Monday, January 9, 2012

SoDunked! is 1 year old! -- Looking ahead

Here is the last in our series of blog entries reflecting on the one-year anniversary of SoDunked! appearing in the app store. As we look ahead, there are two last things we will focus on--the question of involving investors in a new venture and the need to better tap into our known intellectual resources (smart people we know).

Well, would we involve outside investors next time? (especially since we opted not to for SoDunked!) Yes, if there is a next time, we will again weigh the pros and cons of getting investors and those pros and cons will be different now that we have the experience of the last year under our belts. And, to be frank, it does feel more likely (and more necessary) that we would look for investors.

Investors can help to spread the word about your products because they have a stake in your success. Also, having investors requires some governance. Formal governance might put more pressure--and resources--to bear on the process of marketing and advertising and on enhancing and researching despite other demands on our time and budget.

The obvious benefit of raising money for your mobile app venture, including for marketing and advertising budgets and for enhancements is reflected in this article in MSP News or TMCnews.com, both from PRNewswire via Comtex. (Or, read this about the risk of "too much capital" in this Inc.com blog entry by Bo Burlingham.)

Another thing we will do more in this next year is ask for help. We know so many great minds in marketing, people experienced in startups and entrepreneurship, and experts in strategy and management. Outside voices can be both sounding boards and advisors. We need them. It's not that we didn't consult friends or family this time around, but we feel like there is more we can learn from these folks than we have yet realized--being a small "mom and pop" shop that struggles to meet our measures of success, we may hesitate to involve others. We also will look for ways to expand this pool of intellectual resources, through LinkedIn or local meetups or online forums or other means.

To be honest, this is really hard work. If you are out there selling your app or any product or service, you probably know already how much time and money it takes. We have invested a lot (sweat equity, you know) so we are staying the course for now. We'll keep plugging away, try more new things, dunk a few people with SoDunked!, and spreading the word.

We hope you will keep spreading the word about SoDunked! Thanks for your support so far. We wouldn't be here without you.

To all the developers who read our blog, may this new year be happy and filled with app sales.

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