founders, VC's, mentors and startup experts.
In my first couple of startups, I built things in the traditional order: product first, then audience. With Think Traffic, I started blogging first, then figured out which products and services to deliver. ...
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Via: Think Traffic
Founder of Think Traffic. Creator of Fizzle: Honest Online B |
When I advise entrepreneurs to build their own MVP many ask me, "what language should I use." Since technology is rarely a business risk for startups, I advise entrepreneurs to make the decision based on community instead. Pick a popular technology based on the availability of people who can help you when you get stuck. ...
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Via: Kevin Dewalt
Startup founder(4x), investor(~20 deals), advisor(a lot). H |
Often if I give a talk or I speak with someone about getting their idea off the ground, the topic of how solid the product should be comes up. In particular, people very frequently wait far too long before launching. One of the key learning for me with Buffer was that the impact of problems people have and downtime they experience are directly tied to how we, as a startup, choose to handle it. ...
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Via: joel.is
Founder of @bufferapp, a smarter way to share. Focused on th |
Language - be it Objective C, Chinese, Ruby, or Klingon - isn't something you learn through study, it's something you learn through use. The best way to learn how to build your startup MVP is to start building your startup MVP. ...
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Via: Kevin Dewalt
Startup founder(4x), investor(~20 deals), advisor(a lot). H |
Some people get excited about building something new that the world has never seen. Others get excited about making something more beautiful than it was before. Others like making things faster. And some others get off on making something less expensive. To differing degrees, these are all personal driving factors of mine as well. But the one that stands out above all the others is. ...
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Founder of 37signals. Co-author of REWORK. Credo: It's simpl |
The startup community operates in a world of "get out of the building." Of "write more specs". Of asking "should this project even be built"? This converges on a culture of "everything except the code." Have meetings about the featureset. Write documents about the featureset. Argue with other developers about the design. ...
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Via: Sealed Abstract
I run my own iOS development company. |
I recently wrote a blog post about how Mobile Startups are Failing Like it's 1999. The idea is that they are taking too long to ship their initial versions and then spending too much time between updates. As a result, they fail in a way that's reminiscent of 1999 "waterfall"-style product development practices. The post was meant to be a challenge to the whole tech community, and I got a bunch of ...
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Via: Andrew Chen Blog
Bay Area entrepreneur, blogger, formerly in online ads and v |
What Is A Sprint? A Sprint is a term common in the development world were you focus on one core task or objective which you can complete in a short period of time. You essentially "sprint" to the outcome, disregarding everything else. There is another term that goes hand-in-hand with the Sprint concept known as an "Epic". An Epic is also an objective, but it's too big to be done in a sprint time f ...
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Blogger and Internet business entrepreneur from Australia |
Developers are like olive oil. Valuable in a variety of settings. Full of substance and flavor. The good ones are a little peppery. Marketing people are like balsamic vinegar. Sometimes a little sweet. Sometimes a little acidic. Always capable of adding flavor and zing. ...
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Via: Numerate Choir
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This article is geared toward aspiring founders and young business professionals in the SaaS industry. I wrote an article a while back about why I disagreed with a growing notion that non-technical co-founders ought to learn code. My assertion is that learning to program is a very intensive and time consuming task, not to mention one needs to figure out what language and framework to start with ...
I've invested in hundreds of companies that have started from scratch and I've been though some crazy number of product launches, especially if you include all of the TechStars companies I've been involved with. These alphas, or betas, or v1.0 or v0.1 launches are exciting moments as they signify the transition from an idea to a product. And, it's at that point that the real work begins. ...
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Via: Feld Thoughts
I'm a managing director at Foundry Group. I live in Boulder, |
Was it as amazing as you hoped for? I don't mean kinda-sorta amazing, I mean riding in on a unicorn with rainbows shooting out of its eyes amazing. Probably not. And if it did, the product you bought before that certainly didn't. ...
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Lars Lofgren helps businesses grow their profits using onlin |
In my previous columns, I've framed my discussions around the practice of information architecture. To recap, the DSIA Research Initiative--of which I am the curator--defines the practice of information architecture as "the effort of organizing and relating information in a way that simplifies how people navigate and use content on the Web." ...
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Via: UXmatters
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It was difficult to estimate what could fit into two weeks. We were crunching to squeeze everything in at the last minute, which is never good for stress levels or quality. And we were spending too much time in meetings - planning the release in advance, during the release for status updates, and after the release to evaluate what happened. ...
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Via: Instigator Blog
VP Product @GoInstant. Partner @YearOneLabs. Ex-CEO/Founder |
Until you start shipping regularly and thinking about everything in terms of how quickly you can get usage and test your assumptions, it's easy to imagine that things will often go to plan. The crazy part is, in my experience, the more likely case is that things won't go to plan. ...
