Last updated on April 2nd, 2012 at 03:12 pm
My new website TwitterAndBeyond.com version 1.0 officially launched on Tuesday August 18th! Cue the balloons and parade. Our latest venture is an offshoot of our company and a huge step toward my long term dream of multiple streams of income.
We are in Phase One – build traffic. Want to offer us feedback? Try out a pretty new FREE background and add some bling to your Twitter account. You can check out the real deal at TwitterAndBeyond.com and much more will be coming.
New venture... and beyond!
So how did we get to this point? To offer a taste of the experience, here’s a quick review of the insanity of what 26 days, 200+ hours of programming/design/bug fixes, 32 pots of coffee, and concepts sketched on scratch paper at 1 a.m. looks like. The following is part recollection, and part interviewing my husband/business partner who wrote 99.9% of the code. I threw in design and complained when something broke.
Day 1: Find an “out of the box” solution that does nothing that it promises, doesn’t work when installed and say goodbye to that $$.
Day 2-8: Try our best not to scream as the errors keep on coming.
Day 9: Pull apart the code and realize we can write the application from scratch better and with cleaner code.
Day 10: Discover that now that we are writing this ourselves, we have full creative freedom. Completely freeze up on any creative ideas for the logo, layout and interface design.
Day 11-16: Code. Code. More Code. Bug Fix. Bang head on the wall. Wake up at 2 a.m. with a solution. Design, tweak colors, redesign and change your mind. My all means try overwriting the file you REALLY needed and build it again from scratch. Again.
Day 17: Pages are loading, images are displaying, the navigation is working. Oh, we need to prep every image for preview. Quick! Build an admin side that lets us non-database people to take care of that. Cool! I think we are ready for a launch on Monday.
Day 18: Twitter.com is attacked and all services are down. Their site is back up within a day. I’m sure there are a lot of tired programmers on their team. Unfortunately the API – the thing that makes our site talk to their site – stays down for several days.
Day 19-24: Test and test again. Where the heck is the Contact Us page? I swear we wrote that content already, let me check my laptop again.
Day 25: Twitter.com’s API is back up and running – Go, Go, Go!
Day 26: Turn off test code. Ready to launch? Sure, it’s 1.0!
Like any dream, the job is never done. Whether trying to create a product to new media, or figure out what to do today, think about this. The fun part is that along the way, those bumps can throw you off track, or make for an interesting story.
Happy tweets – Heather
(Heather’s dream is to have multiple streams of income, starting with launching an e-commerce website that showcases her one-of-a-kind designer jewelry, which are crafted by her. Heather’s post day is Thursday and her newly launched sites are unique jewelry available through For Your Adornment, and Twitter design on Twitter And Beyond)
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Heather Montgomery is a fitness writer, triathlete, and serial entrepreneur who is devoted to sharing what she has learned about becoming a triathlete after age 40. She uses her Metabolic Training Certification to help other women struggling to get fit in mid-life. She lives and trains in Santa Rosa, California, the new home of the Ironman triathlon. You can find her biking the Sonoma County wine trails.
Note: Articles by Heather may contain affiliate links and will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on an affiliate link.
