David Cummings on Startups

Category: Product Mgmt

  • Entrepreneur With an Idea but No Software Engineers

    Earlier this week I talked about the 3 Next Steps for an Entrepreneur Without an Idea. Now, the next logical topic is what entrepreneurs should do when they have an idea but don’t have any software engineers to help with a minimum viable product (assuming market demand has already been confirmed with eager prospects ready to sign up).

    With an idea, committed prospects, and no software engineers, an entrepreneur should build wireframes using Google Drawing with Morten Just’s wireframe kit template (Balsamiq and Mockingbird are good choices as well but more specialized). Here are some items to keep in mind:

    • Make a Google Spreadsheet with all the product screens including hierarchy, links, notes, etc
    • Consider the minimum viable product and keep the screens simple
    • Include as much detail as possible on each wireframe via notes but don’t clutter the user experience
    • Share the wireframes with potential prospects to get their feedback
    • Don’t set anything in stone and make changes in an iterative process

    So, as a next step, an entrepreneur with an idea should start building product wireframes in Google Drawing and make the idea more tangible.

    What else? What are your thoughts on next steps for an entrepreneur with an idea and no software engineers?

  • Notes on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange Certification Process

    Continuing with yesterday’s post on Getting the Most out of Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce ’13 Conference, there’s another Salesforce.com topic that I’ve received a number of questions about over the years: the AppExchange Certification process. Salesforce.com takes their marketplace very seriously with a heavy focus on security and value. Most companies go through the process of getting on the AppExchange to have the social proof and marketing of an approved Salesforce.com product as well to gain access to Professional edition customers (without certification, apps can’t access Salesforce.com data unless the Salesforce.com account is Enterprise edition or pays extra for API access).

    Here are a few notes on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange certification process:

    • Plan on it taking 3-4 months, so if it’s on the horizon, but isn’t immediate, go ahead and start it now
    • Run the app through several security testing programs, especially ones for cross-site scripting and SQL injection
    • Justify the value of the application and figure where it fits in the Salesforce.com ecosystem as the reviewers reject a number of applications for not adding value
    • Know that even with a certified app, there’s often work to be done on the Salesforce.com customer side to make the integration smooth (e.g. the one click installs add a variety of functionality but the Salesforce.com user often has to change other security and permission settings to make things fully functional, so it isn’t as simple as installing an app on an iPhone)

    The Salesforce.com AppExchange certification process is more thorough than might be expected for a marketplace of over 1,000 apps. Plan accordingly for it and everything will go smoothly.

    What else? What are some other notes on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange certification process?

  • 10 Ideal Customers are More Important than 30 Random Customers

    Earlier this week I was talking to founders of a local startup about finding product / market fit (stage 1). They had a minimum viable product that was rapidly approaching minimum respectable product but didn’t have any active users yet. We were talking through goals for the next six months and it was emphasized to me that they were going to do everything in their power to sign up 30 paying customers.

    After hearing the customer goal, I emphasized that signing 10 customers that fit their ideal customer profile was more important than signing a large number of random customers in the near-term. Here are a few reasons why quality is more important than quantity at the earliest of stages:

    • Customers will always ask for product enhancements, so it’s key that requests align with the entrepreneur’s vision of the future
    • Signing non-ideal customers is fine as long as you are prepared to say ‘no’ to feature requests that don’t fit the vision
    • Live customers represent oxygen for the product, so clean air is better than the alternative
    • Ideal customers are going to be happier customers and happier customers are going to provide testimonials as well as references for future customers

    Of course, some customers are better than no customers. As co-founders working hard to find product / market fit, it’s critical to bring on ideal customers as well.

    What else? What are your thoughts on focusing on signing ideal customers instead of random customers at the beginning of a startup?

  • Product Reports in Board Decks as Importance Indicator

    It was four years into the life of Pardot and I was talking to a local venture capitalist I didn’t know too well. The conversation went something like this:

    Me: Hey, how are things going?

    VC: Great, I was at a board meeting earlier today and Pardot kept coming up.

    Me: Pardot? What was the context?

    VC: Well, it’s completely transformed our sales and marketing. Everyone keeps referring to it. In fact, Pardot reports are now part of every board deck.

    Me: Wow, that’s great. Please let me know if I can ever help with anything.

    Of course, it’s flattering to hear a compliment about a product. What really excited me is that the product’s reports were so critical to the business that they were included in the package of materials supplied to the board of directors at every meeting.

    In the continuum of minimal importance to maximum importance, product reports that are used as part of board meetings indicate high product importance. Products can be important and have nothing to do with board decks but product reports found in board decks almost always indicate an important product.

    What else? What are your thoughts on board reports as an indicator of product importance?

  • Don’t Do Several Independent Products in a Web Startup

    After a product’s reached a modest level of traction, there’s an entrepreneurial tendency to start thinking of the next product to build — don’t do it. Too often I see startups with multiple products where the first one was a winner and the next two haven’t gone anywhere. Now, one web app segmented by functionality for different buyers is great and is not the same as separate code bases for truly independent applications.

