17 - UI

I spent the night prepping the UI elements for Filippo. UI means 'user interface' which means the graphics.

Wanna see them? Okay!

Here's a bit of background texture:

What is that? Like expensive cartridge paper or something? A white treated leather? Nah it's pixels!

This is the nav bar on a transparent background (that's what the check represents, it's not part of the design):

Not sure if the nav bar can be transparent yet. I asked Filippo but he never replied.

Look at that one.

Have a bunch of these:

Wanna see my favourite though? Wanna see the magic? Look at this:

That is the transparent overlay that will turn any picture into a Story icon... Wanna see it in action? Okay, give me any random picture...

[Here you go Simon!]

Is that Ashton Kutcher? He'll do! Watch this:

And then the title would be overlaid:

Bam.

16 - Anger II

Filippo sends me and Paul a message like, "Sorry guys to stress about this, but do you have any news on the company?"

That's it. I whip open the last email from Lawyer Chris and get the phone number from it. I tap it into my phone, stand up from my desk and storm somewhere quiet where my boss can't hear me setting up a company. Their switchboard answers and asks me who it is I am wanting. I hang up, jog back to my desk, read the fucking name on the email and walk fast back again while redialing.

"And whom may I ask is calling?"
"Simon."
"And which company are you with?"
"... Team Story."

I'd never said 'Team Story' out loud before. Weird. It sounded weird. I wondered if she thought it sounded gay.

"Okay, I'll put you through."

"Hello?" Posh female voice.
"Hi, Elizabeth?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, it's Simon from... Team Story. How's it all coming along? We're all getting a bit restless."
"Well, we're just waiting on some final details that you didn't fill in on the form."

This annoyed me. So we skipped something out on the form. Like, yeah, that's our fault. But what, they were just never going to tell us? Just never set the company up ever? Never get back to us? Isn't it their job to get back to us and sort it out?

So we have some questions to answer and after that Team Story is officially a thing.

Like what the?

15 - Anger

Me and Paul are angry.

Paul's been angry for a few days and I was like all chilled about it but today I'm feeling it. So now we're both angry.

Not at each other. We're angry because Filippo the coder can't do any more work until our company (Team Story) has been registered so he can send us a contract. So we're waiting on Lawyer Chris to sort the contract out. Which he's done but now we're waiting for it to be processed.

A couple of days of nothing happening I can deal with (Paul can't), but a couple of weeks and the anger descends.

Getting this thing going is like trying to get a... a plane to take off. The captain is in his seat, the engines are warmed up and ready, the luggage is loaded and everyone's boarded. Everyone except some gap year student, so you're announcing him, Chad, to get on board like, get on the fucking plane Chad, we're ready to fly, everyone's waiting for you Chad, and like, I dunno, he's stoned or something slapping his beaded wrist against an accoustic guitar on a beach not even checked in at the airport.

And I wish we could leave without Chad but we asked Filippo and there might be VAT issues that we need to follow up if we go ahead without a contract.

14 - Friends or followers?

Haven't heard from Filippo for a few days. Hope he's head-down and coding.

So, friends or followers? This is currently a biggie for me and Paul.

You friend someone, they accept, and you can see each others stuff. That's facebook; you have a two way relationship.

You follow someone, and you see their stuff but they don't see yours unless they follow you back. That's twitter; it allows for a one-way relationship.

The advantage of 'following' is that Ashton Kutcher can have his stuff seen by 10 million people and not deal with having 10 million friends. Seeing 10 million people's shit. That's good. That's what we want for Story.

But, we also want Story to be built on a real foundation of friendships. We want people to be friends with their real friends. Not just following a bunch of anonymous people.

We want the best of both worlds. If it could use both the friend and follow model it would be perfect. But it would have to be real simple. Like, not-needing-to-explain-how-it-works kinda simple. No one else has done that yet. No one's figured it out.

We think we have. I need to work it out a bit more. Draw a diagram.

This guy, Alex King, wrote something about it but didn't actually draw any conclusions. Good one!

Filippo better be coding.

