which I quite like: http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2011/05/24/7-types-of-entrepreneurs-which-one-are-you/. I also agree with StartupGuru who refers to the types in a more of a matrix fashion that ranges between the head & the heart.

If you love the detail & the data the GEM (Global Entrepreneur Monitor) report gives a fantastic outline of the types, stages, ages and impact of the different global entrepreneur types : http://www.gemconsortium.org/download/1319535701510/GEM%20GLOBAL%20REPORT%202010rev.pdf

Then there is the one that I find the most aligned to the stages I see (and especially like because it quotes Notorious BIG song lyrics to make a point): http://www.greenhornconnect.com/node/3655 where Entrepreneurs range from The Awestruck Amateur through to the Wise Sage. I tend to see a close alignment to these types in the startup ecosystem here in Australia, particularly in the members I tend to come across most regularly in BizSpark:

Cowboys/Cowgirls: Students with nothing to lose, no cash & a crazy idea – one of the main goal is to learn from the experience. We have a rapidly developing entrepreneur ecosystem here in Australian Universities and it is driving both innovation & changes to the university curriculum to support this growing trend. Often these ideas come about as a result of a competition such as Startup Weekend, Launch48, Imagine Cup & the like.

Idealist: Developer/hobbiest with a great idea but no experience in bringing an idea to fruition as a profit making business. This type has more skills to bring to the project and maybe even a little cash, but everything is still highly boot strapped. Often the idea is fleshed out during the moonlight hours as the developer still keeps their focus on their “day job”.

Deliverators: Business/Marketing person with a great ability to support an idea & get it to market. They occasionally have the business idea themselves but will tend to outsource development or find a technical co-founder to work with. There is fundamentally more background in building a marketing strategy & business model to support an idea & get it to market as an ongoing business.

Addicts: The serial entrepreneur who works in on and around entrepreneurs and startups as a day to day “job”. They have worked on many startups, and not all have been successful – but that’s just increased their experience and value for the Entrepreneur community. These type are often mentors and in NSW, and starting to spread to VIC & QLD many are easy to find as they are registered as PushStart mentors. Some have even contributed to this series already – sending big thanks to them!

Everyone Else: There are of course the government initiatives, venture capitalists, angel investors, incubators and the whole realm of supporters we are fortunate to have here in Australia that encourage the growth of our startup economy. And I think it is fair to mention as many of the above articles do – that there is often Entrepreneurs that cross all groups in different roles they play or as they take their crazy boot strapped idea into a life in entrepreneurialism.

(NOTE: Disagree with these types? Let me know in the comments!)

I want to be clear that this series is very much targeting the Cowboys/Cowgirls – and perhaps a little of the Idealists group as well. This series is only for the cash strapped entrepreneurs who have an idea and want to test out the viability of it. The Addicts (or Wise Sage's) have a great deal more value to offer in the Business mentoring role that I would never dream or attempt to under value. We have many great Business advisors in the BizSpark Program as Network partners and many offer business mentoring to startups that are looking for that support - I strongly suggest you reach out to them, especially once you have validated your idea & start to look for funding & growing your idea into a business.

What I would really like to see in this series is representatives of all of the ecosystem (whatever "type" system you subscribe to) to share what they think are the best practices and take the opportunity to help others going through the same process/stage. Think you have something you could share on your own blogs or on the BizSpark_au blog then this is your call to action! Share your experience to help others benefit. I have been overwhelmed by the feedback I have received on this series so far and can only see extra value in building this resource to help the Australian Ecosystem continue to grow by others sharing their stories as well.

In order to keep you updated with the upcoming planned posts from the business side with guest contributions for each post, we will be covering topics around:

things to keep in mind when creating a saleable data resource as a by-product of your idea (data marketplace & legal PII concerns),
How to build a marketing plan and utilise (hopefully free – or low cost) PR,
IP & legal protection of your idea
Grants & commercialisation offers for technology startups
Monetisation models
Pitching for funding? Tips on how to best pitch your idea
The next steps – so you have tested the idea, where to from here….

(BTW if any of these are your area of expertise let me know as any additional suggestions/tips add to the helpfulness of these posts)

Meanwhile…. I have spent the last 2 days re-architecting the Azure backend to use Spatial data in SqlAzure rather than table storage in Azure, the Data Researcher finished their work and the iPhone developer is progressing well with their app - but a post on that all later :)

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? Guest Blogger Steve Godbold on Growth through learning

ceibner — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 01:05:51 GMT

Throughout the series of posts on this project to date, I have made mention several times about my plans to follow a lean methodology with the Picknic App. I realised that what I hadn't done was fully delve into explaining what this means in terms of business and particularly in relation to a startup. I have asked one of our Australian BizSpark Network Partner’s Steve Godbold to share some additional insight into why keeping things lean, testing assumptions and releasing a minimum viable product are a really good idea for Startups.

Steve Godbold is a process consultant with a passion for challenges. Coming from a technical background, and having worked with businesses of all shapes and sizes, he provides consulting for both application lifecycle management and business process. You can find him via http://stevegodbold.com/ or on steve@stevegodbold.com

Growth through learning

While there are many ways to grow a business, not all methods are equal. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports; of the small businesses operating in 2007, approximately one in four had closed their doors by 2009. How can you maximise you chances of not being that one of the four?

Most start-ups have a few things in common. They are packed with energy, vision and a passion to succeed. In fact they are usually so driven, they fail to notice that what they’re building is based on a set of assumptions. The impact of these assumptions can be fatal, so identifying them early can be a crucial step along the path to success. A lean start-up identifies its assumptions and designs a set of experiments to test them with actual customer behaviour.

This is done using a market testing strategy known as a ‘minimum viable product’. Minimum viable product involves building only what is absolutely necessary, and putting this in the hands of the people we want to understand. From this we can gather vital information about our potential for success. What we are doing is designing a low cost experiment to test a hypothesis (our assumption) about market behaviour.

An experiment can be as simple as including a link to a proposed new feature of your application. Without implementing the feature you can track the number of users that access this link. This allows you to gather real data on the viability of the feature before you invest the time and money in delivery.

These experiments create a rapid feedback cycle and enable us to perform pivots based on how our customers react. This helps to make sure what we’re delivering is valuable to our customers, or is going to increase the attraction of our product or service to potential customers.

So how do we start to avoid being that one in four? Simply stated: we focus on accelerating our learning, measuring what matters and not being afraid to change direction if the data calls for it.