    Here are a few thought on multiple products within a startup:

    • Startups are inherently resource strapped, such that spreading people thinner reduces the effort on everything
    • Complexity grows exponentially as there’s more than expected overhead constantly figuring out how time will be allocated
    • When talented people are transferred from the cash cow product to the new product, they get pulled back to the main product as soon as things aren’t going well or a serious challenge is encountered
    • Sales and marketing systems, sites, etc become much more difficult to manage and execute well with multiple products

    There are always exceptions to the rule, but entrepreneurs should avoid doing several independent products in a web startup.

    What else? What are some thoughts on the challenges with having multiple products?

  • Internal Startup Product Jargon

    With any new product development comes debate about product jargon. Product jargon is the different terms and names used for features, modules, etc. With a clean slate, it’s easy to try and reinvent the wheel with new terminology and ways to describe things. Don’t do it.

    Here are a few thoughts on internal startup jargon:

    • Use the industry standard terms for features and modules so that prospects and customers don’t have to relearn things
    • Use Google Trends and Google to find search volume of terms in order to decide what’s the most common phrase or name. Plus, this plays into search engine optimization (SEO).
    • Make sure that that internal code for the feature/module matches up with the marketing name for the feature/module (I’ve seen this many times where the two don’t align and it creates on-going headaches between different teams as well as new engineers that are learning the code base)

    Internal startup product jargon is the norm and entrepreneurs would do well to ensure standardization across their product and their industry.

    What else? What are your thoughts on internal startup product jargon?

  • SaaS Momentum is Strong

    Recently I was talking with a friend about entrepreneurship and technology. The topic of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) came up and how it’s been a hot area for years now. After discussing it further, we agreed that SaaS is just getting started and shows no signs of slowing down.

    Here are some of the reasons SaaS is so disruptive:

    • Pace of innovation is much faster for a tech company compared to installed software due to delivering software over the web
    • Ease of on-boarding a new client and getting value is a magnitude better than the previous way
    • Removal or lack of IT involvement empowers line-of-business managers to be more autonomous and self-sufficient
    • Anytime, anywhere access changes the approach to work and frees up team members to be productive on their own schedule
    • Open APIs to share data and connect systems in an automated fashion is 10x more efficient than traditional enterprise software

    Software-as-a-Service has another decade of rapid adoption ahead and is just getting started.

    What else? What are some other reasons SaaS momentum is so strong?

  • Atlanta Tech Village for the Second Atlanta Location

    One of the goals for the Atlanta Tech Village is to be a great spot for an Atlanta office for technology companies headquartered in other cities. Atlanta has such strong natural resources in software engineering/product management as well as sales and marketing that it’s the perfect spot for a remote office. There’s another need in the market that I didn’t anticipate: technology companies headquartered in Atlanta that want a second Atlanta location to do new product development.

    Much like Steve Jobs, when inventing the Mac, put his team in a separate building down the road from Apple headquarters (with a pirate flag on top!), there’s a desire for engineering and innovation of new products to take place in an environment that isn’t encumbered by the traditional way of thinking and current product offering. Tech companies, especially small-to-medium sized companies, struggle building new products, which is one of the reasons why startups continue to be successful. Absent acquiring a startup, one of the best ways to launch a new product is to put a team on it in a different physical location.

    Atlanta Tech Village is a great spot for that second Atlanta location to do innovation with an amazing community and without all the overhead of a traditional office.

    What else? What are your thoughts on having a second location in the same city as headquarters to work on a new product?

  • The Art of the Customer Discovery Interview

    Customer discovery is hard. As an entrepreneur with a bias towards action, the action of building features in a product is much more fun than talking to potential customers. Only, if you don’t talk to potential customers early and often, the chance of success is significantly diminished. Once you’ve mentally agreed that talking to potential customers before or during the earliest stages of product development is key, it’s time to do customer discover interviews.

    Here are a few things to keep in mind with customer discovery interviews:

    • Don’t lead the witness — it’s all too common to try and guide the potential customer down a path the jives with your desires
    • Ask broad, open ended questions
    • Get a good understanding of how things work currently with as much excruciating detail as you can uncover
    • Find out what the ideal solution would be if time and money were no issue (if you could wave a magic wand and have anything you wanted , what would it be?)
    • Never show any prototypes you might have until after you’ve asked all your main questions (don’t introduce bias!)

    Customer discovery interviews are super valuable and should be employed by all entrepreneurs.

    What else? What are some other ideas on the art of the customer discovery interview?

  • Ask for Product Feedback from Prospective Customers, Not Friendlies

    Recently an entrepreneur reached out to me asking for feedback on his Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application. By feedback, he was interested in my actual thoughts on the user interface, user experience, and overall application. Unfortunately, I’m not his target audience, and while I can give ideas from a general web-app snob/enthusiast perspective, what I think doesn’t matter — what matters is what prospective customers think.

    Here are a few reasons why it doesn’t make sense to ask for product feedback from friendlies:

    • Customers pay the bills, not people who like you and want you to succeed
    • Feedback from non-prospects can influence thinking in a way that doesn’t add value
    • Time is best spent with actual prospects
    • More functionality built into the product now that the market doesn’t need significantly slows down future development

    The next time an entrepreneur asks for product feedback from you, and you aren’t the target audience, respectfully decline and redirect the energy to customer development.

    What else? What are your thoughts on asking for product feedback from prospective customers, not friendlies?