2008 is set to be an exciting year for Yardsnap. With the new site online in beta, impressive user and traffic stats, and an endless tweaklist to work through - it's time to bring on board another developer to bring the business in line with our medium term strategy.
We're on the lookout for a talented developer to join our team and push forward development of our new suite of tools planned for release this year. Those interested can reach us via the Yardsnap contact page.
Interviews started this week and are likely to continue over the coming two weeks.
We're looking forward to welcome the newest member of the Yardsnap Family in the near future.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Christchurch Landlords Fair
Canterbury Christchurch University were kind enough to allow us to attend their annual landlords fair this year. Thanks to some entrepreneurial expeditions our stall had all sorts of attractive features including top of the range LCD screens, laptops, flyers and even a few packs of Quality Street chocolates - much to the students delight.
A good few hours spent explaining our services to both students and landlords later our throats are hoarse and feet are tired. Of course we had some great discussions and gained some insight into the user experience of yardsnap. One of our long standing users gave us all sorts of compliments after we helped her let 8 of her properties within the last two weeks the new site was online. Not only that but some of the people who purchased the premium listings got inundated with views and phone calls and quickly got their property let.
And to top it all off, we had some productive conversation with the local accreditation authority and may have some exciting new developments on that front coming soon.
Another fantastic day on yarsnap's move up to the heights of user experience and property lettings.
A good few hours spent explaining our services to both students and landlords later our throats are hoarse and feet are tired. Of course we had some great discussions and gained some insight into the user experience of yardsnap. One of our long standing users gave us all sorts of compliments after we helped her let 8 of her properties within the last two weeks the new site was online. Not only that but some of the people who purchased the premium listings got inundated with views and phone calls and quickly got their property let.
And to top it all off, we had some productive conversation with the local accreditation authority and may have some exciting new developments on that front coming soon.
Another fantastic day on yarsnap's move up to the heights of user experience and property lettings.
Monday, January 14, 2008
RSS feed of latest properties now live
With our brand new RSS feed, house hunters can maintain a live link to all the latest rental properties for students, professionals and families as they appear on Yardsnap.com.
The RSS feed can be found here:
http://yardsnap.com/rss/canterbury
It provides you with the 10 most recently added properties to Yardsnap Canterbury. Of course, the code is fully scalable so when the rollout comes you can just head to yardsnap.com/rss/yourlocation and the RSS feed will be automatically generated on-the-fly and you'll receive the latest information on rental property for students, professionals and families in your local area.
Links:
* Yardsnap Canterbury feed - http://yardsnap.com/rss/canterbury
The RSS feed can be found here:
http://yardsnap.com/rss/canterbury
It provides you with the 10 most recently added properties to Yardsnap Canterbury. Of course, the code is fully scalable so when the rollout comes you can just head to yardsnap.com/rss/yourlocation and the RSS feed will be automatically generated on-the-fly and you'll receive the latest information on rental property for students, professionals and families in your local area.
Links:
* Yardsnap Canterbury feed - http://yardsnap.com/rss/canterbury
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Yardsnap releases brand new site
Congratulations Yardsnap team, we're online!
At approximately 6pm on Sunday, 6 January 2008, we went into public beta on the latest release of Yardsnap. The site's had a total overhaul and has been rebuilt from scratch. Now with just the bare bones functionality in place and live, we're ready to move forward.
It's 6.30am and 'public beta' day starts. It's been just about a year in the making and today we're set to come online. The location is Fleet in Hampshire and we're right by the offices of Sun Microsystems. It's an intense caffeine-guzzling, doughnut-fuelled hacking and design session as we work towards the deadline. Paypal integration not working. Errors writing to the database. In need of an SSL certificate. Stumbling across inappropriate pieces of blurb. And Internet friggin Explorer up to it's old tricks again...
...so we pushed through to achieve our target: Yardsnap version 4 is now online in public beta, so check it out.
In an ideal world, we would iron out more bugs, add more content and introduce some of our advanced features before releasing... but time is against us. While we're awaiting nationwide rollout, Yardsnap is local to Canterbury and the universities resume tomorrow. Which means student house hunting season is about to move towards its peak - and we need to be online at all costs. So it's cost us a little bit of design sexiness, some functionality and a little of our smooth operation, though we're still confident that we deliver a superior user experience to the competition.
