In our blog we share things we've learned about leading, advising and building ventures. Occasionally we'll tell you about our people, how we do things and what we believe in.
In this article, Juho Harmaa discusses the importance of product validation for SaaS businesses to avoid investing resources in developing a product that may not have a market demand. The process involves identifying the target market, evaluating their problems, brainstorming ideas for solutions, and evaluating the feasibility of the ideas. Juho highlights that validating the audience, problem, solution, and perceived value of the solution is critical. The article also explains different validation techniques, such as audience validation, survey validation, and competition validation, that businesses can use to test their product ideas.
Innovation has risks, but the one that succeeds can boost revenue and customer satisfaction. Companies that adopt new ideas have the edge over their competitors and likely remain in business. But lack of innovation can cause business failure. A recent survey estimates that 84% of customers want to buy from innovative companies. Organizations like Nokia, Blackberry, Circuit City, and MySpace failed because they ignored the importance of innovation in their business. How a company approaches partial or total disruption can determine its future. For example, in the last 21 years, 52% of Fortune 500 companies became bankrupt, merged, or disappeared because of innovation. An organization that is looking to retain its customers should rethink innovation. So, why do corporations fail to adopt new ideas, and what's the solution to the fear of innovation?
Product validation is an essential phase when building a new product. Many businesses often get excited over a new product or service and rush to launch it without conducting thorough groundwork. Even though you may have a general idea of who your customers are, developing your new product or service without research can be a recipe for disaster. You will need to keep guessing what your customers want, and unfortunately, it may not be possible to fulfill their needs without first understanding your customers adequately.
In software development, agile methodology focuses on the delivery of individual software parts rather than the entire package. It's ideal for teams that are working on common goals, but with different functional expertise. Companies using agile solutions can feel confident about their end-product since they've performed extensive testing in various ways throughout the design and development process. Agile enterprise solutions help companies to collaborate with consumers and the client organizations. What is different, however, is that they don't just buy an end-product, but also play a part in the planning and execution processes. The solutions value a pragmatic-mindset and a flexible approach. Considering that change is inevitable, enterprise organizations can use a distinct flavor of agile to continue winning in the marketplace. Read on to learn why agile enterprise solutions are the key to winning.
Knowing when and how to scale your software team can be complicated. Putting in place the proper tools with a long-term outlook can lead to colossal growth. Still, there is no one way to scale a team or company. Understanding what is already working and unique about your business will provide clues for how to best adapt as you scale up operations. In this article Jesse Heikkilä discusses when and how you should scale your software development team.
Whether a bootstrapped startup or a corporate behemoth, starting a new business has always been a hit-and-miss endeavor. According to the decades-long formula, you design a business strategy, offer it to investors, assemble a team, launch a product, and begin selling aggressively. And somewhere along the way, you'll almost certainly experience a deadly setback. According to research, the chances are stacked against you; a whopping 90% of all start-ups fail.However, to mitigate the odds that are definitely against new founders and certainly not for the faint of heart, we should consider a new way of doing things by emphasizing experimentation and iterative design over traditional "big design up front" development, and customer input over intuition or old rigid models. Where companies often tumble is their deep misunderstanding of the product/market fit.
A well-defined product development strategy is undoubtedly the secret to building a successful company. Whether developing a new product or revamping an existing one, a clear vision, goals, and initiatives make all the difference. A clear roadmap that accounts for the rightful resources and an apt timeline are a must. Once the high level roadmap is clear, you have all the flexibility in the world to add features or other tweaks along the way. Building a killer product strategy doesn't have to be complicated, but it should be time-consuming, as a good strategy is the antidote to chaos in a sea of unpredictability. Now, let's look at some of the key elements needed for a winning product strategy.
Energizing an enterprise-scale company with innovation isn't easy. Cash-hungry startups fuel themselves on lean operating models and growth-generating funnels like AARRR, Lean Canvas, and the Lean Startup Model. But established businesses don't have the luxury of hyper-focusing on rapid, all-or-nothing growth. They have a core business model to protect and old rigid patterns to emulate. How do you break out, develop that amazing new product or service, and tread gracefully over the all-too-common scaling frictions that sink most ventures? You need to infect your venture with the same entrepreneurial spirit it had back when it successfully scaled into the sunset and built a terrific and consistent core.