Get Your Product Moving

Founders InstituteNovember 2012

Tony Karrer, Ph.D.CEO, TechEmpower, Inc.akarrer@techempower.comhttp://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, Inc.akarrer@techempower.comhttp://socalcto.com