Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

~Can The World Hear Me

First I’d just like to welcome all the new readers from our last post. We got some huge spikes in traffic and I hope you all stick around. We re-thought the idea and realized that without further implications, it will remain what it is, an idea. At least for now…

On brighter news, a nice guy named Brian from plainbeta is offering a to design a free custom wordpress theme for any blog to further develop his web design skills and develop his portfolio.

So I thought I would give it a shot in his contest. In all honesty, Josh expertises in the realm of software programming rather than web design but this could provide nice experience for him as well.

So we are searching for that elegant web 2.0 style of course and already got a logo going on. So onto his questions!

Why should I pick your blog?

Simply put, our blog’s message and name is “Can The World Hear Me”, and that is what we want, the world to know who we are. So we definitely need a special theme that stands out from the rest and is nice to look at. We are only 16 so some people might not take us seriously but we definitely want that ‘professional touch’ so that people do. Our blog currently deals with our search for a startup idea that can go head-to-head with whatever is going on in Silicon Valley right now despite the fact that we are only 16. We are looking into adding other sections for “ideas” and such that add the extra flare in a otherwise normal looking blog. By picking our blog, you are helping us achieve that dream.

What do you want the design to look like?

We have some ideas going around, mostly just a conglomeration of other designs we have seen. We have been having trouble finding a color scheme that we like too so we hope we can work together with you to develop a nice working theme.

So what’s so special about it?

I’m not too sure but I am almost certain that we are two of a few teens with a dream as big as this. What happened was that we were just two friends going through the tribulations of high school with just dreams and nothing special. We finally wanted to stand out and take action and that is where this blog comes from. Objective #1 was to get noticed in the “blogosphere” and we are well on our way and a new fresh design would be awesome as well.

So with that we hope this was a good sell Brian. Hope to get in contact with you soon.

~Kevin X

I couldn’t sleep last night. I had my first major breakthrough for an idea. Normally I would be keeping this idea a secret but I have a reason to share.

The idea was for lolcat t-shirts.

I bet the idea has been thrown around but no particular “store” has been made to specifically sell shirts with a lolcat on it. My idea was specifically for customers to upload the lolcat they want on the t-shirt. Of course there will also be pre-made ones for the most popular lolcats.

Imagine a t-shirt of a lolcat wearing a t-shirt of a lolcat wearing a t-shirt… yeah you get it. Add a funny caption as well.

I came up with domain names, hosting options, website layouts, models, profit numbers, time management problems, money issues, “lolcat gramur”, beta’s, trails, competition, partnerships, marketing, t-shirt making techniques, and finally legal issues. . .

icanhascheezburger currently has the monopoly over lolcats and believe it or not, they have a store. But the items they sell are ICHC-related products which have little to no relation to what I am aiming at. So technically I still can proceed with this. . .

But while looking over the terms of use, I came upon this:

Any use of the Website or its Content or services that Pet Holdings finds, in its sole discretion, to use its resources or User Submissions with the effect of competing with or displacing the market for the Website, its Content, or its User Submissions.

Being only 16, I do not have much legal knowledge (I even tried asking a lawyer teacher at my school) about copyrights and permissions, etc. But what I do know is if this idea did come about, many customers will probably take pictures from icanhascheezburger (maybe even crop out the little trademark out) and this can lead to all sorts of issues and CEO Ben Huh and Pet Holdings, Inc will not be very happy.

There is also the thing with making t-shirts during our busy school-weeks. There is that part of me that would not risk going to college for a t-shirt company.

And I’m not sure our parents would be too keen on investing money for t-shirt screening materials. This website seems to be quite helpful in that factor but we could also find potential partner-ups in the local area. Then this all comes back to money again.

So we definitely need help if anything is to happen. This might be newbish bit its worth a try. I declare this post an informal open letter to Ben Huh and anyone else that might be able to help us. I call for a partnership or some formal deal. Digg this post, email us, leave a comment, any support is appreciated. Somehow get this word to the right people.

A large part of me believes nothing will come out of this but that sentimental child inside of me can still hope.

~Kevin X

Some people think Facebook is on the rise and will continue rising. Other’s think it has reached the top of the hockey stick and has leveled off and will eventually fall. So is it technically too late to hop on the ‘bandwagon’?

Josh and I brainstormed about creating an app previously but not much thought was put into it. Success would lie in its addictiveness and the profit would probably come from ads. But recent research shows that some of the top apps are valued at over $100s of thousands of dollars! Who knew an app could be worth so much!

