Flvrd, a project I’ve been working with @koekoecrunch for the last four months has finally launched on May 18, 2011, about a week ago. You can read the launch announcement here. Have been fixing bugs and pushing updates for the past week, so a little delay here. Anyway…

Some History

Before Flvrd, I’ve been poking around with two projects — a casual Facebook game (codename Traveloot) and a location-based looting/scavenging mobile game (codename Lootpop). I abandoned Traveloot because at that time, the Facebook apps platform is very buggy. So I pivoted the concept (of looting “virtual” items) to Lootpop. While working on Lootpop I learned a decent amount of Objective-C and iOS programming but what makes me abandon this project is because it’s a little too much to take for a person who is learning new stuff. My takeaway here is, if you are learning new stuff (programming languages), work on something that is simple and interest you, period.

Back to Flvrd

So, I had this idea… jump straight in and start coding (Why? See my bottom line). The idea of Flvrd has been “refreshed” and simplified several times during the development period. The original concept was about expressing comments without the need of words. You use “flavors” to express your thoughts (what I try to solve is to reduce comments that are rubbish and spam). So, long story short, Flvrd is now what it is — flavoring pictures or videos with flavors using flavicons. Simple yet fun.

What I’ve Learned

After four months of hacking and hustling…

• Learned Django (and Python) and some Javascript + JQuery.
• Level up my CSS.
• Learned and relearn sysadmin stuff (setting up servers, config, etc)
• Launched a real project/product to the World.
• Starting a web startup is NOT easy BUT cheap (and I’ve nothing to lose, just my time)

Bottom Line…

So entrepreneur wannabe, if you have an idea, just do it and start hacking! Stop worrying whether your is good or bad, whether there is a market for it or whether the world will use it or not. You can spend time all you want finding the perfect market, writing a 100+ pages of business plan or validating your idea so it could be the next Google or Facebook. BUT, the only thing that matter is your product or prototype. Why? Because you are nobody and just a wannabe. People don’t give a damn about your idea or your sugar coated, well crafted business plan unless you are somebody. Really… seriously. So, don’t waste time worrying, spend time working on it. Need more motivation? Read this.

BTW, you… get flvrd now.