About a month ago I entered the Four Hour Work Week App Empire Contest sponsored by Chad Mureta with an idea called StitchaVid. The contest was a great learning experience for me because it was the first time that I had really sat down and worked through the process of researching and designing an app idea for consumers. I am currently working on a business app that is nearing alpha, but I had never done a consumer app.
There were over 500 app entries and mine made it to the final seven. The seven finalists received a signed copy of Chad’s book App Empire: Make Money, Have a Life and Let Technology work for you. Here is an excerpt from the email we received from Chad:
Hi All,
I'm sending this message to a very select group of folks (only 7 of you, in fact) to say THANK YOU for the incredible effort you put forth in our recent contest on Tim Ferriss' blog. I was blown away with the thought and care each of you put into your entries, and I had so much reviewing everything you guys put together. You all made this whole contest idea worthwhile!
We're still wrapping up our final choices and deciding who the winner will be, but in the meantime, I wanted to offer each of you a free signed copy of my book. No strings attached -- just a small token of my gratitude!
I decided to step back from my StitchaVid app idea and let things simmer. After all I am running a business and nurturing a start-up all at the same time. The app is not relevant to either of those efforts. I’ve decided to NOT pursue the StitchaVid app. While I think the project would be fun, I believe it’s an expensive app to develop. Unlike an emoticon or flashlight app, a video production app would take some real development effort to do it right.
Even though I am not pursuing the app, the process I learned to research and design apps should serve me well in the future. It’s already helped me evaluate other app concepts that are more relevent to both my business and the start-up. So…I wanted to publically say Thanks Chad for the inspiration. Its not often that you read a post that produces 15-hours of productivity out of a reader.