I remember when the apps were first launched. I took one look at iLike, the top app at the time with 1000 users, and thought “wow this is a major failure”. But look at iLike now, over 12 million installs and half a million active users!

The genius behind this is that these are all user-made. That top app might be made by a real hardcore business company or by the neighborhood tech geek (I mean that in a good way).  Recently I have stumbled upon ThePlaz, another high school Junior like me, who created GridView which is valuated to be worth more than $200,000! Talk about ka-ching!

Another friend and I have also been discussing the idea of web-apps on other platforms. The activity going on on the iPhone and iPod Touch is promising. The news about the Google Android OS is also very exciting although you certainly do need that “killer-app” idea to truly make gold.

Jessica Mah and her partners have even created a whole business venture around apps and social networking at ShockApps. They currently have Serial Killer which is unmorally entertaining. I hope to see what they come out with next.

So do you have any input in this topic? Drop us a comment!

~Kevin X

The web is filled with fancy redesigns, updates, and version 2.3.10.xx.½ tweaks but which one really works the best? This is essential to many web startups as the change from alpha to beta and then going public can determine how successful it really is.

Total Overhaul
Many websites still rely on major overhauls from time to time. When implementing a new feature, they might change the whole layout and color scheme altogether to better fit the new feature. Nintendo.com recently had a redesign of their site in order to keep up with the simplicity of their Wii and Nintendo DS. Blogs on the other hand just change their theme from time to time to make it look more “aesthetically pleasing”.

Small Updates
And yet other websites decide to use the “lets update but not make a big deal about it” approach. These websites roll out small updates and improvements from time to time. Gmail is the king of this as they have been constantly throwing out small improvements. They do have a “New Updates” page but I bet the common user hardly goes there.

Beta
Gmail is also a notable case for being a widely used and popular email service but technically still in ‘beta’. Beta used to be a term for a site or software that still had bugs in it so use with care. But now it seems to mean you are one of the early users, congratulations, enjoy. Pownce uses an elusive “invite-only” system that makes you feel even more special.

So who wins overall? I, and a lot of other users, like the small updates approach because it is subtle but makes the website refreshingly new. Every time there is a new feature on Gmail I first think “hey, there is something I have never tried before” and appreciate the site more. A lot of other companies are following Google’s approach and only time will tell if it leads to success.

~Kevin X

This is kind of old news but I just stumbled upon it again so I decided to share it. It’s this company called Connected Ventures- basically a group of friends who work for: Vimeo, CollegeHumor, Busted Tees, and Defunker.

What’s so special about it besides a nice Manhattan office, really relaxed workplace, and lots of money? All of them are between the ages of 22 and 30, basically straight out of college.

So they are all really relaxed, tech-savvy friends that are making huge amounts of money from websites and having fun while doing it! Hopefully Josh and I can be a part of something like that one day too!

Best example is this video they created dubbing a song. Apparently it was successfully done in just one shot and it accidentally turned into a recruiting video.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

Hey if anyone over there reads this, call me (sorry Josh xD)

~Kevin X

We’re not the only teens out there trying to make something out of themselves on the web. These are a few I have encountered lately.

SeniorQuoter- A bunch of teens from Haverford High School got together and are learning programming from scratch to create there own application. Now that is what I call dedication and it sounds like such an awesome project too! From there site:

SeniorQuoter is an installable web app in PHP which helps high school yearbooks collect quotes from seniors to be put in the school’s yearbook.

If anyone remembers their Senior year, gathering quotes is always a senseless but fun thing to do and this will probably help the process along for many yearbooks throughout the nation once it’s completed.

ThePlaz- The mastermind behind SeniorQuoter is apparently nicknamed ThePlaz and has a really nice website-turned-wiki. It is a cornucopia of information that he and anyone else is able to write into. It is an awesome idea because he can store countless amounts of documents, school-related or otherwise, and is just plain useful since you can add and delete information to it anytime. Props to you!

Newly Ancient- One of the first “edubloggers” I have found, has a phenomenal blog that discusses various things he just notices in his life. Although it might appear plain on the surface, the owner is only 14 years-old and a pretty advanced web developer and writer. He is currently participating in the Students 2.0 movement and is a part of the starting team of writers.

Tyler Menezes- Anther 14 year-old blogger and a pretty advanced web developer. A quick Google search (not being a stalker) of his name reveals various sites in which he all owns and his web design work looks pretty good. He must have started learning programming at a young age and I find it phenomenal that he is able to keep up with all that work in between school. Bravo!

