Previously on Braqes, I was looking for an investor, I had been contacted by two potential Angels from an Angel site and was hoping to start looking into hiring a dedicated developer.

Nothing has come of that. But thats good, because we are at a whole new level now. Notice I said We? Braqes Founders are now at three. I have partnered with Jack Denton and Paul Harris to grow Braqes. These are two very clued up blokes and their startup / Business knoweledge has been invaluable in getting us to where we are now.  They both founded Allaboutcareers and are using their network, knowledge and skills to help take Braqes into the next level.

Why the ‘tell the world about your startup’ title? Up until about 3-4 months ago I was a little protective of Braqes, I would only tell people about it if I really thought it would benefit the site. I was reluctant to work with anyone that was outside of it, wouldn’t take too much advice and always thought I don’t need those clique network groups. Pretty much figured I could do this on my own. I didn’t bother attending events, or meeting up with people to discuss options or even get tips and answers to questions. Pretty stubborn I know. Shit was I wrong.

Thats all changed. In the past month I have introduced Braqes at a digital conference in Ireland, I have pitched it at LinkFoundry and then at Google Campus. From there my network has gone through the roof, I have met other startup people who face the same problems or have found ways around them. I’ve met developers looking to talk about their latest app or what mine does. Thanks to the events I’ve had a meeting with a few brokers that have given me even more advice and are a massive help. Up till this point I always imagined they would be ruthless and destroy any idea you had. Completely wrong, in most cases they are there to help you get what you need (of course make their money too).

Lets get back to the pitching. My debut to really demo Braqes was at a Linkfoundry event. It was only for five minutes but probably the most nervous I have ever been for a presentation. In my 12 years career I have pitched to the top dogs at many blue chip companies, I have trained hundreds of people in one sitting, I have held workshops with big decision makes at companies and always remained calm. However when you are telling a room full of people about your idea, your baby, something you have built, rebuilt, freaked out about and almost given up on its a scary thing. Very scary. What if they don’t like it, what if someone finds a flaw, what if you completely fail. It didn’t happen. Granted the 5 minutes felt like 5 days, then when you mouth ‘Any questions’ and expect a tirade of negative ‘shoot you down’ questions you brick it. It’s not that bad, its not bad at all. Yes these people will asking tough questions, but if you know your startup and love it you will answer them correctly. If you are there for a quick buck with some half arsed idea – they will know. I’ve seen some presentations get destroyed  but only because it wasn’t thought through. Or was just an idea with no insight, or proof of concept, or traction.

I love it. I love the rush now. I love getting up there and telling this room full of people that this is what i have made, this is how it works. Then having people flock to you afterwards and chat about it. Getting their thoughts, getting questions that you mentally note because you might not have thought about it. (but pretend you had)

You need to tell everyone, every single chance you get.

I cannot recommend it enough. That idea you are sitting on – get your research sorted, get some help – from other startups or business folk. Attend every single event you can, watch the presentations, look at what people ask. Prep that shit. Then talk your arse off every chance you get. Attend everything you can. Braqes has made more progress in the past month and half then it did in the 2 years it took to build it. Partnering with Jack and Paul is somethingI should have done a long time ago. Find theses people at the events, through networking. The advice is amazing, the fact you can run anything past them or get decisions thought through even better. (Trust me – these guys saved me from a very bad decision some time ago)  We are currently pitching for our first round of funding. Hoping to be in a good place in the next three months.

Some sites to check out :

www.linkfoundry.com  - invite only, but amazing to network if you get the opportunity to go. There is opportunity to pitch for 5 mins too.

www.meetup.com – speaks for itself, but there are some great events in there. I tend to look at the attendees and do a bit of linked research. I have registered for a few events on there. Which I will probably talk about in my next blog

GoogleCampus - Check out the events section, theres something on every night. Even if its not specifically Startup related a lot f the companies there attend. You meet some great people.

I’m registering for network dinners too. I’ll tell you about them once I have attended too.

Obviously I am using Twitter and Google+ to start connecting with people, but it has to be more then just a follow or an ‘add to circles’ – Just like likes and follower counts are worthless, just following a potential is a waste of time. You need to nurture and maintain the relationship. Not kissing arse or bullshitting.

 

Networking is the art of being true to your own values, beliefs and character whilst building and nurturing reciprocal relationships that help individuals or the group as a whole to achieve their goals

Steven D’Souza  Brilliant Networking

I used to use Linkedin to find jobs or investigate a potential client and occasionally post for various projects. This networking and event attending has helped me finally use linked int for what it is. No more spammy recruiter emails, just beneficial contacts. Working out who knows who and how you can get introduced.

