Start ups
Submarine warfare
Mike | May 23rd, 2008Every day we sit together over lunch. We have a big table and we either bring leftovers from home or go out to grab something in the neighborhood. It’s a really nice 30 or 40 minute break – the conversation usually is about movies or TV or politics. It serves to recharge us and has [...]
Elusivity
Mike | May 5th, 2008Launch is elusive. Launch is a moving target. Launch is a slippery fish that you can’t seem to get hold of. We invited our last large group of users into Beta at the end of last week and so far so good. Not too many reports of bugs and not too many complaints about missing [...]
Milestones
Mike | April 24th, 2008We pushed a big ‘ol batch of code to the site last night and are totally excited about the raft of new features and enhancements (not to mention the fact that users can now create projects!). We are aware that some of our bugs are showing and will be working hard to get those fixed [...]
Two-Point-O rising
Mike | April 7th, 2008We have been working very hard on version 2.0 of our Beta. The “new and improved” crowdSPRING, while still under wraps, will accomplish several important things for us: 1. It will incorporate a full visual redesign, driven by the new homepage design we chose at the end of our public competition, 2. It will greatly [...]
Purpose, business, and values
Mike | March 29th, 2008We have been re-thinking lately whether crowdSPRING needs or wants a “Mission Statement.” Although we had rejected the notion a number of months ago, we are wondering whether it might have value for us. Many businesses have one, but many more choose not to (whether consciously or not) . After bouncing this around a bit, [...]
3 weeks. 337 Entries. 3 Winners.
Ross | March 27th, 2008How better to test crowdSPRING’s model for buying creative services than on ourselves? The last time I purchased web design services (several years ago), my law firm paid $10,000 for one designer to prepare three homepage concepts. I disliked all of them. The designer was good and the designs were not bad. But my choices [...]
Listening
Mike | March 22nd, 2008Iteration: (n.) \?i-t?-?r?-sh?n\ A procedure in which repetition of a sequence of operations yields results successively closer to a desired result. From latin iterum “again.” In the mathematical sense, to “iterate” is to go through a routine over and over, using the output of one step as the input of the next – Isaac Newton [...]
Creativity and Community
Mike | March 6th, 2008“If you’re going to create, create a lot. Creativity is not like playing the slot machines, where failure to win means you go home broke. With creativity, if you don’t win, you’re usually no worse off than if you hadn’t played.“ – Scott Adams Every day at work we eat lunch together. We take 30 [...]
Halfway There
Ross and Mike | March 4th, 2008“When you have completed 95 percent of your journey, you are only halfway there.” – Japanese Proverb What could be more natural than a trial attorney and an entertainment industry veteran teaming up to start an Internet business in Chicago? In 2006, Mike believed that a film industry workflow developed over the previous 100 years [...]
