Roadmap

The following is an extremely rough cut at what we're going to try to accomplish when. None of this is set in stone, and it will be a little surprising if reality bears any resemblance to it at all. But it represents a set of target dates for the broad plan, including technology, user-level features, Apps and business targets.

Oct 1, 2012
The Querki Project starts in earnest.

Jan 1, 2013
querki.net is "live" in its most trivial, prototype form, with almost no features. (This one is technically optional -- we must have some Querki instance running, but might decide to hold querki.net for later.)
The Wedding Invitation "App" is up and running. This doesn't really do anything, but shows a web page with associated CSS, running in something that resembles the real data setup.

Mar 2013
By this point, Authentication is working in at least three modes: OpenID/LiveJournal, Facebook and Email Invitation.
This implies that the User Identity Feature is in pretty good shape -- we have a clear notion of a Person, and people can log in through various channels. (How fanatical we get about keeping clear and separate public identities will be strongly community-driven; we might put Identity Merging off until a bit later, when we have time to do it well.)

Apr 1, 2013
querki.net opens in "Friends, Family and Volunteers" mode. Everyone who has been involved in the project so far gets an invite. This is expected to be a few dozen people, ideally 50-100.
The Wedding App proper is up and running: Kate and I are managing our wedding, including RSVPs, using Querki.
This implies that at least the basic Email Feature is working, although probably in a tightly restricted way to avoid Querki becoming a spam vector. (Email is clearly a crucial but dangerous feature, and will likely mostly be restricted to paid members.)
Preferably I have a few other Apps up and running by now.

Apr 2013
Viral invitations begin, fairly slowly. This works as usual: everyone who is a member gets a stock of invitations they can give to people. As we have confidence that we are supporting the traffic, we issue new invitations to the people who have been using theirs. The objective is geometric but controlled growth.

May 2013
The Development Blog has been moved into Querki.
This implies that the Comments feature is up and running, in at least its basic form. It does not need to be LiveJournal-quality yet, but should have all the key features.

June 2013
The first draft of the Project Management App is up and running, and the Querki Project itself is using it. All Use Cases, Features and Stories have been moved into Querki, and the community is highly encouraged to vote on which ones they most care about. From this point on, the choice of which problems get tackled when should be highly community-driven.
By this point, the Import/Export Feature should be in decent shape, and should support importing the initial state of a Space from at least a few sources. (Probably CSV and MySQL to start.)

July 2013
By this point, Freetext Search is available for all Spaces and working decently well.
We have a mechanism by now for members of the public to request Querki Invites, and a community-driven process to vet and accept them.
By this point, we re-open the Rolls Ethereal as a public Space, derived from a Community Contact List App. With any luck, this drives several thousand SCAdians to Querki, and at least several hundred are curious enough to join in.
If things go well with the Rolls, we may explore similar contact lists for other geek communities, such as fandom.
By this point, the Mobile Feature should be working in at least rudimentary form. This will be a critical feature, and is going to consume a lot of time and effort.

Oct 1, 2013
By now, there should be a minimum of 10, preferably at least 20 (ideally 100), Apps actively in use. At least some should have been constructed by community members, although likely with some assistance from me at first.
By now, the What's New Mixin is available for any App or Space to use.
This implies that the RSS Feature is running properly.
querki.net begins to move into commercial mode. By this point, all beta users have been offered the opportunity to buy permanent memberships. We begin to sell annual memberships, probably for something like $20/year.
By now, there should be at least a thousand users, preferably more like ten thousand or so.

Jan 1, 2014
By this point, we have begun to run advertisements in non-paid public Spaces. (We will spend a great deal of time arguing about the appropriate balance of advertisements being noticeable vs. too intrusive, but it's inevitable to make the site viable, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.)
By this point, non-trivial private Spaces are limited to paid members. (Since we can't ethically run advertisements in them.)

Apr 2014
By now, there should be a minimum of 20, preferably at least 50, Apps in active use. The community should be driving most of these with less intervention from me, based on Tutorials that we've been collectively refining.
By now, viral growth should be going reasonably well: we need a minimum of ten thousand users to be viable, and fifty thousand would make me a good deal more secure that the company is real.