If you take one thing from this post, get off your arse and get out there. Now.  Telling the world about this new, better, faster, amazing product you have is addictive. Get over the first nervous one, then you won’t stop.

My talk was about the work I ran on Harry Potter – The Quest – A massive campaign across 17 territories that helped maintain buzz between Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 and 2.  I showed how we used masses of old content and repurposed it to satisfy the fans craving for more content, plus the tools we used and how we managed to control every territory and every language from one central point.

The event itself was very informative. This was thanks to the speakers attending. To name a few :

Rand Fishkin of SeoMoz, who spoke about the Future of inbound marketing and why its all in our heads

Teddy Goff, the digital director behind the behind the Obama 2012 campaign

Plus alex Balfour – who had the small role of Head of New Media for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Plus loads of others that you can see here

Lastly, heres a clip of an interview I had after my talk.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

To see the rest of the interviews, head here

To see slides from the presentors head over here  (couldn’t add mine due to copyright)

In about a month or too I’m thinking of jumping into the DSLR thing, and will learn whats involved there, but for now I wanted to show you some of the cool challenges and tools out there. Hopefully this will help you too.

Something to note, alot of these tools are due to me being bored with Instagram’s filters. I think they are overused. On top of this, even though I’m about to show you some cool apps, there is always that chance of over editing a photo. I’ve done this a few times, thinking an image looks great when in fact it looks like some badly photoshopped clipart from the 90′s. Don’t over do it. No amount of fairy bubble or sparkly lights will make that image any better.

Right, first up. The challenges.

The 30 day challenge :

Theres a few of these, some wanky ‘love ones’ and then the scavenger type ones. Myself and some of the people I work with are currently taking part in this one : The 30day instagram challenge - a simple little task list of theme you need to take each day. We are in day 4 right now, been a few drop out, but the die hards are still going. Sunday’s challenge was water, I ended up trying various splash techniques in the sink, wrecked the kitchen – no photo. Ended up adding this one :

It will do for now. The challenge itself is going to get interesting as the month progresses. Monday is ‘Black and White’, Tuesday is ‘Nature’ and Wednesday is ‘Clouds’ However, further down the list is more emotive themes : Romance, Friendship, Identity and Talent. The thing I like about this challenge is that it helps you keep taking images, plus may help you find that niche for your instagram account. Maybe you spot something in water that you like to record and display or you have a talent for Black and white.

Its a great little challenge, I’m contemplating a few for some client work too and at work we may create our own Instagram scavenger hunt. At least this way, you are always creating fresh content, learning to find inspiration moments and then showing them how you want.

To join all you have to do is hashtag your posts with #30daysnp and a heading for the day. For instance ” Day 4 : Water #30daynsp”

Next up, and my favourite one, comes straight from Instagram. Its called, The Weekend Hashtag Project or WHP for short. Each Friday instagram releases what that weekend’s project will be. This weekend was Hide and seek, or #WHPHideandseek.

In short you go out and take pictures for that weekends theme. The rules are, no old photos, you have to go out and get new ones in. As expected this challenge gets a lot of activity. Whats cool is, if Instagram likes your post you get mentioned by them to all thier followers. Nice for the growth of your account.

I’ve discovered some amazing photographers through this challenge. From there I’ve looked into how they get their techniques. So on top of amazing images you get to learn a bit too.

My favourite thing about this challenge is that it can help give you an idea as to what to get up to on the weekend. No plans, simply get out and take images all around your city, town, field, whatever and then select your best one and upload. Not forgetting to tag it with that weekend’s theme.

Those are just two I’m taking part in right now. There are a few others (google search) and this great Pinterest board of challenges and tips, but you obviously don’t want too many. Plus you probably want to add your own images. Check them out anyway, maybe Ill see a few of your attempts. I’m vincenth on Instagram.

Now the apps. This list is some I’m using. I’m constantly trying new ones, but these are the favourites. Check it :

Snapseed : Bought by Google some time ago, so it must be good. I use snap seed to fix up those boring images. There are a lot of editing features. However I mostly use it for Cropping (Instagram likes squares - your camera doesn’t). I use snapseed for HDR as well, in the app its called Drama. That image of the river above, I used the drama filter to enhance the clouds. Lastly there is a straighten tool in there as well, helps you line up any horizons for that neater look. Snapseed is the first app I go to when fixing images up. I call it my mobile photoshop.

iQuikDoF : You know those pics you get where it shows something like a coffee cup up close and clear, the back ground blurred? Or those other way round? For those that don’t know, this is called Depth of Field. I love this effect. You normally find the professionals achieves this through their lenses and settings (I’m guessing). Anyway, iQuikD0F helps you get that sort of effect. You take a picture, then simply paint the area you want in focus. I’ve used this app to lie a few times about my amazing eye for detail.

