1DayLater - The Blog

100 users in London, 100 up North

Tis time to celebrate - the 100th user signed up to the system today! Our beer-based motivation system (we’ll blog about that in the future) says that we must have a pint together to celebrate, happy days.

The real reason we’re writing is to talk about The Big Smoke - London. Last week we took an extended weekend to visit Kingpin Intelligence to talk about the marketing campaign that they’re generously giving to us. The main goal of the campaign is to get another 100 users signed up, and to get feedback from 50 of them a couple of weeks later- leaving us with a comfortable amount of testers and information to launch the full service. The Kingpin guys (James, Darius and Darren) are clearly a talented group and we feel incredibly lucky to have won this great prize with the Teesside’s Business School.

visiting the financial district - can you imagine being rich?

Sad as it may seem, but this visit was our 2nd ever trip to London, and as a city we’ve both got mixed feelings, it’s both vibrant and despairing.

it’s hard to believe that in the many thousands of faces I saw, there was only 1 girl with pink hair…
David King

laughter on the tube must seem like an alien landing, we got stared at a lot - bless them :)
Paul King

And they really do love a good stare, especially if there’s any smiling going on or unusual hair (like Davids) - we bore the brunt of many a steely gaze as we laughed and joked our way about the place. I guess the glumness comes with living in such a big city, but wow does it make me glad to live in Newcastle and remind me why I’m a North East Ambassador

Take it easy, and don’t forget to smile

Paul

Use-Case diagram for the API

Happy December people, Christmas is really creeping in!

As 1DayLater is a member of the Codeworks DEV project (Digital Evaluation Vehicle) and as such we’re required to supply certain technical documents to tick some boxes. One such document is the “use-case diagram” that explains the 1DayLater API, while a doodle on a scrap of paper would have been OK we realised that other coders looking at the API could benefit from it - so we decided to do a real good job of it!

So far as these things go, the diagram is very simple, but the real value is that once more, we’ve created a nice animation with voiceover to make sure that our coder friends get a true understanding of the system! No professional audio this time, just me being nervous and getting the job done…

Wanna watch it? Head over to the API documentation and it’s right there at the top - unmissable.

1DayLater - An Update

With Beta testing well underway and our userbase expanding rapidly, I thought it was about time we had a wee update on general progress.

But what’s that you say? Our good friends at Ifwecanyoucan (a subgroup of Entrepreneurs Forum) have done it for me? Oh cool - well I guess you’d better have a mosey over there then, my work here is done! I’ll just hold the fort here and slurp some more of my tea :P

Ifwecanyoucan, for those not in the know, aims to connect eager-to-learn mentees with volunteer mentors in order to take them to ‘the next level’. A fine vision I feel!

You can read the 1DayLater article here , and I suggest having a read through some of the other stories, as many of them are truly inspirational.

Time to Take Stock & Celebrate

Starting a business can be pretty hard work

But that said, we think it’s important to occasionally stop, take stock, and celebrate our successes. And the success of our friends, many of whom are also starting businesses :)

Here are a few things we’ve enjoyed celebrating recently!

• 1DayLater’s Beta launch - 60 lovely beta testers in under a week!

• The Launch of exciting NE-based events management company, Haus Projects started by our friends Georgia Rakuson and Beckie Darlington

• Our very own sister being published in photography magazines due to her modelling work, and being invited to Leeds to take part in a modelling competition.

• David’s new dorky glasses - taped up for extra geeky points (see below)

• Successful first meetings with local quango Codeworks and the start of our next phase of market research.

• Strategic partnership between 1DayLater and Cadenza Associates - NE-based business coaches & time management specialists

• Positive feedback from our testers (thanks guys!)

Our good friend Brian Degger (from Lab in a Box - “coming soon”), his lovely wife and “Doc Brown” of 1DayLater. 10.21 gigawatts?! ;)

Stephen Covey, who writes The Seven Habits of Successful People, calls this time out “sharpening the saw”. Whatever you call it, I reckon you need it for good productivity and motivation the rest of the time.

Enjoy your weekend guys. And remember to take some time out for yourself to take stock and enjoy your achievements :)