It really does not matter much if you are doing it part-time or full-time except for the time it takes to get the first release out.
I have been working on http://www.onista.com for almost a year now and I am doing it mostly in evenings and weekends. Bear in mind that I have one and half year old kid who takes lot of time away from me (Off course I enjoy it a lot).
Recently two more friends joined me and we are pretty confident on launching in November.
Based on my experience I can say that, persistence is what matters. If you work full-time and are not persistent or loose focus then you are not going anywhere. If you work part-time and are persistent and focussed then you will win. May be it will take more time than usual but you will get there with better results.
So I would say, yes go ahead and work part-time on your idea, but be very persistent to spend whatever extra time you find on the idea.
It would be good idea to find group of friends who can work part-time with you. (I did that it does help a lot)
Thanks lot ed.
Point very well taken. Same thing happened to me.
There was a company called www.riya.com who hyped lot before launch. They were building some image comparison and search technology. I saw there demo on demo.com and signed up for beta. I was following their blog everyday and waiting for release.
When release actually happened, the product was POS (Piece of Sh..)
I never visited riya.com again ever.
Thanks greendestiny. You have valid point.
I picked a date November 1st a target for us to make sure we fix all issues and also communicate to interested folks about upcoming launch.
I feel pretty confident that we can achieve November 1st (unless one of my friend convinces me to push two more features that he has been trying to push) because now we have only 139 more bugs to fix.
Thank you so much everybody for taking time and replying to my questions.
To make things clear, yes we are building onista as amalgam of eBay, LendingTree, Priceline and LinkedIn. We are basically trying to close the gap between social network and a marketplace. We are also not as boring as auction or reverse auction.
It is a general marketplace and not specific to any niche.
The key take away from everybody's reply is
1. Pick a date. Sure We are confident that we will launch on November 1st 2007. (139 more bugs to fix)
2. Put a day counter on front page
3. Contact Bloggers that cover social networks and marketplaces and Web 2.0 in general. (Wish I knew where to find these bloggers)
4. Post on http://www.buzzshout.com/ & http://www.launchfeed.com/
5. Post comments on TechCrunch with a link back to our site
6. Write a personalized emails
7. Though generating lot of pre-launch hype sounds very attractive idea it may not always work. as "ed" mention in the post, "I've never, ever ever ever, seen this work out in a positive way. Once the floodgates open, users are almost invariably disappointed by what's available. The result is that you lose the (critical) attention of early adopters".
8. Use SEO press release from PRWEB.COM for $200. (Any suggestions on services that can help us write a press release? I've never written one and certainly writing is not one of my great skills. Except javascript/css and html)
9. Send a link to the uncov guys. Loved this idea. Would be interesting to read how they will tear us apart.
Now I will post specific replies to each post here.
Thanks for the information.
Ae you referring to the form at http://help.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/mail/cgi_bulkmail (This link was at bottom of the article that you gave me). I submitted the form. Hope Yahoo will help us.
Yes, Gmail is really a challenge. I am trying to play around our email headers to see if it helps, but so far no luck.
We are working on developing Social Marketplace called Onista (http://www.onista.com) and we are in QA cycle right now on our test server.
Most of the emails that our application is generating for users (like Invite emails or registration emails) are being delivered to bulk/spam folders on yahoo and gmail.
Any idea on how can we fix the issue?
Sure.
This is a good idea. I am launching http://www.onista.com in June time-frame and would be nice to have other folks look at it and give valuable feedback.
Our team will also help out others to test their apps.
Exactly. There is no point in expecting cofounder to be competent in same areas. What is more important for cofounder is share same passion as you do. Technical stuff can be learned. Languages and technology comes and goes.
Based on my experience I can say that, persistence is what matters. If you work full-time and are not persistent or loose focus then you are not going anywhere. If you work part-time and are persistent and focussed then you will win. May be it will take more time than usual but you will get there with better results.
So I would say, yes go ahead and work part-time on your idea, but be very persistent to spend whatever extra time you find on the idea. It would be good idea to find group of friends who can work part-time with you. (I did that it does help a lot)