Rails Rumble

2009 Rails Rumble Reflections

Note: if you are looking for the screen casts, you can find them here: http://screenr.com/user/smeade

That 48 hours went fast!  After producing BidBuildBill.com last year and finishing a respectful #22 on the leaderboard, I aimed this year’s entry at web application developers with AffiliApp, the easiest way to add an affiliate program to your web app.

The Idea

This idea came out my unsuccessful experience looking for a good affiliate program to use in promoting PlaybookIQ.  After finding none that felt right, I decided to design and develop affiliate features myself.  I could have simply added the affiliate management features to my existing app, but with Rails Rumble right around the corner and with the idea that it could be useful to lots of web app owners, I decided to develop affiliate management as a separate project which we now know as AffiliApp, my Rails Rumble 2009 entry.

My Reflections and Impressions of the Rumble

What Went Right
Rails Rumble Organizers and Linode
The organization and planning this year was top notch. The entire Rails Rumble org did a great job. Linodes booted up straight away. The Rumble team was always present on irc and Tender app to answer any questions and clarify rules. They gave plenty of advanced warning on how they see the administrative parts of the Rumble playing out. Much appreciated.

Picked a Good Idea
I was glad to have some idea of what I was going to do ahead of the Rumble. As I discussed in previous blog posts (see links at bottom), the idea I had is something that I am going to use in Real Life. I think it has value for others as well and plan to continue to build it out.

Ensured a Good Development Environment
I was also glad to have done Rails deployments to Linode previously. Though deploying is very easy, I am not a sys-admin. So, I practiced ahead of time with a Linode slice an my GitHub account. This way I knew exactly how to boot and how to configure the linode and ensured my local environment was cap and deprec ready. Recommendation to all contestants: if you have not deployed a Rails app to a VPS before, do so as practice before the competition or have a team member that has. This will help get your local and VPS environment issues out of the way early.

What Could Have Gone Better
Get More Rest
At some point of the weekend, I believe it was SuttoL who said “A tired programmer is a dumb programmer”. So true. Rest up for this, you’ll need it. And take some breaks during the competition as well.

Scope Down
As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I had already cut my feature list in half, then in half again. I should have cut it in half and half even again. I am very happy with how the app turned out, so it’s not that. It’s just that with a much smaller feature list, I simply would have had less stress and felt less rushed, which would result in little higher touches of quality throughout the app.

Design First
I did not take much time before the Rumble to lay out the application design. Both UI and model designs were started just about when the opening bell rang Friday night. Note for next year: go into it with a clear definition of the app design. Again, I don’t think the app suffered for it. I do think it would have been a more fun experience had I walked into with design ideas in hand.

Will I Do it Again Next Year?
Definately, Yes! But, I think next year it would be fun to get a team together to Rumble. If anyone’s interested in joining a Denver area team for the next one, let me know.  In the meantime, I’ve got 48 hours of email, tweets, and TechCrunch to catch up with.  On second thought, no, I’m going to get away from the keyboard now and hang out with the family instead!

Links:
http://affiliapp.com
http://affiliapp_support.tenderapp.com/
http://screenr.com/user/smeade

Pre-Rumble Blog Posts:
What Rails Rumble and TechStars Have in Common (Besides @andrewhyde)
My App Takes the Sleaze Off (subtitled: Getting Real with Rails Rumble)
Whats the Big Idea
Ready to Rumble

Ready to Rumble

The Kitchen Sink

photo credit: avidtile

photo credit: DieselDemon

photo credit: Mr. T in DC

It should be as quick and simple as possible for judges to get to the core of your app.

Stick to the Essentials

I’m continuing my walk through Getting Real, the very unofficial guide to Rails Rumble success.  In previous posts I identified a real problem to solve and picked a fight.  Now, it’s time for me to consider Underdo Your Competition and to design Half, Not Half-Assed.

I took my initial list of over 50 vague feature ideas and chopped that in half.  Then, in half again. For example, it would be great to have app owners be able to put the affiliates through an approval process.  Affiliates would not be able to recommend your product until after you have vetted them and approved of them.  This helps keep the quality of your referrals up and has some potential legal benefits as well.  But, for the Rails Rumble (and perhaps even for first production uses of the app), the approval process is not essential.

In fact, this approval step would only make it more difficult for judges to get to the core purpose and features of the app.  For the Rumble, it should be as quick and simple as possible to get to the core of the app.  Putting an approval process in between affiliate sign up and affiliate dashboard would kill chances for a judge to quickly and easily judge the affiliate experience.

The Lure of the 15-Minute Weblog

Rails Rumble teams sometime do not finish.  They end the weekend without a working app. Short of sickness, power-failure, or energy-drink shortage, it is most often simply because they tried to do too much. Why is sticking to the essentials so difficult a concept? Partly it is the Rails community’s own doing.  It’s too easy to think, “Hey, if we can build an entire weblog in 15-minutes, just think what we can do in 48 hours!  That’s like almost 200x the time!”.  When compared against 15 minutes, 48 hours seems like a lot of time.  It’s not.  Take it from someone that’s been there, it’s not.

Status

I have also come to realize that writing about the Rumble and developing Affiliapp is not the same as doing the Rumble and developing Affiliapp.  So, this is likely my last blog post until after this weekend.  I will occasionally tweet (@smeade) and be on irc #railsrumble.

Good luck all Rails Rumblers, a big “Thanks” to the sponsors, and organizers!

What’s the Big Idea?

