red_anorak

I was into techno, house and electro DJing for a long time. I'd say the best advice for enjoying djing is not to dwell on the technical aspects any more than they interest you. I'm rather out of touch with the current state of things, but I used to find progressive house DJs who obsessed over perfect mixes rather dull. When you're picking records think about how they'll sound in a club. People only care about your blends when they're really bad.

I dunno, just do whatever entertains you.

Interesting. I built a website a few years back called LampNote, which was based around the idea of "virtual noticeboards" approx every 100m apart from each other. In an earlier incarnation of that project I had considered solving the same problems using anonymous geo targeted messages, either using an app or email. I quickly discounted that approach, as it seemed like it could become a magnet for all sorts of dodgy characters, and a potential headache legally. The end product I arrived at was something quite different, so I'll be interested to see how you get on with zonemessenger. Good luck!

I've been to a few hackathons over recent years. On occasion I've found them very useful. Forcing yourself to come up with a good idea that you or a small team can build quickly is a great exercise. They've also helped improve my public speaking and presentation skills when it comes to technical subjects.

I will say that you often see quite dull entries from people attempting to make commercially viable products, and that those entries often do well with the judges. I think the participants get more out of it if they go all out and use their imagination, without worrying about the end result. I'd prefer if the prizes at some hackfests were biased towards creative thinking rather than producing an MVP for a product the hackfest organiser can commercialize. This would also make it less like "work at a weekend."

>> "SEO and social media bullshit"

This stuff does seem like bullshit when you're working on it, but it's unfortunately crucial these days. It takes so long to build up the brand and visibility that I don't believe you have the option to just do it once you've got the product right. Unless you've got the investment, firepower or notoriety to get chins wagging then you've got a long road ahead of you. Good SEO actually sounds like one of the things you got right to me. But maybe you spent too long on it

In my experience of being a developer and building my own idea I actually found there were occasions when my inbuilt technical idealism caused me to make some wrong decisions on my product. I found it quite difficult to make product decisions independently of technical ones.

I've had some really good bosses who couldn't code, though there is certainly a skill in winning over devs when you're not a programmer yourself.

There are advantages to being a non-technical founder, if you're able to bring the right techies on board.

Thanks for the info

Some fair points. I didn't necessarily feel that I was dependent on the local media and tech scene, it was a more the case that they I felt they weren't doing their job. Even if they just wrote a blog post saying "this guy's an idiot, what he's doing will never work" it would have got a few people talking and generated a decent inbound link. Also "hyperlocal" (yuk - the H word) stuff is easier to grow if you can get a concentration of users close to each other.

Yes, it's a reference to notices posted onto lampposts. A lot of people said they loved the name.

I did wonder how well it would travel, whether or not people from outside the UK stuck notices on lampposts, if they called them lampposts etc.

Things I would do differently... I think my product is too clearly the work of an idealistic technical person, and is slightly dated in the way it just expects people to join in because it will be useful if everyone used it. It's completely different from Circle in every way, not just when it comes to things that can be considered "evil". For example I've purposefully made choices like "it shouldn't need a dedicated mobile app", or "users shouldn't have to register to see content" from a purely functional perspective.

I did always view the idea as quite risky and I probably wouldn't have gone for it as a "pure startup". In this case I felt it was ok to do it as it could bump start my web dev business.

Good luck with your venture. I don't think being in Huddersfield is ultimately the reason why people haven't taken to LampNote. It was just difficult to get any local hype initially, and that certainly slowed me down