One project shuts down and another begins. We have learned a ton building Escape Velocity and we are going to take these lessons and going to start a brand new podcast [drum roll]: Casual Tech Patterns. The new show will have the same Escape Velocity team and it will be a tech themed talk show where we discuss the latest trends in tech, hardware, software and the business side of things.

In the coming weeks we are going to be publishing in the EV G+ community topics and articles we’re passionate about, and based on the feedback we get from you, or from other hosts, we’ll decide for the direction of our new podcast. So, please stay tuned for this! And as usual, we would like to hear what you think, and any suggestions that you might have.

We share mind maps that we have come up with as part of our experiment, and share our first-hand experience at creating them. Some very interesting facts uncover in the process. We also explore the possibility of brainstorming remotely, and brainstorming alone.

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/brainstorming/ - some interesting information on brainstorming alone

Sergey’s Mind Map:

Hrishi’s Mind Map:

Spezify was founded four years ago by Per Persson and  Felix af Ekenstam in Sweden, as they were tinkering with the idea of getting a slice of the internet across all media just in one search, instead of in separate searches.

Spezify defies traditional “googling”. It was created out of a personal need. Per and Felix often found themselves doing image searches and leaning more towards a visually rich results. When performing just a Google search, they were missing all other media. There might me value in, for example, music/podcast on Soundcloud, or tweets.

Spezify materialises the notion of surfing the web. When you enter a term, everything happens in the flash file. Content providers are contacted through the API. The result is put together in a common format, ending up in beautiful tiles.

People use Spezify for brainstorming. There is something in the visual presentation, the visual appeal, that helps people to think creatively. Teachers use it a lot at schools, as a starting point to explore subjects. Spezify is much more fun than many other search tools.

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In a brainstorming session, people get together in the same room and share ideas without jugdging each others’ opinions. The result should a bunch of good creative ideas. Although it sounds fun, and you get a lot of ideas in a positive spirit, in the end there may be no real results. It is very useful to add a certain amount of criticism to actually come up with something useful. You’ll find that many people are sometimes shy, and you need an environment where everyone can participate and feel confident. It helps to take a break and give time to write down their ideas and get ready.

When you start a brainstorming session, you can use a whiteboard to list all the big things that you are thinking about, and then highlight the ideas that you want to pursue. In brainstorming sessions, if you are stuck, you can keep asking “what if…”, and putting ideas together by starting with “yes and…”

You can use a reverse brainstorming technique: You identify the problem, and reverse it. That way, you get to the cause to the problem. We tend to focus on solving the problem, whereas if you try to focus on the cause, you can find a new angle.

In the step ladder technique, you start with a problem known to everyone. Before the session, they shoud come up with a list of solutions. You all get together as a group, and only two people get into a conference room and start discussing their ideas. After a few minutes, a third person comes in, and starts talking about what he or she is thinking. Somehow, the first two people are more informed, so the person who is been there the longest has a solid opinion. Six people should be a good number in a brainstorming group.

There are some cultural differences in brainstorming. Giving out ideas without thinking them through, or giving up on “your idea”, even if it’s not the best, may not be acceptable in some countries.

Brainstorming is part the product development process. It would be good to do it at the very early stages, for example before market research or before wireframing. You have to be careful so that brainstorming does not slow down your project.

We will soon be discussing brainstorming tools. In the meantime, check out our Google+ page. We are sharing interesting links with the community!

Wireframing is just a way of designing your website or app very quickly without getting into detail. It’s a way of sketching your high level ideas, combining online and offline tools.

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It can be very useful in different contexts: at a very early stage, when you just want to visualize an idea and communicate it to somebody else; when you want to share your thoughts with cross-functional people; as a continuous integrator, to show your client what you are working on, and to see obvious flows.

Wareframing should be related to a user story. It should be quick, even kind of ugly… If it looks very nice people will start to criticize small details. Because the focus is on functionality, sometimes it is good to remind designers that they should not stick to your design,

Sketching needs to come before wireframing. It all needs to be done by hand.

Don’t jump into wireframing before you have a list of what you are trying to achieve. First decide if what you are going to do will be mobile or web, then sketch it on paper. Wireframing is not a good way to test your ideas. You will find it hard to control the versions of your product while you are wireframing. The clearer you have in mind what you are trying to do, the better.

Some good tools on wireframing are Balsamiq, mockingbird, Hotgloo, WireframeSketcher and Fluid UI. You can even use Simplediagramms or Powerpoint just to get started.