PicsPlay : Another great effects tool. I use this to enhance images when snapseed can’t. It has loads of presets under each categories. Categrorise suchs as ‘Scene’, Grunge, HDR, Black and White, Blur , art and professional. Easiy to used, but be a little careful, I stay away from the HDR filters. I find the iPhones native HDR or Snapseed’s filters a lot better. This is more of a quick fix app.

Tiltshift Gen : Instagram has its own tiltShift filter but I find it limited. This app specialises in TiltShift – er hence the name, I love it. It makes those little people and houses shots that much easier thanks to its easier adjustment settings. There are few other features, such as saturation settings and a vignetting filter. (bit of an overdone effect I think) 

TouchRetouch : I’ve noticed to specs appearing in my images due to some lens damage. TouchRetouch helps remove them. For the Photoshop users out there, this is the clone stam tool in an app. Its amazing. You can remove signs, little details or in some cases those irritating tourists in view. The tool allows you to paint over a section you want removed and them is enviromonet aware and attempts to remocve the object in a subtle way. It even animates this removal for you. (Does not remove dodgy ex girlfriends). Powerful, helpful little tool

Hueless : The developers of Huelsee state it is not a post processing app. This is an app that takes imgaes and applies the effect live. This is what Black and White Photography should be. I love Black and White photography and would love to get a good shot, but a lot of the post processing apps desaturate the image, making in look shitty. This app allows you to apply images live to the image you are taking, so you can see the effects light has and so forth. Hoping to play with this one a bit more

That’s just a few of the apps I’m playing with. Honorable mentions go out to Magic Shutter : helps achieve those slow shutter shots. Those moving lights from cars sort of shots. Still figuring it out.  Hipstamatic and Camera+ are some cool apps to check out too. Hoping to add another one of these posts soon with image comparisons. For now, go check out the above and take part in those challenges.

One of my goals is to be featured by Instagram one day, every Sunday Instagram features some of the best imagery on their blog. Keep at it and you may end up there, other that that not really any point, other than generating loads of inspired images.

Crazy.

It’s all good though. after seeing the data error we made in the code a few months ago its allowed us to rebuild a system thats now faster. At the time I thought I would have to shut Braqes down, but thanks to the data provider and some better code we have fixed that problem.
We have also ironed out a few bugs thanks to some great feedback from current testers. Small errors and improvement suggestions we didn’t think of have all been implemented. The hompegae has been redesigned and is ready to go live – once I finish the intro video I have created. (Learnt some animation skills through all this too – handy that) The homepage has been redesigned to allow for quicker signup, sharing and just getting involved.

So thats version 1 – In short I have bootstrapped Braqes for the past year. Paid for all development, hosting, marketing and various tools for research. Version 1 covers everything I planned to launch Braqes with. I wanted a working model up and running doing exactly what the idea said it would do. I aimed for around 200 users from various agencies and freelancing gigs and did it. Next week I will be contacting each user individually to get their thoughts. Not through mailchimp, but individually. I want to maintain relationships with my first 1000 users as they will help Braqes to keep going and improving.

Version 2 is going to be amazing, I have had the next 4 versions planned out for about a year too but didn’t want to over complicate the launch. (thanks Lean Startup) version 2 has a lot of wishlist items and functionality to add that will make Braqes that much better. Most of these are from user requests and some from me. I want Braqes to be faster, I want processes to be quicker than what they are. Then on top of that there is at least 10 new ‘big’ functions I want to add. Plus integration of Sage pay.

Plus it is now time to get a dedicated developer that works with me on Braqes. It’s is in a place now where we can start building on its foundations, improving on processes  Right now I need a developer thats here, in London. Someone that you can meet face to face and sketch out ideas and solutions. Fix bugs, speed up processes on the fly. I made the mistake of merely asking for a tech partner and hoped someone would be willing to give up their time and use their kills to hopefully make some money in the future. No one is going to really do that. I need to pay a salary then eventually offer equity.

So heres where the investor comes into play, Braqes needs a cash flow. Instead of paying chunks of money for project based work, I want to pay a developer to work on the project with me. I am thinking of moving Braqes to the Cloud (- due to some of the new features coming) ,I have to pay for the API’s that power the site, I have a marketing strategy I need to pay for and finally I need to implement a payment gateway.