I’m continuing the walk through Getting Real, the very unofficial guide to Rails Rumble development. The Rumble is a natural fit for the tenants of chapter 2, The Starting Line, and chapter 3, Stay Lean.  I will Build Less, Fund Myself, Fix Time and Budget while Flexing Scope, and Embrace Constraints.  The rules and structure of the Rumble practically require it.  In the previous post I answered additional Getting Real questions from these chapters.  I identified my problem and came face-to-face with the enemy. To recap: Read more ›

My Rails Rumble App Idea Takes the Sleaze Off

For this year’s Rails Rumble I decided to give 37signals’ Getting Real approach a try.  It’s a natural fit for the Rumble.  After all, the first dozen essays include ‘Build Less’, ’Fix Time and Budget, Flex Scope’, and ‘Embrace Constraints’. Read more ›

What Rails Rumble and TechStars Have in Common (besides @andrewhyde)

With Rails Rumble 2009 coming up this weekend, I’ve been thinking about why I like the competition and why it’s so rewarding and productive.  In thinking through the attraction of the Rumble, I realized there is similarity to the recently wrapped Boulder TechStars session and other events in which smart developers participate (like Startup Weekend, etc.).  They are product incubators, just on different scale and with different missions.  Both provide insight into ways of working that work.
Read more ›

Just Set the Right Goals

In his blog today, Derek Sivers pointed to a study called When Intentions Go Public: Does Social Reality Widen the Intention-Behavior Gap? From this and similar studies Derek concluded that “people who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen.” Wray Herbert also offered similar advice in his Newsweek Mind Matters column.

This advice may be true for some intentions, but the blanket statement does not tell the whole story.  The message should be to keep talking – but with the right type of goals. More specifically:

Read more ›

The Power of Paucity

My nephew moved to town. Most every physical thing he owns fit into the rental truck that he drove from Wisconsin, where he just graduated college, to Colorado, where he’s starting out the next phase of his life. Yesterday, we unloaded the truck into his new apartment. He has no job, no debt, and no outside expectations. And we adults are jealous. While he and his girlfriend are anxious to accumulate, there’s a part of the adults in his life that longs to be back to the simplicity of starting anew.

It’s not only the simplicity we crave. It’s the feeling of having nothing to lose. By having nothing to lose, the biggest obstacle to action is removed. He can honestly say: “What’s the worst that can happen?” If we start a new business, or quit our jobs, or travel more, or work more, or work less – what’s the worst that can happen?

The thing is, we call can do that. Read more ›

Say Yes

I’ve challenged myself to say “yes” more often.

I am defaulting to “yes” and rarely saying “no”. Whether to personal or professional opportunities, I’ve come to realize that reasons I give myself for saying “no” are just excuses to stick with the status quo.

Here’s what seem like some reasonable reasons to say “no”.
* Focus. “I need to stay focussed on one thing. That other thing you want me to do will make me lose focus.”
* Time management. “I don’t have time to spare.”
* Commitment. “I won’t be able to give it (that new thing) the time it deserves.”

Saying “yes” has less impact to focus, time management, and commitment than is first imagined. Here’s why.
Read more ›

Book Review: Blog Blazers

Here’s the book that has gotten me interested in blogging again.

Just like a good blog, “Blog Blazers” is full of timely information written in a very readable format. The question and answer format is surprisingly effective and Stephane Grenier presents the expertise in a very practical, actionable, motivational, and entertaining format.

Whether you read “Blog Blazers” from front-to-back or jump around to your favorite bloggers, each page offers actionable advice that you can use to immediately improve your efforts. If you do not have an active blog, the discussions on the benefits of blogging and the supportive advice of successful bloggers will make you want to kick start your efforts straight away. Its actionable (”5 best tips for blogging”) and motivational content makes the book a valuable read.

I was impressed with the quality of bloggers interviewed. The focus of the book is how to be _successful_ at blogging and the success of its subjects is impressive. Bloggers that I have read for years such as Eric Sink and Seth Godin are interviewed. It’s like having a direct line to the top bloggers.

The variety of bloggers is also a pleasant surprise. Being in the technology business, it is easy to forget the limitless range of subjects upon with successful blogs are based. “Blog Blazers” interviews include business and software blogs, but also include interviews with bloggers of topics such as weight loss, fashion, parenting, and finance.

Though the author and the bloggers interviewed in “Blog Blazers” present their advice better than I can summarize it here, I will list a few of my favorite take-aways. First, “get started”. Obvious advice, yet a reminder that is evidently required because many of the interviewees mentioned it. Secondly; like any writing, blogging requires writing skills. Do not worry about SEO, ads, or monetization until you have the writing down and honed. (Blog Blazers has plenty of advice on how to write better as well). Third, be consistent and persistent. Successful blogging is not (usually) a result of overnight success.

Start

There web and bookstore shelves are full of authors and advisors urging us to produce instead of plan, to do instead getting bogged down in deciding. Some urge readers to “Ready, Fire, Aim.” In The Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki says

GET GOING.
Start creating and delivering your product or service. Think soldering irons, compilers, hammers, saws, and AutoCAD—whatever tools you use to build products and services. Don’t focus on pitching, writing, and planning.

The planning is not the start. The deciding is not the start. I often fool myself into thinking I am starting something, when actually I am working on the stuff I think I need to do in order to start. In most cases, I’m wasting time.

For this blog, the 20 minutes I spent looking for a great Wordpress theme could have been spent starting this post.

For iPhone development, the 30 minutes I spent looking through a short stack of iPhone development books, trying to decide which to buy, could have been spent actually starting iPhone development.

Don’t worry about the details just yet. Right now, today, Just Start.