This is the first in some short and hopefully sweet posts about what MyProjectTracker can do to help your business run projects.

Don’t worry, we’ll keep the self-promotion to a minimum

So what’s on todays agenda then?

Well just as the title says – a furtive glance.

The MyProjectTracker Dashboard

We all run projects within our business.

• Some are for clients.
• Some are internal
• All have budgets and timelines.

With the MyProjectTracker dashboard, a simple glance will be able to tell you the status of each one.

Which one’s are on time/on budget and which one’s are not!

You don’t need to ask anyone – it’s all there in front of you.

Need more detail from the online dashboard?

No problem, just click on the dashboard and you’ll go into the project in question.

How often can a quick furtive glance give you so much information?

MyProjectTracker went quietly live a week ago. The official launch is going to be on the 12/12 but we are now accepting payments and operating as we will be once we start our main commercial drive.

We have been in beta test with MyProjectTracker for about ten months, during which time we’ve been doing a whole load of stuff including the following;

1. Fine-tuning aspects of the product.
2. Working on our search engine profile utilising the blog as a major driver for link generation and customer engagement. It’s all about Google ranking when selling on line. This takes time to develop properly and then sustain. We’re making some headway but have a ways to go yet!
3. Fixing a few issues logged by of our beta testers who are using the product to run their projects. A big thank-you to them all!
4. Re-working our “go to market strategy” and approach.
5. Working on our internal processes so that we can manage our customers effectively and to enable us to deliver an optimal service. We signed up with Zendesk to help us manage customer queries. It’s a great product and very intuitive – we love it!
6. Changed and adapted our “shop” site based on feedback from our beta testers.

During the beta testing, the key lesson learned on our side was making sure that every aspect of delivery was being tested.

Sure, the MyProjectTracker product needed to be put through its paces but equally critical was trying out the different business processes we were developing.  Frankly, this is why we delayed commercially launching for so long. we were making sure we could answer all of the questions before they arose. Things like;

• How would we support our customers?
• What happens if we get a request or query in a different language?
• How do we let customers know if there are going to be changes on the site?
• How do we want to work as a business?
• Who is going to do textual changes?
• Who is responsible for site optimisation?
• What is our roadmap and when are we going to get things done?

The list seemed endless at the time, but we are nearly there now and are comfortable with the fact that we are now “live”.

We will be constantly seeking to improve both our business processes and our product.

And yes, it is a bit exciting for us too!

I won a copy (thanks Andy Beal) of “The Referral Engine” by John Jantsch (which was nice) and it is a great read for anyone interested in growing their business through referrals. One section starts with the sentence “People don’t talk about boring companies..”. He’s right, they don’t!

This is a challenge that I have faced since setting up MyProjectTracker. For months, it was all about features and capabilities. The 15 second pitch included the words project management (and yes, I could see peoples eyes glaze over!). In other words spoken like an IT person selling to an IT person, not as a marketer or sales person to a business owner.

I was pitching a great product (modesty aside)  in a boring way.

Learning to speak in the language of our customer has been one of the toughest challenges I have had to face as a start-up. In my previous lives, I have been able to talk tech because I was selling to techies. Now I have had to leave behind my background of technical comfort and drag myself kicking and screaming into the real world where people talk about unique selling points and customer benefit. Not only that, but to stand out, I have to find a way to do it that puts us above the competition.

In some ways, I consider myself fortunate in that I understood that this was/is going to be a challenge and sought help early enough along before I dug a large hole for the company. It has been a lengthy process and it’s still going. I am still working to shape the company message and still seek assistance when needed.

The ability to project a strong message for our potential customers so they can really understand the benefit of the product is too important to get wrong.

I still on occasion find myself talking about hosted project management solutions. It’s going to take some more practice, fine tuning and help but I’ll get there. I can’t speak for Eoin of course – he’d just say he’s naturally gifted.

Do you talk the language of your customer and make your message fresh?

We thought long and hard about going for an open beta test on MyProjectTracker. On the plus side we felt we’d get honest feedback from people who did not know us i.e. not the friends and family brigade. On the negative side, we were putting the product out there and leaving ourselves open to criticism.

We elected to go for it and opened up the product so anyone could sign up to and have a look around. We felt the benefits of open and honest feedback far outweighed the risk of exposing ourselves to potential criticisms.

