Thoughts on Developing a Product (as a developer)

Transcript

1. Friday, July 12, 13
2. Randy Schmidt Your Vacation Advisor Own Your Vacation Friday, July 12, 13
3. Time Shares Friday, July 12, 13
4. Thoughts On Developing A Product Randy Schmidt / me@r38y.com (as a developer) Friday, July 12, 13
5. I don’t claim to be an expert or successful Friday, July 12, 13
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7. Is this guy a massive blowhard? Friday, July 12, 13
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11. How do you know Randy used to be a structural engineer? HE’LL TELL YOU Friday, July 12, 13
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15. Lessons Learned Friday, July 12, 13
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22. How do you know Randy lost a bunch of weight? HE’LL TELL YOU Friday, July 12, 13
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30. Lessons Learned Friday, July 12, 13
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33. Lessons Learned Friday, July 12, 13
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35. $$ Friday, July 12, 13
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38. Selling a Site • Tried selling LIOLI - shut it down • Sold DMS - paid off student loans • Huge pain in the ass • After DMS and LIOLI, I no longer think of it as a realistic “exit” • If you do, either make zero money (hard to value) or make a lot of money Friday, July 12, 13
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41. Subscriptions Friday, July 12, 13
42. Subscriptions • Aligns costs and revenue • Collect CC info once and charge multiple times • DMS: $19/month * 50 * 12 = $11,400 • DMS made as much as LIOLI after six months • Basecamp: $20/month since 2006 Friday, July 12, 13
43. Pricing Model • Subscriptions match expenses • One-off charges are ok if you don’t have infrastructure (iOS apps + iCloud) • Instapaper started as one-time cost for years of service, added subscriptions at some point • Advertising Friday, July 12, 13
44. Making Money • Plan to make money from the start • It is easier to keep working on it if it at least breaks even • Feedbin - $3/month, no trial • Don’t fall back to dev when this gets hard • Revenue is a feature Friday, July 12, 13
45. Criteria • Time to money • Hobby or business? • Does it fix a problem I have? • Am I excited about the project? • Does it make the world a better place? • Is it a muggle problem I’m intimately familiar with? Someone in my family? Friday, July 12, 13
46. Design • Think outside-in - start with wireframes • Figure out the core problem and go from there • Save money to pay someone or find a partner that is a designer • Something pretty makes people happy and more willing to accept bugs Friday, July 12, 13
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48. Complexity • Devs looove complexity, cut it out • Used to programming languages - infinite flexibility • You’ll never ship if you try to support every feature request • I get overwhelmed by complexity which I think helps me Friday, July 12, 13
49. Competitors • Seem like they are scary at first • Just look at all the time tracking, invoicing, to do and newsletter apps • Sucks that it seems like all competitors have to build the same 90% of a product • Don’t let them keep you from developing something you think is novel or better Friday, July 12, 13
50. Choosing Features • Small set of features executed perfectly everywhere • Ship once you have solved the core problem • Each new feature needs to be supported • See Evernote and Wunderlist Friday, July 12, 13
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53. Lifestyle • Live cheaply + save money • LIOLI: took three weeks off and invested $15k up-front • DMS: invested $4,500 in design + hosting • Just took four weeks off to work on new project • I can take as much time off as I want Friday, July 12, 13
54. Takeaways • Hobby or business • Have a small nut • Have a way to make money on launch • Invest in design - think outside-in • Watch complexity • Be careful not to fall back to development because development is “easy” Friday, July 12, 13
55. I’m Happy to Help Friday, July 12, 13
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58. Questions? Friday, July 12, 13