Posted on October 28, 2008 by Lee R.
So it turns out creating a whole new company and launching a comprehensive web application chock full of coaching resources is a little more complicated than we’d planned. Especially with no start-up capital. (That is entrepreneurial enthusiasm for you!) We’ve been juggling outside jobs to keep a roof over our heads while we work feverishly to launch Coach Accountable. I’d like to sincerely apologize to anyone who has been waiting with bated breath for BETA. Here’s where we are at right now:
The system is completely built minus 3-5 days work on the calendar system (and man, is it cool! If we do say so ourselves…) There are also about a week of tweaks and checks to do once that is complete. While John finishes up the coding, Rob and I are working on the legal aspects, our customer support structures, and marketing efforts.
So, barring any major technical issues or Extremely Lucrative jobs coming in, we really hope to launch BETA in 2-4 weeks. If you signed up to be one of our testers, we will be in touch soon. If you haven’t, now is the time! We’ll only be accepting a limited number of BETA testers and those lucky coaches will receive 6 months of free premium-level system access.
Thank you for your patience. We know it’ll be worth the wait if we can deliver the best online life coach tools available.
Filed under: New Development | Tagged: BETA, calendar, coaching resources, launch, online life coach tools | No Comments »
Posted on August 28, 2008 by Lee R.
Alright, folks. No one is as anxious as we are to get this bad puppy up and running. We can’t wait to get our BETA testers plugged in. And it’s coming…very soon.
August has been a bit crazy, as only the sluggish dog-days of summer can be. Much-needed vacations, cross-Atlantic visits from family, and a lot of outside work kept us from launching this month as originally planned. However, that turned out to be a really good thing. We’ve been getting some great feedback from coaches (thank you! please keep it coming, every bit is super useful.) Looking at these pearls of real-life wisdom, we realized we needed to rethink some of the design and functionality to make it more intuitive and versatile.That led to a major re-think and redesign, which is complete as of today. Woot!
Included in the changes are a more customizable system to that coaches can truly set up their business any way that works for them. Drag-and-drop widgets allow you to choose which things you want to be able to see at a glance, such as to-do lists (for you or your VA) outstanding invoices, your upcoming appointments, etc. A brand new template system lets you to input your intake forms, questionnaires, and worksheets easily into the system and have your clients fill them out on-line, where they can always be accessed in a moment by both of you or emailed as a pdf. There’s also a great Library for uploading and sharing newsletters, audio files, anything you want. We’ve been working on the Billing system and think we’ve found a great intuitive way for coaches & clients to manage their financial agreements and clients can even pay online from within their system. All in all, it’s looking fantastic. We sure hope you’ll agree.
Final development has begun (and knowing John, it’ll go QUICK - particularly if we bring him hot meals occasionally!) We’ll let you know next week or so when we’ll be launching BETA. There’s still space for testers, so sign up and tell your coaching friends to do the same. There’s no long-term commitment, you get early access to a fully-functioning system and you’ll get 6 months FREE upgrade once we’ve released to the public. Sweet!
Lee
Filed under: New Development | Tagged: Add new tag, BETA, billing, feedback, functionality, Library, templates, website design, widgets | No Comments »
Posted on July 7, 2008 by Rob
As our calendar nears it’s completion and we look forward to the creation of our streamlined billing feature, we thought we’d take a moment to let you know a little about the CoachAccountable team.
We are a dedicated group of individuals who initially met in the formation of our design, web & development company, Playground. Our skills are broad and our backgrounds diverse, however we quickly realized that we all share a desire to create beautiful, functional tools that are able to impact on a social level. Indeed, one of our first (and ongoing) ventures was the concept and creation of LiveFeed, a not-for-profit designed to engage the live entertainment industry and it’s fans to promote hunger awareness and raise food and funds for local hunger relief. We take pride in our work and are never satisfied unless we are able to fully immerse ourselves in the project at hand.
John Larson: Architect and lead developer. Designs and codes systems, outlines user interfaces. He is innovative and highly experienced. John is the ultimate decision maker when it comes to the application itself.
Tom Robinson: Director of Business Development. Tom is the spokesperson and liaison with investors, affiliates, and customers. He comes from a background littered with coaching experience and has in depth knowledge of the community.
Rob Fieldhouse: Lead designer for system, website and marketing materials. Highly experienced with graphic design for corporate communications, user-friendly interfaces, and marketing. Rob trained in London and has worked across print, web, video and advertising.
Lee Robinson: Project Manager, Marketing Director, Designer, and Copywriter. She has a background in advertising & art direction having trained at Miami Ad School, she also has extensive knowledge of the coaching world.
Filed under: Welcome and About | Tagged: billing, calendar, Playground, team | No Comments »
Posted on June 3, 2008 by Lee R.
We’ve spent the last few weeks redeveloping our CoachAccountable website. The aim was to be informative, engaging, and as accurate as possible as we continue development on the system and work on our prelaunch marketing efforts. The other big goal was to engage coaches to collaborate with us about what they want in a system. We can happily spend endless hours dreaming up things that seem incredibly useful, but since we are primarily designers and developers, we know that we’re likely to miss some key features that could make all the difference in the world and include ones that hinder instead of help. We hope that coaches who find the site will take a minute to fill out our questionnaire or become beta testers. User participation is what will make CoachAccountable different from other standard business tools: a fantastic resource and ultimately a community of coaches worldwide. So what do you think? How are we doing so far? What can we do to better serve you?
Filed under: New Development | Tagged: collaboration, website design | No Comments »
Posted on May 15, 2008 by John
The design and layout work is all in place and it is now time to build the calendar and schedule manager component of CoachAccountable. I’m excited by the challenge. We have it worked out to be an elegant work of cutting edge user interface widgets featuring drag-and-drop, zero-latency loading of key info, and not a page reload to be seen. With homage to the experts who have gone before us (such as the team behind google calendars) we are excited to be creating something of a comparable caliber.
Filed under: New Development | Tagged: calendar, development, features | No Comments »
Posted on May 13, 2008 by John
Greetings!
We’re very excited to have just established another means by which to communicate with the coaching community, our blog! We’ll post here news of our development on the CoachAccountable system, information about organizations we’re partnering with, communities we’re impacting, and much more! Stay tuned!
The Coach Accountable Team
Filed under: Welcome and About | No Comments »
