After a lot of thought and advice from my business advisor I’ve decided to stop working on the business. It’s a mix of having to get a job to become solvent any time soon (Africa was expensive), together with the current recession shrinking the market and a competitor undermining the business model. I don’t consider it to have been a waste of time as I can take positives from it (winning £2k is definitely a positive). It’s not to say I won’t come back to it (I like to think of it as putting it on the shelve) but in all honesty I think it’s unlikely.
My other idea requires quite a lot of money and is (apparently) quite bizarre to some people. I’m not sure what’s wrong with everyone!
So I find myself looking at job websites and going through the motions my friends went through to get a graduate job. We’ll see what happens.
Having returned from my trip through Africa almost a fortnight ago, I’m back to where I was before I left, slowly working on the business. It seems however that the country, or at least our economy isn’t quite the same as before I left. Sure it wasn’t exactly as healthy as it has been in recent years before I went but at least no one was using the “R” word.
Recession, it’s a word that worries me. It’s the general feeling of the unknown felt by everyone as they try to guess just how bad things might get. Unemployment is at the same level as it was in the middle of the last recession in 1991 and retail sales are down to their lowest level for two and a half years. I won’t mention home repossessions or increasing debt. It all just makes me wonder if I should bother. I mean, if I set up a business which relies on people buying car number plates (which many people consider frivolous) will there actually be enough of a market for it left? Should I just cut my loses and get a job?
It’s been a while in the making but I’ve finally ironed out most of the problems with Internet Explorer 5-8. The actual pages only took a few days to get right in Safari, Opera, Firefox, etc but typically took ages to tweak so they rendered as intended in IE.
So here’s what it looks like:
I’m not going to link to it but you can see the address (URL) in the picture. I’ve put some effort into Google and other search engines not being able to find and index the site as I don’t want ordinary users stubling upon it. Just remember a few things if you visit the site, it’s only a prototype, it doesn’t have some functionaity (such as login) and the database only contains a few examples. If you want to find some number plates search for “JMB”.
There is actually quite a lot of reasons why Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) should be banned and if you really wanted a list I’m sure you’re probably better of visiting the wikipedia entry for IE. The problem I have with it at the moment is the fact it can’t display websites properly as it doesn’t fully support the standards that form the foundation of how web pages are created. That coupled with the fact that almost 75% (estimated) use IE as the browser (firefox anyone?). That means that even when I managed to get the first page of MyNewReg.com working correctly it still took 2 days of tinkering to get it to work in IE. The good thing is that it finally does!
One of the great ways you can find out what your page looks like in lots of different browsers is by using Browsershots. I’m a very proud Mac owner so testing in IE was a bit of a hassle but I’m pretty happy with the results. I still have the front page and the search results page to do. I can reuse parts of what I have already which should speed the process up a bit. It’s a great feeling to finally be able to interact with a real website. Feels like a good step forward.
After months of trying to convince my parents that going to Africa for 2 months is a good (and safe) idea I’ve finally bought the tickets. Barring a major fuck up, I’ll be in Jo’burg on the 9th of August (and Cairo on the 10th of October).
I’m going to meet up with 2 Kiwi’s that I met at the Enteprisers Conference in Australia last September and the plan is to start off exploring South Africa before slowing moving up the continent then flying from wherever we end up to Cairo then flying home.
It’ll be a great experience and I’ll try and upload pics and write somestuff when we can. The business is on hold till I get back but is making good progress. The idea is that I’ll be able to launch soon after my return in October.
After a week (and a bit) I’ve decided on the design for MyNewReg.com. Congratulations go to the designer, Luke Burns. I’m really looking forward to getting on with turning the design into real HTML. It’s a bit step in the right direction. Hopefully I can’t implement the design myself, we’ll see when I get the final artwork.
I remember sitting in a lecture hall during one of my second year management courses where they told us the different types of company and what makes them different. Like most of those courses, it went mostly in one ear and out the other. I’m paying the price for that at the moment as I’m making up for what I didn’t learn then and looking at the Companies House website. I’m not filling out the forms on my own, I’ll get the lawyers to help with that. It’s apparently only £20 to submit yourself but there’s a lot of legal jargon to deal with.