If you'd like more information on getting started using a lean start-up approach check out Eric Ries recently released book on the topic

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 8 Report

ceibner — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 06:24:50 GMT

Today I swapped my other hats for me developer hat for a few hours. As I have volunteered to do the data setup on Azure & the Phone 7 application development. As I have all my data & use cases now defined it was quite simple to ensure the data structure was set up in Azure. next I decided to check out the Windows Azure Toolkit for Windows Phone – its free and you can download it from Codeplex here. It comes with really detailed documentation and some awesome walkthroughs.

My first challenge was to readdress the authentication question. It seemed silly not to include either a membership model or an integrated login when the tool kit made it so simple. I thought about the benefits of both models (there is a good definition here on the pros & cons for both) and I ultimately decided that I didn’t want to maintain a separate user membership database – and as it seemed that the Access Control Service made integration with other logins simple. So…. I followed through these steps and very quickly had the Toolkit installed. The setup ensures you get any extra bits & pieces you may not have on your machine already so that made it quite easy.

I then got my ACS token for Facebook integration setup following these instructions for getting started with ACS integration with Facebook. These articles are also quite handy to review: http://acs.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Getting%20Started&referringTitle=Documentation, http://acs.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Facebook

I had a few issues with setting up ACS because I had half setup windows live as well as Facebook because I was not sure if I was going to use both or not. It caused some confusion with the rules, but once I reduced it to just the Facebook integration it seemed to resolve the namespace error I was receiving.

So once I had a namespace configured, I started a new project, picked the Windows Phone Cloud application template, followed the instructions for setting up the certificates & started to debug. I was pleasantly surprised to be already testing out my new phone app with Facebook integration:

I still have a few more things to do on the Facebook app side of things to get the integration looking how I want it too particularly: format the appearance and options provided to the user when they sign in including the layout of the objects I want to work with and the actions allowed by the users…. But its Sunday & its sunny outside – so both that & starting to look at the rest of the app development is going to have to wait till later

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 7 Report

ceibner — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 04:06:47 GMT

Accounting Setup

It is something I should have done from the very start – as I am clearly outlaying some cash & am not accurately tracking it. I know many companies will use simple solutions like an excel sheet to track their incoming & outgoing expenses. I have always been a MYOB user, but also decided to look around at some of the Software as a Service (SaaS) providers of accounting software like Australian based Saasu & New Zealand based Xero. I also took a look at the offers available for BizSpark members and noticed that at the moment – Xero are offering BizSpark members 1 year of free use UP UNTIL THE 31st of OCTOBER – so check it out now!.

https://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/Offers/Xero.aspx

Also of note is that Xero were a BizSpark member who has grown substantially over the last year – to the point where they no longer qualify for BizSpark (a good problem to have!)

So I clicked through on the above offer, followed the bouncing ball and in a few clicks I had an accounting system set up, chart of accounts in place & its ready to input data into! Now – to find someone to help me with that data entry/book keeping process….

The importance of Mentors & Community

Today was also about connecting with Mentors and Community. I am very fortunate to have a great Mentor already and spent a good portion of today’s meeting bouncing ideas around about this application, fine tuning some suggestions and regaining focus – something I really need a mentor to help me out with! The value of finding a good mentor is not a new idea and nor is it limited to just me. Niki Scevak founder of StartMate (who, by the way is currently taking applications for the next round of Seed funding) talks about the value of picking the right mentor in his article published today on www.startupsmart.com.au. In a chat I had with him about the value of mentors he adds “"Mentors can help your business tremendously but knowing who could be a good mentor for you and what they can help with is essential for you to get any value out of your meetings with them. Decide what your problem is first (fundraising, hiring, online marketing) and then seek out your mentors from there."

Kim Heras, one of the founder’s of the startup mentoring program PushStart (proudly Sponsored by Microsoft ) also has the following to add in this article where he talks about looking to launch an Australian version of Tech Stars, but with a twist. “We realised when we were putting this together last year that the real value for start-ups in these programs is the mentoring aspect,” he says. “They get $15,000 or $20,000 from Y Combinator, but it is the mentoring that makes the real difference. We wanted to de-couple the mentoring element from the funding element. We started with advice being the main philosophy.”

There seems to be some additional alignment in the Webinar series run by The Entourage where this week they had guest speaker Stuart Cook is the CEO of Zambrero Fresh Mex Grill (Australia' Fastest Growing Franchise) share his tips on how to engage a multi-million dollar mentor. Be sure to subscribe to their mailing list to find out about their upcoming webinars as they are always valuable.

Friday is also a great day to be in the startup community in Sydney as every Friday night, the Silicon Beach drinks are held at the Grace hotel kicking off at about 6 (in time for happy hour!). It is a melting pot of entrepreneurialism. Occasionally with guest speakers, but normally a collection of serial Entrepreneurs, angel investors, students, developers and community members. Its a great way to perhaps locate your next mentor, or even just bounce your idea off like minded others. This community is so welcoming and supporting I strongly suggest you make the time to pop in and say hello.

As for the Application development aspect of the project…. Well… so far today it hasn’t even got a look in from my side – planning to catch up on this side over the weekend .

I see the benefits of having a co founder or completely teaming up with a development partner as the challenges of working in the business vs on the business are making it tricky to get everything done!

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 6 Report

ceibner — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 01:22:25 GMT

Today was mostly focused on back end developments but 2 key milestones were reached:

1. Our Launch page was made finally live (my own fault on that one as I corrupted the DNS completely! So after a 48 hour (self caused) delay we now have a launch page tied to MailChimp to allow us to recruit potential customers as the application is built. It also points users to these blog posts to see how we are progressing. I *may* add a blog link to the Wordpress site to allow the posts to be published there as well – but in line with keeping focused on application development this week, I decided to skip this for now too.

Be sure to check it out & sign up to hear updates as we release version of the application: www.picknic.com.au – Note that the screenshot is showing the site live on Google Chrome. It is really important that you test any web based application you deploy on multiple platforms. With Wordpress a lot of the complexity required to ensure things work and appear consistently on multiple platforms (including different browsers, mobile, tablet & iPad etc) is already covered so you don't have to worry about it. If you haven't chosen to use a cross platform CMS or blog tool – just keep in mind to test it as part of your release plans.

