Product Development

,

Technical Debt: Every Startup Needs to Know When to Cut its Losses

,
Technical Debt: Every Startup Needs to Know When to Cut its Losses

We’ve mentioned before that we took the concept of “hidden debt,” or debtbergs, that is the main premise for our book, The Titanic Effect, from the idea of technical debt – work is done that has to later be re-done because it has too many internal flaws. We see these same expeditious decisions being made, not just in product design, but also in choices about who to hire, which investors to seek out, and what marketing activities to undertake. We want to share our own story of technical debt with the development of our audiobook.

,

Startups Need to Monitor Customer Usage Metrics

,
Startups Need to Monitor Customer Usage Metrics

We were recently asked how to validate that an MVP  (Minimally Viable Product) is working. When we say “validate an MVP,” what we mean is to have some proof that you have a product the market wants, that product has been acceptably configured, and it’s now time to start figuring out how to scale sales. If you want to connect this post to The Titanic Effect book, we are looking at the First Customer stage in Chapter 5 – The Technical Ocean.  One approach you can use is to do market research on the MVP. This takes the MVP from internal to external testing. There are two main ways to do this market research:

,

The Power of Getting Customer Input for Startups

,
The Power of Getting Customer Input for Startups

One of the toughest questions startups have to answer is how they create value for customers. We’ve already shared how to avoid the customer value void. But recently, we were reminded about just how powerful getting customer input can be. So, we wanted to share three examples to inspire you to get your own feedback.