Viewing Category: Making Stuff
Last week, though, I got price quotes for the commercial printing of the Emergent Task Planner, so we're one step closer to actually realizing an actual product!
The quick synopsis: The Emergent Task Planner is a daily planning form that uses some simple premises to add productive structure to the day:
- Focuses on tracking just a few tasks a day.
- Provides a scheduling grid to block out time, to give shape to the day.
- Provides space to note all that stuff that "just happens" throughout the day.
While there are free versions you can download (and these aren't going anywhere in the foreseeable future), this special printed version is my first foray into making and shipping a real product. I'm thinking it will be a good education in basic commerce, and with luck I'll be able to use the proceeds to fund development of the software products (electronic time tracking tools) by actually hiring freelancers. The experience will also give me something to write about on the blog. :-)
STATE OF THE FORM
Here's the current design of the Emergent Task Planner that we're considering taking to print, which incorporates the feedback from previous posts.
Here's the current specifications:
- US Letter (8.5" x 11") on a pad, no backing (for cost), glued on the top for "tear off style". I actually have already designed an A4 version, so it's ready to go once we figure out international fulfillment.
- No pre-punched holes, but there is space on the left of the form to allow for hole punching.
- Heavy Paper: I have to review paper samples, but we are looking to use durable paper stock that will hold up over the day while not being too thick. I think right now we're looking at a stack of 75 sheets being about half an inch.
- 75 Sheets per Pad: This seems like a decent number, and allows us to ship a pack of 5 pads to cover a year.
- 4 color printing: I am pushing for custom inks, but this adds to setup cost. With custom inks we'll get better tonal quality that I suppose people may not notice. It would be cheaper to go with 4-color process, but I'll have to see the proofs and maybe adjust my colors for optimum screening (and hence tone) reproduction.
There are various tweaks we can make to the form---for example, whether to retain the year marker in the corner, or perhaps create "shells" and then run dates as a separate pass---but I think this is pretty close to what we'll have. We will adjust the product line as demand dictates, assuming we don't lose our shirts first :-)
COST
Our initial cost calculations put each 75-sheet pad US$12.00 This works out to about 16 cents a sheet, which is a few cents more for ink and consumables cost for printing at home on an inexpensive color printer. For the extra cents, you'll get thicker paper, full waterproof color ink in convenient "glue-top" pads. To cover the remainder of the year, you'll need about 3 pads, which works out to US$36.00. Shipping will be extra, but a friendly reader told me that because we're printing bound material, we can qualify for media mailing rates. I need to look into it further.
PULLING THE TRIGGER
I really have no idea if this will work or not, but even if we don't sell enough pads to make this an actual product, the educational experience alone will be totally worth it. Of course, I hope this takes off, because this means that I may be able to spend more time designing real productivity products you can hold in your hand!
But first...we need to get a 100 pad minimum order before we can go to press. I'm not sure how long it will take to get there, so please be patient. You can monitor the progress in the comment section here and count along with me :-)
PRE-ORDERING
To keep our risks low, I'm going to actually do a pre-order here so we can estimate the number of pads we will print. This will allow us to determine whether we have enough orders to make offset printing cost effective, ensure that we have a sufficient margin to save some money for a next round of product development. To make it worthwhile, we need to print at least 7500 sheets---that's 100 pads of 75.
Rather than spend a lot of time learning to set up an e-commerce site, I'm going to take names via comments below here. Signing up now doesn't obligate you to purchase anything; however, you will be contacted by me when we have final pricing available.
We'll be using this data to estimate demand. Once we have enough orders for 100 pads, we'll push through to the next phase. Your email address will not be sold or used for any purpose other than this specific order.
PLEASE PROVIDE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IN YOUR COMMENT
- Valid email address - you will get a confirmation email from me to confirm that I've gotten your order. You should see a text field where you can enter your email address; don't put it in the actual comment.
- Number of pads to order - each pad has 75 sheets, estimated cost is about US$12 per pad. If you want to last to the end of the year, that's 3 pads with some extras.
- Country / State - don't use your full mailing address in your comment (this is the Internet, after all).
Feel free to add any other thoughts or topics of discussion; I'll take them under advisement. While I'd like to accommodate everyone's personal desires, this kind of personalization is expensive so I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible.
If you prefer to send private email, use the Email Contact Form instead.