2. My data is finally all imported in Azure Table Storage & blob Storage. Again a call out to the Cerebrata Cloud Storage tool – which made the import process quick & simple. See the sample data excerpt here:

The thing that I am waiting on further to decide is how many copies of the data do I want in tables with different Partition keys. I am considering setting up tables for the key facilities or BBQ, Toilets & PetFriendly. This will ensure a quick return of data that is searched by facility. But at this stage, the main table is sufficient for us to search by location (the default) and display the related images & information for each park – our Version 1 requirements!

Quick Thanks!

I also want to take the opportunity to thank everyone that has contributed to the project so far & provided help & suggestions along the way. I have to admit that I am really enjoying working on this project and am so grateful for the positive responses and interest on the project from so many people already.

Once again I thank all of you who have added comments or sent me messages about this project, and I look forward to keeping you updated as the idea progresses along its little journey. As always, feel free to post your ideas, thoughts suggestions & comments below

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 4 Report

ceibner — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:53:00 GMT

I thought I would make mention of the way I chose Go Daddy as my hosting provider. Besides having them recommended to me, people often overlook that we have a relationship with hosting providers through BizSpark that allows you to take advantage of further discounts – search the list in your BizSpark portal by selecting Hoster Relationship – then pick your hoster

Search for the hosting providers here (http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/Startup/HostingOrganization.aspx):

After I signed up it was less than 30 minutes before my site was setup and then all I had to do was deploy the Wordpress blog from in WebMatrix to the new site.

Now, unfortunately, instead of configuring the DNS, I managed to confuddle myself. Fortunately I work with some really smart people who hopefully will give me some help to get that sorted soon!

I guess it's worth pointing out once again that there is no personal financial gain planned for this project. However I do plan to test out monetisation models and as such - the exciting thing that I get to announce today is that we have formed a strategic alliance with the Touched By Olivia foundation.

I came across this group when visiting the Livvi's place playground in Timbrell Park for a picknic with my son. As he has been diagnosed with Asperger's it is a fantastic park for him and many others as its designed for inclusiveness for kids for children of all abilities.

What does this mean for Picknic? It means that through this project, if any revenue generated, the funds will be donated to the Touched by Olivia foundation. In return, they will be doing some promotion of the application. Probably not a standard strategic alliance – but as I mentioned I am not looking to generate any personal financial gain from this project. I still do think that forming strategic alliances & thinking about monetisation methods is an important part of building your application.

The benefits of forming strategic alliances is often overlooked by startups and so I have asked Jack Delosa of The Entourage to share some of the reasons you may want to consider this as a crucial part of your plan.

"Developing Strategic Partnerships with complimentary businesses in your space is one of the fastest ways any small business can grow. If you're looking to accelerate growth while minimising costs, strategic partnerships is the most effective solution."

I suggest you check out this valuable session he delivered to the attendees at Melbourne Startup camp: http://vimeo.com/19889493

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 5 Report

ceibner — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:10:18 GMT

Things really got interesting today! I received the first delivery of the data from my researcher. This means I can now setup my Azure tables and data access layer. I plan on making the data accessible via oData feeds as well as via web services.

I use a nifty little tool called Cerebrata Cloud Storage to access & manipulate my azure table storage. Its a really handy tool for working with both local development storage and the Azure based storage.

I was able to create my tables easily, and then use the tool to upload the data I have in CSV to my table storage. You can also use the Cerebrata free tool on Codeplex to upload my excel file (saved as CSV) directly into the cloud: http://azurefileupload.codeplex.com/ They have the extra benefit of allowing you to define the columns & keys through the simple GUI tool.

Be sure to remove any non alphanumeric (i.e. spaces etc – although an underscore is permitted) from the column names. It is also recommended to use as short column names as possible to save on space used – but for this example I am keeping long names for ease of demonstration.

Another thing that is interesting to note is the use of Suburb as the Partition Key & Unique GUID as my choice for the partition & row key. I spent a lot of time thinking about this as the correct choice for these two columns will be what determines the optimal search query return time. The partition key is used to split the data over different partitions. The Row key must be unique for each row. I had initially thought of using the Lat/Lon or a combination of the two as my row key as it is unlikely that there will be 2 parks in the same location. My concern with this was when I open the API to allow manual addition of parks, this may become an issue in future. I chose Suburb name as the partition key because I think it will be the most even way to distribute the data over the tables and also the most common way that we will query the data. There is a great description of Table Storage on Azure here on Steve Nagy’s Blog that I recommend you read.

The first challenge with my data import came up as soon as the data was imported I and realised the comma’s in the file I received were corrupting the columns in csv format and needed some massaging. I was able to quickly empty the data in the azure tables via the cerebrata tool & then look at the best way to convert the data. I ended up using tab separated Text Files by saving as text from within excel & then re uploading the data.

The next challenge was the pure number & size of images. I thought about building a simple image uploaded (and thumbnail creation tool) much like the simple getting started tutorials for Azure – but instead decided to setup a dropbox folder that the data researcher can upload to & then I can once again use the handy Cerebrata tool to upload too. Mind you I could have used Skydrive just as easily for this as well – except that it is full of my own photos already!

Now the coding really begins for both the iPhone app developer and for me working on the Windows Phone 7 version!

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 3 report

ceibner — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:26:00 GMT

Today has been a very good reminder of me running away with an idea. I was at work in back to back meetings again today – almost feel like the universe is against me getting this done! And tonight by the time I had a few moments to sit down & get things done… I was already tired and decided to recommence my initial idea to do something complex when the simple solution was actually right in front of me. I send my thanks to Nick Hodge for once again reminding me that the simplest solution in these kinds of situation is the simplest solution. Go with it & focus on what you really need to do. So I upgraded my internet hosting package to include enough to cover the requirements for my simple Wordpress blog & uploaded it through Web Matrix. It was quick, simple & meant I could focus my efforts on locating some good strategic partners & spend a bit more time on my wireframes. Unfortunately tiredness got the better of me so I didn’t end up getting nearly as much done as I had hoped! Balancing work & this thing is getting tougher! That said, am still glad that other processes are taking place while I am busy doing other things…

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 2 Report (Update to include Pics)

ceibner — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 04:02:20 GMT

Well, turns out if you have any form of life – it’s really hard!! Today’s lesson was that balancing trying to build a startup & keep your existing life going at the same time provides some challenges! My “real life” got in the way of my ambitions to gets lots done on Picknic today! My 5 year old was up half the night, then I was in back to back meetings all day at work so didn’t even get to take a second crack at my wireframes before 4pm this afternoon! So all in all I am exhausted and not able to happily report as much progress as I would like – but don’t be too distressed – lots still happened!

