After coming across the following article, 12 Websites in 12 Months, I felt motivated by a similar sentiment of my own. The overall goal being to bootstrap oneself to being financially reliant on the 12 websites created over the next 12 months. My financial needs are about the same as his, with the minimum target goal being around $2000USD per month. Originally as the year changed over I felt compelled to try and shoot for the stars by attempting the lofty goal of 180 days of writing code, with the catchall being you have to commit a new project everyday. I am not one for that sort of timetable of deliverables, as I work in scattered and controlled bursts. I am able to break down big problems by using this method of, dare I say, persistence. These projects are my way of pushing my skills to the limit and obtaining a semblance of accountability for translating my ideas in wealth.
I am not imposing the overall end date being 12 months from now for this project, but rather I am going to hold myself accountable for making at least one post per month regarding the overall progress or the individual progress on at least one of the sites. I recognize that these may not be the most leverageable projects in terms of what is popular and hitting on Google, but rather these projects are more my way of working my brain beyond the possibility of being old and seeing something that is similar to an idea I had in my younger years while proclaiming “I invented something like that…”
Current Work Life
Presently I am working with an awesome team on a legit product that handles about 20% of the nations 911 data. This job leaves me mentally fulfilled, but there are always the extra ideas that are floating to the surface while distilling through the creative process. It is a Microsoft shop that is branching out into more exciting technology stacks while revamping its SaaS, so fun is getting funner. This project will serve as a way to “stretch my legs” and also relax by having an outlet for my own technological creativity.”
The 12 Sites
LightPurse.com
A serendipitous search of lean domain search yielded this gem. After swooping LightPurse.com up I felt highly motivated to begin development of the light-emiting fashion tech that is so future. Just as the name indicates, it is purses whose exteriors light up.
The goal is to set a very high bar in with the initial prototype and to then raise over $100,000 in 30 days to be able to fund the initial production batch.
Hustlely.com
There are a lot of skilled and talented people who are not where they want to be in life and have realized there is no magic pill for such things. This is where the hard work gets hard, but Hustlely simplifies the process. By taking the guess work out of what it takes to “fake it until you make it”. Hustlely enables individuals to merge their dreams, goals, and skills into one place that increases their chances of obtaining success. With a metrics and accountability wizard that steer change at a gradual pace which truly takes the guess work out of all of the steps in between a loser and one who has achieved success.
The essence and primary goal of Hustlely is: Acquire wealth, disregard detractors.
LightEz.com
Lightez was born from the concept of wanting to embrace the future. Sure we may not have our flying cars or jet packs, but with a Lightez creation it sure doesn’t have to feel that way. After going to events and seeing the masses wearing cheap light-emitting adornments, Lightez felt obligated to produce a new generation of a more elegant and accessible light-emitting wearable tech. Or at least that is what I told myself when I registered the domain over a year ago.
This is now just going to be an informative single page that is stunningly beautiful that describes the different types of light sources and how they work.
DaShp.com
This was the shortest domain I could find over a year ago that had a nice ring. Originally I saw it as Dash P(ee). After serendipitously writing the letters in an email and hitting enter after the da, I found myself starting at Da Shp. The ship is what it first had me thinking, but then I realized a photoshop aggregate of obvious photoshops would be a decent use of this domain.
This site will allow for the present methodologies of detecting photoshopped images and making them more accessible and friendly for the masses.
Consumer Products
Branding Generation Tool
Takes graphic design projects and makes turns it into physical goods. I know this already exists in some form, but I would like to automate it on the level that I sync a github repo and I get stuff in the mail. Example of mediums would include optical disc, letterhead, resume, notepads, business cards, posters, t shirts, stickers, etc for physical goods and social medias graphics, infographics, apps, svg’s, logos, web presence, branding, favicons, etc for digital goods. Essentially take a SVG, map what is changeable to the proper fields and then it could be used as a generic (droves less generic than what is presently commercially available) by anyone.
Free Food Finder
This is a web app that finds locations that serve up” free” food. Will find some free grub and ranks on how risky it is to score a free lunch. Some may be complimentary meals, some are events, and others are just places that are known for free food such as a soup kitchen or food pantry.
Friendlyness App
I have been wanting a way to get some accurate measurements on how peoples level of friendliness measures up to other publicly available data in an area. Basically I need a way to measure how friendly people are. The metrics that matter here are: gender, age, dateTime, time of interaction, actual interaction, and artifact of interaction (how they left you feeling).
Trash Runner App
The world is a dirty place, someone has to pick up the trash so why not do it while working out. Most people who run, tend to do so in their local community. By being able to track and quantify trash, not only will it be picked up, the problems root causes will be identified with greater ease.
Practical Projects That Interest Me
Upvote-style discussion board: Insert Topic Here
Each site will be configurable as to include scraping bots to get the ball rolling like all other upvote-style discussion boards that have gained notoriety.
Crowdtilt
I would like to run a small crowdtilt to raise funding for a project or goal in the local community, before moving on to a larger one.
Telephone Hardware-Software Hybrid
This would be a proof of concept using a raspberry pi and or an arduino with a service like Twilio or Pwilio or whatever to make a call or text to a phone number for physical access to a location. Sort of like a lockitron on steroids.
Raspberry Pi Web-Interface
Allows a user to interact with a Raspberry Pi in such a way that anyone with a mobile device would be able to perform tasks via buttons that would then executes scripts on the pi.
Metrics of Success
Each site is required to be deployed in the simplest manner possible, i.e. from a script like fabric. The metrics by which I am going to measure these sites on is:
“What is the product vision and is it articulated on the site?
Why make such a thing (/about_page)?
How’s it to make money?
When will it start making money?
Who will be visiting this site and from where?
Toolchain used during build? “
These KPI’s need to be in a Spreadsheet to make them published up-to-date.
The Tools
While I am a believer that the right tool for the job is the tool that gets the job done, I am always looking to broaden my horizons. The minimum criteria for any of these ideas is a WordPress site with ads or the equivalent. Even if these are just some of those crappy ad filled sites that people ask upon visiting, “What is this garbage?” With that in mind I would like to work on the following skills.
Django / Python
Javascript / D3.js / Anguilar.js / Jquery.js
Git / Bitbucket
HTML / CSS
Talend
Amazon EC2 Services
Google Apps
Outsourcing Appropriately