I have, lately, been feeling constrained by the existing structure of this web site, which has been bothering me for a long time. The main problem is the lack of navigation; it's basically one giant scrolling chain of articles, with some slapped-on navigation at the bottom of the page. The user experience is quite awful for the casual visitor.
Despite knowing all this, and having an idea of what I need to do to fix it, I've been kind of stuck on it, because the number of options I have in making changes is incredibly broad. I'm thinking of splitting the site into multiple blogs, one each for Productivity, Design, Personal, and Making. Also, a general article area will become the new repository for content like The Printable CEO, so there's always ONE updated location for every tool. To enable all these changes, I'm going to use the Expression Engine content management system; the main reason is that the integration with the forum and wiki modules with multiple blogs will make it easier to start deploying software products that need user authentication. However, this new arrangement will require me to handle all the old incoming links (pointing to the old blog) so they're pointed at the new one or ones.
As a result, I have not been feeling like blogging. The ideas are still here, but the thought of putting them into the existing blog structure makes me feel a bit ill. I am actually forcing myself to finish this post, because I think I need to write it.
Breaking Free
Normally, when I'm in this situation, I redefine the rules such that victory is achievable through some other means. For example, I am thinking that the new structure will be a big pain in the butt to create (recall that I don't particularly enjoy working with CSS). It probably isn't, if I define a smaller subset of features that absolutely need to come over.
Another approach I've taken is to whittle away at the problem by doing a Q & A with myself. Right now, I am not sure how to move everything from WordPress to Expression Engine...I just know it's going to be a pain in the butt. If I ask myself a single question at a time and write down the answer, I can maintain the focus and eventually get to the point where I run out of questions.
Yet a third approach is to apply time blocking and just work on the site for an hour at a time, just fixing whatever I see here and there. This is not a particularly focused way of working, but sometimes that's the mood I'm in. I figure anything is better than nothing.
There comes a time, however, where you just got to make the big push. The last major thing I need to find out is how to create multiple forum installations and to transfer existing users to the new structure. Sigh.
Next Steps
The main problem, I think, is that I'm feeling the weight of the existing content and registered users, and I have to figure out a way of making sure everything merges neatly together. While I think this is a necessary step, I'm not particularly excited about implementing it. Having written that, though, I think I'm probably overestimating the difficulty involved.
Anyway, perhaps this weekend I'll make some progress on this. The website may be acting a little flakier than usual over the next week.
Over the past year I've gotten a lot of amazing insights and forms from other people, and I keep telling them I'll post them on this site to share with all. However, I've been very bad about actually following through with it because I tend to write new posts when I have the energy to work on the blog.
Since I'm busy this week, I thought I'd try a social experiment in community idea sharing by opening up the PCEO Wiki to, well, anything, so I'm no longer the bottleneck.
I know there's the potential for abuse, but heck, I'm curious to see what happens.
If anyone would like to share their work, please feel free to post it. I'll have to figure out a secure way of providing file upload space...if anyone has suggestions, let me know.
> PCEO Wiki
I hadn't originally planned on making these additional tweaks, but all the excellent feedback had me revisiting the time boxing to take different schedules into account.
The original restriction behind timeboxes is from an older form, Menu of the Day. It was specifically designed to force myself to plan in boxes of time so I could maintain a "regular" schedule. This concept of boxes is also key in The Resource Tracker/Scheduler: once you can chunk tasks into standard sizes, it's easier to "pack" days looking forward without screwing yourself.
Although this past timebox work was the foundation of the ETP, I've slowly come to realize that it is a separate product. This comment from Jason Langenauer is the one that broke the mental logjam (emphasis mine):
[...] Also, as I start at 7am, the lunch “breaks” in the day planner don’t align to any real break in my day - I just mark in a half-hour block when I take my lunch. I’d say almost certainly remove them, as people’s lunch times and lengths will vary, but I think they also provide a useful visual cue to find yourself in the day. Without them, it’d be difficult to immediately go to a certain time.
DESIGN ADJUSTMENTS
What I liked about Jason's comment was the insight that yes, people's breaks tend to vary (a point made by many others), but the additional insight was that the timebox design makes it easy to see where in the day you were. This was not something I had considered specifically in the original design, but it came along for free because lunch and dinner create temporal landmarks in the day, creating natural boundaries between "morning work" and "afternoon work".