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Via: joel.is
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Two of these areas cannot be outsourced: product management and project management. Product management looks outside the building, discovering people with problems that need to be resolved, understanding what are these problems and how these problems can be transformed into a web product. ...
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Co-founder of @LightPointSec - a web security startup. Proje |
I wanted to offer some thoughts on pitching versus product planning. In an effort to impress investors, we've all steered our products towards what we think is sexy or investable, versus what is most likely to work for consumers. I've come to believe that this is a kind of Silicon Valley disease, and we should try hard to avoid it. ...
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Via: Andrew Chen Blog
Bay Area entrepreneur, blogger, formerly in online ads and v |
SaaS is widely accepted as the way software (with a few exceptions) should be developed and delivered. SaaS is the industry standard, not something revolutionary or cutting edge. Today, you'd have to be insane to be working on software to be delivered as a locally installable application. ...
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Via: kashflow
33, Founder and CEO of KashFlow - Leading UK SaaS Accounting |
What do I mean by Agile 1.0? Agile 1.0 is all about production, i.e. shipping features in an effective manner. In Agile 1.0, the stakeholder is called the "customer" (which is crazy when you think about it). In Agile 1.0, dev is too often an order-taker, not a strategic partner in the business. ...
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Via: Giff Constable
MD at Neo in New York; maker, designer, entrepreneur, and ag |
While product managers are often the greatest allies UX professionals can have, in spite of the many positive aspects of our relationships with them, there is some inherent tension between us. ...
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Via: UXmatters
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Most entrepreneurs I know are individually very innovative, but a successful startup can't be a one-man show (for long). That means they need to build an innovative team, which is not a skill that most people are born with. In fact, some very innovative individuals, known as 'idea people' or inventors, often end up creating the most dysfunctional teams. ...
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Veteran startup mentor, executive, blogger, author, tech pro |
Creating a shared understanding among stakeholders is crucial and that UX is really the best-positioned team to facilitate this. I have a specific idea of what a shared understanding means. Shared understanding means that everyone knows what will be built and why it will be built that way. ...
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Via: Johnny Holland
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If it takes talking to 200 people to get those 10, that's not a good sign. You might think "5% conversion is pretty good," but not when you're getting face-time. If the founder sits down with what ought to be the perfect customer and chats for an hour and cannot convince more than one in twenty of the value of the project, it's too difficult to sell. ...
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Via: A Smart Bear
Keyword, buzzword, half-truth, adjective, hey look at me! |
Since different businesses require different approaches to customer development, I want to make sure we have a wide range of startups on here sharing their stories. With that, I’m very excited to introduce Mark Horoszowski. Mark is CEO at MovingWorlds, a B2B social enterprise that’s in the midst of its validating it’s business model. He’ll [...] ...
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Co-founder at MovingWorlds. Social Entrepreneur Empowering S |
Companies that challenge the belief that more is better create products that are elegant in their simplicity. Bang ...
There are three pillars to a successful digital startup: engineering, design and business. Those roles can be split amongst people or shared amongst multi-disciplinary individuals, but above all build a culture where each feels valued, where trust and collaboration can thrive, and where everyone feels motivated to excel. ...
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Via: Giff Constable
MD at Neo in New York; maker, designer, entrepreneur, and ag |
It's very surprising to see a post entitled "Please Don't Learn to Code" at the top of Hacker News, and even more surprising that its author would be Jeff Atwood of CodingHorror and StackOverflow fame. Jeff is arguing that not everybody needs to learn to code, and in fact the world doesn't need more mediocre coders. ...
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Via: SachaGreif.com
Designer from Paris, now living in Osaka. Creator of @YoFoly |
It is an unfortunate fact that many startups talk to people like me (or their investors or their advisors or "industry experts") instead of talking to their users. ...
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Via: Users Know
Principal at Users Know. Director of Product & UX at One J |
I have written earlier about the differences between user prototypes (simulations intended to test the user experience), and live-data prototypes (actual code intended to send live traffic to in order to test real behavior). ...
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I'm a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group, specializing |
let's assume a startup's messaging, value propositions and benefits are well-articulated and clear. Congratulations, but if you want someone to sign up for your service, there’s another big hurdle to overcome: the registration process. Don’t Ask for Too Much Info ...
