Today marks the beginning of Roli Polies. Roli Poli Wheelies will offer people faster, lighter, short range transportation. I've been contemplating this idea for about two years and I've finally decided that it was time to take action and execute the idea. I registered the domain here: www.rolipolies.com. I will finish the concept development by Christmas time and begin customer validation, however, I plan to develop the technology regardless of what happens. While I know this goes against the lean startup mentality, I believe the learning experience will be more valuable than making money.
This is what you get if you visit rolipolies.com as of 12/6/12:
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I used a website called launchrock.com to create my "launching soon" page. Their site is very simple to use and while it can be a little bit glitchy, I definitely recommend it because it allows you to create a page very quickly. Along those lines, I used namecheap.com to register the domain name for the website. With the little time that I've been using them, I already like it more than the wix registry I used to create saulopez.com.
Speaking of which, Dharmesh Shah came to speak to our class - Founder's Journey, or Entrepreneurship in Engineering - and he gave us tips on inbound marketing and SEO techniques. I have applied those to optimize my personal portfolio, saulopez.com. While I do like my current one, it doesn't transition well from web to mobile (due to iOS and flash problems) and I've had to create a separate mobile bounce page of the site here: m.saulopez.com.
My friend Cody - of peregr.in - and I will be working on our startups this IAP (4-week Independent Activities Period during the winter at MIT). As part of my incubation period for my startup, I will be learning web design to develop rolipolies.com and my new portfolio. I am intrigued by web design because it emphasizes elegant design and user experience. During IAP, I will be developing a prototype for my startup, learning ruby on rails, working on my research - http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects/luminar - with the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab, and on the final week, I will go to China for the Service Leadership Program (SLP) to teach engineering design to high school students. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm excited for the road ahead.