We talk about a few links during the show. Have a look.

Sergey´s links:

http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2008/01/02/the-boxing-glove-wireframing-technique/ - explains why high-fidelity wireframes are not always useful

http://blog.intercom.io/wireframing-for-web-apps/ - some pointer for best practices in wireframes

http://uxmovement.com/wireframes/why-its-important-to-sketch-before-you-wireframe/ - sketching and wireframing are not the same thing

http://uxmag.com/articles/ditch-traditional-wireframes - outlines some of the current problems with wireframing

Ben’s links

20 Steps to Better Wireframing

• •. Make it Functional, Not Pretty
• •. Set a Deadline for Completing the Wireframe
• •. Remember that UI is not UX
• •. Don’t Get Lazy
• •. Number Your Pages

Is wireframing dead?

The whole high-level wireframe exercise? Forget it. My approach here is, get your UX-ers in a room with your techs, art directors, strategists etc…and everybody draw on the whiteboard. Then, spend less time illustrating the UI and more time illustrating the user touchpoints, the experiential activities.

Three reasons why wireframing tools suck.

Responsive Responsive Responsive (& Version control)

The ‘Boxing Glove’ Wireframing Technique

1. Grab a big pad of post-it notes
2. Grab a felt tip pen
3. Sketch each page on a single post-it
4. Draw a single user-journey through the system.
5. Concentrate on the ‘happy path’, i.e. ignore contingencies for now. That’s it!

6 Web Wireframing Tips For The Absolute Beginner

1. Use a simple layout
2. But be thorough
3. Featured Content
4. Screen Resolution
5. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Pick the right tools

This week on the show, we look back on 2012 and what we have planned for 2013. Please subscribe to the feed on iTunes and get back to us on @evpodcast on Twitter or here.

In another discussion show, we talk about Sentiment Analysis, what it is and how or if it can help your project. Links to the websites talked in the show are below.

Sergey
1. http://www.snapsurveys.com/techadvqualquant.shtml – Compares qualitative to quantitative reserach
2. http://blog.vovici.com/Blog/bid/17986/Qualitative-vs-Quantitative-Research – more points of differences between the qualitative and quantitative surveys
3. http://www.surveygizmo.com/survey-blog/quantitative-qualitative-research/ – more info on qualitative surveys and when one would want to use them
4. http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1450/2946 – if want to dive deep into the academics behind it
5. Becoming Qualitative Researchers – An Introduction – book that a lot people recommend
Hrishi
1. Basic introduction to Sentiment Analysis: http://mashable.com/2010/04/19/sentiment-analysis/
2. Interesting article / academic work on SPAM detection in content: http://www.cs.uic.edu/~liub/FBS/sentiment-analysis.html
3. Future of Sentiment Analysis: http://readwrite.com/2011/09/23/the_future_of_sentiment_analysis
4. How Sentiment Analysis works: http://www.slideshare.net/mcjenkins/how-sentiment-analysis-works
5 . A very nice book on Wisdomof the Crowds: http://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Crowds-James-Surowiecki/dp/0385721706
Ben

1. Qualitative before quantitative survey: http://www.userdriven.org/blog/2008/4/13/qualitative-before-quantitative-research.html
2. Sample size for qualitative research: http://www.icology.co.uk/qualitativesamplesize.html
3. Improving the Effectiveness of Customer Sentiment Analysis: http://data-informed.com/blog/2012/09/13/improving-effectiveness-of-customer-sentiment-analysis/
4. Marketing Your Emotions: A Look at Sentiment Analysis Online: http://www.digitalsurgeons.com/blog/marketing-your-emotions-a-look-at-sentiment-analysis-online/
5. A R package for sentiment Analysis: Harvesting tweets can open up a new world of valuable qualitative data: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2012/07/07/good-uni-quality-nightlife-how-harvesting-tweets-opens-up-a-new-world-of-valuable-qualitative-data/

Josh provides us with a great insight into surveys, and backbone operations of Measurely and Lymbix. We talk about qualitative information, understanding sentiment from content. We talk about Measurely, when and how to use it and how the technologies developed at Lymbix brought about a set of products. Josh dives in to the details and explains how content owners and publishers use the data and analytical information generated by Measurely.

Finally, Josh discusses how to early decisions and thought process at Lymbix helped him decide on the structure of the company and projects that came after it.