So far I have registered Braqes on the Angel Investment Network. Handy site, £99 for an entry level profile. (I’ve had two contacts in one week) plus I have started creating a profile on Angel List . I have started using linkedin to research Angel Investors,using Meetup to find events around London where I can network and meet investors, (if only for advice), a family member has arranged me to potentially meet an investor he knows and finally, I’m using commun.it to seek out Angel investors in the UK on twitter and hopefully establish some connections

Braqes is in Limbo right now, I cannot start any development without investment. Bootstrapping has allowed me to build the first iteration of my idea, now its time to take it to its next level.  So this is the next step – keeping my current and new signups happy and finding an investor that will help me take this product to its next level.

I’ll keep you posted.

Lets get you up to speed, We launched Braqes beta. One of the most nerve-racking things I’ve ever done in my life. Giving complete strangers access to something you have spent the last year building and convincing yourself its a great idea and will work, then encouraging them to give feedback. Their thoughts, improvements and possibly criticisms. Its expected yes, I mean it helps you earn and improve the product, but still – imagine after all the money and time someone mentions how shit this is and whats the point? It will hit home,  the startup is your baby.

It’s done though, I have a few users on the site running some campaigns, some pretty cool brands in their too – one of them is monitoring coverage on an Olympic Athelete. Nice case study for later.  I have to say that i find google’s real time analytics better then any film or TV show I’ve ever seen. I have two screens setup, so while I’m working I can see whats going on on the site in realtime. Very distracting, trying to work whilst little dots pop up on a world map and google tells me 30 people are on your site, then you watch the journey they make, where they drop off, or if they signup. Trust me, when its your site you are watching you will understand what I mean.  We’ve decided when Braqes is in full running mode and a pay for model we will install an 84 inch tv and watch the traffic. Ok not really.

So, the title of this post… We are in beta, there are a few users now using it,  as mentioned I want thier feedback. Now one of the main features of Braqes depends on a few api’s to power it. Some of those API’s are paid for, some of them have caps and you pay extra if you go over a defined total. This is where my lesson “Keep an eye on all data” comes in. On of my API’s allows for around 40,000 queries if I go over that I am charged around $10 per £1000. Cool deal, thats the sort of numbers I was expecting, however I didn’t take testing and the amount of testing we were doing into account. 6,9 Million queries later and I have a bill of nearly $86,000 – yeah, $86k.  Thats insane! I basically went white, everything was fucked. I had to shut the API down, therefore losing a chunk of Braqes functionality, whilst in beta… shiiiiit.  I figured I would be going bankrupt before even starting, a year of work down the drain. Having to tell family and friends I had failed, dealing with fallout from the current Beta users, it was all a pipe dream. I was numb. Just stared at the screen I was now probably going to have to sell.  I reconsidered starting smoking again, but probably couldn’t afford it. I freaked out.

Jump ahead about 3 hours and I had calmed myself, and contacted my API provider, explaining the situation. They are in the U.S so I had to wait till the next day for any communication. So a sleepless night for me. I spent the night creating flow charts and various scenarios to avoid this, went through code and asked the developers why so many queries. I mean there was only 3 of us.Then spent the day watching email, watching Skype and eventually had a chat with the company. After a few checks a deal had been put forward about avoiding this sort of costs and all was well. You’ve probably noticed I haven’t mentioned the company, not sure if its the right thing to do at this point. All I can say is that they do not want to see startups shut down, they weant to help build them and thats exactly what they have done here. I think we are going to be okay. the deal hasn’t been finalised yet, but it looks good so far.

So what did I take away from this. In short, this shit is going to happen. At one point, just before all this I had thought this is all going a little to smoothly here. Surely I’m supposed to have a rocky road to the destination? I read about all these startups going under or having to Pivot and it hadn’t  happened  to me yet. Like I hadn’t earned the right to say i was a true startup. Silly I know. Things is, none of its smooth now that I think about it. In the beginning I had run around with developers, wanting large cuts and inflating the cost of builds, then finding other equity deals weren’t as sweet as they sounded, finding massive bugs that kill the sites functionality and so forth. Frustrating, yet you are so much stronger for the next problem.

I’ve always believed that obstacles are just tests in how bad you want it. Now more so then ever.

So we are back on track, we are redeveloping some of the api calls, will probably set the official launch date back a bit, but we will get there. We are still taking signups for the beta and asking for feedback (be nice yeah) so we can make this the tool its supposed to be.