The first thing was that late last night (actually it was the early hours of this morning) my computer crashed as I was attempting to build my wireframes and so I decided the computer was going to win that battle & called it a night. But over night my data researcher was busily collating data for the parks, and the app designer was doing a good job of getting his head around the requirements. I also had the creative genius of Alex & Xamling thinking about a cool logo that we could use for the business and his thinking was very productive – but more on that later!

And before leaving the house for work this morning I also used the Freelancer system to set up payments for Outsourced work with the agreed milestone payments for data research set up & I paid initial deposit to iOS app Developer to get him kicked off.

Get Visibility any way you can!

I have been telling everyone I know that I am doing this. I have used my existing twitter & Facebook contacts, my real networks (including reaching out to friends who are journalists & PR types).

I have also learnt over the last few years that you should try to get recognition wherever you can find it! I know so many founders that know they should apply for things like the AIMIA awards, the AIIA awards, Innovation awards etc but the application process is time consuming, so often ends up being put in the “Things To Do (That Never End Up Getting Done)” bucket. I decided to take my chances with my 1 day old company & see if we could get ourselves any awards for what we are doing. Fortunately, the Anthill online Cool Company award nomination process was extended so still open (check it out here: http://anthillonline.com/cool-company-awards-2/).

So… during one of my many meetings today (Shhhh – it was one that I didn’t have to contribute a great deal too) I nominated Picknic for the Cool Business Awards – Social Capitalist Award. We were limited to which categories we could apply for because we are less than 1 year old (by about 354 days!), and although the other categories had a small cost to enter – I am already at budget for our expenses till we start to make revenue. Fortunately – the Socialist Capitalist Awards were free to enter – but it also made me rethink of how I would pitch the coolness of what we were doing – with a slant to how we are impacting the current economies social challenges. BAM! The idea hit me that we have yet another un-addressed benefit of what we are doing. I should have realised it when the market research unanimously told me that people would be more likely to take their children to more parks with the information we are going to provide at their fingertips. New marketing campaign is now being conjured up around how Picknic is going to be helping to address the growing national challenge of Childhood obesity! With that new idea ignited I completed our application! Wish us luck!

One other interesting thing was that my initial post got some interest & a stack more people ended up completing my Market research survey. There was so many benefits to this, as now I was able to determine the minimal features required for launch. I was also pleasantly surprised to discover how many people would pay a small token amount for the app itself. These two factors alone have been invaluable.

A friend (thanks Matt!) who saw post 1 has noticed an alignment between what I am doing and a business a friend of his has, so will be giving some introductions. That could be very handy indeed and an unseen benefit of sharing what I am doing!

Agree on the Minimum Feature Set BEFORE you start to build!

I put a hold on any development before I could nail the minimum viable feature set that we were going to launch with. Yesterday raised more questions than answered ones around which functions we should include and how to monetise them. The extra Market research has allowed us to solidify our feature set and the priority of each feature so we know the ones we can and can’t leave if time/budget becomes an issue.

My minimum Launch Feature Set now includes:

First Priority:

Search for local parks
See a map of where the park is located

(Which btw were unanimous for all respondents as being required!)

Second Priority (which I ended up being surprised by) was:

Add your own park (if its not listed)

Followed closely by our 3rd level priority items of:

Rate your experience (1-5)
Search for parks by facility (i.e. Public toilets)
Get directions to the park from where you are now

It’s time to Wireframe!

It’s all well and good to have your feature set nailed down… but as I quickly discovered, taking those “basic” levels of functionality and turning them into a functioning app isn’t as easy as I had foolishly thought.

I found myself a whiteboard & jotted down some initial ideas in between 2 meetings:

Not only was it once again a reminded that I should never ever do any graphic design or useability style role – it allowed me to think in terms of screens, functionality & flow. What became immediately apparent was that I would have 2 distinct user types. The “known” users who would be able to add their own parks, add ratings and reviews. The second group is the “unknown” users who can open the app, see local parks & read others ratings & reviews. This raised some other issues – I hadn’t planned to include user accounts in the first version. I have also not worked out yet if we will enforce the Facebook integration. I raised both these issues with a smart app developer & the developer working on the iPhone app – both came back with great suggestions and I am happy that the app developer has come up with a great solution on how to manage it

Apart from that confusion, I was pretty happy with the flow of screens & useability – now it was time to start to play with creating wireframes on something a bit easier to understand.. I once again opened Balsamiq. I played around for a little while & in my first hour managed to come up with a few screens (Again – ignore the design – its to convey the functionality)

One of the nice things about Balsamiq is that I could add post it’s & steps to my mock ups to explain what I had really meant, and things I couldn’t work out how to articulate in the tool. The other benefit is that it is ultimately readable, unlike my whiteboard scribbles!

The developer is now working through the basic functionality for the first screen and the login and giving me tips on how to better use Balsamiq as well

Supporting Infrastructure Tasks

I did manage to set up a few more services today that will come in very handy:

I signed up for the Microsoft Cloud Partner benefits I get as part of the BizSpark program: https://www.microsoftcloudpartner.com/Enroll.aspx

I then signed up for Office 365 7 set up the business – I could now set up other users accounts, email, etc but as its only me I don’t really need to do that just yet.

I signed up for Win Azure https://www.microsoftcloudpartner.com/GetBenefits.aspx So now I have a server provisioned in the cloud with little less than a click of a button & no cash outlay!! Woot! :)

I applied for the token to get developer account on AppHub for WP7 (free tokens with BizSpark can be applied for here: link)

I signed up to get a developer account for Apple http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/ – this one costs $99.

I set up my Mailchimp account & list for pre registrations of people wanting to be notified when the app is ready to launch:

The overtired circle of doom

I always tell the startups I work with that the number 1 rule of being in a startup or small business is to look after yourself! If you aren’t getting enough sleep, exercise, eating well and having time away from the business with family/friends – your body will suffer. Unfortunately as a Startup entrepreneur or small business owner – this ultimately means that your business (and health & relationships) will also suffer.