Subscribe to the iTunes and reachout on Facebook: facebook.com/evpodcast and on Twitter @evpodcast

Beta Feature: We have transcribed the show, using Komei’s (Ben’s company) technology, while not 100% it is a good transcript of the show to follow as you listen: You can find the document here:

Show Transcript

  As we continue with our discussions series of shows, this is a followup to the Sean Ellis interview, this week we talk about questionnaires. We did basic research and compiled a list of sites that would give a very nice introduction to the world of surveying as far as start-ups are concerned. The list is below, listen and learn about the different types of data, survey types and a lot more information that will help your project.

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Hrishi’s Links
Basics of Surveys: http://app.idph.state.il.us/docs/FullPageSlidesSurvey_Basics.pdf
Sample size calculator: http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm
A survey site I built : https://sites.google.com/site/ewasteprofilingsurvey/
Sampling Simplified: http://www.garnetthenley.com/HenleysSamplingLecture2012.pdf
Qualitative vs Quantitative data: http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algebra/AD1/qualquant.htm
Signficance Test: http://www.experiment-resources.com/significance-test.html

Sergey’s links:
Good info on surveys: http://www.designstaff.org/articles/improve-your-startups-surveys-and-get-even-better-data-2012-04-04.html
Mobile survey: http://www.survey-me.co.uk/
Provides helpful info for startups to do a survey to undesrtand their audience: http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/surveys/
Survey tools: http://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/
A few pointers as to how to construct a survey: http://velocity.uwaterloo.ca/so-youre-a-startup/startup-write-survey

Ben links:

http://www.designstaff.org/articles/improve-your-startups-surveys-and-get-even-better-data-2012-04-04.html

• Avoid leading questions: Would you use this improved version of product X?
• Avoid agree/disagree statements
• Avoid “double-barreled” questions: How satisfied are you with Geico’s payment and billing options?
• Avoid asking “why” to get at motivations: Why did you click on the ad?
• Avoid comparison questions (use two separate surveys) : Do you like the previous or current version of Facebook better?

http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/surveys/

• Pick your goals
• Pick a Sample size
• Choose who you target
• Long article… We can discuss open-ended questions vs scales and yes/no

http://leanstartupmachine.com/2011/07/the-flaws-of-online-surveys/

• You miss the opprtunity to really talk to your customer at early stage

http://www.quora.com/The-Startup-Centre-Conversations/How-do-you-design-an-effective-survey-for-Market-Validation-Customer-Development

• Mandatory questions. Do you really need them?
• No Psychometric Tests please
• Make your surveys “learn” with data
• Acknowledge your users. Tell them how important their insights were

Sean shares with us his great insight into the world of on-line surveys, and demonstrates a few “tricks” on how to get the most of the surveys.

Qualaroo started with an acquisition of KISSinsights and it evolved into a customer lifecycling manager solution. Surveys continue to be a big part of it Qualaroo.

Specially in startups , there is somehow a division between people with a big action bias and people with a big research bias. Some think that surveying is “old school”, but actually you can do really good tests when you understand the decisions people are making. The understanding that you can get out of surveys can inform good tests.

In a startup it is hard to get a significant number of participants, but the information they give you is very powerful if you use it in the right way. Surveys give you ideas to run small smarter tests that help you improve.

In the early days of your startup,  it’s about going out and having conversations to finding out who needs your product, why your product is needed, and what problem you are trying to solve. But at a certain point, it all becomes very anecdotic. That’s when you use the conversations to create your hypothesis of the business, and that´s when you survey to get to a more statistical sample size.

For early stage projects, you should get at least a group of people of which at least 40% are really interested in what you do. Before that, even if you have a 10% that consistenly say they would be dissappointed without the product, it’s perfectly fine. You just need to find out as much as you can about those people: what makes them unique, how are they using the product, why do they need it. Once you understand, you can build a promise that reflects that benefit. You can acquire more potential users like them.

In a startup, the art of writing the question is really important: it has to get a high response, because you do not have a big group to survey. It should be easy and all the complexity should be on the back end. Questions need to impact the experience and provide value.

Visit Sean’s blog to learn more about the topic.

