What dalister must look/feeel/work like

When I think about todo lists I think about that piece of paper I have at work that I take wherever I go in the office. I just grab a pen and write things down. It only requires two actions basically (grabbing the pen and writing stuff down) and that’s how I think a todo list should work. Easy, fast access. And that’s the idea I want to center dalister around. It is not about creating yet another standalone webapp that let’s you create todo lists. It is about creating a daily work tool that is integrated into your workflow and allows you to access all the basic work and productivity tools (todo list manager, notes, reminders, calendar, quick file upload, etc.) with a minimum number of clicks and/or actions. The easiest way to do that is by using a startpage that offers you immediate access to all these tiny little tools.

I realized that I might be talking too much about the todo list feature of dalister as it is just one of the various (potential) productivity/work tools I would like to see implemented as part of dalister. However, this is the module I am currently working on and the one I would like to test at work. But in order to give those interested in what dalister could look like a more complete view on the project I compiled a list of potential features and tools that could be built into it:

• todo list manager
• notes
• reminders (via sms, email, automated call, popup, …?)
• birthday list
• quick file upload
• bookmarks
• quick search (e.g. google, leo, wikipedia etc; all customizable of course)
• email access or at least a basic inbox view
• calendar

Dalister as a webapp platform

Tools for all these little things exist already but no one has put them together in a nice and easy to use start page yet. I was actually thinking that dalister could evolve as some sort of online webapp platform where you can purchase and run small applications based on Javascript and AJAX. iGoogle does that already (without charging you for it though) with its gadget directory where you can select certain gadgets for your iGoogle start page. Most of the apps/gadgets you can find there though are poorly designed or were developed with the aim of maximizing advertising revenue. It is hard to find really really good apps/gadgets in that catalogue! Even Google’s own todo manager for iGoogle sucks! Doesn’t that mean there is a potential for a high quality start page provider? Dalister could be the Apple of browser start pages.

I’ll try to write some more blog posts about dalister in the next couple of weeks to further develop the concept and also work a bit on the actual business model. Right now it is all just in my head and I guess it would be quite helpful to write all those thoughts down. You are of course more than welcome to comment, criticize or just say hello whenever you feel like it.

• simple, yet comprehensive
• fast
• beautiful
• fun to use
• (web based)

Let’s say you get to work in the morning, you open your browser and the first thing you see is dalister – a nice and simple start page that tells you what you need to do today, including birthdays, things you need to buy for dinner and maybe a couple of files you uploaded at home yesterday which you wanted to print and send out to your insurance. I know, you can do all of these things already and some tools do them really well but can you do them with just one, two or maximum three clicks in such a nice and fun way? Well, I am still looking for a service/tool that does this for me.

I started working on dalister 2 months ago and progress has been rather slow but I kind of like what I have done so far. I’m using ajax/jquery to implement most of the user-browser interaction which gave me quite a few headaches. I have used PHP/MySQL in the past and I am also using it for dalister but jquery is rather new to me so I have to look up all the functions and methods and stuff which is quite cumbersome sometimes. I’m only doing this after work so time is limited unfortunately. Most of my time went into the todo manager module as this is something I really want to use and test in my day job. So far, I have been using pen and paper to track my todos but after a day or two it always starts to get really messy as I cross off, add, change, re-proritise things and so on. It would definitely be nicer if I could to that on my browser start page in a simple and fast manner.

I’ll try to work a bit more on dalister in the next couple of weeks and present some more screenshots or sketches soon. Let me know what you think about dalister in the comments or send me an email!

Actively looking for problems in need of a solution

The reason why I wanted to post this on my blog is that I wanted to encourage both, myself and my readers, to actively watch out for problems that we have and could potentially solve. I guess we often deal with problems and acknowledge that there is either no solution or just really bad ones. Therefore the first step should be to actively recognize that we have a problem and then think about a potential solution. That’s the theory but let me give you some real life examples.

• It is almost impossible to find a reliable mechanic online
  I just recently had to find a mechanic who would do the regular annual checkup of my car here in Frankfurt so I asked my colleagues whether they knew any mechanic they had been happy with. Unfortunately, the answers I got were not really satisfying because either people had no car or they had only been to a mechanic once and weren’t really happy with the service. So I went on Google and did some research. There were tons of auto repair shops in my neighbourhood but it was just impossible to judge whether they were good or bad at what they’re doing. Only one shop had a review (a positive one) and I ended up choosing this one. I was happy with the service and the price was fair. But having gone through this process I realized that there is no website dedicated to reviews of auto repair shops!
• Tracking todos, meetings, emails and notes electronically isn’t very convenient
  We use Outlook for emails and meetings (calendar) at work which is OK. It is not great but it does a decent job (I think). However, we do not have any system that could handle things like notes, todos or bookmarks in a quick & easy way. I know, Outlook can do these things as well (at least notes and todos) but it just does not offer the slim, nice & easy solution I am looking for. I use iGoogle for my todos and notes now (which is ok but certainly could be improved) but that way I am using two systems (Outlook and iGoogle) which I’d like to avoid. So I thought why isn’t there a simple, slick system a la iGoogle with 37signals style that I could use as my startpage and manage all those things on one page?

These are just two examples I came across during the last weeks by recognizing the problems I had. Probably not the most surprising ones but I guess they might still be valuable input when trying to find a business idea. I’ll do some more research on that in the upcoming weeks and post the results.

Why I think solving your own problem is no Panacea for finding business ideas

I think a weakness of the the ‘solving your own problem’ approach is that it requires you to be aware of a certain problem. When I look at some of the recent startups, however, I find that they often solve a problem I was not really aware of before. Some good examples for this are Groupon, Foursquare or the german startup MyMuesli. I personally would not have come up with their business idea because the problem they solve wasn’t really a problem for me. I now use their product/services because the benefits they offer made me realize that I did in fact have a “problem” – it was just a latent one. When using this method as an entrepreneur, however, you should realize that the set of business ideas you’ll be able to find is limited to the problems you have and you are aware of. It will not allow you to find the ones that address your latent needs.

What do you think about this approach? Have you dealt with problems that you think could be solved? Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.