I have learnt this lesson the hard way in previous ventures and it seems I plan to ignore my own advice yet again! After very little sleep last night and a long day at work I tried to work on a new challenge that arose today – the realisation that (i believed) in order to maintain users accounts I would need a website that they could log into to set up accounts, maintain their preferences, link to Facebook etc – and this little panic was also fuelled the reminder that I still didn’t have a launch page! Unfortunately I spiralled into the overtired circle of doom. Instead of focusing on getting a simple launch page up and running, I started looking at (the very cool but totally unneeded for something so simple) LightSwitch. I downloaded it while I read through some of the examples, opened it up & started to kick off building a website from scratch! Thankfully I ran out of time and had to go get my son from daycare.

While sitting & having dinner with him I realised I had completely dived into solving a problem that I didn’t have yet and was probably unlikely to have anytime soon. I already had WebMatrix Installed on my computer. I went in, clicked create new Site – from Web Gallery, clicked next a few times & I had a WordPress blog downloaded installed & ready to configure! I followed this simple video (roughly), downloaded & hacked this (free) Launch theme and had created a launch page, with Facebook & Mailchimp integration in less than 20 minutes. I thank goodness I had to get up & go to get my son otherwise who knows what I may have tried to build and probably would still be building now!

But, alas – the overtired Spiral of Doom was to kick in yet again. As I now had my new shiny Azure instances ready to play with I decided I wanted to deploy the Wordpress Site to Azure… which is certainly possible but as I started to read the steps included I got about half way through before I decided I was just too tired and it was going to have to wait till tomorrow… so as a result of the lack of focus (and my ease of being distracted with yet another new shiny!) we still don’t have a launch page up collecting potential customer details.

We Have a logo!

The last thing that we did get our hands on tonight is the concepts for our new logo thanks to Alex Knight of Xamling who has agreed to do the logo’s to help us out. He has helped me do logos for the Women in IT awards I run and I have always loved his design work so had high expectations from him. But I was absolutely blown away by the awesomeness of the logo’s he came up with based on my few ideas & discussion of the app functionality. Seeing these has left me feeling so excited about this app & seeing it all come together!

I have a feeling my initial plans of taking the weekend off may not be fully realised!

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 2 Report

ceibner — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 13:10:00 GMT

Get Visibility any way you can!

I have been telling everyone I know that I am doing this. I have used my existing twitter & Facebook contacts, my real networks (including reaching out to friends who are journalists & PR types).

Agree on the Minimum Feature Set BEFORE you start to build!

My minimum Launch Feature Set now includes:

First Priority:

Search for local parks
See a map of where the park is located

(Which btw were unanimous for all respondents as being required!)

Second Priority (which I ended up being surprised by) was:

Add your own park (if its not listed)

Followed closely by our 3rd level priority items of:

Rate your experience (1-5)
Search for parks by facility (i.e. Public toilets)
Get directions to the park from where you are now

It’s time to Wireframe!

I found myself a whiteboard & jotted down some initial ideas in between 2 meetings:

The developer is now working through the basic functionality for the first screen and the login and giving me tips on how to better use Balsamiq as well

Supporting Infrastructure Tasks

I did manage to set up a few more services today that will come in very handy:

I signed up for the Microsoft Cloud Partner benefits I get as part of the BizSpark program: https://www.microsoftcloudpartner.com/Enroll.aspx

I then signed up for Office 365 7 set up the business – I could now set up other users accounts, email, etc but as its only me I don’t really need to do that just yet.

I signed up for Win Azure https://www.microsoftcloudpartner.com/GetBenefits.aspx So now I have a server provisioned in the cloud with little less than a click of a button & no cash outlay!! Woot! :)

I applied for the token to get developer account on AppHub for WP7 (free tokens with BizSpark can be applied for here: link)

I signed up to get a developer account for Apple http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/ – this one costs $99.

I set up my Mailchimp account & list for pre registrations of people wanting to be notified when the app is ready to launch:

The overtired circle of doom

We Have a logo!

I have a feeling my initial plans of taking the weekend off may not be fully realised!

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 2.33333 Report

ceibner — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 13:00:44 GMT

It’s Saturday and am officially taking my own advice and taking the day off to spend the day with my son doing all kinds of fun things like going to the movies (we saw the Smurf movie in 3D and it was actually quite funny!), going to a park, having a picnic & chasing bubbles around the backyard! Perfect really!

OK, so that said, while the fun was taking place, my developer has come back with some interesting suggestions around how iPhone apps can’t ship without an offline mode, and whether we should include the entire initial park list as a file downloaded with the app or just parts of it. He also suggested some clever ideas around letting people rate the location without having to create accounts & logging in! Working with smart people is once again proving a smart move!! Taking time to step away from the project is also meaning I have some time to think about these ideas….

So, turns out, day off or not…. as was expected – as I spent time with my son, I still thought a lot about the app idea/design/marketing/functionality – and as my son & I visited a park on the sparkly Sydney harbour this wonderful sunny afternoon in Sydney I wished I had a way to take a picture, share it & rate the amazing park we were in!

Maybe next weekend I can!

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 1 Report

ceibner — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:42:46 GMT

I spend a lot of my time helping startups in Australia and giving them advice on how to get up & running. A lot of the advice comes from running my own company previous to joining Microsoft, sharing battle stories with others, understanding the mistakes I made and the last few years of working with a great range of amazing advisors and startups through the BizSpark program. I have been also extremely lucky to both attend, be a judge or mentor for & run a number of startup events, this gives me a chance to hear fabulous advice from many many amazing people.

So can I actually practice all I have learnt?

I have been wanting to put together a series of blog posts on how to actually get started if you are like me and have an app idea that you want to take to market. So I decided to finally put a simple idea I have had for an app into action.

Note that this is not business advice as such. This is just me documenting the steps I go through. The thing I know already is that my plan & ideas will change and adapt as I take each step so be sure to read through the proceeding posts as this is just day one!

As I go through the steps of action I have taken, I will try to break down the reasons behind my choices and how successful they have been. Feel free to provide comments on the process as I go as it will only prove to assist others looking to take this plunge in future.

Now I am certainly not the first and certainly not the smartest person to have done something as crazy as this – be sure to check out the great advice from Sebastien Eckersly-Maslin on how he setup his startup in 1 week with just $500 here: http://anthillonline.com/how-to-build-a-business-in-7-days-for-under-500-the-eseries/

As I already had the idea, a Windows Phone Mock up, sample data in Azure and an app name, a lot of the tricky decisions had already been made – but at this stage its pretty basic, looks like I designed it (i.e. not at all impressive) and the sample data is limited to only one council in Ryde.

What does the App need to do"?

