TylerCruz.com: An Internet Entrepreneur's JourneyThe journal of a web entrepreneur on his journey to wealth.

Project V Updates: Wireframes Done, Spec Sheets Finished, Hiring Developers Started

Here I am 8 days later with another update on my Project V venture.

The nasty cold/flu I caught is still lingering and I’d say I’m still about 30% sick, but I’ve been better enough for a while that I’ve been able to put in some decent hours into work lately.

My focus over these past 8 days has been about 70% focused towards Project V. I started to get frustrated with how long it was taking to tend to all of these boring tasks and so I decided to try to focus on it until it was done so that I could move onto more interesting things.

3 More Days

The investor should have wired over the investment money a few days ago, so it is expected to arrive in my account by October 7th.

I have enough funds to proceed without having to wait for the money to arrive, but I just want it in my account so that I have one less thing to worry or think about.

Wireframes Finished

I completed the 3 wireframes for the project. They ended up being far closer to actual mock-ups than wireframes though.

The investor had a lot of strong comments about them, and after a nearly 2-hour Skype call, I made more adjustments to them.

Specification Document Finished!

In my last blog post from just over a week ago, I wrote:

"I suspect that it will take me 2-3 weeks to complete the development specification, along with all the other work I’m doing on the side."

and:

"In my next update on Project V, I hope to have received the investment funds and be at least 50% done the development specifications, hopefully a bit further."

Fortunately, due to strapping down and focusing on the task at hand as I previously mentioned, I was able to complete the specification document a couple days ago.

I was really dreading having to create the spec sheet as I tend to have a problem with being too verbose and being a perfectionist I often spend way too long on the tiniest of details.

I’ve created my fair number of spec sheets in the past, but this project has the largest launch development budget I’ve worked with on a website before.

I spoke to one of the project managers at Toptal and shared my apprehension about how long my spec sheet might end up being, and he told me that it didn’t need to be super detailed and something along the lines of "Developers don’t typically enjoy reading super long spec sheets".

So with that in mind, I decided to limit the spec sheet to only include the essential information while leaving out the minutia that I am hoping the developers will include on their own.

It ended up being 29 pages (size 13 font). I think it ended up being a pretty good length – not too long and definitely not too short. It covers all the important aspects and anything that I may have missed out I can discuss it with the developers later.

Meeting with the Developers Tomorrow

I am using the development agency Toptal to work on this project, and the next step of the procedure is for me to have a call with one of their engineers to discuss the overall needs of the project.

He will then assemble a team of full-time developers that he feels will make a good match with what this project entails and I am then to interview them one by one. I signed a contract/agreement that says if I do not make a decision on a developer in 3 days that I am given a $100 fine.

If I decide I don’t like a developer, they will then pair me up with another to interview.

I set the project up so that I will be hiring the talent on a full-time basis, so that they are working only on my project and not on anything else.

Originally, Toptal set me up with to arrange a call with an engineer who was in a time zone literally 12 hours away. So, I was forced to choose to arrange a call meeting with him for 1am last Thursday. I couldn’t stay up that late (I’m still sick remember) so I had to cancel at around 11pm.

I complained to Toptal that this was just silly to try to arrange such a call with somebody in the opposite time zone, and so they set me up with somebody just an hour or two apart from my local time zone.

My meeting with him is set for tomorrow at noon. I can’t wait to get that over with, hire some developers, and finally get this show on the road!

Logo Apprehensions

While working on the wireframe/mock-ups and discussing them with the investor on Skype, we decided that we were unsure as to if we liked the logo or not.

When I purchased the domain, it came with a custom designed logo. It’s not the best logo in the world but it’s definitely not the worst. It’s pretty good, but we’re just second guessing ourselves now on whether we should keep it, modify it slightly, or scrap it entirely and get a new logo crowdsourced out.

I’m really torn on what to do; the design of the site cannot start until the logo is finalized as the site’s palette and style will all be derived from the logo.

I did make a few changes via Photoshop to it and think it might look better, but am worried that it may look over-simplified now. I am waiting to hear back what the investor thinks.

The Boring Work is Done!

I am so glad that all the boring work is done.

Apart from still having the arduous task of having to create some of the inner content pages (such as Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, Help, etc.), the remaining aspects of this project should all be pretty fun to tackle.

Here’s a list of the boring stuff that is now taken care of:

• Presentation/pitch (slideshow and MP3 creation)
• Finding investors
• Domain search (this proved real difficult, even with a $5,000 domain budget)
• Domain/server set up
• Feasibility study (required by the investor’s accountant/lawyer – boring as hell)
• Contract creation
• Lawyer / notary for signature witness
• Finding developers
• Specification sheet creation

In my next update, I hope to be able to write that I have hired/chosen a development team and that work has commenced!

Once work actually starts, I will begin to slowly reveal what "Project V" is all about.