I read this the yesterday day : Stories of Failure and redemption – 18 Startup founders share their lowest moments before coming out on top and it put it all in perspective. Failing, makes the next iteration that much better. So many startup blogs and books mention failing and fail again. – Must thank the guys at Buffer for that. If you are starting up, make sure you are following thier twitter account and Blog. (If you are running content for yourself or clients, sign up for the buffer tool – its amazing!)

We are currently fixing all of this and upgrading the homepage for the website, traffic stats are showing we need to make a few changes there (more about that in another post) plus we have created a very cool little intro video that will sit on the site and replace that dodgy powerpoint looking slider.

Hopefully, the next posts will be more about growth, upgrades and the occasional balls ups that we fixed.

See you soon!

We moved all the files over to the new servers – which I think may need to upgrade as well, and now I’m discovering certain things can’t handle what the site is supposed to do. It’s doing my head in!

Braqes takes screengrabs, the scripts running the site are now not taking screengrabs. This is a problem. Plus finding this out a day or two before you really want to go live is not good. My developers are good at what they do, yet I’m realising more and more that outsourcing to another country really has its drawbacks. Not being able to sit down in the same room and solve a problem, brainstorm it out. Plus trying it there and then and getting it solved. I’m now having to suggest solutions yet wait till the next day in order for things to be tested. Then only find out the next day that didn’t work either. I’d rather be up till ealry hours of the morning getting it fixed. Then move on to the next issue.

So, you’ve probably gathered that we atill aren’t live. The site is there. I just can’t open it to users yet. As much as startup books suggest you release a simplified version of a tool as soon as possible, I can’t do that – Braqes needs to be fully functional, there are no shortcuts around it.

Even when the beta version goes live there are bound to be more bugs and users feeding back on whats not working and what is, so I would need a developer ready and waiting to cut through each issue with a goal in making this a robust, shit hot tool.

I have all the tools that make these projects work, yet the one thing that is missing is the sense of urgency and passion I have not coming across to a team thats thousands of kilometres away.

I’ve just compiled some solutions and given a slight bollocking to the developers and hope we will be back on track.
Hopefully the next entry will be me announcing Braqes is live…

This is amazing. For around £46 you get access to all of Adobe’s products. Plus seamless integration across devices. Was about to purchase PShop CS6 but going for this now. You can get it all, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects and loads more.

Watch the clip, find out more here. Very, very cool

***Update : if you own CS3 and up you can get a  deal here £27.34

I write about apps for my iPad or iPhone that I love and use a lot, occasionally a game slips through :

Remember when Angry birds first came out? Every waking moment was spent trying to get through those levels, or worse – get 3 stars on each level. Addictive. Soon we became used to it, a few new levels here and there. Then came Cut the rope and Plants vs Zombies, all addictive. Constantly drawing your attention from the important things, like your job. Along came Temple run and DrawSomething (serious nose dive on the numbers there)Then we became a little used to them too, with the occasional play.

So I waited for the next game that would draw me in and not let me escape its clutches, yes I tried others, but got bored.

Till now…

Ski Safari. Jaysus, I can’t put this thing down. The simplest game in the world. Similar mechanics to Jet Pack Joyride but it keeps calling me back. Even now, I’m typing this as fast as I can so I can get another go in.

What’s it about? Simply, you are a skier and you need to go as far and fast as you can. Riding on the back of penguins, yeti’s, grabbing eagles and flying on snowmobiles. At the same time you are being chased by an avalanche so you need to avoid rocks and other obstacles. Pick up speed by backflipping, picking up coins, remaining airborne or jumping on the animals. The trailer above explains it all.

Get it here I have to warn you, everything you wrote on that checklist will not get done.. so if you want to remain focused on your tasks, do not download this game.

My top score as I write this is 357,763m – I will beat it before I go to bed tonight.

***UPDATE : 23:50 – just got 508,559 – sh’Yeah. Right bed

Finally, no longer having to look at some 2x pixelated version, Spotify has launched on the iPad.
With Airplay too….boya! Stream your tunes straight to your apple TV. Did so this morning, very cool.
If they can allow for apps on this on the next upgrade, job done.
Looks great too, easy Nav, all your friends are there too, playlists neatly arranged. You will need the premium subscription of course.
Wired has a great review here.

Enjoy!

53 Paper, my favourite iPad App, Great app for sketching out concepts or whatever is on your mind. Even for bad drawers, like me

Plug it into Twitter, Facebook or post to your Tumbler account. Easiest UI ever. Get it here