House hunters: keep your eyes posted on Yardsnap.com - listings will be appearing over the coming weeks.
Landlords and agents: it's totally free to advertise with Yardsnap.com! You'll also benefit from tenant targeting and a dedicated Management Suite with a range of tools coming soon.
Hunter or Manager: Just Yardsnap it!
Links:
http://www.yardsnap.com/
At approximately 6pm on Sunday, 6 January 2008, we went into public beta on the latest release of Yardsnap. The site's had a total overhaul and has been rebuilt from scratch. Now with just the bare bones functionality in place and live, we're ready to move forward.
It's 6.30am and 'public beta' day starts. It's been just about a year in the making and today we're set to come online. The location is Fleet in Hampshire and we're right by the offices of Sun Microsystems. It's an intense caffeine-guzzling, doughnut-fuelled hacking and design session as we work towards the deadline. Paypal integration not working. Errors writing to the database. In need of an SSL certificate. Stumbling across inappropriate pieces of blurb. And Internet friggin Explorer up to it's old tricks again...
...so we pushed through to achieve our target: Yardsnap version 4 is now online in public beta, so check it out.
In an ideal world, we would iron out more bugs, add more content and introduce some of our advanced features before releasing... but time is against us. While we're awaiting nationwide rollout, Yardsnap is local to Canterbury and the universities resume tomorrow. Which means student house hunting season is about to move towards its peak - and we need to be online at all costs. So it's cost us a little bit of design sexiness, some functionality and a little of our smooth operation, though we're still confident that we deliver a superior user experience to the competition.
House hunters: keep your eyes posted on Yardsnap.com - listings will be appearing over the coming weeks.
Landlords and agents: it's totally free to advertise with Yardsnap.com! You'll also benefit from tenant targeting and a dedicated Management Suite with a range of tools coming soon.
Hunter or Manager: Just Yardsnap it!
Links:
http://www.yardsnap.com/
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
New Year, New Insights
Welcome 2008. And what a reception you had at the current venue for yardsnapping. Not the usual alcohol and tomfoolery you might expect, but rather hard work, pizza and stimulating, thought provoking conversation.
There are a few things that seem to escape people describing being involved in start ups. 'They', tend to write about hard work, steep learning curves and so on, but there is an additional factor that has only recently dawned on me. When you are working with people, and synthesizing creativity, ambition and initiative into the end product, different types of thought and action begin to take place.
After a days hard coding (by Marvelous Mike) with creative input by Shazz and I, everyone was feeling a little worn and withered. Mike, who needed the most recovery, went home and Shazz and I began discussing futures, plans, projects and so on. Because we were a little tired and very hungry the conversations lost the usual tempered edge and became precise and accurate in their meaning. A rarity in my experience of being a conversationalist. The beauty of the conversation was that it became entirely objective. This is not something easily experienced as an employee, friend or a stranger, but seems to have a predefined place in a startup.
The end result of these conversations tends to always be: Feeling tired (soul searching and observation is hard work) and feeling empowered. Empowered with the initiative to make changes where they are needed. Empowered to make ideas happen. Empowered to stand your ground against the inevitable and become (as WE Henley wrote): "...the master of my fate, the captain of my soul".
So again, welcome 2008. Yardsnap is here and we are having fun.
There are a few things that seem to escape people describing being involved in start ups. 'They', tend to write about hard work, steep learning curves and so on, but there is an additional factor that has only recently dawned on me. When you are working with people, and synthesizing creativity, ambition and initiative into the end product, different types of thought and action begin to take place.
After a days hard coding (by Marvelous Mike) with creative input by Shazz and I, everyone was feeling a little worn and withered. Mike, who needed the most recovery, went home and Shazz and I began discussing futures, plans, projects and so on. Because we were a little tired and very hungry the conversations lost the usual tempered edge and became precise and accurate in their meaning. A rarity in my experience of being a conversationalist. The beauty of the conversation was that it became entirely objective. This is not something easily experienced as an employee, friend or a stranger, but seems to have a predefined place in a startup.
The end result of these conversations tends to always be: Feeling tired (soul searching and observation is hard work) and feeling empowered. Empowered with the initiative to make changes where they are needed. Empowered to make ideas happen. Empowered to stand your ground against the inevitable and become (as WE Henley wrote): "...the master of my fate, the captain of my soul".
So again, welcome 2008. Yardsnap is here and we are having fun.
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