I must be crazy

It’s been about ten days since I accepted the scholarship to attend the CWA Summit, and I’m beginning to think I’m nuts for going out to Boulder. It seemed like a no-lose situation before (and I think it still is), but now I’ve sunk a decent amount of cash into a hotel and airfare. Now I’m really committed.

These uncertainties I’m sure will pass as soon as I figure out exactly why I’m going. One thing that is certain, however, is that I won’t be going out there trying to sell my finished product. In fact, I don’t plan to sell anything. At the moment I’m thinking that the conference could be beneficial in helping me understand the potential for the idea (in terms of both product scope and market size). But for now I’m going to take another few days to freak out before I try to do any planning…

Going to Boulder

I received word back this weekend that I’ve been awarded a scholarship to attend the Climbing Wall Association Summit & Managers’ Symposium. I was surprised to hear back so quickly (the deadline for submitting an application was last Wednesday), and was even more surprised to discover that only 150 people will be attending the event. This should be a great opportunity to connect with some prominent people in the industry, and so now I need to figure out why exactly I’m going.

The Summit runs April 12th – 14th, so I’ve got some time to figure out what my objectives for the time will be. I do know that I want to have a name and website for my climbing software ready by then. I talked with Mark this weekend about a potential name for the software, and we came up with about 10 potential candidates. Among my faves are DeskBelay, GymRat, and DataBetaBase (Beta is a climbing term for information).

I’m planning on reviewing the list of candidates according to the guidelines in step 1 of the 25 steps to starting an ISV. I’ll post an update on the name (and maybe even have a vote!) in the next week or so.

What’s in a name?

Whenever I tell anyone that I’m considering starting a software company, the first question I almost always get is about the name. What am I going to name the company? I’ve spent quite a bit of time thinking about a name, and I seriously have come up empty (well, almost). The first and only name that I’ve thought of is 3 Dogs Software, which only recently became available (yes, there actually was another software company with that name).

Then I read this great article in Inc. on branding, and I started thinking about the main message I wanted to communicate to potential buyers. What would my values be, and how would I characterize my business? My friend Mark came up with the slogan, “software doesn’t have to suck”, but it didn’t help me in thinking up a name for my company.

All this high level thinking about purpose, values, and vision has made me realize that I’ve lost sight a little of the actual product. A few days ago I was reading 25 steps to starting an ISV, and step 1 is to come up with a name for the product. A name for the product? What a novel idea! I seriously had never even considered what I would call this climbing wall software. When I attended NIRSA last year I brought flyers with me that described it as “Climbing Wall Management Software”.

Now that I’ve had a chance to consider it a little more, I think a product name is more important than a company name, so that’s where I’m focusing my naming efforts for the moment. I haven’t come up with much yet except ClimbOn.com, which is taken by squatters (and on sale for a cool $8,500). Hopefully in a week or so I’ll be posting here with a catchy name for my flagship product. In the meantime I’ll be writing about the painstaking process of coming up with a creative name that hasn’t been taken.

Hoping to go to Boulder

I’ve known about the Climbing Wall Association (CWA) Summit in Boulder, Colorado for awhile now but hadn’t seriously considered going. A few weeks ago I received notice that Stratus Insurance Services was offering scholarships to current and past members of the CWA (oh, and one or two for people who have never been members at all).

Since I fall in the last category (membership is more than I’d care to spend) I initially didn’t give the conference much thought. But this weekend I began completing the application, and then snuck a peek at flights to Boulder for the weekend of April 15th. I was pleasantly surprised to see how cheap airfare and hotel accommodations were for the weekend, so now I’m starting to become cautiously optimistic and excited. Of course, the deal’s off if I don’t get the scholarship. But we’ll see what happens.

Below is a snippet from the application, and I think it partially sums up why I’d like to go…

As the sport of climbing continues to grow and new climbing facilities are established, it is important that climbing wall operators are properly equipped to manage their indoor climbing wall. Many operators use a paper system to track climber information and certification. This system is only as reliable as the operator or employee on duty and is less effective for larger facilities. The initial release of my climbing software helps ensure climber safety by storing a climber’s certification level, gear rental preferences, and waiver information. When a climber checks in to climb, the system verifies that the climber is certified and up to date on their training and climbing waiver. In many facilities this information kept on paper in a filing cabinet and is not easily accessible.

The Climbing Wall Summit offers a unique opportunity to meet others who are involved in climbing wall management, people who are well acquainted with the industry and passionate about serving the climbing community. Networking with these professionals will enable me to better understand the best practices, emerging trends, pain points, and pressing needs in climbing wall management. The summit will broaden my perspective of the potential benefits of climbing wall management software and enable me to customize the software to the diverse needs of the recreation management community.

