While flicking through an old copy of Anthill magazine, I came across an article profiling the diary of a start up called TrickyTix an ‘online event registration solution’. In the article, which can also be found online, Scott Handsaker, one of the founders, has written a diary of his start up process in which he divulges the costs associated with their project as well as some lessons learned along the way. I think most of us can probably relate to Scott’s comments, especially the ones about his constant ideating, but as Scott says ideas alone are worth nothing and it is the execution that’s the difficult bit. Scott also mentions another valuable lesson he has learnt, the art of applying constraints, this is one that I am still learning but as he mentions, a good place to start is the 37Signals book ‘Getting Real’.

Some of the costs revealed are quite high level for example:

$4,200 spent in UI and design

$6,500 to develop the front end

$9,000 backend

It would have been interesting to have a further breakdown of these costs or the number of development hours spent, but it is refreshing to see this level of transparency, and call me a cynic, but let’s face it, it’s not a bad marketing ploy either.

TrickyTix is due for full public launch in August and a video demo of their service is available through their website, although I haven’t had a proper look at this yet, mainly due to time constraints. J

On the front of it, this service appears to be similar to a UK based offering called ‘eTicket’ who started back in 2005 and have gained recognition after picking up the ‘Innovative Business of the Year Award’ at the 2007 Natwest Startups awards. According to the TrickyTix website, Scott and his cofounder, Andrew Edwards, started the business after running online event registrations for a number of years and are therefore well placed to develop a solution aimed at addressing the problems experienced. While emulating the success of eTicket may prove ‘tricky’ (groan) for most, I reckon these guys could well have the best chance of anyone.

For more figures behind some of the top web apps check out this link.

In all the hype surrounding the launch of the 3G iPhone at the recent Apple WWDC event, it seems most of us missed the fact that Remember The Milk won an Apple Design Award for Best iPhone Web Application.

This is just another accolade for the site, which now has over 500,000 registered users and continues to be a market leader in the online task management space.

Well done, guys.