I am pretty excited about a new start-up I am involved with called Research Rockets.
It helps people to conduct their own online research by providing a method to separate fact from fiction and display their research graphically in a way that is simple and shareable. It’s like a cross between an info graphic and a mind map and it will be embeddable in blog posts and web pages.
The application is in development and is scheduled to be released in limited Beta in April. More details can be found below
Research Rockets was born out of a conversation I had last year where I attempted to help some of my family members who had some medical problems. I was talking to my brother, I suggested he might benefit from exploring other treatments. He was nervous about this and suggested that
As we are not experts researching ourselves could be more harmful than helpful.
I didn’t agree with that statement but instead of arguing I decided to take a different tack. I conducted my own research on the subject and then when complete I provided my brother with a map of the information and then talked to him about the method and approach I used to focus on the most relevant and exclude the misleading. It worked fantastically well and brought us together with a shared way of talking about the subject. That approach was the precursor to what is now called Research Rockets.
Two months later at christmas I found myself in a situation where my employer had mandated two weeks of forced leave but my wife was only able to take three days off. So for one of the two weeks I took myself on a road trip (approx 3000km) in six days , starting boxing day.
- Melbourne
- Sydney
- Canberra
- Jindabyne
- Albury
- Melbourne
It was on that trip where I worked out the product , the pitch, the business model and the marketing plan for what is now called Research Rockets (and in the process gave my self tennis elbow -which I still have now).
Once I got back I pitched the idea to Kriang (an excellent developer and designer who I met at a startup weekend event in October 2015 ). He agreed to join me in this venture. We are now in the the process of building out the limited alpha version of the software (planned release end of March). Whilst Kriang is working on this I have set up a club to help people with individual research. We hope that by helping people out with their own research we can get some valuable feedback for the business. If you live in Melbourne and are interested in getting to grips with the method before the software goes live then please sign up to the mailing list on the site.
To see more of my articles about managing information, intellectual self defense, and how we can use information to bring more independence into our lives click here