We pushed the product for exactly one week directly to companies and via the usual social media channels. We decided to ease off once we had about 125 users signing up. We had a target of 20% of those people to actually go beyond the look around and actually get themselves setup and using the product in anger.

We hit our target in less than a fortnight – delighted. We got our sign-ups and our 20% of active users – a mix of businesses from single person consultancies to our largest, a company with 30+ employees. A good cross-section we felt.

We received some great feedback from people as well, both via email and also directly where users allowed us to sit with them and observe their interaction with the product. The open beta has given us the ability to see where people were going in the product, whether there were any stumbling points, how users were getting on setting themselves up, pretty much everything we needed to see.

We have benefited enormously and aspects that we have shared, such as the “shop” site needing to be clearer, are currently being re-worked prior to commercial launch.

Why are we doing the re-work before launch? Why not just go with what we have and tweak?

Well we could have done. However, negative experience is very difficult to overcome. If potential customers don’t want to move beyond the “shop” or are not happy with a user experience at a key point in the set-up process and leave us, they won’t be back.

It takes time to attract people to the site. We don’t want to waste that effort by putting them off after they arrive. We want to ensure that when potential customers arrive that we convert as many as we can. This is why, after we got our numbers for testing, we stopped pushing for sign-ups.

I am not sure there is a correct answer as to when the best time to show your wares to potential customers is. We have done it three times now; when we were defining the concept (market research), during a closed testing phase with selected customers and now the open beta. This has worked for us, but it may not be right for your business.

The one thing I would say is that you have to show your hand at some stage – putting it off because of nerves or concerns of negative criticism is most definitely not the right approach. If you do put it off, you may never open you shop door!

What experience have you had of proving your products and services to the market?

Photo : tasteful_tn

This morning, I was reading a post on Bloggertone that reminded me of our own journey to get where we are at the moment.

When Eoin and I presented the concepts for MyProjectTracker to our friends in Contrast, we had already written down to an implementation level i.e. dictating (almost), how we wanted the product to be built. We had gone the direct route to come up with an answer for how the product should be put together based on our own experiences up to that point. Oh, and to ensure it was deployed as fast as possible (in our eyes).

A different path

In our first meeting with the development team, we were introduced to the power of the newer technology sets that could be used to build what we were looking for more robustly, more cost-effectively and faster.  Our eyes had been opened to all sorts of new possibilities on what we could do with the product if we sat back for a little while and re-assessed how we were going to get to our end-game i.e. not to take the direct, prescriptive route.

With Contrast acting as our coaches,  letting us make up our own minds where we wanted to go, we saw the possibilities and alternatives. The indirect road to the end game was actually going to deliver a better result.

It’s taken longer but we are now coming around the final bend and like where we are going to end up. We’re going to have the same abilities in the product, less unnecessary “stuff” that gets in the way of simplicity and it’s going to be far easier to maintain. Sounds like a result to me.

The power of not taking the direct route is that it gives you exposure to choice. You can still go direct if you’ve found it’s the right thing to do, but sometimes that side-road is exactly the one you should be driving down.

Have you ever stopped and re-assessed the route you are taking and why in your business?

Photo: unhindered by talent

“You are scheduled to come in for filming for Dragons Den during the first week in January”

Our call to arms that made the Dragons Den application suddenly very real. We were lucky though. We found out in early November so we had time to prepare.

But where to start?

Well the first thing we did was sit back and look at previous contestants on other shows. What did they do well? What did they do that didn’t help their case? We tried to get all we could out of the clips.

So then what?

We prepped the pitch. We prepped it again. We delivered it to nice people who told us to go away and prep it again. We pitched to a trial panel supported by the most excellent Wicklow CEB who told us to go away and work on it again. They all said the same thing. “It’s a bit boring, but you get into it once the conversation opens up.”

We worked on the pitch some more. How could we make a project management product sexy for business in our pitch? It’s not a tangible thing. We couldn’t give the Dragons something to eat, smell or touch. It was going to have to be how we pitched ourselves more than the product itself.

We worked on the wording, we ran over it again and again and again….

The day of filming arrived. It was the week of the big snow – typical. So we set off about two hours early in case we got stuck. We didn’t so arrived in plenty of time to regret not having a proper brekkie!

