Planning for better at the World Economic Forum

LiveCode evangelist Todd Fabacher from Digital Pomegranate is in Davos this week at the World Economic Forum. Todd will be creating a series of blog posts from Davos talking about the advantages of LiveCode as he creates a business planning app in just 4 days.

It’s 5:00 am and I’m looking at the majestic Mt. Ararat in Turkey from the window of the Armenian airport in Yerevan. I started reading an article about how entrepreneurism and technology will have a massive impact on Iran now that the sanctions were lifted this past weekend. Since Iran is just down the road from where I am now, the impact seems to be even more powerful and has been the topic of conversation here. I am not boarding a flight back to New York this time, but to Zurich Switzerland and then by train to Davos to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

There will be 2500 attendees including 24 Heads of State, CEO’s from every major company, musicians and movie stars with a cause to promote. They are gathered together to discuss, contemplate and participate in what is being labeled the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” As you would expect; technology, mobility and the internet form the foundation of this new revolution. Here are some of the articles I have been reading on my way to the forum:

World’s best job? The answer might surprise you

Is technology making inequality worse?

5 ways technology will disrupt commerce

Internet Population Cartogram

You might be asking yourself, how does this relate to LiveCode? Quite a bit actually. Yes, the the “one percent of the one percent” are here to rub elbows, but they’re also here to find a solution to two serious problems facing many societies: how to foster entrepreneurism and integrate struggling portions of society who seem to be on the wrong side of the ever widening tech divide.

LiveCode can have an impact
Many users of LiveCode have traditionally been educators for good reason…it is a great language to teach basic concepts quickly and easily. Plus, it has the added advantage of being multi-platform. I started using LiveCode in my own company for this exact reason. I have become a LiveCode evangelist, especially seeing the productivity gains and seeing the commitment of the community members like Richard Gaskin who has inspired me to commit. I have been speaking with several African and Asian delegations today about the advantages of using a tool like LiveCode.

When I start making my pitch, I quickly get “the look”. It starts with the “I have heard this a thousand times” gaze, and quickly morphs into the “I hope you enjoy the conference” shrug off with a polite smile. But I am determined to showcase that LiveCode is the right tool and can make a difference in this new tech focused world. I have decided with my team to show that one person or a small group of people can use LiveCode to create an App that will make a better place.

We have decided to showcase the power and flexibility of LiveCode by creating a business planning app that is focused on micro and small businesses. The planning apps that we have created before were for large companies and Word Bank financed projects. This app needs to be completely different. It needs to shield the users from complexity with a simple user interface, but still maintain the rigor of standard financial mechanisms like a P&L Statement, Cash Flow and Break Even Analysis.

Proper Planning is Key
Why is a simple planner so important? In today’s fast paced startup world of Venture Capital with different rounds of investments and exit strategies; the theme is calculated risk. While no one is happy with failure, it is accepted as part of the risk and reward cycle. But in many societies, the only form of startup capital is family or loan sharks, which makes failure NOT an option. Many countries including China, Guyana, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Japan and Sri Lanka are now facing increased suicide rates for their failed entrepreneurs.

Even in the micro credit sector, the number one cause of failure is poor planning. One of the primary reasons is that there are no tools available on the market today. As the saying goes, failing to plan is planning to fail. If you don’t know where you are going, you will never get there. Having a comprehensive and actionable strategy allows entrepreneurs to create a clear, and ever changing roadmap. A business plan gives structure to an idea or dream, and transforms it into practical conversation.

The LiveCode Advantage
Our plan is to showcase how LiveCode plays an important part of transforming our idea and dream of a business planning app and viable business in just 4 days. But we want to take to heart the goals of the Word Economic Forum to create a business that will both benefit society and be profitable. Here are the foundations we need to create:

Keep it Simple
Based on past research and experience, one of the primary reasons people don’t plan is that it can be cumbersome and time consuming. Unfortunately, in order to provide simplicity for the user, it will create complexity for us. We must still maintain standard financial mechanisms like a P&L Statement, Cash Flow and Break Even Analysis.

Internationalization
The growth in entrepreneurism is not Silicon Valley, it’s the developing world. LiveCode supports UNICODE, so we will need to build it in from that start.

Multi platform
Most of the developing world now uses Android phones, but there are also lots of older model iPhone’s. There are also lots of LINUX/Windows PCs in use that we will want to code for in the future, but not our target for now. The real LiveCode advantage is that we can compile for the desktop or HTML5 in the near future. The point is, there is no other development language that does multi platform as well and so easily as LiveCode – that is why we choose it.

Connecting to the Cloud
Business Apps today need to connect to the cloud. LiveCode has all of the functionality we need, either to connect to other servers or even a LiveCode web server.

Our goal in the next few days is to incorporate ideas and insights from the many sessions dealing with technology entrepreneurism and the new world economy. How our app can make a difference, can be a profitable business and be done in LiveCode. We will be blogging about the events and topics of the day @ Davos, but also we will be explaining the process of how we are using LiveCode to create our app. We will be uploading much of the code so you can learn and take from it.

Please add comments, add suggestions or some code of your own if you wish. Let’s show that LiveCode can make a difference and is wonderful productive tool for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.