The app is for locating a picnic spot nearby, being able to rate & provide feedback on the park. You can also search for parks with specific facilities and in specific areas. The app needs to use Facebook to share the ratings & recommendations. Facebook integration is also important as my initial target market are mums with young children (high usage of facebook). As I also plan to target the application to people with Dogs, I want to track information on how Pet Friendly the park is.

Who would use the app?

People like me would – hence the idea, but I am targeting people who go to parks. I completed some simple market research through facebook friends and also through a survey on a “Mum-Blogger” site (extra big thanks to my cousin Karen who posted on her blog: http://ramblingmum-mummabear1970.blogspot.com/ and to my sister Patricia for posting on her awesome not for profit site Australian Rare Chromo Awareness Network (ARCAN) ) to test the viability of the idea.You too can complete the survey here if you’d like to contribute your feedback before I close it: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/583G3DT The results so far are overwhelmingly positive – and not just from my friends and family. Yay!

Which features are most important for initial launch?

I am a huge fan of the idea of a minimal viable product & tight feedback loop with customers so I also asked the survey takers questions about how often people go to the park, do they always visit the same parks & which features of an app like the one I have planned would be of interest. More importantly I asked people which Phone type they use and if they would pay for the app. I am hoping to determine if there are key functionality that is required and if there is a way of creating a higher functioning paid app. I also need to understand which platforms to target.

Are there Competitors?

One of the other important factors is looking at who the existing competitors are. It would be highly unlikely that my simple idea is completely unique. I did a quick search and turned up a Butter company sponsored picnic app for the UK, and a US based app for finding good places to take the kids – which included parks. Both apps were free and available in iPhone & Android already. I have researched both of these products and need to come up with some good benefits for our application over there ones. So far as both seem very focused on their own locale (UK or US) it seems the Aussie market is still available – and also I will be sourcing a large number of parks to prepopulate the application for Australian capital cities, so launching without needing users to add the data already. Looking at these apps really did highlight another important factor in whether or not I proceed:

How will I make money?

It is clear that to compete with existing applications my app needs to be free or at least have a Free version. This limits my initial planning around monetising the investment I am making in the app by charging a fee (I am including my time in that investment – which many people neglect to include!). Although I can include some advertising in the app I am under no delusions that the app will be that widely used that I will make enough money from in app advertising to generate enough revenue. This leads to further thoughts around having a Paid version with features not available in the free version. I could also look at some strategic relationships with companies that would like to focus advertising/offers to the target marketing I am focusing on such as people who create picnic hampers or gourmet deli’s or even Toy stores like ToysRUs or outdoor activity manufacturers (of course feel free to contact me if this is you!). But more and more as we enter the Data Age, I see the value in the underlying data that I am collecting. Firstly there is no centralised data source for all Australian parks. Secondly the information around feedback & ratings on parks could potentially be of interest to someone. This thought has prompted me to make some legal enquiries to ensure that from the start, my Terms & Conditions at sign up allow me to sell collected data usage information at a later stage.

But to summarise – I haven’t decided which monetisation model (or combination of models) I will eventually go with. This is something I spend so much time advising startups on. I want to know the total addressable market, I want to know what % of that market is accessible, likely to be customers, and how the money will be made. So…. as soon as I get my wireframes finished I will sit down and do that! keep in mind I plan to closely monitor this and adjust my monetisation model as often as needed to generate revenue so stay tuned on that!

Get some feedback from “smart people”

So I am almost convinced to proceed with the idea. And as much as I thought my idea was completely awesome & bullet proof… the next thing I did was ask 2 super smart people to be advisors. I asked them to dinner so that I could bounce ideas off them (in return for providing dinner & wine while we discussed ideas). Through that we decided to split the app into 2 distinct apps. One to target the pet owners looking for Pet friendly parks (stage 2) and one targeting parents looking for a park to take their kids to. The benefit of this is that the strategic alliances are much simpler with the separation of the 2 markets. for example, companies like Vet Chains may be interested in advertising or buying subscriber lists of the people looking for pet friendly parks etc…. The good lesson I made here is that good advice is invaluable. The second lesson is that you have to be flexible enough to adapt your idea when you get really good suggestions!

You haven’t talked me out of it yet… so where do I start??

For me the first thing I always need to do is look at the idea i have had and work out what I should & shouldn’t do. Too often, excited entrepreneurs feel that they need to do everything to get their idea to market because they have no cash flow and think the easiest & cheapest way to get things done is to do it yourself. I however learnt in previous business ventures that there are way too many things that I am really bad at and should never ever, ever do. For example, the above screen shots demonstrate my complete lack of graphic design skills. I don’t even have a logo yet. I have no attention to detail or patience, and the info for these parks is spread in different councils websites and needs manual research and data entry to get. As for developing the solution, although I am happy to develop for Windows Phone & Azure back end... I am in no way skilled as an iPhone, android or blackberry developer and I want to release on all 4 platforms. If I want to get this to market soon, I am going to have to outsource. I identified the initial tasks I would need help with: obtaining the source data, getting a logo and developing apps on the other platforms. Some of these I have been able to get through contacts and some through freelancing sites like www.odesk.com or www.freelancer.com.au. (extra special thanks to the super guys at www.xamling.com for agreeing to once again rescue me with the design side of things!!)

And there is still an hour of day 1 left!!!

What else can I easily do to get my brand building?

One of the things I didn’t mention earlier was that in my market research survey, I asked the people completing it to give me their email address if they’d like to be notified of the launch of the product. Every single person who completed the survey has provided their email address! I am building a database of potential customers on day 1.

Preferably I would also have created a launch page that linked to something like MailChimp to allow me to collect email addresses, but as I keep saying.. I need to get wireframes done! Although its so easy to download WebMatrix, configure a Wordpress blog, give it a Launch theme and hook it up to MailChimp…. Alternatively… that may be just as easy on Azure? No – that can wait till tomorrow!!!

But what else have I done today without outlaying any cash to get my brand building?

I set up a free Live.com.au email address on www.live.com for pickinc@live.com.au

I bought a domain name: www.picknic.com.au

I signed up to www.BizSpark.com (which thankfully I approved!)

I profiled my app on http://www.microsoftplatformready.com (so I can take advantage of the marketing resources available on there & of course get access to the office 365 benefits though Cloud Essentials!)

