[ale] [OT] Hobbies and Market Research

[Leam Hall]

Taking the hobby discussion one more step out with a confession and a 
request.

Confession: My real hobby is learning. Currently Chinese, Wing Chun, 
(re-learning) C, Coursera course in Startup Engineering, Git, Human 
Interactions for the Introvert, Javascript, Rock Climbing, basics of 
business, and Swimming.

I am continuing my education in scuba (most fun you can have with your 
clothes on), PHP, Role-playing games, Bourne Shell scripting, Linux 
Security, and having a moderately successful marriage.

Later this year I'm lining up for some more gun smithing (1911) and 
action pistol competition. May also go back to Italian and fiction 
writing. Probably not going back to banjo or guitar, but the temptation 
is there.

Somewhere in there my natural inclinations to mentor and encourage come 
into play with a lot of things. Learning how to do that better is always 
a challenge.

That's why I occasionally just curl up with a book and let my brain 
shutdown. The "Jack Reacher" books are my current favorites, although 
they tie into my own plans for fiction writing, shooting, and a few 
other things.

One of these days I'll learn to not add more stuff to my plate. Doesn't 
look like today is that day, however.   :)

So, here's the request. I mentioned that encouragement is a big 
motivator for me, and I'm in the Startup Engineering class. We're 
supposed to make a project that gets crowd funded. While the project can 
be a throw-away thing I'd rather do some market research and at least 
find a minimally viable idea. That's where your help becomes vital.

Right now my idea is to create a program that sends you daily 
encouragement, a list of upcoming events for your contact list, and a 
short list of people you've not made contact with in a while. All of the 
technology is available; the challenge is to make it easy to use and 
worthwhile.

Technical goals are simple; the app must be secure- we will not harvest 
contact information for ourselves or others. It must be simple to import 
contacts (Facebook, G+, Phone) and events without doing a lot of 
technical work or typing.

So, here are the questions that come to mind:

1. Is this sort of thing something you would find useful enough to spend 
1 hour to get and set up, and 5-10 minutes a day using to contact people 
you haven't contacted in a while?

2. What features would you want/expect?

3. If there was an option for a more features, what would you want in 
exchange for $2-4 a month?

4. If you were a group; ALE, church, small business, what additional 
features would you want?

Thanks!

Leam