I think my brain cells are shrinking—it is unbelievable how quickly I forget. Such is the life of a software developer, these days.It is amazing how quickly I can forget the details of one programming language detail over another after just a few weeks away—when I see my old code, I amaze myself at how good a programmer I was… last month! Read the rest of this entry »
Way back in in “I Just Want to Create a Frickin’ iPhone App! (Part 1),” I walked you through the logistics of joining the developer program (no, you didn’t miss “Part 2,” I have not written it yet). Fast-forward a couple of months and it’s time to submit to the app store! For a company that has built a reputation on simplicity, Apple has concocted an arcane process and made it worse by not providing any complete nor accurate information to help with the application submission process.  Apple’s minimalistic approach is of no help… you often feel like your flying blind as you try to make your way through the process. I’ll try to give some heads-up and clarity if you, too, are going through this for the first time.
So, let’s hope I can remember all that I went through.
.plist file, so you can access its “CFBundleIdentifier” (aka “Bundle identifier”) explicitly. The value in the app should be the reverse domain name, for example, “com.handthingsdown.htdmobile”; do not prefix the “Bundle Seed ID” to the bundle identifier in the app.
Every couple of weeks we participate in a Founder Institute master class to continue discussions and keep forward momentum for our startup. The subject for the last call was user acquisition. We went over the various tactics on how to drive engagement through social media channels like Facebook fan pages, Twitter, Quora, Youtube, and commenting on blogs related to our business. Each startup participates in a different mix of social outlets, it really depends on where the customers for your company hangout, a business to business (B2B) company may not require a YouTube or Facebook presence. B2B startups may spend more time on Linkedin discussions or Quora answering questions and establishing themselves as subject matter experts in an area related to their product offering.
Driving Awareness on Facebook
After the call, it was clear we needed to switch from using the Disqus commenting system to Facebook comments. Migration will be easy since we are fairly new and we haven’t received many comments using Disqus. While no one wants to be dependent on Facebook for all of the social aspects of their web properties, this is a case where it made sense for us to move to Facebook comments. Moms with toddlers who are on Facebook are our launch target and we want to make sure every comment made on the Hand Things Down blog shows up on their walls to further drive engagement with our brand.
Where does your customer hangout online?
On Wednesday night, I was at a Social Media Planning Meeting and Jeff Moriarity said one of the pros for using Disqus is conversation around your brand from all over the web is aggregated in one place. Here are some questions your startup will need to consider; Where does your customer hangout? What do they read? What videos do they watch? Are they more likely to use Facebook or Twitter? You also need to keep in mind that if your target customer is only on Facebook, perhaps Facebook commenting will help them move from being a lurker to an engaged member of your community.
Your company can listen for conversations around the web using a different tool. We are using Google Alerts to listen for any mentions of our brand and actively retweet or push original content on Twitter and our Facebook fan page.
Waterfront view from my desk (West Seattle, WA)
Do you ever wonder what your entrepreneur friends do all day? Here’s a typical day in the life of a startup entrepreneur. (Cheryl’s day) I like to include a fitness factor in my day to break away from the computer. I normally go to sleep around 2 or 3 am and found out recently, that this isn’t a sustainable long-term practice. I ended up catching a cold/cough over the weekend which forced me to slow down and catch up on much needed sleep.
Cheryl walking around outside the apartment on experiencing her first snowfall in Seattle.
Create goals instead of resolutions
We are a week into the new year, have you started working on your New Year’s resolution(s)? If you have started working on your New Year’s resolution(s), are you still following it?
Give up making New Year’s resolutions, they never work, join me in my movement. I’m not a quitter, I just don’t see the point in creating a promise at the beginning of the year that you will break within a week or if you are an over achiever, within a few months.
The problem is that most people make grandiose plans to do a 180 in some area of their lives and this never works. Yes, I’m talking to you, so pay attention. The only way to achieve big goals is to decide on a goal then break it down into little bite size activities which can be done either everyday or a few times a week. The cumulative effects of these baby activities will add up over time and bring you a step closer to achieving your grandiose plan.
Business Goals
Personal Goals
Be Specific & Give Yourself a Deadline
It’s important to know exactly what you want to accomplish by a given deadline because if you don’t know what you want something to look like, how can you develop a plan to accomplish those goals?
Next up
Plan to accomplish business goals.
Plan to accomplish personal goals – will post this to my personal blog.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bex_x_pi/3157409347/
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no one could anticipate the role that software applications play in the world. starting as isolated applications running on big, expensive metal, then siloed applications running on cheap metal. networking opened up communal demand for interaction with an application, breaking the silo model, somewhat. the internet broadened access to applications and data by the masses. social interaction with applications is the new paradigm. simultaneously, mass adoption of powerful handheld communicating computers arose. today, no application avoid inclusion of social and mobile facets integral to its functionality.
where will this go next?
Catching the Technology Train, After I’d Disembarked
Staying away from programming for too long, things change faster than I’d ever expected. Even with a strong foundation, when things move ahead so quickly, too many things change and it isn’t as easy to hop back on the train, as I would have thought. Today, I am trying to catch up with technology train that is web development. How did I become so disconnected?
The result is that, not only do I need to learn new languages and their nuances, I even need to learn a new workflow, a new way of doing programming. While I am not starting from scratch, a lot of my prior “expertise” is not directly applicable; so it feels like starting from scratch.
I could just stick to the old technologies that I am still expert at, but that isn’t cutting edge. Still I could do that. Then I wouldn’t have anything to be stressed about. And, that wouldn’t be so bad, now would it?
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