Report for January, 2010.
Kris
===================
Members and advisors,
I'll be combining the the monthly financials, roundup, and points
allocation posts into a single monthly report from now on.
Financials
-------------
Screen shot of our bank statement:
http://fireworks-project.googlegroups.com/web/bankstmt_1001.png
Our financials spread sheet (balance statement) can be found at
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqaYslezw-VQdHpNX2pCVGprbUthOHkxNXFONVQ4dVE&hl=en
There are a couple of changes to note.
1) We spent $550 on trademark filings and $26 for our SEC filing in
December/January.
2) I had previously been reporting our shareholder's equity as $0
which meant that our "goodwill" value for the company was $1,276. I
think this is misleading, since we don't have any customers yet. So,
to make the balance sheet balance, our shareholder's equity now sits
at -$1,626. You're not seeing things, that is a negative number, but
a more accurate number.
Work In Progress
----------------------
* Our 2009 fiscal year tax return filing will be done by Feb 28, 2010.
* The second draft of our business plan/member pitch will be done
sometime in Feb.
* Our operating agreement needs to be updated with our newly passed
amendment. (in 3 locations)
* Currently our entire technology stack (and our entire code base)
exists completely in my head. This is dangerous, because it means the
company cannot exist without me, and if anything needs to be fixed or
updated, I need to be the one to do it. Thus, we need to get some
programmers on board with The Fireworks Project. I had limited success
doing this using an online only approach, and the next logical step is
to get out where the rubber meets the road and talk with real
programmers face to face.
* The Crown Construction pilot program awaits a production ready
implementation of DCube and some GUI additions to KIxx before we will
start invoicing them.
* Our collaboration software project is still on the back burner.
Currently our priorities are to get a production version of DCube and
Kixx up and running before we start work on this project again. We
are also evaluating Basecamp and Wave for possible ideas.
* Our creation story, which will become the cornerstone of our brand
both internally and externally, is still in it's early draft form,
taking a back seat to other priorities at the moment.
Completed Work
----------------------
* I've taken the DCube implementation on Google App Engine through
iterations 1-4. Iteration 5, due Feb 5th, should bring the project
into a state of "minimum viable product" for our own use internally,
at least. You can check it out on the repository page
http://github.com/kixxauth/dcube_google-appengine
* Our members passed an amendment to our Operating Agreement that
limits the number of points that any member can give to another in a 1
month period.
http://groups.google.com/group/fireworks-project/browse_thread/thread/d6e8ef92fbe5e71f/481786436f53dbd5#481786436f53dbd5
* I did some architecture design work on Kixx to figure out the last
piece of the puzzle that is going to bring it to a "minimum viable
product", at least for our own internal use. In order to build
toolpacks that can not only communicate with each other, but also
communicate to the outside world (other websites and APIs), we needed
a secure message passing system to extend the capabilities of the
browser. I outlined how it would work in a blog post (http://
fireworksfactory.blogspot.com/2010/01/extending-chrome-and-firefox-
privileges.html) and built a prototype implementation for Chrome and
Firefox (http://github.com/kixxauth/secure_message_passing).
* I also wrote up a first draft of a business plan with review and
input by Mike. (http://fireworksfactory.basecamphq.com/projects/
3775079/milestones/12768266/comments) You can find it in parts:
1. http://groups.google.com/group/fireworks-project/web/member-introduction
2. http://groups.google.com/group/fireworks-project/web/revenue-plan
3. http://groups.google.com/group/fireworks-project/web/strategy-to-define-the-future
Mike's summary outline: https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AW5e4ajruBoCZGhjYjIzZjRfNjNoc3hqOW1ncg&hl=en
* I filed our Securities and Exchange Commission annual report with
the State of Vermont. Not only are we a Limited Liability
Corporation, but we have elected class "C" tax status, which means it
is going to be important to stay on top of our SEC filings.
* I also did some research on our accounting practices and tax
filing. We have elected to be treated as a class "C" corp, and our
tax returns are due on March 15th.
* Also, back in the first part of February I took our website Content
Management System through another iteration
http://fireworksfactory.basecamphq.com/projects/3775079/milestones/12696678/comments#54021845
* I experimented with a little online recruiting of programmers during
January. Unfortunately the current state of our code base is still
very hard for most programmers to understand. It is in various stages
of incompletion and there is no one concrete thing to say "Here, this
is how it works and this is how it will be used, and this is how we
will make money with it." Several programmers are excited about the
project, but are having difficulty getting involved.
* I wrote up a detailed technical description of Kixx to try to help
potential programmers understand the purpose of the project and how it
works.
* http://www.fireworksproject.com/projects/kixx
Points Allocation
----------------------
Lastly, Mike, Martin, and myself are eligible to vote points for Jan
2010 and should do so by posting to this discussion thread.
-- Kris
http://www.kixx.name/
http://fireworksfactory.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/kixxauth
http://github.com/kixxauth
Kris
---------------------
700 pts for writing up an outline of our business objectives.
700 pts for detailed ideas and input into our business plan.
600 pts for value added.
Total: 2000 pts
To Martin Hipp:
--------------------
100 pts for value added. (Martin has not been active in two months.)
Total: 100 pts
Michael O'Hara
2000 pts for value added and anything else I missed
Kris
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqaYslezw-VQdE02Vi1OWnkzUmVxOV82OGJCeU44THc&hl=en