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Via: Mark Evans Tech
Startup marketer, conference organizer, hockey player, dad, |
All startups have to decide the trade-off between time and money. I will point out a set of problems where throwing money is optimal in 99% of the situations. Programmer time is VERY expensive. Anything plumbing (like mail handling, source code hosting, live deployment, server management, bounce rate tracking, newsletter lists), should not be done in-house if you can avoid it, especially in the b ...
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Via: Archit
Making Indian Taxes fantastically simple online. #Delhi # |
We all know the IDEO maxim, "Fail Faster, Succeed Sooner." Rapid prototyping is a key principle of successful innovation. The sooner we make prototypes, the sooner we figure out what works, what doesn't, and what to make in the next prototype. ...
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Via: Tom FishBurne
Marketoonist and Founder of Marketoon Studios (http://market |
Reacting well to competition requires critical analysis of your own product and its shortcomings, and a complete, open-minded understanding of why people might choose your competitors. They're not fanboys. They're not brainwashed by "marketing". Your competitors' customers aren't passing on your product because they're stupid or irrational. They're choosing your competitors for good reasons ...
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Via: Marco.org
Creator of Instapaper. Amateur writer. Coffee nut. |
I'd like to take everyone's advice and talk to potential customers and investors about my ideas, but what if someone else steals my idea? If a competitor got ahold of this - especially a well-funded one - I could die before I ever got started! Don't VCs do that? Almost all founders I encounter are leery about discussing their product plans. Now with the Social Network movie promulgating this fear, ...
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Via: A Smart Bear
Keyword, buzzword, half-truth, adjective, hey look at me! |
Anyone working on getting their first product out to market will often have the feeling that their product isn't quite ready. Or even once it's out and being used, nothing will seem as perfect as they could be, and if you only did X, Y, and Z, then it woould be a little better... it leads to unlaunched products that are endlessly iterated upon without a conclusion. ...
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Via: Andrew Chen Blog
Bay Area entrepreneur, blogger, formerly in online ads and v |
There is a pretty common fear that people have. They're concerned that if they ship something that isn't ready, they'll get hammered and lose all their customers. Startups who have spent many painstaking months acquiring a small group of loyal customers are hesitant to lose those customers by shipping something bad. I get it. It's scary. Sorry, cupcake. Do it anyway. ...
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Via: Users Know
Principal at Users Know. Director of Product & UX at One J |
Have you ever left a website because it was too slow? Go ahead, raise your hand — I know I have. The speed of a site is analogous to the traveling speed on a road. If you're driving along on one road and traffic starts to slow down, you'll take a different route ...
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Via: David Cummings
10-20 tweets per week. Tech entrepreneur who enjoys family, |
Last week I was working in a web-based product and I came across a feature that didn't fit. By didn't fit I mean that it felt out of place and there's no way it's potentially usable by 80% of the users. I'd be amazed if more than 1% of the customers have ever used it. ...
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Via: David Cummings
10-20 tweets per week. Tech entrepreneur who enjoys family, |
Look, I know that building a product with one or two engineers and no money is tough. As an entrepreneur, you almost certainly have far more ideas than you have resources to create those ideas. And it doesn't help that you have people like me screaming, "Ship it! Ship it!" before you're really ready. ...
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Via: Users Know
Principal at Users Know. Director of Product & UX at One J |
If you can’t code but aspire to start a Web business, odds are you feel just like the ostrich. Ostriches can’t fly, and to add insult to injury, they’re one of the largest bird species out there. They have to … ...
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Via: Venture Beat
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I talk to a lot of very small companies that are trying to do Customer Development, and the conversations are often the same. The entrepreneur explains that the company is working on a fabulous product, and they want to figure out a) if anybody wants to buy the product and b) if they need to change anything about the product so that more people will buy it. ...
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Via: Users Know
Principal at Users Know. Director of Product & UX at One J |
Many newbie entrepreneurs think they know exactly what the market wants. I know this, because I used to be exactly like that. But time and bitter experience has taught me – I don’t know what the market wants. And you reading this, neither do you. Let me explain. Your range of experience in this world [...] ...
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Via: Max Klein
I'm an average software developer who sells products on the |
The vast majority of executives who say, "I want to be just like Apple", have no idea what it really takes to achieve that level of success. What they're saying is they want to be adored by their customers, they want to launch sexy products that cause the press to fall all over themselves, and they want to experience incredible financial growth. But they generally want to do it on the cheap. ...
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Via: Conversation Agent
Sr. Director Strategy, Empathy Lab. [Make sense. Make do. Ma |
It’s been a tough week on the technical front, with a variety of products failing to perform their core functions for me. Which prompts a somewhat emotional question for those of us who oversee products (or services) for a living: … Continue reading → ...
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Tech start-up veteran, product executive, writer (The Art of |
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