CSS Text Wrapper- This website was not made by a teen but is an innovative idea nonetheless. It’s one of those ideas that make me ask myself “Why didn’t I think of that?” It is made by Nate Weiner, the owner of IdeaShower, and works pretty adaptively to any website. It can actually help your business website or you could just have fun with it.

~Kevin X

Ever since the beginning of the Google Highly Open Participation Contest, both Kevin and I have been thinking of it non-stop. You can probably call it a borderline obsession. This contest is very important to us because we both are big fans of Google and what it stands for. Since my main OS is Linux based (I use Ubuntu), I’ve been using open source software for over a year now, and I’ve always wanted to contribute to the community.

This competition is a great opportunity for any teen, and every teen should give it a try. Yes you! You don’t need to know any sort of programming to participate. In fact, most of the challenges aren’t code based. The tasks range from translating stuff into other languages, to making tutorial videos on how to use open source software, to making songs and artwork in the spirit of open source and the companies that represent it. There really is something for everyone in this competition.

I’ve been working on a programming task for Joomla! where I have to upgrade a component written for Joomla! 1.0 to work on the new Joomla! 1.5. A major part of our tasks is integrating with the Joomla! community. We have to introduce ourselves on the Joomla! forums, and interact with the open source community there. Upon doing so, we are given a mentor to help us out with our task. I’m loving the experience of working with the Joomla! community for so far, and I have to say everyone is very nice over there.

If anyone is interested they can take a look at the component I’m working on here.

Kevin and I are really enjoying this competition, and I’m sure everyone else would too!

~Josh B.

In our pursuit for a startup we have done everything completely backwards. We have no idea yet we are trying to flaunt we have something. We are trying to make money when we don’t even know the first thing about it.

When we created this blog, our objective was to get noticed in the blogosphere and to make an impression as teens trying to get the world to hear us. But one of the most important things we lacked was credibility. It was our major fault and we tried to ignore it but that didn’t help. Then we tried to force an idea out of ourselves and that didn’t work either. So what is left?

I like what Loic Le Meur (yes a frenchie) said on a TechCrunch article:

“Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible”

I think we are going to take the traditional approach and start small. We have got to cover the fundamentals and gain experience before we do anything else.

The idea behind this blog came out of a whim. Now it is 3 months later and our results of this experiment aren’t clear yet. Heck we aren’t even sure if we have many readers out there. Don’t get us wrong, we aren’t down on ourselves but we want to learn from our mistakes.

Like I said before, we are currently participating in the GHOP and who knows, maybe we might try out one of our previous ideas (here’s hoping none of them are taken).

~Kevin X

The final step for most people in today’s web startup 2.0 bubble-phase ideology is to go from what they have so far (some open source software/blog archetype) into a full fledged website open to the public for use and subscribers/fame. Yeah… that’s kinda hard.

Currently all we have is a blog and although it has come a long way (we are almost 3 months old!) a blog is still a blog and nothing more. I get to develop my writing skills and you get to read sometimes boring, sometimes witty, sometimes random entries about two teens that want the world to know our name.

Josh is the only one that knows programming and is quite above average but the serious coding needs extended periods of concentration which current high school life does not provide. I need to learn and develop my programming skills so I can help Josh in future tasks.

We are still without a focused aim and niche rather the stereotypical “noob” chasing the dream of creating the next big thing with nothing other than the dream of creating the next big thing. I have tried my hardest to avoid this from the start but somehow turned into it exactly.

So where do we go from here? Despite the “terrors” of Junior year, Josh and I have fared fairly well in the academic curriculum but we are yearning for more. Currently we are both actively participating in the GHOP and it is actually quite fun. The open-source community has a really nice environment and although we are only two in a contest of probably hundreds, the real world experience working with the community is enticing.

We are also participating in the ThinkQuest competition creating a scientific research website about Dunbar’s Number.

We will continue blogging (I got to make Josh write more entries >_>) and see where it takes us. I started this by not forcing an idea because I believed the idea should come naturally to us.  Then for a month we tried forcing the idea out and that didn’t work either. So we will go back to just waiting and seeing what happens.

So this culminates the 6 part series of our mindmapping. Hopefully you all also got some insight because we sure did. Leave a comment and subscribe to our RSS to continue with us on our adventure. Heck, we’re only 16, there is definitely a shiny light at the end of that tunnel.

Previously:
Why form a startup? (Part 1)
Why use web 2.0? (Part 2)
What problems can we solve? (Part 3)
What are the Solutions to these Problems? (Part 4) 
Where are the profits? (Part 5) 

~Kevin X