Initial Idea

Some time ago, I've explained some features of a project, I was working on, to several people. Unfortunately these people approached me one-by-one, having me to tell my story all over again. So why not starting a blog about different aspects of the project? A compact form of the content is easier to understand and could be shared easily with everyone interested. Good idea, but which blogging solution suits best? I've started some research, finding myself once again collecting the pros and cons with a simple note-taking tool on my iPhone. Soon the text note grew bigger and to compare the notes for the different options became a research itself. Without an overview and a quick way to see the resulting ranking after changing a rating, it became difficult to find the important criteria, having a real affect on the decision.

In the end the decision for choosing a blogging solution has taken longer than the work I was planning to blog about. So that decision itself was left open and postponed by the environment.

I could also remember having started a similar decision some years ago. Yes, the tools hopefully have evolved over that time and new options are available, but at least I would have had a starting set of factors to research and rate the options on. Of course I couldn't find the Excel sheet with my earlier notes.

With similar experiences in mind I was looking for a simple tool to comfortably collect and rate my options and arguments and to manage my closed or postponed decisions. Availability is also a factor, so a nice, simple Web 2.0 application should do the trick nowadays. And in some decisions my team-mates, my friends or my girlfriend (sometimes ;) also have a say. So a simple sharing feature would be welcomed.... I couldn't find any!

Imaging, that I'm not the only one, who could benefit from such a tool, I've started to build the idea, Choosle is based on. In the mean time several additional use cases have risen to the surface and people from different areas, from insurance agencies (which package fits best?) over human resources (who fits best for the job) to travel agencies (where to travel next?), can see use cases in their work. More personal, private decisions (new job, new car, best school for the kids, new house,...) and of course any form of product evaluations can also benefit from Choosle.

And of course the sharing aspect could also attract some users. Community decisions ("We have several new locations for our new club house, where should we move to?", "This candidate is probably best qualified for the job, but who would be chosen by the team?"), consulting (have an expert to look over your arguments and ratings) and starting examples (generalized decisions from others, concrete ones from friends) are not served well yet.

So the vision for Choosle is: Helping people to make better decisions and to explain them to others.