I have a lot of knowledge in the web space. I specialize in front-end development, as well as Node.js on the back-end. I work at a web dev shop and have a lot of experience teaching and mentoring new developers, as well as resolving interpersonal conflicts. I'm also constantly tweaking my dev environment (editors, build tools, technologies, etc) and, as a developer, have a mini-obsession with productivity hacks; so I can help there (not usually a burning pain but if you need help, hit a brotha up).
I am also a designer (landing pages, UI/UX, IA, branding, and print) and am happy to help with whatever design-related issues you might have.
Finally, I have experience with online advertising and guerrilla marketing; if you're having trouble figuring out how to reach your customers (or figuring out who your customers are) I can help.
# Help Me Out
My idea: I've been thinking lately about building something called Startup Fantasy League. The idea is to give people a gamified platform for making pretend investments in startups.
Why (for context): I'd like to get into angel investing later in life (when I have the financial means) but I don't want to wait until then to start practicing.
Where I need help: I'm having trouble figuring out exactly how to accelerate the lifecycle of real world investments into a game-friendly timescale. I don't want players to have to actually wait 10 years before they see returns.
I'd like to give players a starting fund (say 5m), and then let them "spend" that capital by selecting from real investments (e.g. "Jason Calacanis invested $X in Swell Radio").
However, once they've spent their initial capital (which I imagine might happen somewhat quickly as new players try out the platform and hopefully enjoy it), I'm not sure how to keep them engaged. I imagine status updates on companies they've invested in would be nice, but that doesn't give them much room to interact with the platform. Thus, maybe players should get more capital whenever their startups are doing well? This isn't a very realistic model of how investing actually works, of course, so I'm looking for other options.
I want to keep this as realistic as possible (since ideally I'd like to practice with it myself) but I do also want it to be fun.
Advice from anyone with game-building or investing experience would be especially helpful. Thanks guys!
My email is hello at duncanmsmith.com.