The semester in review

This semester as been a true learning experience that goes far beyond the classroom. While our original goal was to create a smartphone app, sell advertising on it, have all of Harrisonburg download it, and make 200 dollars, we learned that a vision which can seem foolproof in the creators eyes, is clouded by visions of grandeur. We expected all this to happen during the semester, and it didn't. We did create the smartphone app, and I am truly proud of it. It did exceed what I thought we were capable of, however we utterly failed at all our other objectives. We were unable to nail down any advertising in the short time period, and since the app has only been on the market for a day, we have little response. Because we we unable to sell ad space, we were also unable to make $200. Fortunately for my thanksgiving break yard work, we were able to provide a small bit of revenue. I think our venture didn't meet up to our expectations because of our grand visions, and the other priorities of the people working with us. I also believed we thought too long before taking action. Sometimes its better to dive right in and fly by the seat of your pants than to have a good idea and sit on it because of insecurity. Next time, I would start moving forward from the brainstorming phase sooner. I believe we wasted too much time thinking about the viability than jumping in. I recommend that future entrepreneurship groups, find an idea they can take from concept to physical product and take it to market right away. If your group does not have a product in hand be the end of the first month, you will be crunched for time. 


While the project was hard for the semester, Chris and I plan on taking the smartphone app further next semester, we believe it to be a really cool and useful tool for jmu students.

I was going to photoshop Dr. Wales in as the whale, but my photo shopping skills are nonexistent 

Cheers!

Specials in the Burg

The app is officially up on the Android Market!  For all you JMUers that have an android phone, head to the market and search "Specials in the Burg."  There you will find our app that will provide you with food and drink specials for popular bars and restaurants in Harrisonburg, for example Jack Browns, AJ Gators, Daves, and more.  The app is free, so be sure to download it and support us!

the final countdown

So, following up from this week. We will have our smart phone up and to the market by this afternoon, hewever it seems too little too late. We now have to decide what direction we should move in as the semester closes. thankfully the revenue generate by the lwan care service has provided us with a little bit of income. While it is not the revenue stream we wanteded. that is nice to see some money.

When the going gets tough...rake the leaves...

So, over here at Green Lite we're getting pretty desperate. While I think our Smart phone app is really awesome and can make the money we need, we are running out of time. So, when I got home for Thanksgiving break I threw an add up on Craig's List to do some leaf removal. My dad already has a leaf blower and this cool thing called a Billy-Goat, basically a leaf vacuum. It wasn't hard either to get much business either, seeing how much leaves are lying around. So as unfortunate as it is that the App is struggling, its nice to have a little revenue.

I will say i'm fairly disappointed with how the revenue stream for our app has turned out. I really think it is a good product and its viable, I think we were really unprepared with the time constraints for R&D and getting the product to market. I think if we did some partly parallel development we would be in better shape.

Heads moving faster than our feet

So,

Chris and I were really excited about this week. We did a lot of work with data collection the week before and had big plans for the prototype to be ready for the market this week. Unfortunately, its taking our programmers a little longer to get our data loaded and clean up the app. That being said Chris and I are going to be finalizing the advertising contracts this weekend and should be able to get the app to market by next week.

Get your Party Hats Ready!

We're on the final stretch!  We've compiled enough restuarants and specials for Harrisonburg and we plan to (hopefully) have our app on the market by the end of this weekend.  As we explained before, the app will be free to all android phones once it's available.  Once we get the app on the market, our next step is to go around harrisonburg to any business that may be interested in advertising on our app.


Here's how we plan to make money. We will have several "Options" for businesses to advertise on our app.  For a business that wants more ad coverage on the app, they can pay more for a higher probability of their ad showing up on the app.  For those that want to pay less, they can get an option for less coverage probability.

Once we get the app up and running on the market, we hope to finally start making some revenue in the next week or two by the latest.  So be sure to check back soon!

p.s. we're still trying to think of ideas for a name!  if you have any ideas, post in the comments.

Prototype!

We now finally have a working prototype of the app up and running!  The prototype just consists of the basic functionality of the app and doesn't have any of the added features yet (color, etc), but it's really cool to see how it's going to work.  Here are a couple of pictures:

Here, on the left, you can see what the app will look like on your phone.  This menu will have a list of restaurants that you will be able to choose from.  So, for example, if you wanted to see what Dave's Taverna has to offer in terms  of drink specials, you can select Dave's on the menu...

Next, by selecting Dave's in the above menu, a window will pop up with all of the drink specials that Dave's offers during the week!

