1. 1 — Products
Software Development
From Code to Product

2. Is this a restaurant?
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 2 gidgreen.com/course
Tasty,
nutritious
food

3. Is this a product?
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 3 gidgreen.com/course

4. Some leading products
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 4 gidgreen.com/course

5. Lecture 1
• About this course
• Products and people
• Layers of a product
• Software platforms
• What does a startup do?
• Founders and goals
• External resources
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 5 gidgreen.com/course

6. Course objective
“Learn how to turn a core
technology or idea into a software
product which delights users,
succeeds in the marketplace and
becomes a profitable business.”
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 6 gidgreen.com/course

7. Our assumptions
• You can program
• You are web savvy
• You know English, ish
• No other experience
• Technical founder(s)
• No investors (yet)
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 7 gidgreen.com/course

8. Syllabus and Exercises
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 8 gidgreen.com/course
Introduction to products
The entrepreneurship process
The big picture
User interface principles
Practical interface design
User interface
Advertising as a business model
Selling products and services
Business model
Marketing for startups
Search engine visibility
Marketing
Customer facing APIs
Analytics and optimization
Localization
Technical stuff
Spec for MVP
UI mockups
Landing and
pricing pages
Design an API

9. Final Project
• Choose 3 competing products
– Desktop/web/mobile (or a combination)
– Lecturer approval required
• Explain problem
• Compare products
– Functionality, UI, business model, marketing
• Conclusion
• Independent analysis
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 9 gidgreen.com/course

10. We won’t cover…
• Raising money
• Forming a company
• Recruiting
• Legal issues
• Enterprise sales
• Management
• Exit strategy
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 10 gidgreen.com/course

11. Lecture 1
• About this course
• Products and people
• Layers of a product
• Software platforms
• What does a startup do?
• Founders and goals
• External resources
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 11 gidgreen.com/course

12. Products are for people
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 12 gidgreen.com/course

13. People are physical
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 13 gidgreen.com/course
Eyes
Hands
Brain

14. People are emotional
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 14 gidgreen.com/course

15. People are impatient
“The vast majority of people who visit
your site… will arrive with their finger
poised on the Back button… So your
site has to say: Wait! Don't click on
Back. This site isn't lame. Look at this,
for example.”
— Paul Graham, Y Combinator
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 15 gidgreen.com/course

16. People are irrational
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 16 gidgreen.com/course

17. People are self-interested
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 17 gidgreen.com/course

18. People are skeptical
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 18 gidgreen.com/course
“The average American is exposed to several hundred ad
messages a day and is trying to tune out.”
— Prof. Philip Kotler, 2005
“On average, Americans are subject to some 3,000 essentially
random pitches per day.”
— Inc.com, 2005
“Not too long ago, the average American was exposed to over
three thousand advertising messages in the average day. Today,
you get that many before breakfast!”
— Newspaper Association of America, 2002

19. People are followers
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 19 gidgreen.com/course

20. People are short on cash
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 20 gidgreen.com/course
$20,000
$25,000
$30,000
2010200820062004200220001998199619941992
US Inflation-Adjusted Median Income

21. Lecture 1
• About this course
• Products and people
• Layers of a product
• Software platforms
• What does a startup do?
• Founders and goals
• External resources
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 21 gidgreen.com/course

22. What is a software product?
Code that solves problem
+
Inputs and outputs
+
User packaging
+
Can generate cash
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 22 gidgreen.com/course

23. Marketing
Layers of a product
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 23 gidgreen.com/course
Core
Less unique
Less technology
But more visible
to end users
(in general…)

24. MicrosoftOffice
Layers of Microsoft Excel
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 24 gidgreen.com/course
Calculation
engine

25. PR,Gmail,Maps,…
Layers of Google
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 25 gidgreen.com/course
PageRank

26. Code Breakdown Example
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 26 gidgreen.com/course
Algorithm
Core
48%
13%
14%
5%
9%
11%

27. What’s the core of PayPal?
• High volume transaction processing?
• Integration with external systems?
• “…PayPal is: a security company
pretending to be a financial services
company” — Max Levchin, Founder
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 27 gidgreen.com/course

28. An ideal core
• New
• Clever
• Invisible
• Hard to reproduce
• Research-based
• Optimized for speed
• Improve with usage
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 28 gidgreen.com/course
Objective:
Barrier to
entry

29. An ideal core interface
• New Familiar
• Clever Simple
• Invisible Obvious
• Hard to reproduce
• Research-based
• Optimized for speed
• Improve with usage
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 29 gidgreen.com/course
Objective:
No barriers
to usage

30. Product Technology Interface
Desktop P2P + VoIP Config-free
Web Messaging 140 characters
Mobile Super effects Instant posting
Combining the ideals
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 30 gidgreen.com/course

31. Lecture 1
• About this course
• Products and people
• Layers of a product
• Software platforms
• What does a startup do?
• Founders and goals
• External resources
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 31 gidgreen.com/course

32. Major platforms
PCs Web Smartphone Tablet
Initial adoption 1977 1993 2007 2010
2012 shipments 350 million — 717 million 120 million
Jan 2013 users 1.5 billion 2.5 billion 1.1 billion 150 million
Annual growth ~5% 8% 42% 150%
Core platforms
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 32 gidgreen.com/course

