The document discusses the concept of "smoke tests" which are a way for companies to quickly test product ideas without needing developers by directly trying ideas on customers and measuring conversion. It provides an example of how one company tested the idea of an "Add to Box" feature by rapidly building and launching a simple prototype, which ended up significantly growing the company's profits and being a better approach than traditional lengthy development. The document advocates for this approach as a way to efficiently validate product backlog ideas and make better decisions.

1. SMOKE TESTS
HUSTLE YOUR EXPERIMENTS w/o DEVS
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2. WHO IS THIS GUY DOMINIC?
● Co-Founded GarmentValet
● Co-Founded Curebit / Talkable
Now I’m @DistroDom @500
Startups investing time and $ in
promising startups #500STRONG
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3. PRODUCT GROWTH+
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4. A little story...
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5. MY OWN F*CKUP - one of the many ;)
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6. BAD LINES FROM THE “OPS” APP
Sales
Cash
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8. WAITING ON
ONE
MODULE
1 YEAR WASTED
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9. WE’VE
ALL BEEN
HERE
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10. Growth Is SLOWER than we want
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11. Product Backlog is LONGER than we want
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12. YOU EXPECT….
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13. But you get….
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14. #ProductGROWTHDilemma
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15. KILL THAT SHIT
Before it KILLS YOU
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16. SMOKE TEST
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17. WTF is this Smoke Test?
WAY TO PROVE THAT YOUR PRODUCT
BACKLOG IS WORTH IT
task: validate do
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18. @DistroDom - #WMD2015
- Alberto Savoia

19. LET’S RUN A PROCESS
1. What is the MINIMUM PROOF You Need?
2. How can you get that proof with NO ENGINEERS?
3. Drive the RIGHT TRAFFIC to your experiment
4. MEASURE Conversion
5. Analyze and OPTIMIZE
6. Make a DECISION
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20. WHAT IS THE PROOF YOU NEED?
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21. CAN I DO IT WITHOUT CODE?
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22. AUDIENCE MATCH
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23. KEEP SCORE
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24. NEXT STEPS
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25. DECIDE
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26. ITERATE
CONSTANTLY
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27. Vs. This Design
- Asked for email
and zip before live
- Had a <3% Email
Capture Rate
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28. RESULTS
<= 30% of visitors
entered their
zipcode
&
25 % of people
entered their
email =>
&
10% shared
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29. AN EXAMPLE FROM LAST WEEK
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30. ADD TO BOX
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31. “TYPICAL” PRODUCT WAY
BUILD a New
Feature Called
“Add To Box”
(~2 Weeks)
PLAN a New
Feature Called
“Add To Box”
(~1 Week)
TEST &
RELEASE
a New Feature
Called “Add To
Box”
(~1 Week)
ONE MONTH POTENTIALLY WASTED
@DistroDom - #WMD2015

32. “TYPICAL” PRODUCT WAY
LAUNCH
(THAT DAY)
PLAN
IDEA =>
HACK
(~1 hour)
MAKE $$$$
BOoooOM
:)
And the RESULTS….
@DistroDom - #WMD2015

33. FIRE
● 9.55% of Active Subs converted
● Overall monthly gross profit grew by
45% because of this feature
● Marginal gross profit per PijonBox, on
those boxes, grew over 357%.
●
@DistroDom - #WMD2015

34. BUT EVEN IF WE LOST….
● Saved a month of dev time
● Learned about our customers
● FELT GOOD AS A TEAM
●
WE WOULD HAVE STILL WON!!
@DistroDom - #WMD2015

35. dom@500.co
@DistroDom
www.facebook.com/dominic.coryell
HUSTLE WITH ME
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36. GROWTH => PRODUCT
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