I’m not sure why most people’s first reaction to tech projects is to find a nerd genius in his parent’s basement who’s a jack of all trades: The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoder.

Building something on the internet is surprisingly similar to building something in real life, let’s take for instance building a home. It would be rare to find an electrician that is also an expert framer or a drywall-er who is also a great plumber.

When I was working to build the first space for student startup at CU, Spark Boulder, none of our mentors and advisors told us to remodel the space by ourselves or find a local jack of all trades civil engineering student. They told us to find a general contractor who can engage a team of skilled people.

Sure, you could find someone handy who could “figure it out” but you’d be making a significant sacrifice in quality and jeopardizing the project immensely.

The same is true for the web.

Modern development has become too complex to expect one person to be able to perform at the top of their craft across disciplines like design, user experience, front-end development, back-end development, devops, security, digital marketing, etc. You need to budget for a team. I don’t care if you find that team all at one dev shop or if you piecemeal it together, but you do not want to be putting all your eggs in one basket with the amazing technicolor dreamcoder.

If you’d like to read more about who should be on your team and how you can find them, also other tips for completing technical projects successfully, I have a free gift for you.

Download our free Guide to Tech Projects for Non-technical Founders.

If you need hands on help with your project, Buink has years of experience managing and completing technical projects on time, under budget, and with a high level of quality. Contact Buink today.

I’m going to talk a little bit about a nightmare I found myself in as a non-technical founder and what you can do to avoid it.

I was a young professional with a small family and a 9-5 job in corporate America. I had big dreams of starting my own business. I was a glutton for punishment and I couldn’t get this idea out of my head.

I needed a web application but at the time I didn’t even understand the difference between a web app and a website. Maybe you can relate? I didn’t understand a lot of things.

My idea was to be the Groupon of products for parents. This was about a year before Groupon became well known, so it actually wasn’t bad timing.

I had a 2-year-old at home and another one on the way and I noticed there are a lot of junk products on the market. I figured I could leverage reviews and giveaways to help other parents find the great stuff.

I reached out to some local web developers and they were quoting a minimum of 25k. Talk about sticker shock! I had only 10k to my name and I didn’t want to risk it all, but I kept searching. Eventually, I found an onshore company that used offshore resources. They quoted 5k and I signed on the dotted line for my first website, my first golden shovel.

I sent them the requirements and I quickly realized how literal they interpret and execute everything I said. The communication barrier is real! With the differences in timezone, misunderstandings would take days to correct. But I pressed on.

Finally, months later, I had what seemed like a working app. Sure, it cost me twice as much, coming in at a cool 10k, my entire savings, but it worked! At least appeared to work. Up to this point, they wouldn’t let me see any of the code. I guess they were worried I’d just cut and run.

What I saw taught me a lesson I’ll never forget. I could not believe it. I was ruined! I’d spent all my savings and I was out of business before I’d even launched.

The code was bad. I’m talking, spaghetti code with a side of logic noodle knots. They had hacked the WordPress core files making my site impossible to update automatically. Worst of all, they had left many security loopholes. As I looked through the code, even with my non-technical eye, I could see opportunities for a hacker to exploit or dump customer lists and emails (these days you can be sued for less than that).

I spent the next year, plugging up the holes of that ship. I’ve since spent 11 more years learning how to complete technical projects successfully, on budget, and on time.

I’ve written a guide to help you avoid this nightmare. This free gift is the best of what I’ve learned.

I’m not holding anything back. Why? Because I haven’t written a book yet. 🙂

Download our free Guide to Tech Projects for Non-technical Founders.

If you need hands on help with your project, Buink has years of experience managing and completing technical projects on time, under budget, and with a high level of quality. Contact Buink today.

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible with technology. Internet opportunities aren’t like a gold rush, where the wealth creation is limited by supply that is drying up, a more accurate metaphor is how electricity enabled ongoing innovation for more than 100 years.

This idea was first promoted by Jeff Bezos. If you haven’t heard of Jeff, then you’ve likely heard of his brain child, the largest internet company in the world: Amazon, the everything store.

In 2002, the company almost died. The dot-com bubble burst and investors wondered if the internet was just a fad. Amazon needed capital to meet the needs of insatiable customers, but their stock was down 90% and capital had dried up. They started losing executives hand over fist and the future of the company looked incredibly uncertain.

One of Bezos’ executives commented at the time that he couldn’t understand why Jeff was so calm when everything seemed like it was on fire.

Jeff knew something they didn’t and what he knew turned out to be true. He shared his secret on the TED stage in 2003. The internet isn’t a gold rush that makes some wealthy until the supply of gold dries up. The internet is a horizontal enabling layer, like electricity, that will lead to innovation for the next 100 years.

The light bulb was just electricity’s first killer app, Bezos said, which helped wire America. Once electricity was in every home, it ushered in the golden age of appliances, a 50 year period of innovation. It startled with the iron, the fan, the vacuum, the washing machine, the toaster, the robot, and it continues to be the foundation for modern life.

As you know, electricity has become so much a part of life that when it goes out, we still switch on the switch and wonder momentarily why the light didn’t go on. 

Was he right? Well, we’re now 17 years into the metaphor and it continues to hold. In fact, as mentioned, Amazon is now the largest internet company in the world.

At the end of his talk he shared an advertisement from Sears in 1917, “use your electricity for more than light.” That is still where we are with the internet. In the next 50 years we’ll see everything become dependent on the internet’s enabling layer.

What does that mean for you? That means if you don’t have a solid internet strategy about how your business is going to compete online, then you’re not thinking far enough ahead.

Whether you’ve started on your strategy or not, we have some tips that will help you succeed. These tips are a free gift to you.

Download our free Guide to Tech Projects for Non-technical Founders.

If you need hands on help with your project, Buink has years of experience managing and completing technical projects on time, under budget, and with a high level of quality. Contact Buink today.

Have you ever found there isn’t “an app for that?”

I hope you’re reading this because, like me, you increasingly see more and more opportunities where you could leverage the internet to solve business problems.

Opportunities like: 

• “Paper? You want me to fill this out on paper?” 
• “What if we could see real-time data on this project?”
• “Fax machine? Does anyone have those anymore?”
• “What if we used reputation and engagement to increase trust in this product?”
• “I wonder what we could do with crowdsourced data on this problem!”

We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible with technology. Internet opportunities aren’t like a gold rush, where the wealth creation is limited by supply that is drying up, a more accurate metaphor is what Jeff Bezos calls the electric metaphor for the internet where electricity enabled ongoing innovation.

So with all this opportunity, are you capitalizing on it? Maybe you don’t consider yourself technical enough? Maybe you’re a business person/marketer/leader not a coder, web developer, technologist.

No worries, I’ll share some tips and tricks that may help.

You don’t have to be a techie to take advantage of the technology run that is still going on. There are still many industries to disrupt and many opportunities to discover. Follow these tips and put them into practice and you’ll be able to enjoy the spoils as well.

We have some tips that will help you succeed. Follow these tips and put them into practice and you’ll be able to enjoy the spoils as well. These tips are a free gift to you.

Download our free Guide to Tech Projects for Non-technical Founders.

If you need hands on help with your project, Buink has years of experience managing and completing technical projects on time, under budget, and with a high level of quality. Contact Buink today.