Set up Facebook account for the company: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100003043437704

Setup Facebook page for the App itself: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Picknic/247222251994768

Setup developer token for facebook so my application can integrate with facebook: https://developers.facebook.com/apps/208222259247250/summary

Setup twitter account: http://twitter.com/#!/PicknicApp

And now I must stop talking to you all as I need to wireframe my screens for my outsourced developer & myself!

Wish me luck!

The Power of Lightswitch on Windows Azure

ceibner — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 03:25:32 GMT

The Power of Lightswitch on Windows Azure

EVENT DETAILS

Please register your attendance via the “Register Now” links below. Check in will be open from 7:30am on site.

Introducing Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch, a simple self-service tool that allows developers and business professionals to build business applications quickly and easily for the desktop and the cloud- without the need to code!

Come along to our Switched ON briefings in your city to find out what your business can do with LightSwitch to power Windows Azure.

We’ve designed the briefings to include a variety of topics that you can select to suit your individual needs. Please be sure to choose the session(s) you are most interested in when you register for the event.

Session 1: The Power of LightSwitch on Windows Azure

8:00 - 9:00am

In this comprehensive 1-hour breakfast briefing you will learn about the End User Developer and how Visual Studio LightSwitch allows these domain experts to quickly create scalable, forms-over-data business applications on the desktop and the cloud- with little technical expertise and development skills.

This session is targeted primarily at Business and Technical Decision Makers, and is also valuable for Developers and Development Managers.

Session 2: Discover the Windows Azure Platform

9:30 – 12:00pm

These sessions will help you understand the opportunities for the cloud and Microsoft’s Cloud Computing offerings with the Windows Azure Platform. Sessions will cover both the technical & business benefits as well as help you understand how you can get started using the Windows Azure Platform today.

The target audience for these sessions includes BDMs, TDMs, Architects, and Development leads.

Session 3: Build your first Azure application using Visual Studio LightSwitch – with (almost) no code!

1:00 – 3:00pm

In this demo-heavy session, you will see end-to-end how to build and deploy a data-centric business application using LightSwitch. We’ll also go beyond the basics of creating simple screens over data, by demonstrating how to:

· Create screens with advanced capabilities

· Extend LightSwitch applications with your own Silverlight custom controls and RIA services

· Create a fully-functional application running in the cloud on Windows Azure and SQL Azure

This session is targeted both at individuals with basic programming and technical experience, as well as professional developers.

ADELAIDE – 18 Oct

Microsoft Office Auditorium, L2, Westpac House, 91 King William St, Adelaide SA 5000

BRISBANE – 19 Oct

Microsoft Office

North Stradbroke, L28

400 George St

Brisbane QLD 4000

CANBERRA – 25 Oct

Microsoft Office

Theatre 1, L2

Walter Turnbull Building, 44 Sydney Ave

Barton ACT 2600

MELBOURNE – 26 Oct

Microsoft Office

Exhibition Room, L5

4 Freshwater Place

Southbank VIC 3006

PERTH – 2 Nov

Microsoft Office

Enex 100 Seminar Room

100 St Georges Terrace

Perth WA 6000

SYDNEY – 10 Nov

Microsoft Office

Bushranger Room, LG

1 Epping Rd

North Ryde NSW 2113

AGENDA

7:30 – Registration opens (will run throughout the day)

8:00 – 9:00 – Business Applications and the “Un”-Professional Developer: LightSwitch on Windows Azure

9:00 – 9:30 – Breakfast

9:30 – 10:30 – Discover Windows Azure Platform Part 1: Business Overview

10:30 – 11:00 – Morning Tea

11:00 – 12:00 – Discover Windows Azure Platform Part 2: Technical Overview

12:00 – 13:00 – Break (lunch will not be provided)

13:00 – 15:00 - Build your first Azure application using Visual Studio LightSwitch – with (almost) no code!

Cloud Computing Free for Startups!

ceibner — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 04:01:05 GMT

I am continually surprised by how many of the BizSpark & MSDN Customers do not fully utilise the benefits included in their MSDN Ultimate Subscription. Most surprising is the lack of uptake of up to $3,500 in annual Windows Azure platform benefits at no extra charge! So to make it easier for everyone – i have broken down what’s included and how to get it below.

Which Windows Azure platform benefits can I get for free?

To help you "get into the cloud", BizSpark members get, as part of their MSDN subscription, up to $3,500 in annual Windows Azure platform benefits at no extra charge. Here are some highlights. The details of the exact subscription benefits can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/msdn-benefits/.

Subscription Level	BizSpark offer (Included per Month)
Windows Azure
Compute	1,500 hours of the small compute instance (Enough to run 2 small compute instances 24/7 for 31 days)
Storage	30GB
Storage Transactions	2,000,000
SQL Azure	5GB
AppFabric
Access Control Transactions*	500K
Service Bus Connections	5
Caching**	128 MB cache
Data transfers	35GB (WW) Out 35GB (WW) In
Annual Savings***	$3500

Note: For all usage that exceeds the no fee allocation above, customers will be charged at standard rates. To avoid charges customers should closely monitor their usage.

* The Windows Azure AppFabric Control service is provided at no charge for billing periods prior to January 1, 2012.

** The Windows Azure AppFabric Caching service is provided at no charge for billing periods prior to August 1, 2011. Beginning on August 1, a single 128MB cache is included at no charge. All other cache utilized will be charged at the standard rates.

*** Projected annual savings at standard rates.

How do I get My Free Cloud Computing Offer?

1. Sign-in to your MSDN benefits page

2. Click on the Windows Azure Platform link from My Account and follow the steps to activate your Windows Azure benefits (for limited free access). You'll need your credit card only because IF you use more than the amount of services that are included with your MSDN subscription, we'll bill your card for these overages. You can visit the Microsoft Online Services Customer Portal to look up your usage at any time.

3. Go to the Windows Azure Developer Portal to access your Windows Azure subscription.

4. Once you’ve done that, you can get started by downloading the Windows Azure Tools for Visual Studio to start building and debugging your application. Download the tools

5. You can also see how easy it is to create a simple ASP.NET local application by starting with a tutorial.

6. Finally, you can use another online tutorial to learn how to deploy and run your sample application in Windows Azure.

” This activation process will require that you submit your credit card details to cover any costs of overage (ONLY FOR usage of Windows Azure beyond the scope of the included Windows Azure benefits). You are activating your existing entitlement benefit. However, there is a limit to that entitlement and the credit card is simply there to cover for any overage costs that may arise. Remember that the offer entitles you to 31 days of completely free usage every month of a medium sized compute instance. Only if you require extra compute power, or additional storage will Microsoft charge your card.