Getting Back on the Horse

While this blog began with grand intentions, I’ve come to realize that my initial expectations have kept me from writing here regularly. It’s not that I haven’t thought any more about beginning a startup since April, it’s that I haven’t had any thoughts that directly relate to the next phase of Jolly’s commercialization process (which just so happens to be incubating).

So this post is my first effort at getting this thing back on track. I plan to post here fairly regularly (read: at least every couple weeks) about the software development project outlined in the first post. I’m in the process of writing my directed project proposal, and when that’s finished I’ll post the abstract here. The proposal should be a road map for commercializing climbing wall software, and should paint a pretty clear picture of what I hope to do in the next 18 months or so.

In the meantime I’ll be writing about stuff related to the climbing industry and software startups. For stuff in general, check out my other blog.

Interest and endorsement

Before attending NIRSA I hadn't thought much about the potential market constituents for climbing wall software. I knew that it could be useful for climbing wall managers, but beyond that I had no idea. I kind of happened upon my first two solid potential market constituents while wandering around the NIRSA expo. There were three climbing wall manufacturers there pimpin their goods.

The first person I talked to was Eric Meade, president and CEO of Entre Prises USA. After I gave Eric a rundown of my idea and showed him some screenshots, he was excited about the possibilities. He said that he'd be very interested in offering software as part of the turn-key solution that Entre Prise sells, and then proceeded to list billions and billions of potential features that this software could offer (which for now I'll keep to myself, thank you very much).

I also spoke with Dustin Bosscher of Nicros Inc., who got me in touch with their president of operations. Evidently there have been quite a few people who have tried to commercialize some sort of climbing software but have come up short. I'm looking forward to talking with the contacts that I've made to find out why.

My hypothesis is that these inventors who started out writing software didn't get enough endorsement for their product before plunging headlong into development. I hope to get the support of at least one climbing wall manufacturer, and more than a few climbing wall facilities. The facilities on my list at present are UK and EKU (for proximity's sake), and the Boulder Rock Club and Boise State (because they're freakin huge).

Incidentally, Boise State is also the location for AORE 2006. If I can find a way to get there on the cheap, it may be worth my while to go (market constituents by the dozens). More on that later though.

Allow myself to introduce…myself

If you’ve stumbled upon this blog perhaps it’s because you know me, or perhaps it’s because 3 dogs software went big time (of course, it’s probably not even called 3 dogs anymore but more on that later). I’m writing this blog to chronicle the journey of an idea to a product, and even more than that: an idea to a business.

I’ve been taking CIT 581U: Technology Product & Service Commercialization with Jim Goldman this semester. In the class we’ve analyzed five phases of the commercialization process, beginning with imagining a product and ending with sustaining growth related to the product. If you’d like to read along, Google Book Search has placed the entire freaking book online. It’s completely searchable and mostly viewable, so it should be a great resource for those of you who don’t want to buy it.

Throughout the course I’ve taken an idea for recreation management software and thought through all five stages, completing marketing and financial plans along the way. Somewhere around the incubation stage, however I realized that recreation management software probably isn’t the way to go. For one thing there are waaay too many kids in the pool, and a lot of them have contaminated the water if you know what I mean.

The basic idea of recreation management software is that recreation centers (in universities or in the community) need a way to keep track of how many members they have, and their members’ activity. As I found out this past week at NIRSA 2006, everybody and their dog has some sort of software to keep track of users, check out equipment, do locker rentals, make sandwiches (or at least sell them), and generate reports on user activity. All of these software solutions are ghetto in their own little way (though on a side note, if I had to choose one I’d probably go with MultiSite Solutions).

Since ditching the recreation management software, I’ve latched onto the idea of software to manage climbing walls and outdoor programs. It does sound like a niche market, but based on the feedback I got at NIRSA I do think there is a market for the software. So I’ll be describing the commercialization process along with other random stuff that I have to figure out as I begin the journey toward “bidness”.

In future posts I’ll be agonizing over a name for this venture, figuring out what phase of this “commercialization process” I’m in, and ranting about financial plans and real options (which are for me right now the astronomy equivalent of super-massive black holes). I’ll also post links to potentially useful stuff, mostly for my benefit (after all, who’s reading this thing anyway?).

So if I haven’t lost you yet, I’m glad you’re here and I hope that we can both learn a lot from this experience.