Building Ambisonia.com » road map

Ambisonia Update

Etienne Deleflie — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:56:57 +0000

So here are my current tasks:

get a good quality binaural conversion going. This is not trivial. Fons Adriaensen is helping me with this.
re-design the site to communicate more effectively to surround sound newcomers.
Sort out the legals for being able to sell CD’s or the individual tunes online. I’m talking to an old friend (an art lawyer) who works for Brett Oaten Solicitors.

I’m also ’studying’ the book ‘The E Myth’ about building small businesses. So that will trigger many changes as well.

I’m reading “The E Myth” by Michael Gerber

Etienne Deleflie — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:15:20 +0000

… and I’m loving it.

Its a bit like “how to do create a business for dummies” .. and it kind of reads like Alan Carr’s famous “Stop smoking the EZY way”… i.e. it really spell it out.

What Gerber says is really resonating with me … he says that in any business there’s the Technician, the Manager and the Entrepreneur. Most businesses are started by a Technician and businesses will only survive if the Technician is held under control by the Manager who has to serve the vision of the Entrepreneur.

The good news is I’m sick of the technical side of things (I would _love_ to hand that over to someone else). I think my nature is much more as an Entrepreneur, although I have little discipline and I need to encapsulate a vision into a ‘business plan’. I have some management skills in that I have managed small teams of ‘technicians’ and I am aware about the need to align the technician’s understanding with the bigger plan, and maintain the technician’s enthusiasm in his/her work.

But I need to define what the business is, from a high level, so that the management and technicians can follow the vision. I’m working on it

Current road map

Etienne Deleflie — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 00:26:09 +0000

I plan on 2 levels. I plan what I am going to do on any particular day, and I have a very broad long term road map…. but nothing in between.

As a professional software developer, planning occurs more on a month time frame (you know what there is to produce at least 1 month ahead).

I did create a spreadsheet outlining the milestones for the next 6 moths … but the document has already become irrelevant. Perhaps the lesson to learn here is that the 6 month project plan needs to be massaged constantly.

Anyway, there are 5 clear milestones that I am currently aiming at. These are:

Deliver DTS conversion. Deliver easy access to surround sound via home theatre systems. Delivery: in the next week.
Deliver Binaural conversion. Deliver easy access to surround sound via iPods. Note: binaural is a reduced surround experience and this needs to be stated. Delivery: by August 2007
Embed Binaural playback in the browser window. Deliver ‘click play now’ access to surround sound directly from the websita page. This is by far the most immediate access. Delivery: by August 2007
Upload application. A ’super easy to use’ upload application to help the non-technically minded contributors publish their recordings. I think this will boost content significantly. Delivery: by Dec 2007
Monetise. Complete focus on creating the micro-economy. Delivery: Must be able to sustain my full-time effort by Feb 2008.