get your product moving - founders institute
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Get Your Product Moving
Founders InstituteNovember 2012
Tony Karrer, Ph.D.CEO, TechEmpower, [email protected]://socalcto.com
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Background• Ph.D. Computer Science, LMU Professor CS 10
Years
• Founder– Sprinkler Systems Installation (age 15)– Knowledge Stream ($59M exit)– TechEmpower (1997 - present)– Aggregage (2010 – present)
• Part-Time CTO / Technical Advisor– Talk with 100+ startups each year
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Complexity of Your Product
Complex> 12 Prog Mon> $100K
Simple< 3 Prog Mon< $35K
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Simplify
Complex> 12 Prog Mon
Simple< 3 Prog Mon
• Simple Forum• WordPress• Manual Commerce
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Other Ways to “Simplify”
• Paper (More Next Slide)• Smoke and Mirrors Prototype• Fake Site• Proof of Concept• Minimum MVP• Leverage Existing Platforms or Third
Parties
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Homework - Before You Build Anything
• Steve Blank’s Startup Owner’s Manual• Wireframes• Graphic Comps – 99designs, eLance• Test on Paper and Iterate • Don’t Miss Key Questions
http://www.socalcto.com/2011/08/32-questions-developers-may-have-forgot.html
– Targets/Mobile, Notifications, Email, Marketing Tracking, Analytics / Metrics / Reporting, SEO Support, Social / Viral, Location, Time Zones, Video
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Complexity of Your Product
Complex> 12 Prog Mon
Simple< 3 Prog Mon
Equity Only Developer
Dedicated Technical TeamIn House, Outsource, Hybrid
Freelance Developer
Offshore Dice Roll
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Elusive (Illusive) Technical Cofounder
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Be Prepared When You Meet a Developer
• They Want– Solve a problem, create something neat from
scratch– Learn something new– Food and other Rewards
• Hate– Salespeople / Being Sold – Pretending to Know More Than You Know – Not Knowing Enough– Time Wasters - Don't talk too much. Stay on
point. Only go social when they go social.
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Founder Developer Gap
Founder Developer
Technical AdvisorProgrammer
FriendPart-time CTO
GAP
Get Your Product Moving
Founders InstituteNovember 2012
Tony Karrer, Ph.D.CEO, TechEmpower, [email protected]://socalcto.com