Ideas

First of all, this is what CH need as an addition and make it really succesfull. I like also the name that you choose.
I think you need to be more specific on how you want to do this: find good people, payment of transfer of rights?
Tommy

I agree with you totally.

May I sign up to be your first paying client ?

Thank you for this idea.

Would this just insert a project management layer on top of the bazaar, or do you envision having more permanent employees doing the work?

Vanhees: People wanting to work for Idea Catapult would apply like a normal job. Then they would go through a probationary period where their work and work ethic would be evaluated to ensure that they are as good as they say they are. This process would apply to both those wishing to work as project managers and those wishing to be a developer or graphic designer.

Payment would depend on the project. For smaller work like logos and web site mockups, full payment may be required up front.

For larger projects (full site design or writing a desktop program) an initial payment would be made (say 10%) and further payments would be made when phases of the project are complete. This gives the business peace of mind that the customer can still pay and the work is moving in the right direction. The customer gets peace of mind knowing that progress is being made and that they are getting what they wanted.

Paying by RP was just a thought, I would still have to think that over. The main avenue of payment will be through direct payment. Paying by RP may not even be possible right now because RP can't be transfered to another business (to my knowledge) Until RP can be transfered to a business, the work around would be to issue RP directly to the Idea Catapult staff. Say 10% of the RP to the project manager and the remaining 90% divided between the people that worked on the project.

Micco: I envisioned more permanent employees doing the work.

The Bazaar would be a good place to do recruitment and measure interest for a position. But I would hope that employees who entered the business by way of the bazaar would be able to stick around if the ft was good.

One of the things I had really hoped for with Idea Catapult is that long term relationships and a good reputation could be developed. I don't just want to be a mill for logo work or "rubber stamp" websites. I want Idea Catapult to be a valuable resource that people turn to during the life cycle of their idea.

One idea I had to help encourage employees to think about long term relationships is to offer a bonus if customers specifically request a particular project manager, developer, or designer for their job. Something like they did a project with developer Bob and they really liked his work so they requested to have Bob on their next project. Bob should be rewarded for building good reputation and long term relationships.

CharonV: I would be delighted to have you as the first paying client. Please PM me so we can get the ball rolling on what you need. Depending on the size of what you want to do, the first Idea Catapult team may need to be assembled.

Such services used to be performed in-house by CH, until we found it too difficult to coordinate as the number of projects grew. I'd be very curious if it could be more successful outside the walls of CH.

Hi Cozzad,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Can you please advise what you mean exactly by "PM me" as I don't want to make a faux pas, just as the game begins. Lol

As you can see, my question validates your idea.

Please note; I am not at all conversant in technical language, however should I find a way to COMMUNICATE my ideas, I am sure that your first project can be rewarding, and require many talents.

Hi CharonV,

PM means "personal message". You can access your personal messages from CH members by clicking on the envelope at the top of the page.

CharonV, my apologies for using jargon and acronyms.

Zentropy hit the nail on the head. I would just post my email on the thread, but I am afraid of the spike in junk email I would get.
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"Please note; I am not at all conversant in technical language, however should I find a way to COMMUNICATE my ideas, I am sure that your first project can be rewarding, and require many talents."

That is quite all right! That would be one of the purposes of this operation. The project manager would discuss your business cases and help transfer that into technical requirements. In fact that is the main role of the project manager, to act as a liaison between the business side (business case, scheduling, budget) and the technical side (coding etc.)

"Such services used to be performed in-house by CH, until we found it too difficult to coordinate as the number of projects grew. I'd be very curious if it could be more successful outside the walls of CH."

Interesting. Shows I am still a n00b :)

The scale factor is always a big hurdle for any service oriented business. You only have so many employees that only have so many hours to work. It has is very constrained growth. x employees times y hours to work at z rate an hour, all variables that have fairly narrow domains.

My first take on this is that paying my team's bills and having happy customers is never a bad thing...

My other take on this is a business that is just sustaining isn't all that appealing to investors. To be honest, I haven't come up with a concrete plan yet to overcome the scale hurdle. The idea came about as response to a need. (People wanting to make an idea with a tech element happen, but without the tech vocabulary or back ground to express their needs)

One thought I had was once a team has really gelled and had experience together they can then be targeted at exploratory projects. (SaaS applications, games, etc.) This would hopefully then produce alternative streams of income that are not tied to hours worked. In this case the customer would actually be Idea Catapult itself.

