Meeting Deadlines & Mile Stones & a bit of my History

I was invited to share a story related to Entrepreneurship and freelancing group on Facebook I am in, they feature one member a week to write a story based on that or anything business related https://www.facebook.com/groups/FreelancersEnt/ to write an article about something business related, they feature one member once a week.

I figured I would also publish here as well as I did one several months ago when I was just a few months into the project and business.

THE BACK STORY:

First a bit about me, I'm 34 years old. Back in 1995 I had my chance to use a Windows 95 computer, I forget what was prior, but I do remember the Floppy disks that only held 3.44Mb of space, that's the equivalent of one mid-lower grade photo.

I worked on websites, learned HTML before Css existed, then learned Php script, which is still the standard for web apps these days, (prior php, CGI was the common, which I learned first) through middle-school and high-school.

I set up the 2nd biggest online Arctic Cat Parts Catalog my Junior year in HS for that time period (Amazon What?), my sophomore year prior, I pushed a "get-paid-to-surf-the-net" (Alladvantage) I made some serious residual coin (several hundred a month at 14-15) on for a half a year (everyone eventually ended up cheating it with mouse movers, advertisers weren't getting CTR - Crash boom.)

Moving forward, I knew I wasn't disciplined enough to stay "physically-fit" or "in-shape" working this kind of job, shortly there-after high-school I got into construction. I started my own company and used the internet to generate leads. At first it was with organic google/yahoo search, then I dabbled with Facebook Ads and Google Ads.

3-4 years ago I hit my, "shit I'm fucking 30 and not millionaire" like I planned status, and went down hill hard & fast! I "rebounded" to working as assistant-super on Multi-million dollar commercial high-school additions, here in Southern, ME. Then because the money was better in residential, went back to doing that with a friend.

Year and half ago, I noticed the problem with dating and dating apps (especially all the complaints on Facebook by good date-able Men and Women). There was one solid platform, that was originally designed for hook-ups, Tinder. People weren't satisfied with it, and other plat-forms had "Cat-fishing" problems (and potentially App Owner made "fake bots").

I was frustrated and so where others, So over the year of working residential framing, we shaped and modeled it to what is https://www.lovethenetwork.com today by picking away at how, and what to do.

6 months ago, hard Maine cold winters hit, and I spent a-lot more time on the computer again, now with a new name, plan and partner who just 100% sold me on the Best-Brand Icon-Image, we could possible have; she designed. @Lauren Gamache.

SETTING DEADLINES:

Lots of what I hear is, is people missing deadlines, or milestones and the disappointment that comes from it, and I am no stranger to it either. I think it was late Feb, Early March, we had some money to start paying the app developer and lawyers to C Corp the company. Now I was told 4 months by my App Developer.

Things were going well week by week, tax returns came in, Lauren Gamache and I helped sell some family/ex-family property in China, ME; and we found 3 Early Stage Investors for $5k-10.

Now being a contractor, I anticipated another up to 20% cost on top the original price quoted by my developer, (man I thought I was gonna have it easy too, nope, time to get caught up in tech in a hurry!), but what I didn't do, and I should of being a contractor as well, is added that same 20-30% for time.

But that's not just it...

So the app was going well and on time (or so I thought), until we got to the testing and debugging/fixing. Now what I had done, as I felt it was all going to be a breeze up until 3.5 months prior, was set a deadline in June, not a permanent. But I set a couple different Beta Testing Deadlines we didn't meet prior either.

What I realized?

A. Never release anything that isn't ready (original concept/blue-print and full functionality is a m). It doesn't have to perfect or complete, but right; because we can improve it after.

B. No one else seemed too worried with the deadlines at this point besides me. ("This year" deadlines with app development.)

C: After attending F8, I realized what Mark Zuckerberg and his team says about new things they are coming out with (as well as other developers):

"It'll be out sometime this year, or next year (if its hardware/R&D usually years in the beginning" Why? Because in the app development business and even hardware I'd say, it's just not done until its right, and these are new ideas/code and technologies even sometimes, generally not a copy and paste someone else's code. It doesn't have to be finished, but it has to be working and right.

D: Still Set Deadline Dates! - with your development team, or your sub contractors, and other free-lancers. Hold them to it, and push it to the max; but when you get to it, knowing you couldn't meet it begin with, thank them for trying hard and continuing to their good work.

Now this can be different for whatever business you are in. But what I'm saying is, when you set a deadline or mile-stone (ill get to that), consider broadening it to next week, or this month, or next month. Or whatever the case.

NOW:

I'm glad, I went through just setting a deadline to disappoint myself; because moving forward we will have an official Seed Investor, investing $500k+. And I don't want to disappoint, there is no do-over, if you mess up at that point. "Try again later bud on the next thing, because someone else is gonna do this right" - I mean honestly, that's how I feel about it.

Our business plan has a monthly prediction of users for the next 6 months. Now... I set these at about half of what I realistically think we can get, with the marketing budget we have available, and it doesn't make the numbers look real impressive for the 6 months either, it works, but barely. (It's really what comes after, or could come prior?)

My point is, I can make the numbers look whatever I want "predicting", but what I won't have is an investor asking why we are drastically short on predicted users. Not at this level, new versions models, no worries (next year). But user and money (profit/loss) projections, GO LOW as you can. Even if it's just you accountable to you, you'll be happy you met it. Some things just don't "predict right", up or down.

Now our product is almost ready. (Seriously, this time, we've been testing for months, and I hear I will be testing forever moving forward, in the app/game world.)

I'm not going to give deadlines for when it will be in the App Play Stores, but my Daughter's Birthday is the 17th of Aug, and it'd make me very happy to see this out by then.

Thank you everyone for your support, and a HUGE THANKS to those on our TEAM!! ??

P.S: I was born in Portland, ME and than grew up 25 Miles west of there in Rural Maine, just a hillbilly-nerd dreaming big! Anything is possible with a Computer, Internet and the Drive these days.