13 - In the club

[10:08:38] Paul: You've founded a company?
[10:19:08] Mahir: Yeah. Its for a FourSquare game
[10:19:12] Mahir: based on ███████████
[10:20:00] Mahir: http://██████████.com/
[10:20:41] Paul: interesting
[10:21:13] Mahir: the app is still under development
[10:21:18] Mahir: so i don't have anything to show u
[10:21:22] Mahir: iOS and Android
[10:21:27] Mahir: and web
[10:22:26] Paul: wow cool. I currently shhhhh have this shhhhhh in development shhhhhhhh! www.becomeastory.com 
[10:22:34] Paul: This is just the concept video but yeah will be alive in a month or so
[10:22:43] Mahir: nice
[10:22:51] Mahir: looks good
[10:23:18] *** Mahir sent app_ListView.jpg ***
[10:23:26] Mahir: sneek peek...
[10:24:08] Paul: nice UI.
[10:24:14] Mahir: exactly
[10:24:20] Mahir: thats just a concept
[10:24:24] Mahir: still working on designs
[10:24:53] Paul: How many founders?
[10:24:58] Mahir: 5
[10:25:06] Paul: funding?
[10:25:08] Mahir: web, server, ios, android and designer
[10:25:17] Mahir: we have secured a first investor
[10:25:27] Paul: cool
[10:25:40] Paul: angel fund or individual?
[10:27:08] Mahir: individual, but hoping to get more investors on board once we have a working prototype
[10:27:55] Paul: yeah so we are getting Story built to prove the concept then we'll do a 2nd round of serious funding
[10:28:16] Mahir: let me know if you are looking for investment
[10:28:29] Mahir: i know someone who has good contacts and can get the ball rolling
[10:28:35] Paul: Cool will do thanks. We have a guy on board now but yeah
[10:29:19] Mahir: cool
[10:29:47] Mahir: when is the story app coming out?
[10:30:18] Paul: will be done in a month i think. Stick your email address in on the site and you'll get an email
[10:30:32] Mahir: yep will do
[10:31:07] Paul: hmmm our site is a bit shit. Should sort that out :)
[10:31:47] Mahir: its pretty good for a product that hasn't launched yet
[10:31:50] Mahir: best to start basic
[10:42:54] Mahir: how many founders do you have?
[10:44:11] Paul: me and my designer friend. We took our mentor/investor on as a 3rd founder. He has decent contacts. 
[10:44:23] Mahir: cool
[10:44:42] Mahir: that's exactly how our investor is. mentor + money = win!
[10:46:24] Paul: I *think* our guy sits on a couple of boards of investors or some shit which could be handy. He knows Eric too which is less handy (worry)
[10:46:37] Mahir: haha
[10:46:48] Mahir: my investor knows eric too
[10:47:03] Mahir: coincidence?

12 - Marketing

World changing idea: check
Amazingly simple branding that reflects purity of idea: check
Developer developing the thing: check
Money to pay developer: check

But this is all still meaningless. It's still only an idea, just with more people and money involved. The only way this thing will work is if everyone digs it. It's no good getting a few thousand users. We need a million. Ten million. It's a do or die idea. There aren't any half measures.

Me and Paul meet in a pub to chat about marketing.

In four or five weeks we're gonna have the first version of Story live on the App Store. Our plan is to get a hundred-ish people using, get feed back (sign up here if you want to), then polish it before submitting a new version and then go hard telling everyone.

I know a few journalists so I should be able to kick up a noise. Although, the last time I mentioned it to a guy I know (editor of a prominent tech mag) he ignored my request for help in exchange for an exclusive cover story. I was wasted and wouldn't tell him the idea. Probably that.

Currently, I'm designing the images in Photoshop to give to Filippo to use in the app. I'm also mocking up a new version of becomeastory.com that'll focus on people signing up to get the first version of the app. Here's a real rough mock up I did. Real rough, okay. Just a kinda hey, Paul this is kinda what I mean, it's real rough but kinda this.

11 - Naming the company

Paul's wife, who also works for a law firm, raised her eyebrows in a good way when Paul said which firm Lawyer Chris works for. Paul liked that, that it impressed his wife.

Lawyer Chris is setting up our company and writing up a contract that splits its equity three ways. Jamie, the money guy, put us in touch with him. The guy's doing it for free too. Well, not free, a 'referral fee', so we pay when we get some real money with the intent to continue using his firm.

We want the company name to be 'Story', same as the app. Obviously Story isn't available. Next on the list is Story Board, but neither is that. So me and Paul fired some names at each other.

Me:

• Story App - Having 'app' in the name makes Paul cringe.
• Story Boys - A gay musical.
• We Are Story - We are Shoreditch.
• Story Store - It's the name of an old skate shop some friends ran which made me think of 'story' in the first place. It doesn't really fit for us though.
• Back Story - Kinda makes sense.

Paul replies while ignoring all my suggestions:

• story box
• short story
• long story
• story tank

I fling some more over and re-ignore Paul's suggestions:

• Good Story
• Team Story
• Story Team
• Story Castle
• Story Mob

Paul says he doesn't care. I phone up my friend Glenn who has no idea what an app is let alone that we're making one, "App? What? The Neverending Story?"

We settle with Team Story. Paul says we can change the name for £20 anyway.