We are happy to announce the successful applicant for our Free Software Development offer is Newmarket Solutions. We will go through the specifics of what we will be working on here on the blog over the next few weeks. We are looking forward to it.
Archive for the 'business' Category
What ?
We are offering any Irish company or individual the opportunity to apply for free software development to the value of 5000 euro.
Why ?
We have seen some excellent initiatives from the Irish tech community to help Irish Startups over the last few years starting with App School from Contrast in 2008, last year we had IQ Prize from IQ Content and Outvesting in December - we want to do something similar in 2010. It also gives us a chance to showcase our capabilities and build a profile.
Who can apply?
Any company or individual based in Ireland can apply. Have a look at the conditions below before you apply to make sure you are happy with them. We will choose an interesting project and the person / company who we feel deserves it most.
What kind of project?
We are open to suggestions, the project could be:
- A new web application.
- A prototype to flesh out ideas or to help with market research.
- An Adobe Air application to offer desktop functionality to an existing web application.
- A flex web application.
How?
We are now accepting applications using the following form: Apply Now.
Dates
Note: Deadlines have been extended. Application process opens on Wednesday 3rd February 2010. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday 17th March 2010 the chosen project will be announced on Monday 22nd March 2010.
Questions
If you have any questions you can add a comment below or drop us an email to info@rndsolutions.net
Conditions
- We will choose the technologies.
- You will need to pay any associated costs i.e. (graphic design, domain names, hosting, etc).
- You will own the application entirely.
- Our decision on chosen project is final.
This post shows how rapid prototyping can have an initial version of an application built in 27 minutes and 30 seconds!! These are simple mockups of the functionality contained in the application:
Registration
Login
Create Task List
Task Lists
Tasks
We estimated it would take us 40 minutes to complete the initial version of the application so we set a countdown timer for 40 minutes. This video shows the process to build the application (it may be difficult to follow all steps in the video but we will create a separate post outlining the steps):
You can have a look at the completed application here: http://dev.rndsolutions.net:8080/todo/
We will create a post with the steps we took to complete the application and the technical details.
Kampyle is a powerful on-demand solution to collect, analyze and manage your website visitors’ feedback
Kampyle allows users of your site to give you feedback on any bugs or features they would like to see on your site or application. The key to improving your service is to listen to your customers and make sure to deliver the service they want - kamplye helps you do this.
I have noticed recently that O2 have added kampyle to their site - they have improved their efforts to engage with customers over the last few months.
Many tools have emerged over the last few months and years including http://uservoice.com/ and http://getsatisfaction.com/.
If you would like to give your customers the opportunity to review your products within your website Loudervoice are an Irish company that offer this service.
This class was about writing your business plan. It was a little advanced and I felt we could have done with two classes for doing this. The goals of the course are to ultimately fulfill the following: get the FETAC award while writing your own business plan & eventually start you own business. In my case, for my business, I don’t need a business plan at the moment… so I feel my time is better spent on not generating a document that is going to sit of a shelf.
The writing of a business plan is very beneficial for various reasons. It is good to map out the goals of the business (estimates, profits, structure etc) early on, it helps you create a strategy for your business and you quickly learn if you have a viable business or not also it is always good to have the business plan on standby should you decide or need to grow you business in the future as you will have the bones of it completed.
The majority of people on the course were trying to answer questions on the business plan which they felt they were not at an advanced enough stage to answer properly. The best part of the class I felt was coming up with your elevator pitches. Most of the people you meet that are “pitching”come across very bad, either overloading with information or trying to sell themselves too much. It is really good exercise for anyone to write up a couple of sentences about themselves and their idea / business. The best thing to do is to be almost probing your audience as you talk to them, not everyone wants to buy…. but your lasting impression if it is good and not pushy might open a door further down the line.
Looking back it would have been good if we had two classes for this part of the course and everyone was required to write parts of their business plan and present their elevator pitch. It would have made for some interesting responses from the class…