Taking these two observations into account, I've made the following adjustments:
Single customizable AB strip. You can use the C, D, and E bubbles for those shorter tasks as before, but for longer tasks use the AB strip. Not only does this give us a bit more writing space, but it finally frees the ETP from the tyranny of starting tasks at a certain time. That was my original intent, but for a general-purpose planner sheet it's more appropriate to lift that restriction. For more structured environments (9-5 workplaces, schools), I can develop different forms.
Changed terminology for breaks: Several people pointed out that they take breaks at different times. Keeping Jason's comment in mind, I left the "break" times colored orange, but marked them as midday and evening instead. Now they're markers, not commands to eat or take a break. The implication is that you're probably going to eat during those times, but now it's up to you when you want to do it, and for how long.
CURRENT PROGRESS
I have yet to call printers and fulfillment houses, and I'm behind on several other personal goals from my Groundhog Day Resolutions. However, as this project is one of those goals, I don't feel I'm doing too bad because progress is being made.
I've also gotten some interesting contacts from a couple manufacturers of notebooks and pre-printed "Post-It" pads.
A company called Myndology contacted me to let me know that they license the Atoma Binding System from Belgium, which is apparently the original licensor for Circa and Rollabind notebooks! Myndology also make some really cool flashcard products held together with rings...drool! They are sending me some samples in the mail, so more reports as events warrant. It would be awesome to have a Atoma-based planner system :-)
A promotions company called Adlib Advertising showed me their printing on "Post-It" pads. There's some interesting things like this executive set, which might be interesting for some kind of single-task based system, but I'm going to have to think about it. I could see this being useful for another kind of scheduler-based system. In the meantime, I'm just mulling over the possibilities.
BUSY BUSY
The next ten days will be very busy for me as I close out several billable projects, so I'll not be posting very much until after Memorial Day (May 29th).
Have a great week!
While I knew that creating my own product was well within my grasp, I'm finding that walking the path is a lot different than just dreaming about it. I think the reason is this: when you're on the path, you can actually see what's coming at you. When you're not on the path, the opportunities and pitfalls that you imagine are really just abstractions or undefined fears. Getting on the path---and that really means doing something and being accountable for the results---is much more interesting.
I got my first real taste of this while going through all the great comments from yesterday's post. I've worked on projects before that have been seen by lots of people, but generally the work has been in areas where I was already technically competent. Creating my own product is a bit different, and it's rather exhilarating to be a noob again. The reason it's exciting rather than merely terrifying is because I've learned to embrace newness as something that's unlikely to actually kill me, so why not? Also, yesterday I got a fortune cookie that said this: When you understand, you are not learning. Wow!
But I digress...I'm pretty jazzed about the adjustments I've made to my developing product strategy. Read onward!
DESIGN ADJUSTMENTS
I was surprised that there are people using the form for billing and general time tracking. I'd originally designed the ETP to help me develop a better sense of available time and to provide daily focus. It's funny that of all the forms I've designed, I originally thought this one was the least useful to a general audience. Live and learn! I've made the following changes to address some of the comments raised yesterday:
Reinstating the hour summary. Time trackers, rejoice! I was particularly intrigued by Robert France's use of the hour summary to indicate which tasks were billable.
Added a memo area. There used to be a week num / day of week indicator that I never used myself, so I took it out in the first draft. I've put the whitespace back in, and have left it blank so people can write whatever they want in it.
Flipped timebox for people who don't like timeboxes. One of the major things I'm trying to do with this form is to encourage pacing of the day, because I suspect this is important for overall energy management. Johannes made the comment that he doesn't work in "4 hour shifts", and would like to see a form that just had regularly-spaced blocks.
It might be interesting to create a general version like this without the breaks, but that gets away from the estimating/tracking/blocking idea. It becomes a more generic form. Maybe a better-selling form, for all I know. For now, I horizontally flipped the timeboxes so A is on the LEFT and E is on the RIGHT. This will put the 30-minute blocks right next to the note area, so those larger timeboxes don't get in the way visually and can be ignored. It actually looks a little better to me.
Many bugfixes to the layout. There was a missing dot from the timebox grid, which was the one I used to create the new dot grid area. I've made several adjustments in spacing, and have reworded phrases to maintain that "concise-but-encouraging" attitude. On the latter: I had originally made the language more neutral, but then I realized that this was giving in to safe thinking. Forget that! BE BOLD OR GO HOME! :-)
Conversion to Spot Color. I'm now using 4 spot colors with tints, in anticipation of going to offset press. Using spot color in printing will give me sharper text and purer color over CMYK process color. There's another advantage too: It's now very easy to change the base colors, so if I want a blue sheet, I change one master definition and the tints will change.
