SVFI May 21, 2013 Product Development Dan Arkind

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Product Development

Founder’s Institute

Summer 2013



Tour Guide

Dan Arkind

Founded JobScore, an

online jobs startup

15‐years recruiting,

mostly for startups



Recruiter, built JobScore for myself

2003

Idea

2006 Working product

2008 Public Launch

2012 $1.5M

run

rate

Bootstrapped, no outside investment

Over

$1M

hard

cash

investment



Software

takes

10

years



You are going to

create, sell and support

some crappy software



Products require

behavioral change



Feel the



Focus on

the



Understand the



Follow the



No $$

=



It’s not

easy



It takes

a team



Product

EngineeringDesign



everything



Figure out what

you suck

at



Visual Design



Quantitative Market Research



(your cofounder)



•Write the press release first

•Define

the

experience

•Write the FAQ & help docs

Werner Vogels

CTO ‐ Amazon.com

Work backwards



How do

I figure

out

the



Better feedback



• Organize your thoughts

• Make sure it’s easy

• Cheap, quality feedback



Do

it

manually



Work with

what

you’ve

got



Invent as

little as

possible

(stand on

the

shoulders

of

giants)



Steal shamelessly



Build

half a

productnot a half ‐assed product



Start Ugly



Make it

easy



Don’t

believe

your own BS



Get clicks



You need

them

anyway

Crop Callout



TURK

it



Question your

questions.



Definition

Development Plan



Listen



Focus



Trust your gut



What you

think

mattersdoesn’t matter



What can

we

have

working

by the end of the week?

By

the

end

of

the

month?



Advisory

Council

Introduction



Treat your time as a precious,

valuable commodity

$300 / hr



Prioritize working software

Release early and often



Be in the

same room



Turn interviewees

into advocates



Write stuff down

and share it.



Hiregreatwriters



Have good

taste:

No one cares more than you



MinimumViable

Product



For

next

time• Get them through the funnel and rick‐roll them

• Presentation Zen

• Show 3 buttons, only 1 works, see how often they click

• Cynthia Alvarez (now at yammer)

• Don’t make

me

think

(Steve

Krug)

• You need to learn how to persuade or code

• Make your mock up in powerpoint – great for cropping, callouts, etc.

• It’s about data and questions (ask the right ones)

• Use data dashboards, g‐analytics, but also mixpanel, flurry

• Can run US‐only Surveys on Mechanical turk to get reactions too stuff

• Also a great way to get content – just ask querstions

• Pattern websites – chris pointed at pttrns.com – there are more.

• Usertesting.com is very powerful.

SVFI May 21, 2013 Product Development Dan Arkind

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