The best ways to drive your Startup into the ground
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I have worked in eight Startup projects. All of them failed. I just want to show you our errors, so you do not make them
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The best ways to drive your Startup into the ground
- 1. The best ways to drive your startup into the ground (and how to avoid them) Anton Pirker Disclaimer: The Amazon links are affiliate links
- 2. I was part of ● Shnitzl.org ● Jobulous.com ● UrbanGolf ● LoveStream ● eWorkout
- 3. I was part of ● Shnitzl.org - ✝ 2008 ● Jobulous.com - ✝ 2009 ● UrbanGolf - ✝ 2010 ● LoveStream - ✝ 2011 ● eWorkout - ✝ 2011 R.I.P.
- 5. Areas where problems can arise ● Product Focus ● Team ● 'Management' Approach
- 7. Product Focus Issues (1) ● Building something nobody needs ● No specific target audience
- 8. Product Focus Issues (2) ● 'Featuritis' (→ bad quality) ● Getting lost in technical details
- 9. How to avoid Product Focus Issues ● Lean Canvas ● Procrastinate Programming ● Find clients (create Personas) ● Talk to future clients ● Wireframes
- 10. Team Issues
- 11. Team Issues (1) ● The 'I do this all by myself' approach
- 12. Team Issues (2) ● The team is not 'right' ● The team is too big
- 13. Team Issues (3) ● Too much 'brain', not enough 'muscle'
- 14. Who to avoid Team Issues ● Small Team (ideally 2-3) ● Balanced Skill-set (Programmer, Designer, Networker) ● Open, robust and honest relationship (Don't be afraid to argue) ● ? External Advisor (Networking)
- 16. 'Management' approach issues (1) ● No plan at all ● Doing everything at the same time
- 17. 'Management' approach issues (2) ● Running out of money while developing ● Too much money
- 18. 'Management' approach issues (3) ● Not enough communication between team members ● No or almost no marketing
- 19. How to avoid 'Management' Approach Issues ● Have a schedule ● Do daily stand ups ● Stay focused (What is best for the product?) ● Fail fast
- 20. Conclusion
- 21. Conclusion (1) ● Have a master plan ● Don't do it only for the money ● The focus of the product may change at any time (pivoting)
- 22. Conclusion (2) ● Team with 2-3 people with balanced skill set ● Build a minimal viable product
- 23. Conclusion (3) ● Show it as soon as possible to your customers ● Build for your customers (get feedback!) ● Market your product right from the beginning
- 24. Books!
- 25. Books The Lean Startup by Eric Ries The Lean Startup on Amazon
- 26. Books Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development by Brant Cooper & Patrick Vlaskovits The Entrepreneur's Guide to CustDev on Amazon
- 27. Books Scrum and XP from the Trenches by Henrik Kniberg http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/scrum-xp- from-the-trenches
- 28. Books Spin selling by Neil Rackham Spin Selling on Amazon
- 29. Web resources ● Lean Canvas (pdf) http://leancanvas.com/LeanCanvas.pdf ● Personas http://www.usability.gov/methods/analyze_current/personas.html ● "Why you should market your startup earlier than you think" http://leostartsup.com/2012/07/why-you-should-market-your-startup-earlier-than-you-think/ ● My Pinboard with tag 'startup' http://pinboard.in/u:antonpirker/t:startup
- 30. Thank you! Any questions? Anton Pirker anton@ignaz.at @antonpirker http://goo.gl/pVHjn
Editor's Notes
- So what qualifies me to talk about doing a startup?
- -) Schnitzl.org: Social event platform to discover events you will like in your area. (Something like Amazons "people who bought this also liked this" but for events) -) Jobulous.com: Job review and rating platform. To see how your future job will be. -) UrbanGolf: Mobile App. You can play virtual golf in the reality. The smartphone becomes the golf club, the city your golf court. -) LoveStream: 2-person social network for lovers to share memories, moments, pictures with your better half. -) eWorkout: Having a workout over the internet with a real coach. Through video your coach can give you feedback. I you know any of these I really love you, because ...
- After we stopped a project, we sat down and thought about what was going wrong.
- -) Product focus: What do I want to build? -) Team: With whom I am going to build it? (The Team is the only real asset of a startup) -) Management: How I am going to build the project? (Most of the startups just don't have any management at all)
- -) -) The bigger the target audience the harder is it to build the right product and to market your product.
- -) More features means better product is just wrong. -)
- -) -) -) -) -) Wireframe the core processes of your product in every detail.
- -) I did for Shnitzl.org: Idea-Finding, Conception, Development, Design, Logo, Marketing (Stickers all over the city): It does not work.
- -) Choosing friends for your team is convenient. But you should not choose your team members by sympathy but by skills -) Big team means a lot of communication overhead and a lot of opportunity for useless discussions
- -) Have a balanced skill set. Not three guys that have ideas and make the concept and one guy is doing the development.
- -) -) If you have only 2 people in the team the Designer comes later to the team. -) -) Any advice from Gidsy?
- -) Just start because it is cool and everybody does it, is not the best idea. -) Spotify does not have a web client. Why should you have everything?
- -) Make financial plan for the first half year. -) Focus can get lost. You will do useless but fun stuff. Less money forces you just to go the most important stuff.
- -) Work together not side by side. Do daily stand ups so every knows exactly what everybody is doing. -) You have to think about this too from the very beginning.
- -) Just a rough one.. -) -) When deciding what to do next, step back and think "what is the best for your product". -) Have a date in the schedule when you want to earn money from your start up. If can not make it just end the project and do something else with your time. Holding on to your baby for too long just makes you miserable.
- -) A rough overview on how long it will take you, how you will finance and market the product. Know when to end. -) "I want to do this for the rest of my live!" is a way better motivation for doing a startup than "I want to make a lot of money in the next three years" -) Be prepared for that
- -) You need to have generalists, that can do a lot of different stuff. -) The smallest set of features that form a product that is usable and that possible customers are willing to pay for.
- -) No NDAs. Nobody will steal your idea. -) Customer Development -)
- The most important book if you want to build a company the lean way. By the inventor of the lean methodology
- Easy read on how to get out of the building and talk to and more over listen to your future customers and learn from them.
- Best book on Scrum. Just how it is done in the real world by real developers.
- You don't know how to sell your product and you think you have to be born to be a seller? This books teaches you the process of how to sell goods.