IncentiBook: Christmas and Content
The Christmas break has been so very welcome and needed after a relentless semester one. Semester two is set to be even more intense with the workload increasing as well as personal matters such as becoming a father for the first time (due in May) coming into play. In some ways I am dreading the next few months, in others I am so keen to power-through, get this project up and running. This way I will be able to leave academia, work from home more and ensure my son or daughter get the best possible start in life.
The first prototype of IncentiBook has been created using a basic PHP calendar taken from a YouTube tutorial. Although not ideal, this has given me the time to spend on developing the more complex back-end of the software. There was a small breakthrough a few days ago when I managed to reduce ~500 lines of code, and about 50 if statements, to around 150 lines of code. It’s amazing how solutions to problems that appeared as if they could only be tackled in one way, just come out of the blue! No complaints here.
I do not envisage IncentiBook to be customer-ready for another year, and have begun developing content in order to gain some traction at launch. One of the methods used to generate content/sharing will be interviews with the target demographic i.e. mobile hairdressers, driving instructors and sports massage therapists. This will provide them with a PR piece that they can share and expose their business to more people by social media. Not sure how effective this will be, or what the take-up will look like, but it’s certainly something to begin considering now rather than in nine months time.
Over the next few months, my ambition is to spend ~70% of my time writing the code for IncentiBook and the remainder generating content. In order to maximise my effectiveness, and useful output, I have commissioned a VA to perform the monotonous task of collecting contact details of interviewees. Even though this project is on a very tight budget, the cost of the VA is completely justifiable as the used time to collect these details will be taken from more important coding and content-generation activities.
I’m still reading Traction and will continue to develop my marketing plan based off the advice. I am particularly excited to use the engineering as marketing traction channel where I will get to use my coding skills as a means of marketing. This sounds like true heaven.
Activities
- Create opportunity cost tool for engineering as marketing.
- Email prospective interviewees.
- Update landing page for IncentiBook.com