This week Sergey our Executive Producer (@sergey5 on Twitter) joins us as a follow up on our Analytics interview with Hiten Shah. We are doing something different, we compiled a few links on Analytics below that we found interesting and we discuss them. This is a new format and we hope that you will like it. We love feedback and let us know if you like this.
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Hrishi’s Links:
Udacity’s Lean Launchpad: http://www.udacity.com/overview/Course/ep245/CourseRev/1
Alternate to AB testing: http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=132
Basics of AB Testing: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31634/A-B-Testing-in-Action-3-Real-Life-Marketing-Experiments.aspx
Optimizely: http://blog.optimizely.com/ab-testing-all-star-john-from-ixl-learning
Unbounce: http://unbounce.com/a-b-testing/
Limitations of AB testing: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/07/groundhog-day-or-the-problem-with-ab-testing.html
http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2012/bandit_algorithms_vs_ab.html

Ben’s Links:

Conversion Optimization Tools We Like: http://www.widerfunnel.com/free-resources/conversion-optimization-tools-we-like
Mobile User Experience Tracking with Shmuli Goldberg of Clicktale: http://www.beyondwebanalytics.com/
Web Analytics TV With Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh1nEKCB96M&feature=relmfu
Radian6 Sentiment Analysis Review – Does Natural Language Processing Work? http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-monitoring/radian6-sentiment-analysis-review/
Chartbeat: http://chartbeat.com/

Sergey’s Links:
Visual heatmaps based on the mouse movements: http://www.clicktale.com/
Google analytics for mobile: http://www.digitalmarket.asia/2012/07/measure-user-experience-with-google-mobile-app-analytics/
Paid tools vs. free tools: http://blog.tamar.com/2011/10/should-you-use-a-paid-for-analytics-tool/
About analytics in general: http://www.cmswire.com/cms/web-content/10-keys-to-success-with-web-analytics-003454.php?pageNum=3
11 different types of analytics: http://www.getelastic.com/11-types-of-analytics-for-2011/
Clicky – real-time google analytics alternative: http://getclicky.com/66588228

Both of these startups are centred around analytics. CrazyEgg, which was founded in 2005, creates heat-maps of where people are looking at in a page. KissMetrics, which was started in 2008, helps people to analyse their customers. It is the product that Hiten is currently working on. This is a part one of our two part special on Analytics. In the next episode we talk about Analytics and our experiences with it.

Listen to this episode to find out more about analytics tools, and how they can be used. Hiten also shares his great insight into starting a new company and developing new products.

IFTT is a simple web service that allows users to connect internet services they use and automates the interaction between these services. All these recipes are shareable and connect any service in any way that users see fit.

Founded only a couple of years ago, IFTTT went public beta in early 2011, came out of private beta in September 2011. This past April, IFTTT reached a million recipes created and launched shared recipes. John’s team would like to turn IFTTT into a platform that any IP/service provider can plug into and start getting the benefits from being one of the endpoints in the system. They are also focusing on having more channels and getting the first steps for having some sort of open so that developers can create channels, as well as making the service easier to use, and the system more reliable.

Listen to this week’s episode to learn more about what’s going on inside small companies (IFTTT has only 8 people at the moment).

If you would like to help IFTTT to grow, go and sign up now at http://ifttt.com  and start creating your own or using other people’s recipes. You can also reach John on Twitter @Johnsheehan.

Don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes. We are always looking for feedback from you guys, so please write us your thoughts, opinions or suggestions to our e-mail address, or you can contact us on twitter @EVpodcast if you feel like chatting. You can also contact us directly on twitter: @hrishiballal, @bcurdy and @Sergey5.

Image from http://ux.digia.com/

Today’s episode is based on our thoughts and experience performing user experience testing.

We have asked Sergey, our executive producer to test out a system that Hrishi has been working for a while now called Urbanflow Engine. We have learned very valuable lessons, and we have been convinced that user testing is one of the cheapest and easiest ways of testing out the new product.

Listen to this week’s podcast to find out what our experience was like. We also explain a little about the user experience and usability testing in general. If you have an interest in this area and want to learn more about it, we have a few links that would guide you in the right direction:

1. This article describes the theory and practices behind the user experience testing.
2. This article describes the ten tools that can be used to measure user experience.
3. This article provides a great and deeper insight into the user experience testing.
4. You can find even more useful information at these two great resources (1 and 2).

This is a big and very interesting topic, and are thinking about doing a follow up episode on it. If you guys like the idea, have anything in particular you want us to talk about, or have any suggestions please feel free to drop us an email: feedback@reachev.com, talk to us on Twitter: @EVPodcast or Facebook.

Mary has over a decade of experience in working in the hardware sector, specialising in display technology. Mary has an impressive track record: she was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine for her work in creating One Laptop per Child (OLPC), and a number of other companies. Display is one of the most innovative features of the OLPC product. Pixel Qi is her fourth startup.

