Life in School and Startup » productivity

Long days

steve — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:43:44 +0000

Today…was a long day.

I spent probably 3 hours bouncing around between drawing and screwing around with html trying to do a mock-up for JUST THE LANDING PAGE. All I have to say is holy f*cking sh*t. Being less than proficient at both makes getting anything in the design realm done such a pain. So today I’ve made a pact with myself. I’m really going to jump head first into web design.

I might spend fifty to one hundred hours getting where I want with my web design skills. But in the long run, I’m going to save one thousand hours that are lost due to my #bigfail web design skills.

HTML and CSS aren’t really the problem. It’s photoshop. And learning how to integrate my HTML and CSS with the photoshop. Does anyone that does web design have any tips or tools they use that increase their productivity? Anyone use any great teaching tools that they would recommend? Open to any and all suggestions.

–EDIT–

Lol 50 to 100 hours to get pretty good at web design. Off by an order…or a magnitude? Probably a few of both #sadface.

Traction

steve — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:31:27 +0000

So far we’ve talked to around 15 bands and 15 record labels. I think all of them but 2 or 3 would be great fits for our product. But most importantly, all of them have expressed some real interest in our product. It’s hard to not get excited at the fact that real people that might really use your product not only express interest in buying it, but also are excited to work with you as you develop it. I’m very excited for what the future holds.

In the meantime, I’m having a hard time concentrating and really doing some solid work while at my parent’s house! Looking back at my “Productivity Advice” post, I can see why I’m not doing so hot. So much stuff around: parents, brothers, TV, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the dog, the cat, the cat playing with the end of my phone charger, girlfriend stuff. I need me a cave. But where?

Productivity Advice

steve — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 02:06:56 +0000

Find an “office”. Claim your own space. Build a work cave, a bomb shelter, a hiding place.

For me at least, working out of the apartment is an oxymoron. The simple fact that I am in my apartment dramatically increases my likely hood to facebook, twitter, techcrunch, venture hacks, techmeme, msuster – both sides of the table, holy shit the list of distractions goes on and on forever. There’s nothing wrong with a little advice/culture seeking on the internet but if you read that all day, no one is going to build your company for you.

It’s like reading, computer, tv, etc. in bed. Your body gets used to doing things other than sleeping and so when it comes to time go to bed, you might have trouble falling to sleep. Replace sleep with work in the previous sentence and you have a nice little parallel to my life of doing work at my apartment.

But there’s hope. For me it’s the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program’s conference room on Centennial Campus. At this Pocket Stage (going through a name change – just trying that name on for size) Compound, I feel like shit needs to get done when I’m there. I feel like if I don’t do work when I’m there, a countdown should be running. But instead of a clock it’s my % equity in the company.

Advice: if you’re a college student / entrepreneur, find a work space you can call your own, it will help.