There will be times when you have to make a key technical decision about your product and the right answer is not known. It might be that you’re deciding between two possible partners for payment processing, or deciding whether to use a mobile framework like Ionic to build the next version of your app, or some […]
What Kind of Company Are You?
I heard this brilliant gem through the grapevine and wanted to share it with you. (HT to Mike at First for passing it along) When you’re building a technology company, you are driven by one of three things: Sales, Product, or Technology. Which Are You? In a sales-driven company, your sales team (which could be […]
Product Roadmap vs. Development Calendar
What’s the difference between the product roadmap and the development calendar? It’s not uncommon to think that they are the same, especially if this is your first technology project. However, they serve different purposes and are typically owned by different people in the business. What’s A Product Roadmap? The product roadmap includes high level feature […]
How to Deal With “It’s Not Possible”
Inevitably when you’re building a technology product, you’re going to have a run-in with your development team where they defiantly tell you “Um, that’s not possible!” Developers are generally a conservative bunch, not because they’re trying to be difficult (necessarily), but because their mind can quickly imagine the 500 things that must happen in order […]
Take Your Developers with You
When was the last time your developers spent time in front of your customers? If you’re like most of the business owners I work with, you probably think that the job of meeting with customers is your job, or maybe the product manager’s job. Product managers define it. Developers build it. Right? Um, no. When […]
What’s Your Leap?
Take the next few minutes and watch this video from Victor Saad. I’m putting everything I know about building great technology products on this site for free. I have no idea if this experiment will work. What will you risk? What’s your leap? If you’re stuck, commit to reading this book by Steve Pavlina over […]
How to Prioritize Your Product’s Features
You’ve built the first version of your product, or perhaps an early prototype. You’ve shown it to your prospects. You’re confident you know the product you need to go build. How do you decide what parts to build first? To answer this question, you need to take a hard look at the features and ask… […]
Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh
On this Christmas day, 2015, I wanted to share with you a few wise gifts of my own, in keeping with the spirit of the day. Gold For the soul. Time is a non-renewable. You might not have all the stuff you want, but if you’re reading this you have everything you need. I’ve made myself […]
You Don’t Get to Punt
How ludicrous would it be if I started a restaurant but didn’t understand how to create recipes that people love or how to create an atmosphere where people liked to hang out? Or a clothing company and knew nothing about the various kinds of material that I could use to make my clothes, or how to […]
How to Structure Contractor Deals
A few articles ago, we talked about the economics of hiring a US-based contract software development shop and how to find contractors to help you build your product. As we talked about, hiring a contractor can sometimes be the right way to either augment your team or perhaps, on rare occasions, be your entire team. If […]