Mary explains the difficulties of working in the hardware industry. It is difficult to get funding for a new innovative product. Initial investment needs to be substantial. Mary discovered that having a good track record and contacts are crucial in this industry. Building a good reputation took time and she constantly had to prove that what she was doing actually addressed the issues faced by manufacturers.

Mary also discusses manufacturing aspect of the hardware industry. For displays there are only five major manufacturing companies in the world. All of them are located in Asia. Mary found people in Asia to be less approachable than in the Western world.

Mary also touches on the topic of women working in the hardware industry.

For this, and many more interesting facts and stories please listen to this episode of the Escape Velocity. If you like it, subscribe and rate to us on iTunes, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. If you have something you want to share with us, or just to say hi, contact us at feedback@reachev.com.

Often the first opinions and feedback you get on your new product are from your close friends and relatives. From personal experience we can say that the feedback is in most cases positive, but that is what friends are for. You will never get an unbiased opinion this way, so Ben and Hrishi explore other channels that can be used to reach interested people.

Your first customers are people who share your passion, and have similar vision about the solution.

Hrishi and Ben discuss the part social media and ads can play in getting first customers. They both agree in the fact that it is not the optimal venue to look for such people.

Ben shares his experience of attending events, conferences or any other sorts of gathering of people that share similar interests to yours. He had positive experience gathering valuable feedback at such events, and believes that this is a step up from trying to use social media.

Hrishi shares his experience at coldcalling to gather valuable contacts and feedback. He shares the video he usually points people he calls to. You can view it here.

Of cause there are more ways of getting new customers that we didn’t cover in this episode due to time constraints and lack of personal experiences. An example of one would be “get out of building” approach. If you wish to learn about it here is a great source of information. If you want to get more technical, here is another great source of information on this particular approach.

To learn more listen to this episode of Escape Velocity, where Hrishi and Ben cover all the things mentioned here in more details, and even more. If our show has inspired you to learn even more about this fascinating topic (and we truly hope it did), we found these articles by Jason Cohen to be very helpful in our preparation for this episode, and learning more about the topic in general. If you have the time we highly recommend you tto take a look at these articles: ” How do I get my first few customers?“; “Yes, but who said they’d actually BUY the damn thing?“; “10 things I’ve never heard a successful startup founder say“.

As always, we are eager to hear what you guys think about what we talked about on the show, or about the show in general. If you wish us to discuss something in particular in the next episodes, like going more in-depth about the current topic, or covering some applications that help us reaching and finding customers please don’t hesitate to send us your feedback to feedback@reachev.com, or contact us on twitter at @EVpodcast. You can also contact us individually on our twitter accounts: Ben, Hrishi and of course our producer Sergey.

Last, but not least, we would also like to thank Colum Higgins, who helped us with this episode with his valuable feedback. Thank you.

Supermarmite is a French startup  that allows people to share their extra portions of food with their neighbours.

Olivier first started thinking about Supermarmite on his way home from the office. When you cook your own food for the day, you often have too much and end up throwing it away. Sometimes cooking is just too much work. Fast food can get expensive and is not too healthy. With Supermarmite, you can share your food and taste new dishes made by others.

Olivier was not sure if his idea would actually work. Ordering food made by strangers sounded a bit odd. He first focused on creating an initial community. He started by creating a Flickr gallery, Facebook and Twitter account, and a blog, all around innovation food, trying to find interests that would link people together.

In order to find out how customers would react, he and his friend created a website that would allow people to enter menus, and propose them to the community. For about two months, the website and the community were developed in parallel.

Supermarmite evolved and so did their customers. Some people would go from one neighbourhood to the other just to taste new food, others would organise events and meet in person. The social networks would be a way to stay in touch and break the ice.

The community built around Supermarmite is not too big yet, but it has attracted the interest of food lovers and the media. When you tell a story, you need to have listeners. Supermarmite has succeeded in putting people together around an idea. This is a great achievement.

It is time for a reboot of Escape Velocity. We have been at this show for more than a year and the team decide to change the direction and the content of the show.  Ben and Hrishi have created highly sophisticated and technically complex products, but found out rather late that there was no market for them. Guys reflect back on their mistakes and talk about valuable lessons that have been learnt from them.

In addition to the interviews, every second episode Ben and Hrishi will talk about some crucial aspects of the successful startup, such as customer acquisition, discovery and validation. By listening to the show, we hope that you guys will get great insight into the customer centric product development. We will also discuss tools and techniques that assist us in our everyday endeavours.

