Entrepreneurs Start Here

You’ve got an idea or plan for an on-line or technology driven project but you don’t know what to do next? You need advice from experts with a broad range of technology and business experience, who can clearly communicate and document what you’re trying to build and understands the entrepreneurial process? You need Clarity.

Taking an idea from a concept to something a project team can execute isn’t easy, and if you want your project delivered, then you need solid project documentation before you start. This is not a business plan but a specification your proposed team will understand. You need to be able to communicate in a language technical people will understand (and you definitely don’t want to be communicating in a sales or marketing language).

I don’t have time for documentation.

But you have time to start over? Not getting what you are expecting sucks more! Without a full specification how do you get what you need? This is the document that defines what you are going to build, how it will operate and how users (and other systems) will interact with it.

There are many benefits to a well-prepared project specification:

• Both you and the proposed technical team know what the deliverables will be. You should have a shared expectation.
• More accurate quotes. When the entire system is carefully described, it’s easier for a supplier to put together an accurate quote, because they know exactly what they’re building and they will know, you know what you are doing. There is less incentive (although they will try) to upsell or supply a solution that is more convenient for them rather than being suitable for your project.
• You can shop around for providers. If you have an independently-prepared project specification, you can easily obtain quotes and compare them to each other, knowing you are comparing apples with apples.

What can you expect from Clarity?

Well that’s partially up to you. We can work with you on a document that details your project from a top-level strategic perspective, right down to a detailed technical breakdown of functionality with indications on appropriate technologies, implementation, technology platforms, wire-frames and even customer validation and development.

Common deliverables are:

• Strategic Objectives Document: outlines what you’re trying to achieve through your product/idea and roughly how you plan on achieving it.
• Technical Summary: A more technical document which gives a technology-oriented perspective on what you’re trying to accomplish/develop and roughly how that will be achieved. May include technology recommendations and assessments.
• Walk-Throughs: These documents often give valuable insight into how your product will be used by “normal” users. I will work with you to determine key user groups of your target market and then provide detailed break-downs on how they might interact with your system.
• Detailed Technical Specification: This is the document that you can hand to a developer and actually stand a chance of getting back a system that resembles what you were expecting. It will cover in depth things like technologies to be used, techniques to be employed, error handling, data validation, database model, structure and a whole lot more.
• Wireframes: Getting a rough idea of how a system or web application will look is invaluable to figuring out if it makes sense and if it meets expectations. Wireframes are a great, low-fidelity way of doing that without spending too much time on design, and they allow you to quickly iterate through alternatives to come up with something that works.
• Hiring Guidelines: If you’re planning on hiring an individual (or a team) of developers or other people to actually build your product, I can help you define the roles that will be required and what sort of skills each person will need. Knowing what you’re looking for makes finding it that much easier.

So if you want to get your project off on the right foot, contact Clarity now and let us translate your awesome idea into something that the geekiest geeks out there will understand. It’ll make your life easier, it’ll make their lives easier, and hopefully it’ll help get your product to market sooner, and make everyone else’s lives better as well.