Untitled, Haden Nicholl, 2007

We’d like to introduce you to DoDont (www.dodont.com or click Home at the top right of this page).  Please feel free to rail against us, our lack of business plan, and social networks in general.  Please let us have it.  We don’t have that many features.  We don’t even have Twitter integration!

Oh wow, a social network.  That’s impressive.  I guess you think you’re pretty smart and this is 2004?  You know, I’m sick and tired of all these lame sites that don’t add any value.  Where’s the group commerce?  The private sales?  The virtual goods?

We are just a few people who have other jobs and created DoDont in our spare time.

Oh really?  Guess what…cry me a river.  I built a site in two days that got sold to Google.

But you haven’t even tried DoDont.  How do you know you won’t like it?

Your site’s stupid and so are social networks.

But DoDont is an Opinion Engine.  It is the place to create and find opinions on the Internet.

You made that up.

No, it is.  You just finish a post that starts with either Do or Don’t.  It’s that simple.

Let me get this straight, DoDont is just a post with either Do or Dont at the start of a sentence?  Hey guess what, maybe I’ll do the same thing on Twitter or Facebook…or BOTH!

That’s fine.  Please do.  But realize that DoDont is laser focused on just this one thing, opinions.  We have a system that allows you to find the information you need.  We expect Dodont to work with many services. And guess what?  DoDont is binary.

Don’t try to woo me with binary.  I love that word.

Do or Dont.  Positive or negative. Binary.

Stop it.  Stop saying that….it’s such a beautiful word….

I’ll say the other B-word.

Don’t do it.

I will.

Don’t!

Boolean.

Ahhh!

Boolean!

You are some force of evil to be dropping Double Bs.  Sir, that is not cool.

That’s right.  You can even support or oppose each post.  Support or Oppose.  One or the other.

Is Britney Spears on DoDont?

Um…no.  Neither is Justin Beiber…

Really?  Well that’s good.

You mean the fact that certain people are not on our site is a positive? Well, if that’s the case, based on who is or who is not on Dodont, then DoDont can totally be your favorite site in the whole wide world.

Wait, you don’t have asymmetrical relationships?  What are you stupid?

Saying asymmetrical relationships doesn’t make you smart.

Does too.

Oh wow, Mr. Smart Guy.  Asymmetrical relationships.  Asymmetrical relationships.  What a great idea.  Never thought of that one.  Maybe we should hire you.  Oh, wait, I forgot we have no money so you may have to excuse the lack of perfection at this early stage.

No excuses, I sold my company to Goog-

I know.  To Google.  I saw it on your blog, your twitter profile, and that stupid t-shirt that you wear.

I didn’t make a t-shirt.

I was being facetious.

Oh that’s helpful  How witty of you.  At the end of the day, guess who has sold a company to no one…you!

Touche.  How ‘bought this, at least check out DoDont.  If you don’t like it, post a Dont saying why you don’t like it.  I will oppose your post.  You will be angry.  I will be contrite.  And then the cycle will repeat.

Fine.  I will.  And I’ll also take you up on that t-shirt idea. It could be useful for the holidays.  Don’t worry, you’ll be on the list.

Actually, truth be told, we appreciate the criticism.  When it’s pointed and astute, it only helps. It pulls us out of our own little DoDont mind warp.  Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t feel good.  It’s like taking a punch in the stomach, but eventually it heals over with muscle.

Well, I’ll also be honest.  I don’t have time for civility, but I’ll try harder in that category.

You should.

It’s just that, I see something and I give my opinion, my first opinion, which is usually right. It doesn’t always come out right, but the opinion is right. Sure, not always.  I can be wrong…but I’m more right than wrong.

DoDont may just be the perfect site for you.

Lay off on the sales for a second, ok?

OK.

I’m not trying to be cocky, but I’m made for this stuff. I know technology.  Do you understand what I’m saying?  I’m made for this stuff.  I love it.

That’s valid.

I shouldn’t be bothered with every new application out there, but guess what, I’m bothered by every new application out there.  I need to see progress.  It rubs me the wrong way if I feel we’re going backwards…… It bothers me to no end if we’re not pushing things hard enough.   I want humans to reach their potential.

Hmm.  The only thing I would have to say to that is I agree with you, but sometimes companies like us just don’t have the current resources to achieve our fullest potential.  Mentally, ideologically, we’re with you.  We want what you want.

Ok, but-

Hold On.  I’m not finished.  We’re in this game too.  Don’t forget that.  The thing is,  DoDont and every other startup are creating new things.  It may just be a glimmer of progress, but it’s progress.    So I would just say, take other factors in when you weight in on a new application…especially for green startups.

Ok, but green startups need to execute.  Period.

Of course they do.  DoDont does.  Check it out. You’ll see.

This was a good conversation.

It was.

I don’t disagree with anything I’ve said.

Neither do I.

Good.  It’s just…it’s easy to get disillusioned with the world.

Agreed.

So we are in agreement?

Yes.

Untitled, Haden Nicholl, 2007

Hi All,

Welcome to the DoDont blog.

What’s our thinking behind DoDont? We want to be the place where you alert your friends to useful information and, in turn, where you will be able to find useful information from your friends whenever you need it.

Why Do and Dont? This way all the clutter in between is ignored; you really like something or you really don’t like something. We’ve all had the experience where we just ate at a terrible restaurant or finished a great book, and we immediate want to tell our friends about it. So maybe you go to Facebook and write a status message, but then it’s gone, lost in the avalanche of Facebook noise.  That is the essence of why DoDont is valuable.  DoDont is a site where you and your friends opinions, recommendations, and reviews can be expressed, stored, and easily found whenever you need it.

As described in the About Page, DoDont was the result of a dream I had almost two years ago. But dreams are one thing and reality is another. In order to get from dream to reality there was a lot of education, experimentation, team building and waiting.

I’m going to do a blog post on each of these topics (maybe in order, maybe not), because I feel the process from idea to beta product is important to discuss. You may look at DoDont today and say, why doesn’t it have this and this and this? My short answer is, “It will.” But the longer answer involves the factors above in conjunction with the Lean Startup and Minimum Viable Product (MVP) theories evangelized by Eric Ries and a slew of others. A basic understanding involves  stripping your grand idea down to a MVP, and then iterating to find out what people really want, or more so, what works best. Flickr was initially an online game before it became a photo sharing site and You Tube was a dating site. We’ve released a pared down version of DoDont to find our core components. But releasing such a minimal product is not easy. It is said that  if you’re not embarrassed by your first release, you’ve released too late. Our goal is to listen to our customers (here), analyze our metrics, and then improve DoDont accordingly.

Thanks For Reading,

brent