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May 6, 2024

“Assessment Time!”

Day

92

3:18 PM

Yeah, my ninety-day deadline is past.

To recap, the goal of this exercise was to develop a proof of concept and a business plan. At the end of it, I would take a look and see if the plan seemed workable, and if I thought I could make a go of it. The intent was to determine whether I was pursuing a pipe dream or not.

At Day 92, the status stands thus:

  • The proof of concept is, quite frankly, beyond mere “proof of concept”. It still needs a lot of work, don’t get me wrong, but it shouldn’t take more than a month or so to implement the things needed for an initial release on the hardware and software side. Possibly, another month on aesthetic web design. Oh, and maybe another month on firmware.

    The important bit: it works, and I’ve been using various instances of the prototype for most of two months. I’m very happy with it. The only question is, will other people find it as useful as I do?

  • The business plan is… I’d estimate about 75% done. I still have to finalize the more financial portions of the plan, but I know enough right now to know that it seems pretty realistic. It’s certainly not going to end up losing me my shirt, which would be the only real blocker.

    Will it be profitable? That depends on how much business I can drum up. A sales guy or marketing exec I am most definitely not. I have some ideas, but it will take time. And money, probably, because nothing happens without money in this world.

    So far, though, I have yet to find a gotcha other than that. It looks solid and doable. Yes, I have some things I still need to research, but almost without exception, that research is about outsourcing so I don’t have to do certain things myself (eg. fulfillment).

And now the known risk:

  • I worry about my motivation level. April was definitely a “down month”. I got very little done, in the end. I suspect that part of that was my aim for “completeness and perfection”. I have a tendency to get into the weeds pursuing every single little detail, and that can wear me down.

    Also, possibly burnout; I thought about almost nothing else in February and March…

    Today I’m feeling much better and more excited about it, but I don’t know for how long. The biggest worry is that I’ll lose motivation again.

That last is the only probable issue (unless I have problems getting the device through FCC certification or something). Overall it looks reasonable. I don’t need to be rich; I just need to earn the equivalent of a reasonable salary. I think this can do that if I work hard enough at it.

I’m going to wait a week, and make my final decision on Monday, but the likelihood is going to be a resounding “yes”.

And once it is, I expect it to take six to nine months to get this thing ready for sale…

Sigh.