Apuzzleaday

Our Anniversary Blog!

2007-11-05T01:07:00.000-08:00

I have called it our Anniversary Blog because I havent done this for a year. Which is absolutely RIDICULOUS!
Our little project - trigonpuzzles.com - was launched last year with the simple aim of making me a millionaire by Christmas. Thank God I did not specify which Christmas.
We have hundreds of regular players but not the thousands I envisaged for this date.
Our little logic puzzle is certainly as good as Sudoku which has 20 million regular players every week - is it so much to ask that we attract one per cent of that number.
Our revised site is looking very good but how do we get more visits without spending money we cannot afford. Well one way is to post a regular Blog every week and this I intend to do
We are the part of the new silver surfers who love the web - perhaps we should launch a Puzzle Appeal and ask for donations but that doesnt sound like much of a business plan
Ho hum, we shall have to try other ideas. I will post another master plan next week.
trigonman

So far so bad

2006-11-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

If trigonpuzzles is the new Sudoku - and it is - then it needs to get out more.
In other words we better find more customers and through every means possible. Still our first pay per click advertising campaign is starting in the next 48 hours, so it will be extremely interesting to see how we go on and what percentage of visitors to the site convert into actual sales.
After a nearly a month, we dont have enough visitors which means not enough sales which means my plan on being a millionaire by Christmas is rather unlikely.
Still we have decided to do a free Christmas Competition and now we will soon be able to change the flash game as often as we need too.
We are going to ask all the visitors to complete a questionaire - whats the betting that 90% say it is too dear!
This whole thing is a learning process
Ho hum - lock and load!
trigonman

We are launched

2006-10-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

Finally we have the greenlight. We are launched and the flashgame works really well. I t is amazing how much time and effort has been spent on the flashgame - which is in fact rather an irrelevance compared with the work and our hopes invested in the monthly ebooks.
So we are going to market www.trigonpuzzles as the new alternative to Sudoku. This is the logic number puzzle equivalent of being the new "Maradona" or the new "George Best". Are we right - is this the right way to go. We are not insulting Sudoku - far from it - it is a fabulous game but we believe Trigonpuzzles is just as good. Well we will soon see.
trigonman

Almost there!

2006-10-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

It is the 3rd of October and the good ship www.trigonpuzzles.com is off the slipway and in the water- except it is becalmed because some of the functionality does not work. Even as I write, lots of very clever people are trying to make it happen, so that players can actually pay us money and download the first ebook.
We are now 5 weeks late from our original planned launch date of 1st September and I am now beginning to realise what happens when you read in the papers all about some multi billion government computer contract being late and costing twice as much as the original estimate.
All computer contracts are a cul-de-sac. Once you start on the journey, with whatever plans you have; with whatever troops you have; with whatever good intentions you have - there is no turning back, you have to go on because there is no alternative EXCEPT cancelling it and starting all over again.
Computer people will always say YES to your apparent reasonable deadline and their budget for the work is really just a guess - once you are down that one way road and they need more money, you have NO alternative but to agree to a revised budget.
The principal reason for the lateness is we still do not have the flash game working properly. The fat controller says it is a separate issue from the actual functionality of the site, so when it is all working properly we have GO - with or without the flash game. We can worry about the flash game( and the viral email game) afterwards. Except it is irritating - the flash game looked so good 7 weeks ago but they still havent got it quite right. Ho hum, we need to rock and roll and quickly.
trigonman

I cannot sleep

2006-09-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

The beta version of the website is launched and it looks good but it is not finished. There are masses of detailed corrections to be made and now we are late, really late.
It really is just like launching a ship - the trouble is that the good ship www.trigonpuzzles.com is stuck half way down the slipway. I relate all these alterations and amendments to having the ship ready but it needs fitting out.
We have been inundated with email questions about the launch date - oh all right three people, all Dell Magazine readers, have asked what is happening?
The Fat Controller is confident that we will be going this week but I am not so sure. He has worked really hard while I worry and guess what I do when I worry - I eat. I eat far too much.
I mean I am not saying you could enter me for competitions you understand but I am eating too much and now I have indigestion and a tired aching feeling and it is 1.30 in the morning.
I have to make a decision soon as to where I am going to place this blog so that it will get the greatest possible readership and I also have to workout the relevance of RSS
Ho hum - to-morrow is another day!
trigonman

