Ativiti, a still private, new project management tool, will help you figure out your next project and get moving on it. Sometimes, the biggest barrier to starting a project is knowing all of the steps from point A to point B. For example, how do you start a blog? How do you plan a trip? If you only knew all of the steps, it’d be a hell of a lot easier to start and finish these projects.

The idea behind Ativiti is to identify and then expose all of the steps required to do pretty much anything. What are the five steps that you must take to learn the guitar? The hundred you must take to start a business? The experts out there have already figured out these steps and simply need a way to capture and ‘widgetize’ these steps into someone else’s project plan. Ativiti makes it reproducible — viral, even.

For anyone out there that learns through practice problems and example code, Ativiti is for you. Rather than just describe how to do something, you want to see the steps. Get rid of the project friction and those moments where you state “wouldn’t it be great to”… Instead of “wouldn’t it be great”, Ativiti plans to offer, “this is how you can”. Sign up for the beta now.

A few months back, I had the chance to sit and chat with one of Ativiti’s co-founders, Dave Whittemore. Dave is also a product manager at On Deck Capital, a financial services startup that provides small business loans, and an assistant organizer for the Blue Venture Community (formerly the Columbia Venture Community).

Dave talked a bit about some of the challenges of starting a business. Ativiti is being created by a team of moonlighters who find time to work on it outside of their day jobs on nights and weekends. This schedule makes getting their project off the ground that much more difficult, as it’s no easy task getting your idea vetted when you can only talk about it at night.

What the Ativiti team does have to their favor is familiarity. The Ativiti team has now worked together, in some form, for several projects dating back to Varsity Flicks and their Facebook application, MyOffice / Study Groups. Dave has settled into his role of working on marketing, blogging, and strategy with a product manager focus. Larry has been the developer throughout. Brandon takes care of external partnerships and analysis, and their newest team member, Nick, takes care of design. They’ve worked together for a while and know what to expect from each other. They’ve survived life shifts and now want to get something off the ground and popular.

Right now, the team is wholly focused on the product by taking a few mock ups and moving towards a working, private demo product. They’re using the blog to define their problem (and even list out their competitors) and following their three core principles:

1. Templating helps solve the problem of how to do something
2. I/O everywhere — meaning, tools need to move with you
3. Don’t reinvent the social network wheel

After that, they want to get their product out to the public and see what works and doesn’t. Only after this proof of concept stage, do they think they’ll focus on the business model with premium account.

Dave’s advice for any other moonlighting entrepreneurs out there — keep plugging away with consistency. Throughout the financial crisis (and as a New York-based team, this has been even more of a distraction), the team has continued to meet. Creating something new requires an evolutionary approach. At times, moonlighting helps — your day job influences your night job. Your night job influences your day job. It’s incredibly important to learn from both sides.

Posted in Entrepreneur, New York City, Startups Comments