So as I mentioned before, this is just a prototype.  We will be adding many more restaurants over the next few days, and then we will be adding some color and tweaking out some bugs.  If you have any suggestions you'd like to offer, be sure to comment!

GreenLiteInnovations

direction

So this week we were anticipating the prototype of our App. However, it looks like we wont have it until this weekend or early next week. We've been diligently scouring restaurants for their food and drink specials, and plan to go out next week and pitch our app to get some advertising. On the whole, things are looking good, we're moving more than we were and we finally have some direction.

We're Back on Track!

So after we did some research, it turns out that it's not illegal for us to create our app!  We quickly scrambled a meeting together with 2 CIS students from the mobile app class, and after some discussion they're on board 100%.  We actually plan to have a prototype put together by early next week, which is a lot sooner than we expected. 

We certainly have our work cut out for us for the next couple of weeks.  We plan to go around to most of the bars and restaurants in Harrisonburg to collect all the info we need for the app, we have to find some local businesses who want to advertise on our app, then we have to promote and market!  On another note, we're still looking into another idea as an additional source of income over the next couple of weeks while the app is being made.  We'll keep you updated when we have a solid plan.

So for all you people with Android phones, keep on the look out over the next couple of weeks for our app!

What do we do!?!

SOO.. this we some questions were raised about the legality of our project....WHAT!?!? I never thought those were the words I would hear. Maybe, "Man, your product sucks" or or something like that; not, "You have the right to rem..."

With that being said, I think we're going to try an launch a few multiple ventures to really see what we can run with. We're still worried that a smart phone app wont give us enough time to make revenue, or that its illegal..

One Step At a Time

     Slowly bur surely, things are starting to move forward.  Last week we went to talk to the Mobile App class for CIS majors that Professor Cole is currently teaching.  We presented our idea of creating an app and our goal of reaching at least $200 profit, and it seemed like we got some interested looks.  We were a little nervous because no one had contacted us after our presentation for about a week, but finally two students that are interested in helping contacted us earlier this week.  We plan to meet with them next week and get things rolling.


    We haven't done much yet with getting our Auction House off the ground, but we did brainstorm some more ideas that made the idea seem more profitable.  For example, we thought of the idea of doing an auction towards the end of the semester for textbooks that students are having trouble selling, especially the books that the bookstore says they won't buy anymore (i.e they already have their quota filled, etc).

Tune in next week when we (hopefully) start working on our app!

GreenLiteInnovations

How to move forward

So, Chris and I have decided that we want to try and pursue a smart phone application and get revenue with add space. We are however, a little nervous about this idea, because it seems a little tech intensive and it may take a while to get off the ground.

So, what we've decided is to go forth with the app idea, AND our idea of an on campus auction house. We think that this way we can test the waters of these two ventures and maybe both or one will be successful.

Will

The Birth of a New Business: Green Lite Innovations

     Hello and welcome to our blog for our new business, Green Lite Innovations.  Being as this is our first post, we thought we'd start by quickly introducing ourselves, the founders of Green Lite Innovations.  Chris Collins, a senior at James Madison University, is majoring business management and minoring in music industry.  Born and raised in Burlington, Vermont, naturally he loves the outdoors.  He grew up mainly biking and sailing in the summer, and snowboarding in the winter.  Will McAuliffe is also a senior, management major and music industry minor, and was born in Richmond, Virginia.

     So our goal as a business is to bring a usable product or service to the students of James Madison University at (hopefully) a profit.  We've already begun the brainstorming process as a team, and have generated 3 ideas that we think are very promising.  If you have a chance, read over these ideas and give us any feedback that you think might help us.

• A Smartphone app that will list all food and drink specials of every restaurant in Harrisonburg for every day of the week.  Can't remember the thursday happy-hour for Daves Taverna or what day Tutti Gusti's has $1 cheese slices?  Then our app will definitely help you.

• Have something you've been trying to sell, but don't have a way to reach out to enough people who might be willing to buy it?  We propose creating an actual auction house on the JMU campus once or twice a month for people who have things to sell or are looking for something to buy.

• Having a party this weekend?  Need a bouncer to keep things under control and stay on the HPD's good graces?  Our idea is to create a bouncer business with trained staff to assist you with enforcing guest lists, checking ID's, etc.  

So far these are our top three ideas for now.  Give us any feedback you guys have, and be sure to check back soon as we update you on our progress!

Green Lite Innovations