I had also wanted to do a little custom color mixing (sort of like doing a duotone or tritone in Photoshop), but I guess you can't do this with Illustrator alone.
The new sheet is on the left, and the old sheet is to the right.
BINDING
Based on comments, I'm leaning toward:
tearoff at the top, using that gummy-style binding.
No pre-drilled holes to accommodate the multiple binding systems I saw mentioned: North American 3-hole binder, Circa/Rollabind/Atoma, spiral binding (cool!) and "no binding". There are other binding systems in use, but I don't want to have to worry about all of them.
ALTERNATIVE FORM FACTORS
There were lots of interesting ideas mentioned:
- 5x7 pads (this is the small size planner, I think)
- Little notebooks like moleskines you can carry around
- Weekly Planning / Other sheets
- Alternative Colors
These have been filed for later contemplation! I've already got my hands full with this! :-) It would be fun to make all of those things.
MARKETS
This is very preliminary thinking, but I thought I'd share anyway. I think there are at least three types of people who find this product interesting:
The DIY Productivity Enthusiast -- This person likes the forms, doesn't mind printing them out and integrating them into his/her own custom solution. They would buy if the product is (1) comparable to cost of self-printing and/or (2) of higher "aesthetic value" compared to self-printing and/or (3) saves time.
The Consumer of Productivity Products -- This person is just looking for something that will work with their existing planning needs. They don't particularly feel the need to build something themselves if it will work right off the shelf, but will try it if it looks like it'll do the job well. Or if it looks cool.
The Productivity System Buyer -- This person is looking for a comprehensive approach to task and time management to bring organization to his/her life. They're willing to invest the time into a system (i.e. read a book) if it looks like it really is addressing their needs. I'm thinking this is the audience that buys planner systems like those from FC.
I'd like to meet all three audiences, but I don't want to overextend myself. I'm targeting the first two with a simple product, and will just see where that goes. The last product will need an actual system and perhaps a book to explain it; I just have components of the system now, and really we're all still testing it.
PRICING
To work out a starting point for printing, I started with the following average costs-per-page, culled from some online searches:
- inkjet: averages around 8-12 cents per page.
- monochrome laser printer: about 2 cents per page.
- color laser printer: about 6 cents per page.
If I were competing on cost alone, that suggests that a pack of 100 color sheets should be priced between $8 and $12 dollars. Now I need to look at other products on the market:
- Day-Timer Graph Paper -- 48 sheets, list $4.99
- FC Day Planner Refills -- 2 pages per day, one year (about 365 pages), list $39 to $45 bucks. This is the half-size, too.
I will need to visit an office supply store and look more closely at the range of products, but this is telling me that people might expect to pay around 10 cents a page and not feel like they're getting totally ripped off. For extra-fancy content, I could probably charge a few cents more per page. If I put together some kind of system, then there's opportunity to create a neat package down the line. I could probably charge 20 cents a page with a sufficiently cool package, or if there was some kind of nifty pack-in tool (again, this gets toward systems).
For now, I'm going to use 10 cents / page as a working estimate, and compare printing costs to that.
FULFILLMENT
Rather than include shipping in the cost, I'm going to break it out separately. In the future, I'll use a fulfillment center of some kind, so I don't have to worry about shipping things out of my house. Initially, I may do fulfillment myself just to see what kind of things happen, and learn more about the way the Post Office works (I love visiting the post office :-)
A big question is handling european orders. The complexity of handling overseas orders could quickly eat up any profit to be gained from the order. If any european readers have had exceptionally good results ordering paper goods from small US companies, I'd like to know what companies they are.
I also liked the idea of getting a single person to receive a larger shipment, and let them handle distribution. Perhaps I can order online printing from an international printer and let them handle shipping. I really don't know, but I know there are places to find out. For now, I'm going to focus on the US.
This also brings to mind the possibility of internationalization for different languages. More food for thought!
NEXT STEPS
I've been talking with my buddy Scott, who's local and very knowledgeable about pricing and printing. He was telling me about some of the custom Print On Demand services that might make it cost-effective to do mass customized forms and fulfillment, which is a very interesting idea. Very exciting!
Also, before I actually sell anything, I need to create a separate business entity. Gotta protect myself here, and it's a good opportunity to learn how to create a focused business with its own books.
That's all for now!