The baby is late

2006-09-02T00:08:00.000-07:00

The Trigon baby is late. It was due on September 1st, but there have been delays and it wasnt born on the due date.
I suppose it was inevitable. The fat controller and the website team have been working their socks off so I cannot complain. Having never been involved in creating a website before, I didnt quite know how it worked. I had envisaged it almost like a ship launch - the good ship www.trigonpuzzles.com sailing down the slipway and into the sea of Cyberspace, ready to do battle with the mighty Sudoku. As it is, we are staggering up to the finishing line like a drunken marathon runner.
I was going to publish this blog to a Sudoku blog group but I did not want to publish it until we had something interesting and exciting for puzzle players to try!
I do feel like an expectant father, I do feel like shouting one more push but at the moment I can only stand on the sidelines and cheer everybody else on.
Will Trigon be the next Sudoku - ask me again in 12 months.
Perhaps if we are a success, enthusiasts will name their new born TRIGON! I wonder if any puzzle players have named their child SUDOKU? After all I have seen Tungsten and Tolemy, so it is not as daft as it sounds. The great Geldorfs children have ridiculous names - I mean imagine being called Fifi Trixibell. He is lucky she is not a stripper in a London nightclub.
Why do celebrities give their offspring silly names. I mean you might as well hang a sign on them to wear in the school playground saying " Please make fun of me". Just what a little child needs. As if it is not bad enough that you are the child of a celebrity - dont they realise at that tender age, all children want is to be accepted!
Sorry. I shall stop ranting. I shall go back to walking the delivery room and drinking coffee.
trigonman

Progress of a sort?

2006-08-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

I am waiting to hear from Dax. We are connecting him to cyberspace with BT and there is no sign of the engineer. Have you ever noticed that if you complain about rotten service from large corporations, it is just like punching pillows - there is no effect whatsoever.

Dax is finally joining the 21st century - his first computer. The fat controller and I feel like proud parents. Normally we lock him in the attic and make him create more and more Trigon puzzles. When he has produced sufficient, we let him run round the garden and if he has worked really hard, we let him have a game of golf. Then we take him back to the attic and set him to work again.

The fat controller has created a great front for the web site in order to give our website designers an idea of what we are looking for with the rest of the website.
I have been looking at what we can get out of www.lulu.com . We may need a hardcover paperback version of Trigons, to use as a marketing tool and for those people who would prefer a real book to handle as opposed to an ebook.
If there is any-one out there who has practical first hand experience of publishing books with www.lulu.com , I would love to hear from them.

As this blog is about my valiant efforts to become a millionaire by giving the world a new logic puzzle, I suppose I had better try and post it onto a puzzle blog site.
I think I will save my strength for that for another day
trigonman

trigonman

2006-08-18T01:26:00.000-07:00

This is a strange feeling - doing this, creating a blog. I always thought diaries were supposed to be secret, personal, private. Now, everyone wants to share their innermost thoughts and feelings with the whole world.
Anyway, here's the thing - I am in the middle of creating a business over the net. Launching a business over the world wide web - I still find it completely awesome that someone in India or Japan will read this to-morrow.
So, I thought I would keep a diary - this blog - as a sort of running commentary on the progress me and my partners are making and how things are working out and even whether we are making any money. I could use it as a safety valve to let out my frustrations on the slow progress it is taking for me to become a millionaire.
Did you know that Abraham Lincoln used to use this very method during the Civil War. He would be frustrated by the incompetence of his Generals and the back stabbing and second guessing of his political opponents - so, he would vent all his feelings directly to them in a letter and then HE WOULD TEAR IT UP. Don't you think that is great. No wonder he was special.
If more of us did that with our enemies, employers, friends and relatives, the world would be a better place.
That's what I want from this blog - to vent my feelings. I don't want to share my innermost hopes and dreams with you - I am English for heavens sake.
So there you are - I think I will leave it at that for the moment
trigonman