The June Rubicon

In 49 BC, Julius Caesar crossed the River Rubicon (the frontier boundary of Italy) with only one legion and ignited civil war. “Let the dice be cast,” he said.

We’ve learned from several strategists that sometimes the best course of action to take is one you are unprepared for. Robert Greene, author of the 33 Strategies of War, instructs that we should place ourselves on “Death Ground” – in a situation that is apparently hopeless. According to Greene, when there are no other options, we fight harder. So we should take the one-and-only-chance approach. No plan Bs. Win or perish.

We maintained this philosophy in development of the Gosabi Project. This kind of thinking drives creativity and creates a sense of urgency. With an extreme limitation in manpower and resources, Gosabi was conceived within 1 ½ months of being imagined. We have content from Buea, Limbe & Kribi (key areas in the South West Region of Cameroon) and are currently developing data for Douala and Yaoundé (the commercial and administrative capitals respectively).

We brought in a few dozen beta testers who gave positive feedback on the interface and usability. They were also the heaven-sent pest control who helped us swat bugs here and there. They were equally given access to a section of the site not currently accessible by the public – the Accounts section that we look forward to opening up in July. We are currently refining our tactics and functionality in this section based on their invaluable input.

June was our Rubicon; we committed ourselves to getting Gosabi online in the best possible form that we could accomplish in the small timeframe and budget we were working with. We know you have thousands of ideas on ways to increase the utility of Gosabi.com and we’d love to hear them. We have quite a number of our own ;)

Consider the search directory available now at www.Gosabi.com as a simple foundation for what will be an awesome tool to help you find your way around local markets, wherever you may be.

Now that we’ve crossed the Rubicon, let’s start conquering territory.