Archive for the ‘bookwhen’ category

Event registration system

July 9th, 2009

Current event registration systems tend to focus on single events and charge for usage by taking a cut of the ticket price. Bookwhen goes down a slghtly different path. It’s main booking portal screen list all of the upcoming events allowing easy browsing, and the service is charged at a monthly flat rate. This makes it a bargain for the larger users, and ideal for organisations with multiple upcoming events or repeating events.

DEFRA are currently using the site to take registrations to their Climate Projections events, and later in the summer the UK Climate Impact Program are going to use the site for their events. That’s makes over 10,000 bookings in the next few months. Exciting stuff.

It’s great to have some big players on board. This will surely be the tipping point. Having said that, there are still some usability issues left to address so that will be the top priority in the next few weeks.

Garrett’s Sifter and the race to launch

February 4th, 2009

A snippet from Garrett Dimon’s blog about the creation of his app Sifter:

“Looking back, not finding a way to launch something within the first two months is the single largest mistake I’ve made with Sifter. It’s worked out well, but I definitely wish I could have been getting feedback sooner. It’s made a world of difference in helping Sifter evolve to where it is now.”

Totally agree. I think I’m really onto something with the thing I’m working on right now (bookwhen.com). I started it on the 6th Jan 09, and plan on having the first cut online before the end of the month.

By racing to launch, you can ensure your efforts haven’t been focussed on the wrong areas because there’s literally no time to go off on tangents. By launching the bare minimum, there’s the danger that people may dismiss it at first, but it’s all about the long-term and feedback is the only way to keep on the right path for your users.