The time between arrival and filming was a blur of make-up, rehearsing ourselves again and blind panic – could we make a run for it?

“Barney and Eoin, you are up next.” Damnit – too late!

Then we were walking up the stairs and into the room with the Dragons. Surreal does not even begin to sum it up – it looks like it does on the telly. This probably sounds a bit odd, but we were expecting it to be different somehow in terms of “feel”.

The Dragons all looked very serious but welcoming. They became the focus and in fairness to the production team, the TV element drifted into the background. It was us and the Dragons, nothing more, nothing less. Some things went well, some not so much. Nerves got in the way a bit, but this eased up as we went along.

Then we were heading back down the stairs again. The Dragons are a shrewd bunch. Their questions and comments were fair – I say this having had time to reflect. On the day we were bulling with some of them!

No cash was forthcoming but we were now much more aware of what we needed to focus on and the direction we needed to take.

Waiting to see how it turned out was pretty stressful. We had created some classic telly moments, but we were happy with what was shown. Even Bobby commenting that we’d kill each other came across as a fair point. He’s right, we would! Of course, the best comment was from Sean at the end and this made it worthwhile.

We’re glad we did it. It was quite an experience. What do you mean you havn’t seen it?

Hello Everyone.

We felt it was about time we shared a bit of an update with you to let you know what’s going on in MyProjectTracker world.

Where to begin… hmm!

Well, the beta testing is going well and we have had a great response from the folks who are “using it in anger” – of which there are a fair number. As expected, we have hit a few bumps in the road that we are working through at the moment, but thankfully nothing awkward – just a bit time consuming.

We are looking at our marketing site again. The message coming back is that it is brilliant in design but to subtle in its approach. We need it to be more like a shop than it is at the moment so we’re working hard to see what we can come up with. We’ll probably pop a couple of ideas up on Facebook at some point to see what you reckon – we’d love your opinions.

We were on the Irish version of Dragons Den the other day. Grateful for great editing. It was a fun experience and we’ll put up a post about it in due course.

What else. Ah yes, the road-map for the next while is effectively finished.  We have some exciting things in the pipeline and once we have our ball-park dates for when we are going to pop them into the product, we’ll let you know. If your using the product, let us know your thoughts for possible inclusion too!

We’re enjoying the blogging as well.  Hopefully you are as well. We tend to write a little about a lot of different things that come into our minds – but this means it’s from the heart and not contrived (we hope!). It also means we don’t run out of things to write about!

Commercial launch is approaching, but we need to iron out the bits and bobs first. We’ll keep you posted.

That’s about it. Looking for any information, sure let us know at info@myprojecttracker.com.

Best Regards

The MyProjectTracker Team.

Photo : Our own project on MyProjectTracker

Business, and small businesses especially, are at the mercy of their banking providers. And no – it doesn’t seem to matter who you are banking with in this day and age or what country you are in, except maybe China!

Since the recession hit us towards the end of 2008, the ability to get financing appears to be virtually impossible unless you have a proven revenue stream, have been banking with them since the dark ages and are willing to put your children up as collateral.

This picture was drawn by my eldest son and relates to his teacher (who is actually a very nice lady!) but I felt exactly like this while trying to get the initial funding to build MyProjectTracker. My bank was giving me the whole “its the internet and too risky” excuse – in all reality, I just think these people are operating in the 20th not the 21st century. Where do they think most business is going to be conducted from? (deep breath, deep breath…)

Even leading lights in their area of expertise find it difficult to achieve cash-flow or other funding. Successful in their own right along with a proven business model the ability to borrow has been curtailed to a ludicrous degree. Ok – so the recession was borne out of irresponsible lending practices, but we seem to have gone from one extreme to the other where any degree of risk is seemingly too much.

Government sponsored lending does not help either. Bureaucracy and protection for the tax payer inevitably creates a stifling of credit into the business sector and a consequential continuation in the rise of business running into difficulty.

What happened to our bank managers?

These were the people (not too long ago) who you built a rapport with and who had the power to make a decision as to whether you would/wouldn’t get that loan. They understood who you were and what you were about. Now, a nameless face in head office who doesn’t know you from Adam gets to make the decision. This is not the fault of the people you meet in your branches or indeed your bank manager who almost certainly would like to lend you the money (all things being equal), but of the corporate banking world as an entity and the regulators who govern it.

