I expected this week to move Outpost further forward. Instead, it became a reminder that for small independent businesses, staying on track does not always look like doing the thing you planned. Sometimes current customers and existing products are more important than work on future products.
As a...
This week felt like I got less done than planned, but the pivot was strategically correct and may even pay off twice.
With the major part of the Outpost user interface done, the next step should be fairly smooth sailing. I expected to get the data structure in place, lock down the workflow, and th...
I started this week thinking I was making progress. In reality, I was still testing assumptions. This week was a reminder that the product in your head is almost never the product reality wants.
Outpost is going to be much more database heavy than other Ministry of Bits products, so early on in th...
For years, I’ve built products in secret. Outpost will be the first one I build in public.
That is a pretty big shift for me. My default move has always been to keep my head down, build quietly, polish the edges, squash most of the bugs, and only then invite people in. It’s a comfortable way to wo...
Ministry of Bits is thrilled to announce the launch of Sherpa and its suite of companion products, ushering in a new era of shop management for screen printing businesses. Sherpa is the next-generation all-in-one solution tailored specifically for decorators, designed to streamline operations from c...
Within the screen printing business, we're all too familiar with the ebbs and flows of the workload throughout the year. Often it feels as if one's business is constantly pulled in one direction or another...too much business that's challenging to complete in a timely manner or too little business w...
Since starting on the journey of workflow improvements, we've covered many areas that you can focus on to make things better. This includes the processes themselves as well as the potential for hardware and software to assist. But one avenue we haven't covered is the people aspect of things. Leverag...
Up until this point we've talked a lot about improving workflows through process improvements. And there's one improvement I'd be remiss if we didn't do a deep dive on and that's technology improvements. Although most often you may be focusing on other aspects to improve your workflows, don't forget...
Another avenue for improving your productivity and efficiency is to focus on creating standard operating procedures, or SOPs for short. By doing so, you can greatly streamline not just everyday tasks, but also make unique or more difficult tasks more manageable. This can be good not just for your bo...
Figuring out what you should focus on when striving towards workflow improvements can be a challenging task, especially if this is your first time going down this road. It doesn't have to be hard and in today's post we'll cover some of the more common things to focus on to get you started.
One of...