Basically in the UK there are 4 main types of for profit company (not including sole proprietor or partnership):
- Private company limited by shares – this is the most common type of company. The important difference from a public limited company is that a private company may not offer its shares for sale to the general public.
- Private company limited by guarantee – members of this type of company do not make any contribution to the capital during its lifetime as they do not purchase shares. The members’ liability is limited to the amount that they each agree to contribute to the company’s assets if it is wound up.
- Private unlimited company – this type of company may or may not have a share capital and there is no limit to the members’ liability. Because there is no limitation on members’ liability, far less of the company’s affairs have to be disclosed publicly than is the case with the other types of company.
- Public limited company – this type of company has a share capital and, the liability of each member is limited to the amount unpaid on shares that a member holds. The important difference from a private is that a public limited company may offer its shares for sale to the general public. It may also be quoted on the stock exchange.
I’ll probably go for Ltd by shares. I can’t but feel a little out of my depth.
I also discovered whilst reading the Companies House website that “Every company must paint or affix its name on the outside of every office or place in which its business is carried on – even if it is a director’s home. The name must be kept painted or affixed and it must be both conspicuous and legible.” I don’t like the idea of attaching a bronze plaque to the fornt of my parents house.
As I’ve mentioned before I think it’s critically important to give off a good impression and that’s my approach to this business. I’ve already created a logo for MyNewReg.com 
but I’ve given up on the complicated web design bit. So I’ve just put up a competition on 99Designs, so in 7 days I’ll hopefully have a design that satisfies my fussiness and I’ll only £280 worse off.
Yesterday I spent about £40 on 250 high quality business cards from Whitesparks. It’ll be nice to have something tangible! I decided to use Whitesparks as I’ve used them before for SIE flyers and posters. I’ve had bad experiences with both the DIY and certain low cost printers that advertise by flyer inside books bought from Amazon. I’m also not going to go down the route of those machines you see at train stations. My friend Rob tried that and they were rubbish. You get what you pay for and I want to give the best impression (doesn’t everyone?).
Talking of giving a good impression, I’ve also done an email signature so if you get an email from [myfirstname].[mysurname]@mynewreg.com hopefully you’ll be impressed with the legal jargon and the fact I can spell my name correctly.
I was reading the FSB (no, not that FSB, the other one) magazine Business Network and noticed a bit of research commissioned by Microsoft. Apparently of the surveyed people 53% said they were more likely to use a small business if the have a professional website and email address. 41% also admitted to shunning local firms which use a personal email address.
I appreciate none of this means anything unless I can tie it up with a business but before you build a house you must lay the foundations (and other annoying metaphors like that).
After a discussion with James Barlow, CEO of the Scottish Institute for Enterprise at the weekend I think I’ll use a website called 99designs to contract the actual site design out. I’ve had a few goes myself and while I think it’s getting better, I’m getting more bored/frustrated with my lack of talent. This is the latest attempt:
99designs looks like a great place to get a value for money design. It’s not just about web design, you can get logos, business cards and even t-shirt designs. I haven’t done it yet but it works by someone putting up a request, designers submitting their creations and the client choosing the one they like. The major benefits are the competitive nature that keeps the cost down whilst getting excellent quality and the ability to choose from a number of different designs. I’ll give it a go and let you know how I get on.
Today’s task was a bit of web design. I’d sketched an idea out on paper and I wanted to do a mock up in photoshop. That’s where the problems started. I’m not that great at photoshop and it also quickly became apparent that the design looks rubbish (at least with my present skills of replicating what’s in my head. A lot of people seem to think that creating a website is easy and that one person can do all of it. This was a misconception I first experienced when doing a Shell Step work placement 2 summers ago with a company. It seemed that websites were quite popular things for people on their placements to be doing and unfortunately that’s what I ended up doing. A similar miss conception is that computer scientists will be good at it too. We’re not. Don’t get me wrong, we can understand how they work but it’s not exactly part of the skills set.
I’m not even after anything complicated. It’s basically a search engine homepage e.g. google, altavista (remember them?) or ask.com. Maybe I’m over stretching myself and should pay someone else to do it. I’m acutely aware of how important the appearance of a site is, especially when it’s the only shop front. I’d still like to have a go at it (and not blatantly copy someone else’s!).
