InfoRift

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Dead Simple Backups

I built Backuperous in response to a conversation that was taking place on the Posterous help forums.  The intent was to provide a simple service for Posterous users and at the same time relieve some of the frustrations I was experiencing with my day job.  (Sometimes, you just want to get something, anything, done.  A lot of times, it’s just not possible at work.)

This application does exactly one thing: give users a one-click method for backing up their Posterous blogs.  Even less than that, it only backs up the text from their blog and none of the media associated with it (e.g. music, photos, etc.).

The story would end right there, were it not for my ambitions of building another web application, unrelated to Backuperous, with loftier ambitions.

An Exercise in Execution

Common wisdom in the startup-osphere holds that execution is the key to any successful startup.  This is a concept in which I believe, from a theoretical standpoint as well as from personal experience.  I spent several months last year working on the prototype for my own “great idea” and found that in addition to putting together a working version of the application, there were a large number of peripheral, yet intrinsic, portions of a web startup that needed to be addressed.  Successful execution of this type of business entails properly building and deploying these “peripheral” systems so that the core feature set has a strong foundation upon which to grow.

Reductio ad absurdum, now I have a single-feature web application.  It would operate perfectly fine the way it is, but I intend to use it as a guinea pig.  I will grow systems around it that will help provide me with the experience I need in building these types of tools.  The topics I plan to address are:

• User Experience - it has one feature.  How can I maximize the experience of using that one feature?
• Administration - what are tools I can develop to monitor and maintain the site’s stability?  The first thing I will do is probably to build a control panel (a la Bingo Card Creator and Panic).
• Application Robustness - back to the one feature: do I address all possible failure conditions and handle them appropriately and with finesse?
• Marketing - how do I let the right people know of this application?
• Monetization - is there a way to monetize this single feature?

I'm hoping to get started on my main project soon.  Later this year, my client gig will end and I will devote a few months (at least) to building it up.  At that point, I will be taking the knowledge I learn from this exercise and applying it to "the real thing."

In the meantime, I hope that people can actually use this application.  If you have any ideas for improvements or shortcomings of the application, please note it in the comments.  I don’t promise the addition of any new features, but if you have ideas for improved usability or knowledge of bugs that may exist, I will address those as quickly as I can.