33. Web on Mobile
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 33 gidgreen.com/course
http://www.kpcb.com/insights/2012-internet-trends-update

34. Historical user growth
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 34 gidgreen.com/course
0
1 billion
2 billion
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
PCs Web
Touchphone Tablet

35. Operating system shipments
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 35 gidgreen.com/course
http://www.kpcb.com/insights/2012-internet-trends-update

36. Other platforms
• Mainframes
• Supercomputers
• PC servers
– Linux, FreeBSD, Windows Server
• Game consoles
– Wii, Xbox, PlayStation, handhelds
• Other mobiles
– Blackberry, Symbian
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 36 gidgreen.com/course

37. Lecture 1
• About this course
• Products and people
• Layers of a product
• Software platforms
• What does a startup do?
• Founders and goals
• External resources
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 37 gidgreen.com/course

38. What does a startup do?
• (Raise money)
• Development
• Monetization
• Marketing
• Publicity
• Biz dev
• (Exit)
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 38 gidgreen.com/course

39. Baseline scenario
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 39 gidgreen.com/course
Revenue
Time
Steady growth by word of mouth
5% per month = ~80% per year

40. Monetization
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 40 gidgreen.com/course
Revenue
Time
More revenue
per user

41. Business development
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 41 gidgreen.com/course
Revenue
Time
Gain
partner
Lose
partner

42. Marketing
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 42 gidgreen.com/course
Revenue
Time
Constant flow of extra users

43. Publicity
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 43 gidgreen.com/course
Revenue
Time
Euphoria
Depression
Diminishing
returns

44. Example: Not so Cuil
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 44 gidgreen.com/course
Mar 07 Sep 07 Mar 08 Sep 08 Mar 09 Sep 09 Mar 10 Sep 10
Raised
$8m
Raised
$25m
Launched as
Google Killer
Didn’tKillGoogle
Relaunched
as Cpedia Dead

45. Everything but the Product
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 45 gidgreen.com/course
Revenue
Time
Revenue
Time
Revenue
Time
Revenue
Time

46. Product development
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 46 gidgreen.com/course
Revenue
Time
Increasing
growthrate

47. Growth by word of mouth
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 47 gidgreen.com/course
Monthly 1 year 2 years 5 years 10 years
3% 1.4x 2.0x 5.9x 35x
5% 1.8x 3.2x 19x 349x
7% 2.3x 5.1x 58x 3358x

48. On marketing schemes…
“The one thing we learned over 5 years is
that nothing works better than just
improving your product. Every minute,
every developer hour we spent on any one
of these crazy things… was nothing
compared to just making a better version
of the product and releasing it.”
— Joel Spolsky, Fog Creek Software
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 48 gidgreen.com/course

49. Lecture 1
• About this course
• Products and people
• Layers of a product
• Software platforms
• What does a startup do?
• Founders and goals
• External resources
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 49 gidgreen.com/course

50. Startup founders
• 2 or 3 people
– If just one, get lots of advice
• Complementary skills
– Vision + Product
– Technology
• Friendship + trust
• Shared goals
• Everyone vests
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 50 gidgreen.com/course

51. Founder goals
• Make money
• Have fun
• Be free
• Create something
• Do good
• Get famous
• Make money
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 51 gidgreen.com/course

52. How much annual income?
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 52 gidgreen.com/course
$1,000
$10,000
$100,000
$1,000,000
Feel good
Extra money
Lifestyle
Working rich

53. How big an exit?
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 53 gidgreen.com/course
$2 million
$20 million
$200 million
$2 billion
Something neat
Team + technology
Scaled business
Scare someone big

54. Lecture 1
• About this course
• Products and people
• Layers of a product
• Software platforms
• What does a startup do?
• Founders and goals
• External resources
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 54 gidgreen.com/course

55. Books
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 55 gidgreen.com/course

56. Some websites
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 56 gidgreen.com/course
Hacker News Links to news news.ycombinator.com
Mashable Social media news mashable.com
Mixergy Interviews Interviews with founders mixergy.com/interviews
OnStartups Answers Q&A for startups answers.onstartups.com
Quora Q&A popular with startups quora.com
ReadWriteWeb In-depth startup blog readwriteweb.com
TechCrunch Leading startup blog techcrunch.com

57. Thought leaders — Entrepreneurs
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 57 gidgreen.com/course
37 Signals Ruby on Rails 37signals.com/svn
Steve Blank “Customer Development” steveblank.com
Jason Cohen SmartBear Software blog.asmartbear.com
Seth Godin “Permission Marketing” sethgodin.typepad.com
Dharmesh Shah HubSpot onstartups.com
Joel Spolsky Stack Overflow joelonsoftware.com
Eric Ries “Lean Startup” startuplessonslearned.com

58. Thought leaders — Investors
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 58 gidgreen.com/course
Chris Dixon Founder Collective cdixon.org
Brad Feld TechStars feld.com
Paul Graham Y Combinator paulgraham.com
Guy Kawasaki Garage Technology Ventures blog.guykawasaki.com
Dave McClure 500 Startups 500hats.typepad.com
Mark Suster GRP Partners bothsidesofthetable.com
Fred Wilson Union Square Ventures avc.com

59. And check these out
From Code to Product Lecture 1 — Products — Slide 59 gidgreen.com/course