So what can the Entrepeneur do?

You could say “I’ll fold” and many feel it is right to do so. But for those who want to make it work this is how we approached it;

1. Shop around – if your bank won’t, maybe the next one will. We found one that was willing to give us a go.
2. Work in your “day-job” as long as possible.
3. Fund the business yourself. If you put your own money in, it is seen as a positive sign that you have conviction to make it work.
4. Get a VC or business angel involved. There is no right or wrong time to do this. The earlier you do, the more of your business you will give up though. We are looking at this option now.
5. Try your local governement agencies – you never know your luck!
6. Ask family (though this can be more fraught with peril than any other finance source!)

The most important thing, as a start-up, is to not get deterred. If you have belief and conviction, anything is possible.

It took us 18 months to get sorted out – but here we are, just about to launch in the biggest recession since who knows when. Persistence and self-belief have paid off so far and we are confident that we will continue along our road.

How did you fund your start-up? Any lessons along the way?

We were contacted one afternoon by Des from Contrast to make the decision on the payment solution for MyProjectTracker. Payment Server Provider or Payment Bureau.

Myself and Barney sat down one afternoon to trash out the pro’s and con’s of using a Payment Server Provider (RealEx) or a Payment Bureau (PayPal). To be honest, Barney favoured PayPal and I favoured RealEx.

A well formulated guide that helped us make sense of the online payment choices was www.webpayments.ie. This should really be the first port of call for anyone creating a website that will be required to take payments.

Here is a summary based on our discussion that day and our discussion of this topic with others who have setup website that require payment:

Payment Server Providers: (RealEx)

• Higher quality system
• Better user experience
• No need for customers to visit other website for Credit Card verification
• No additional accounts required for customers
• Better system in the long term
• Tougher to set up with banking in the short term
• It may take a number of weeks to acquire a Merchant ID from the bank
• A Setup fee may be required with the Payment Service Provider

Payment Bureau: (PayPal)

• Messy user experience
• Customers must visit third party website to for Credit Card verification
• Messy administration of account
• Easier to set up in the short term

A number website designers we spoke to seem to seriously regret choosing PayPal as a solution, but their decision was made at the time due to time or financial constraints.

We plan to provide the best customer experience possible for MyProjectTracker customers, and this begins at the door. It’s all about first impressions, and we want a smooth credit transaction to be the start of a long customer relationship.

As we were not under anytime constraint with regards applying for a Merchant ID, we decided to go with the Payment Server Provider solution.

The fact that we had heard good things regarding RealEx’s customer support, we then decided to choose RealEx as our Payment Service Provider.

Did you decide to go down the Payment Service Provider or the Payment Bureau route?
What were the reasons for you decision?

We have all had one of those lightbulb moments which we think will translate into a viable business. The challenge is to have the drive, passion and determination to turn that idea into a reality.

Before an entrepeneur pours all of his or her energy into converting that idea, the most fundamental question that needs to be asked is “Is this a real business?” i.e. is there a market for my product?

The key to determining whether the idea is a viable business proposition is Research, with a capital “R”. How many businesses do we all know which sounded like a great idea, but failed before they were off the ground. The chicken came before the egg.

When we conceived the MyProjectTracker concept, we almost (but not quite) fell into that trap. Having worked in the murky world of IT, we were convinced that we had seen the light and that our idea for a straightfoward, online, hosted project management tool was unique. We had the product designed and quoted for before even thinking about checking had it been done before.

Then we spoke to some friends who mentioned a couple of well known hosted project management solutions and asked whether we could realistically take them on as competitors.

We realised the folly of our ways and put a screaming halt on the product design for a time while we went about doing some proper market and customer research.

The joy of being an e-business is that all of our competition is online i.e. we can see what they are up to without needing to ask customers (though of course we did), trying a bit of industrial espionage or any other trick. Google provided all that we needed to know about what they were up to – the good stuff and the bad.

We were happy with what we saw primarily because it supported our original view that the product had enough of a unique offering that it was possible to penetrate the market.

So if you have a lightbulb that won’t go out, do your research – if there is a market for it, take the jump and give it a go. It’s one of the most rewarding experiences you can have in business, to see your idea come to fruition and on the market!

Good luck!