Since I don't have any concrete plans for dealing with the scale factor, any suggestions from the community would be most helpful.

Nice idea, problem of the most startups is financing the design and website without cluttering all kind of open source stuff which will never get the professionality. But how to earn more Cambro's :-) Still have only one ;-(

Open source can get you to a professional place, but you need to put in the effort. They need to be properly configured to have that "curb appeal".

As far as the cambro issue :)..... well, just keep on commenting on ideas, submitting ideas and participating in the forums. That will earn you glory, which will then transform in cambros when you hit GP milestones.

The other tried and true way to earn cambros is to do things that people need done. Just start telling people about the kind of work you want to do and wait for the right moment.

I know its a CH business... but you are really limiting your market... any ideas how to expand?

Well, the business will start with CH and hopefully the good press will percolate through the internet community and will grow into a hub for development.

Have to start some where. I love to dream big, but when I really want to make something happen I start with the basics, get them working and expand from there.

i like this idea i guess most of the ppls here would like more services or help rather than just post ideas but can's get any output unless a few IT talents . U got my 5 stars!

some similar assistive approach in developing ideas were submitted here before..
3 stars for the gr8 LOGO!

Difference being I plan to execute :)

I can't take credit for the logo, it was from a pic I found during a Google image search. As this builds I'll need to find the image creator and ask for permission and/or license it.

But the picture is still fitting.... I want to "launch" people's ideas towards success :)

Good idea. After thinking though a good idea, I often think - ok how do I get this thing started (with a full time job and young family). I think that this could help.

I'm currently writing a business plan and there are many things to overcome in making ends meet. Payment for services rendered could be both $ and % of equity...the idea has some potential.

this is what CH neeeeeds [US] desperately to move it further, 1st - technical and 2nd financial. If CH can overcome this it can really become much more recognized and stronger.

ccozad brilliant! well i would like to team uo with you! :)

ccozad,
Like it.. You might wish to consider a website to 1) centralize your work (secure area for "in the process" stuff so its not public; and 2) allow outsiders to possibly benefit from your offerings..

Also why stop at the techie level? How many of the idea creators here (myself included) might need help with researching an industry/field/item or writing a biz plan? I am sure some members, that might not be able to assist with coding or such, could do research and put a paper together..

You could sell your services 'a la carte' .. X for a website, Y for a log and Z for web research on a particular subject or writing a portion of the biz plan...

Jim

Thanks hro_jim. I had thought about those other services too... though for the idea I only wanted to focus on my core skill set (since I might have to be the "muscle" until people are on board and there are enough jobs to support those people)

I would encourage anyone who has a skill that they can offer to the community to "open up shop". I don't have a monopoly on intra-CH business idea. Competition and diversity are always a good thing.

So if you or any one else wants to start a research business, go for it!

It would be wonderful if Cambrian House was not only a great place to get feedback on an idea, but also to make an idea happen.

There has been a lot of chatter back and forth on the forums on where to take CH. One school of thought was to narrow focus and forget about all the "extra" stuff beyond ideas.

I don't believe in that school of thought and I want to see CH (i.e. members of the community) gain the experience and reputation of taking things further.

fossiloflife, what type of things would you like to do?

PM me or reply here.....

Good one!! how are we going to track the project status and ensure the quality of the project, these may not get into picture if its a small one, but in case of big projects, we need to find a way of ensuring quality. Tracking employee productivity as you mentioned earlier will help, but we cant completely rely on that...sometimes, we might be in need of people as the projects inflow is more, how are we going to estimate the size and cost of the project??

I will be glad to join you as an employee

Estimation is sort of a black art that I am still working to master.... One thing I would do is try to get good project managers with solid experience to assist in the estimation efforts

I think progress could be tracked by doing a phased delivery of the project. The phases would have to be small enough to where the staffing could be constant through out the entire phase. When a phase is completed then we would confirm with the client that things are moving in the right direction.

I would also think weekly conference calls over Skype with some type of screen sharing would also be appropriate.

I look forward to launch my ideas here? :-)

I thought the LOGO comment was a joke?! =)