Inspired by: http://www.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/handouts/ProductMgmt.txt Good software projects have clear business goals and objectives. Everyone on the team has an understanding of what metrics will be used to define success. i.e. Implementing these changes to the sign up flow will increase paid conversion rates. Bad software projects are driven by the loudest voice in the room and based
Cross posted from the StartupGiraffe blog Debates rage on whether companies who outsource all or parts of their development can be successful or not. In a perfect world you would have a brilliant in-house team that crushes features faster then you can think them up and has previous experience building similar systems. In reality this
Cross posted from the StartupGiraffe blog. A year ago Startup Giraffe was born. Looking back it’s amazing how far we’ve come. Like most business, our first few months was about getting our head above water, earning enough to pay rent, tweaking our business model and learning the legal, accounting and general ins and outs of
Cross posted from the startupgiraffe blog How do you validate your startup idea and start gaining early traction, without spending a ton of time and money building software? Delay complexity as long as possible by doing things manually. “Fake it till you make it.” Below are some examples of how successful companies smoke / ghetto
Two years ago we were late on delivering a project, and one of the developers came up to me and told me his launch-critical piece of functionality was delayed… again. Blame it on fatigue (I’d been up for about 30 hours) and inexperience but I made a critical mistake. I got angry. I yelled for
For most people the idea of launching a half-baked product is horrifying. You’ve been talking up your idea for months, been working crazy hours and even taken money from friends and family. This is the first time people will be seeing what you’ve been dreaming about and you want everything to be perfect. You feel
We speak with a ton of idea stage entrepreneurs through StartupGiraffe. Many times, people think we’re going to “Zuckerberg their Winklevoss” and steal whatever brilliant ideas they have. Because of this, they speak in generalizations and vagaries (it’s like LinkedIn meets Yelp for Healthcare with Farmville-style gamification). Unfortunately if you don’t tell us the details
Since the launch of Startup Giraffe I’ve had the opportunity to speak to 50+ idea stage entrepreneurs. I’ve been amazed at the diversity of good ideas that folks from outside of the startup scene have. Through conversations with them I’ve realized that many could improve the way they think about launching products. Here are some
Over the past few months my two buddies and I have worked on a bunch of different projects. From StoryStack to Tractorbe.am to AudioJux (plus a few others), we’ve realized a few things: We get all fired up about new ideas We’re really good at building the first iteration or two of a product We love working
No one said working at a startup was easy. Although we started StoryStack with the intensity of a thousand suns we’ve hit a few bumps along the way. Through three iterations of the product and countless meetings with friends and advisors we’ve realized the product in it’s current form is unlikely to be successful. We’ve