Posts Tagged ‘Project Mayhem’

The Birth of CloseBuy.me at Atlanta Startup Weekend

November 10th, 2008

As I mentioned in my last blog post, Atlanta Startup Weekend was this past weekend.  What a weekend! I pitched my idea for a web-based product search through local inventory, and it got picked by a few people. I got to work on it all weekend with some rockstar coders, marketing advisors, and a few people that drifted in and out. And folks, we have a prototype (that you can’t see yet) for CloseBuy.me (what used to be Project Mayhem)

First off, a huge THANK YOU to Jason, Joshua, Hsiu, and Jay for helping all weekend. I don’t want to forget Blake, Glen, Dean, George, Jeremy, and whoever Jeremy called on his cellphone about JQuery stuff.

Needless to say, the project is nothing without this team. Jason and Joshua wrote an absolute crap-ton of backend code. Hsiu did a great job on the front end in concert with Jeremy and some help with the sorting features by Jason. Jay, George, and especially Dean did a great job helping me look at vertical segments for the site, as well as user base and how to appeal to them.

CloseBuy.me is going to be my project for some time. I will likely need some PHP / JQuery coders at some point, so if you want to help out and get in on a startup that is in it’s extremely early stages, then come talk to me, drop me an email, or send over a homing pigeon.

CloseBuy.me has some massive hurdles to jump, but that’s what makes it fun – and more importantly, that’s what makes it valuable. We’ll keep you up to date, but if you want to join the CloseBuy.me team, get on it. Most (if not all) of the people involved this past weekend have other projects to take care of, and I need people who can get pumped up about it.

In the meantime, I’m absolutely exhausted. But I’m absolutely thrilled about the progress.

Colin

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Naming Is Not Easy

October 7th, 2008

Naming a project is not easy.

First, you come up with some sweet names. But all the domains are taken, so you start coming up with variations. Nothing sounds right. Ever. So you change some more, dig out some synonyms, and it still doesn’t work. Then you try some wordplay. But all the domains are taken because you finally came up with something catchy. You email the people who own the domains, and they attempt to rip you off. You decide to move on.

Then you’re back to the drawing board. You think, you think, you bash your head against a rock, and you think some more. You come up with stuff that sucks, stuff that doesn’t sound good, and stuff that’s just plan old not awesome.

And that’s where I am now. In the middle of the mundane and the mayhem, trying to sort out good from bad, and running out of steam. At this point, it’s either call it Project Mayhem forever, get together a group of friends to brainstorm names with pizza as a bribe (hint hint: let me know if you want in), or resort to NameThis, which isn’t bad in and of itself, but I’m not convinced it’s the way to go yet.

Oh, by the way, if you have a great knack for names, let me know. I’ve got a challenge for ya.

Colin

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Project Mayhem

September 25th, 2008

I’ve got a project I’m beginning work on, and at this point it’s called nothing other than Project Mayhem to people who haven’t been briefed on it’s powers yet.  I’m currently fleshing out how it’ll work and some basic architecture, but I think it’d be the first entry in a category of the online shopping market that has yet to be touched, even by the mighty powers that be (rhymes with Oogle and Lambazon).

The guys at ATDC at GT started something called StartupGauntlet that I missed last night but I’ll try to make in the future once I get some more stuff nailed down.  In addition, my group project in Entrepreneurship Forum will be focused around developing the business side of this project… and I’m in the search for a programmer with copious amounts of free time because this project needs a LOT of work on the programming side of things.  I’d prefer someone still in school, but if you know anyone, talk to me.

So I’m working on Project Mayhem in my free time… should be fun and stimulating, hopefully something I can start somewhat successfully while I’m still in school – all the advice I’ve gotten is if you get an idea, work on it while you’re still in school.  Time to take that advice and run with it.

Project Mayhem will be unveiled bit by bit as I figure it all out, so keep checking back and take care.

Colin

PS – I was typing ATDC above and nearly typed AC/DC instead… which would be appropriate in some ways – I did purchase AC/DC tickets with Nathan, Lance, and Mark for December 16. Should be a fun time.

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