Women in IT at Tech ED Australia 2011

ceibner — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 06:16:51 GMT

This year we once again celebrated the Women in IT at Tech ED. Turns out it was the BIGGEST Women in IT event we have ever held in Tech Ed Australia with almost 100 people attending!

We were fortunate enough to have as our Keynote speaker, Lynn Langit from Microsoft US share the amazing work she has been doing with Teaching Kids Programming. She brought a pile of USB keys filled with the contents for her course which were snapped up by the attendees – each promising to use the content to teach other children programming.

We then moved onto the Awards component of the lunch. Last year we introduced the Communityy Contributor of the Year award which has the winners announced at the Tech Ed Women in IT lunch. The awards recognises the great work that men & women are doing in the community to help, support & encourage Women working and Studying IT. The attendees heard from last years winner Raina Mason who shared the amazing experiences that have happened since winning last year – including receiving additional funding to support her program that teaches programming robotics to children in remote areas.

Microsoft Managing Director Pip Marlow joined me on stage to announce this years finalists which are (in no particular order):

Carol Wapshere who is One of the leading bloggers around Forefront Identity Manager

Miriam Hochwald who received an unprecedented 3 nominations. Miriam has and continues to, work tirelessly to get more women into IT, from all walks of life, from schools to industry, through her Geek Girl Coffees and other initiatives.

Simone Bennett Simone is actively engaged in promoting women in IT in Brisbane and in the online community in general. She is highly technical and maintains a high profile within the Australian IT Pro community.

Kate Carruthers who has brought the community together through Social Innovation Sydney and her work with the Girls Develop It program.

We then announced the winners- First Place went to Miriam Hochwald and runner up to Simone Bennett. Both were admirably humble in their acceptance of the awards and it is an encouragement to all who attended that by trying to help & support women in IT you really do make a difference. Miriam won an xBox 360 Kinect bundle, HTC HD7 and Sony Vaio S. Simone was awarded a HTC HD7. Thanks to everyone who donated the prizes.

The attendees spent the last portion of the time networking eagerly – being forced out of the area only when the room needed to be reset for the next session. It was great to hear so much energy and excitement and see people connecting – I hope they all stay in contact afterwards!

I love running this event and it always inspires me to see so many women and men attending. Congratulations again to our finalists and winners. I hope too see you all nominated again next year!

Roving Reporters For The Entourage Unconvention in Melbourne are Required

ceibner — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 11:55:00 GMT

I am very disappointed that I am unable to attend the upcoming Un-Convention being held in Melbourne next weekend - on the 6th of August. But this is always such a fantastic event I don’t want to miss out!

So – I need your help! I have purchased 5 Tickets that I will be giving away for 5 lucky people to go on my behalf! Now, with these tickets comes great responsibility! I need you to be my eyes & ears at the event! I need you to send me a (short!) follow up report listing your top lessons learnt or favourite moments from the event – all of which I will promote on this blog, and of course this can include a shameless plug of yourself and your startup

There is a fantastic summary of the last event thanks to Jason Cartwright CEO of BizSpark company Constructiv: http://constructiv.co/news/2011/4/17/my-thoughts-on-the-young-entrepreneur-unconvention-melbourne.html including his video summary & notes that I highly recommend you take a look at.

This upcoming event is going to be even bigger! Speakers include Matt Barrie – (BRW Entrepreneur Of The Year 2011), Stuart Cook (CEO of Australia's Fastest Growing Franchise), Andrew Morello (Winner of The Apprentice), Katherine Sampson (Founder of Healthy Habits) plus more!

To be in the running, send me a short email that includes details about your startup and why they should be selected. The submission must be no longer than 500 words. I will be reviewing each submission based on quality, originality and creativity. The 5 best entries will win one (1) ticket each for entry to the Entourage Un Convention being held in Melbourne on the 6^th of August 2011 valued at $47 each. Note that the prize does not include Flights or Accommodation so you need to get yourself to the Conference.

Winners of all prizes will be notified via email on 1^st of August 2011.

T&C’s can be located here: T and C Unconvention Melb 2011

Catherine Eibner

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day (I’ve Lost count!) Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? Guest Blogger Gary Twomey Outlines the Key Government Funding Programs for Start -ups

Windows Azure BizSpark Startup Camp – Brisbane

Event Details

Event Questions

Event Agenda

Build a Business Plan in a Day? Heck yes!

Picknic has been named one of Australia’s ‘Coolest’ businesses in Anthill Magazine’s Sixth Annual Cool Company Awards.

Picknic has been named one of Australia’s ‘Coolest’ businesses in Anthill Magazine’s Sixth Annual Cool Company Awards.

What are Cool Company Awards?

What is Anthill Magazine?

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 11 Report

Map your development machine keyboard to the Phone 7 emulator:

Bing Maps Development

Windows Azure Toolkit

OData:

SQL Azure Security Requirements

[Windows Phone Training] Workshops, Webcasts and Application Clinics

Windows Phone Developer Deep Dive Workshop

Windows Phone Developer App Clinic

Windows Phone Developer Deep Dive Webcasts

Refer a Friend

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 10 Report

Made to Stick

Building a PR Strategy

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Downtime report!

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 9 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? Guest Blogger Steve Godbold on Growth through learning

Growth through learning

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 8 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 7 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 6 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 4 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 5 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 3 report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 2 Report (Update to include Pics)

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 2 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 2.33333 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it *really* be?? Day 1 Report

The Power of Lightswitch on Windows Azure

Session 1: The Power of LightSwitch on Windows Azure

8:00 - 9:00am

Session 2: Discover the Windows Azure Platform

9:30 – 12:00pm

The target audience for these sessions includes BDMs, TDMs, Architects, and Development leads.

Session 3: Build your first Azure application using Visual Studio LightSwitch – with (almost) no code!

1:00 – 3:00pm

Cloud Computing Free for Startups!

Which Windows Azure platform benefits can I get for free?

How do I get My Free Cloud Computing Offer?

Women in IT at Tech ED Australia 2011

Roving Reporters For The Entourage Unconvention in Melbourne are Required

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day (I’ve Lost count!) Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 11 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 10 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Downtime report!

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 9 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 8 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 7 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 6 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 4 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 5 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 3 report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 2 Report (Update to include Pics)

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 2 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 2.33333 Report

Launching a Startup mobile App in Australia? How hard can it really be?? Day 1 Report