Presentation held by Boris Krstović on topic "Building Product 101" at Startup Academy course in Belgrade. More details at startapakademija.com.

1. Boris Krstović, me@bocc.io
Building Product 101
- What are you building?
- How to build a product from Balkans
- Process of building product
- Importance of engineering culture
- Taking product outside the building

2. What I‟m NOT going to
paraphrase/retell today:
 “10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps” –> go and
watch Fred Wilson.
 “Startup Metrics for Pirates” -> go watch Dave McClure
 Customer discovery / validation –> buy and read Steve Blank
…I expect you to do your homework 

3. What are you really building?
You might think that you make things (build interfaces
and features); but in reality, what you do is enable
certain human activities.

6. What are you really building?
 What are the core activities that you are pursuing?
 The product strategy and goals should always be
defined by what activities you enable (rather than
what your product does).

9. Can we build the next Google from Belgrade?

10. Plan as if you‟re NOT gonna raise any money
Newscurve story:
 Fact #1: We were funded – by ourselves
 Fact #2: Balkan as a comfort zone lags at least 2-3yrs!
 Fact #3: We outsourced everything that wasn‟t core product

11. Raising $100k is
more difficult
than raising $2mm

12. How can you build without seed investment?
FFF is extremely rare in our part of the world!
 Develop IP through services (that’s how Vivvo started)
 Have a project that‟s generating revenue (that’s how
Newscurve started)
 Have someone to make cash while you burn it (Toshl,
iStudio…)

13. Your customers are your investors.
Make them pay from day one!

14. Building product: Owners and PMs
 Someone must have the responsibility for the product (does
not need to be technically savvy person!)
 Different parts of the product can have owners, even from the
very beginning (owner != PM)
 Roadmaps of different owners are a great source of constant
conflicts and fighting  - trade-offs become a daily routine

15. What is a Product Manager role?
 A captain of the ship
 Biggest challenge: saying NO
 Remember that part about “core activities you’re pursuing” 
 Who calls the shots in the company? Marketing/Sales or
Product/Engineering?

17. Challenges in owning a product
 Prioritizing
 Adapting well to changes (market, company, competition)
 Steering the right course (despite of what investors, board,
clients, engineers, marketing and mom&dad want from you)
 Biggest obstacle: vanity (never get in love with your idea)

18. Keep the minimal process

19. Product building: The Process
 Process actually needs to be fun 
 DON’T include some PM tool/workflow in the process just
because you saw/used it somewhere else: Find our what
works for your team‟s DNA.
 Introduce new processes only to fix problems that emerge, not
to look corporate!
 We introduced Scrum in Vivvo back in „07… and failed
miserably.

20. From idea to feature
A specification (in my book) is iterative answer to
business requirement or user story.
 Low-fidelity mockup & initial spec
 (Balsamiq) – a picture’s worth a thousand words
 Initial spec (no bullshit lingo – you actually want people to read this!)
 Refine specs (edge cases, policies…)
 Hi-fidelity mockup (pixel-perfect) - show it to clients
 Backlog / sprint planning (engineers estimate this, not you!)
 In between every step: iterate and iterate with all parties!

21. Tip #1:
User story: Do NOT explain/suggest
solution to a problem!
Describe the need instead.

22. Tip #2:
Never instruct developers
what you want them to do.
Explain them what problem they
need to solve*!
* This doesn‟t apply to Indians, n00bs and freelancers

24. Importance of engineering culture
Three things you can do to make a great product:
1. Let engineers do their job
2. Let engineers do their job
3. Just get out of the way and let engineers do their job

25. Fact #1:
Engineers have own standards
for writing quality code.
(hint: peer reviews)

26. Fact #2:
Deadlines are toxic!
(have a good reason for
crunch time)
Piling up technical (code) debts will inevitably
lead to engineers not giving a damn anymore
(just before they find another job).

27. Getting outside the building
 Feedback
 Remember the most important thing about “user stories”?
 Typically, users don‟t care what‟s good for product
 Metrics
 Understand how people actually use your product!
(you may be veeeeery surprised)

29. That‟s all folks!
Boris Krstović,
@bkrstovic | me@bocc.io