One Day Workshop
A-Z: How to Build a Web App
Ryan Carson on how to plan, design and develop your next web app
A one-day practical workshop that will teach you everything you need to know to build a web application. This in-depth course is perfect for small teams who are constrained by time and budget. We'll reveal all the secrets that we used to launch DropSend, our massively successful web app.
This is a unique oportunity to learn from a company that has actually done it. DropSend was launched on a budget, with a small team, in only 8 months. It now has over 25,000 users and has become profitable in just six months! We'll show you how we did it. For a complete list of topics, scroll down to the schedule below.
If you have any questions, or if you prefer to pay via invoice, just email.
Where and When?
- Wednesday, July 19th, 2006
- Workshop: 9am — 6pm
- Social: 7pm till late
- The Energy Clinic, London, UK
By registering you agree to our terms
What You'll Walk Away With
- The Web App Survival Kit
- - Each attendee will receive this amazing kit, which is chock-full of Ryan Carson's best practical advice on building web apps. We'll also be placing valuable tools on the disc as well!
- Years of Experience
- - You'll be benefitting from Carson Systems' real-world experience in building web apps. We've made the hard mistakes, so you don't have to.
- Practical Knowledge
- - We're not going to bore you with theory. You will receive training that focuses purely on practical information that you can immediately incorporate into your app.
- 30% off Pearson Books
- - Just go to our special discount bookstore
Who should attend?
- Web designers / developers who are building their own web app
- Business owners who are managing a small team that is building a web app
Past Reviews
"What a great workshop! Both engaging and useful." - Chris Graver, Bank of America
"It was great to spend the whole day with one of the leaders in XHTML and CSS" - Thomas Michaud, Lane Automotive
"No fluff, just good real-world developer info. Bravo!" - Christopher Kelly, State Farm Insurance
"It's one thing reading about CSS but another to listen to Eric speak." - Wit Chitrapongse, Accenture
"Great real-world examples." -Ahren Gerber, elliance.com
"The Survival Kit was really helpful." - Paula Davies, Legal and General
"Superb organisation and preparation - thankyou!" - Andrew Hoskings
"A very valuable and interesting day." - Simon Goodwin
"Eric is an engaging speaker who really knows his stuff." - Daphne Tregear
"Very impressive." - Carl Huber
"The Survival Kit will be really useful for reference." - Seb Butcher
"CSS explained in easy, understandable terms" - Frank Villa-Abrille, Nokia
"I'll break even on this investment, both in terms of time and money, within one week!" - D Rondell
How large is the workshop?
We've limited the number of attendees to 45, so that you will be able to interact with the speaker and get your questions answered.
Schedule
- Registration & Coffee: 8:15 - 9:00am
- Overview of DropSend
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- Number of users
- Server architecture
- API
- Setup (LAMP)
- Financial Viability
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- The Credit Card Test
- Creating a cash flow spreadsheet
- Predicting the number of signups
- Payment model: Recurring or one-time
- Number of paying users versus free
- When you should offer a free plan
- Hardware
-
- Choosing the right strategy
- Picking good partners
- How to avoid wasting money
- Coffee Break: 10:30 - 10:45
- Setting a budget
-
- How to predict your costs
- Planning for everything
- Staying on budget
- How to Cut Costs
-
- How to make deals
- What you should spend money on and what you shouldn't
- How you can use the schedule to help you cut costs
- Putting Together a Team
-
- Who do you need?
- How do you find them?
- Outsourcing vs local
- Freelance vs fulltime
- Keeping the team on time
- Keeping the team motivated
- Legal Issues and Lawyers
-
- How to cut costs
- What documents do you need?
- Where can you get cheap documents?
- Setting up the E-commerce
-
- How to choose a payment processor
- How to get a merchant account
- Invoicing
- Bookkeeping
- Lunch is provided: 12:30 - 13:30
- How to Choose the Right Software
-
- Project management
- Bug tracking
- Source control
- Timescales and Deadlines
-
- How to set a realistic deadline
- Keeping your team on time
- Contingency time
- How to use the timeline to speed things up
- Marketing
-
- How to generate pre-launch buzz
- How to use the blogosphere to your advantage
- What not to do
- Writing your "Ten Second Sell"
- Keeping it cheap
- Coffee Break: 15:30 - 15:45
- Tech Support
-
- How to minimise queries
- How much time does it take?
- Should you offer phone support?
- Scaling
-
- Scaling on a budget
- Building scalability into your app
- What you need and don't need
- Things We've Learned
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- Mistakes
- Successes
- Q & A: 17:30 - 18:00
- Social: 19:00 - till late
Who's speaking?
Ryan Carson
Colorado born Ryan has lived in the UK for six years. During that time he has worked as lead PHP developer at several design studios. He developed his first web app in 2003 before founding Carson Systems in early 2004. Shortly after that he built his second large-scale web application, the hugely popular DropSend and he is currently working on his third web app, Amigo, due for launch in July. He is live-blogging the development of Amigo over at Bare Naked App.
In 2006 he organised and spoke at the 800-seat conference, The Future of Web Apps and is a passionate advocate of developing forward-thinking web applications.
Ryan writes regularly on the topic of building web apps. His articles appear on several websites including: for A List Apart, Signal Vs Noise (37signals), Design In Flight, Treehouse, and BD4D
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