With Christmas just around the corner, the hot question I’ve been asked is whether or not Journalfy will be ready to launch in time.

If you want to save having to read 1,080 words, the quick answer is “no”. However, if you want to know a little more about the reasoning behind this, then let’s waste no more time.

With Black Friday now wrapped up and Christmas less than 30 days away, most people in retail are going through some of the busiest sale periods they’ll have all year. And with these busy periods, the question has been asked several times whether or not Journalfy will be ready in time to finish the year when customer purchasing activity is strong.

Unfortunately, and due to several reasons, Journalfy won’t be ready in time to launch. When starting out on this journey and before realising the layers of complexity involved, I naively set a goal to go live and be in full distribution by the end of the year, but it’s simply not possible.

The timeframes I had given myself were based on essentially ‘best-case scenarios’. The reality is though that things rarely play out this way with consistency. There is almost always going to be some setback or type of delay.

Manufacturing setbacks

I know I’ve mentioned setbacks with manufacturing as being a reason for project delay, but it’s more so to do with ensuring quality control. Ordering multiple journal samples from various suppliers has taught me the importance of being painfully direct and clear with what I’m expecting to receive. Furthermore, it’s also taught me to not settle for the first thing I’m shown and to not let outside factors like deadline pressures cloud my judgement.

Everything from finding the right manufacturer through to ensuring that what they produce is what they say they’ll produce can take a lot of time. Plus there’s the time in-between when waiting for samples to arrive. It can be tempting to want to just settle for a particular manufacturer as the process of choosing one can become quite tiresome and monotonous, however, the moment I feel I’m trying to rush a decision based on ‘saving time’ is the moment I take a step back and try to look at the situation more objectively. The time I’ll save by selecting a supplier with a substandard product is far less than the time (and money) I’ll lose when I need to switch companies the moment their true quality starts to become apparent in the hands of the customer.

App development delays

With app development well underway, I’ve had some recent issues with the app development company when it comes to timelines not being stuck to. I recently created a video on Instagram to talk about it.

Long story short, when signing the contracts with the app developers, we had set out various milestones that spanned roughly 12-14 weeks. We included some extra buffer time as it’s normal for delays to happen and unexpected issues to arise. One thing I hadn’t taken into consideration though was resourcing issues from the app developer’s side. It’s quite a large company I’m working with, so when I found out that they didn’t have enough resources to cover staff who were sick or on leave, this really made me worry about the timeline.

The reason behind this is that they’ve said in order for someone to come over from another project in their team, it would take several days to train them up and get ready to handle my app. And I totally get this, except now that we’ve had this conversation multiple times due to several staff either being sick or on leave, it’s time to do something about briefing in other developers within the company so they can assist when events like this occur.

In addition to this, I’ve also implemented three weekly calls with the dev team so we can discuss what they’ve worked on, what they will be working on, and if there are any potential risks coming up that may impact the timeline. I’ve only just implemented this so I’ll need to report back after trialing it. I do feel that this will help steer the ship in the right direction though.

Expected shipping delays

As a consumer, I feel that shipping delays are one of the most overused excuses a company can tell me when I’ve not received something within a reasonable time period, but I now understand them! Even as we approach the busiest time of the year for most stores, delays domestically and internationally are a big thing, and it’s only going to get worse as we approach the end of December.

I haven’t necessarily been impacted by the shipping delays yet, however, I’m expecting these to come into play once production is on its way. And as shipping is something I will have little control over, it’s far too risky to set a tight go-live date based on estimated shipping times.

User testing and validation delays

Even though I’ve got user testing and validation delays as a contributing reason for the project taking longer than I had expected, this is arguably one of the most important steps in the entire process.

Every time I make a large change to the journal or app, receive a new sample or come up with an idea about packaging, I very seldom let these things sit with me on their own. I immediately look to share this with others, garner feedback and make adjustments based on what I hear. I would have saved a lot of time if I didn’t have this step included in my processes, however, the quality and suitability of what I’m producing would have surely decreased dramatically.

As I don’t have just one designated group of people I seek advice from when it comes to design, content or new ideas, I need to do it in a way that respects their own busy schedules. And I definitely don’t want to rush them. So all these factors combined can make for a slower road to completion.

As you can see, this whole journey of going from idea to startup has been quite the eye-opener, and what I’ve learned this year will serve me for many years to come. Even though I’m acutely aware that I’m missing out on potentially the busiest time of the year for an online retailer, I also know that there will be another Christmas next year, and the year after that also.

When Journalfy launches, it won’t be launched as a half-finished project that was scrappily forced across the finish line in order to push some extra sales at the end of the year; it’ll be launched as a product that is ready and waiting to enrich the life of the individual that’s patient enough to receive it.