We mention some guests that talk about similar issues. Take for example Rafael Smith from Uber Shelter, Paul Gollash from Voxy or Rob Wailing. All these guests had very distinct and educational experiences, which they share with us in the interviews. We highly encourage you listen to these shows if you haven’t already.

From now on we are going to pay more attention to the community around Escape Velocity Podcast. Our goal is to build an active and engaging community of people who are interested in the topics covered or related to the podcast. We are highly flexible and are open to any suggestions you guys may have about the show, or anything else for that matter . Please feel free to drop us an email to feedback@reachev.com or contact/follow us on Twitter (@EVpodcast), Facebook or Google+. You can also get in touch with us directly. More information on our about page.

Exciting changes are coming to the Escape Velocity Podcast and we would like you to be part of it!

Nina Dudnik returns to the show to talk about her progress since the last time we spoke in February 2011. Since then Seeding Labs’ team has grown and identified another need that they are trying to address now. They have started a new program that will give scientists the chance to meet, wherever they are to exchange ideas.

Through partnerships with manufacturers, Seeding Labs provides universities with a second-hand lab equipment that are no longer used. The equipment is constantly being updated, and old models can last for a whole lot longer if you are ingenious and innovative. The universities that apply for this initiative should have institutional support, and a good record to make the best out of their resources.

As an entrepreneur, Nina is always moving to the next level. The equipment program is a huge logistics endeavour. At the moment, Seeding Labs is looking for people that have experience and knowledge about setting up and maintaining lab equipment.

The balance between being a sustainable business and being mindful of the community that you are trying to serve is something you have to keep in mind. As your business evolves, challenges just keep changing.

@Seedinglabs

A free app that allows users to learn languages in context. Paul Gollash founded Voxy a  year and a half ago. When Paul decided to start his own business, he thought of the ingredients that make successful entrepreneurs: A huge market, a passion for the problem you are trying to solve, and the ability to be mutable in your approach. A former management consultant and venture investor, Paul spent a lot of time in countries where he was not a native speaker. He wanted to create a product that would reinvent the way languages are learnt.

His first step was to talk to second language acquisition experts. He decided to use authentic content from the news by extracting and converting it to a language learning product. In the digital age, content can be created really quickly, and it is very easy to add new updated topics to the curriculum. In the beginning, Paul was focusing only on reading comprehension. He soon realised that it wasn’t enough. As a result product has been expanded to accommodate listening and speaking exercises.

Before Paul started developing the actual product, he carried out market research, talking to people outside the schools, in parks, in Spanish speaking communities, to find out how they approached language learning. It is very important to listen to the users and be able to adapt to their  needs. In order to achieve that flexibility and to stay true to what learners want, Paul created Voxy Academy, where he brings in students who learn in a classroom environment. Twice a week they meet in the office  to test new features, prototypes and mockups.

Voxy has over 2.5 million free users. Free users have access to a limited but fresh and amount of content. Premium subscribers have access to additional content in other areas of interest. The conversion rate varies from country to country, but it is quite high.

Voxy is now available for Portuguese and Spanish native speakers. The next markets will be China, Japan and Korea.

Rob Walling is a solo entrepreneur based in Fresno, California. He also has a podcast, Startups for the Rest of Us. In this episode, he will tell us about how, over the years, he has built companies to solve problems for real people, with minimum investment.

In the beginning, being a software developer, Rob was building constantly, thinking that writing code is what really matters. Over the years he has realised that in order to launch a successful business more time needed to be spent on marketing and other aspects of the business. Slowly, he stopped building as many new projects from the ground up and started acquiring products that were already on the market in order to improve them. He chose a niche, got a flow of customers, and started having small success.

Rob is not too fond of hiring and managing full-time employees, so he outsources as much work as he can. He hires freelancers, pays them an hourly rate, and builds a long-term professional relationship with them. His contractors are managed online through oDesk. In order to find the right fit for every project, he tries to make it personal, getting to know his collaborators – if they can communicate well in writing and are truly interested in what he’s working on.

As an entrepreneur, he believes it is important to persevere, to be willing to fail, and to view failure as a lesson. Rob believes that it is important to get feedback on your product. If development cycle overpasses 600 hour mark, there is little chance of success. If your project requires skills outside of your area of expertise, try to find a co-founder whose skills would be in that area.

Rob joins Mastermind groups to find support and exchange ideas with others. When thinking of launching a new product, he tries to find a market that is easily accessible, where he can solve real problems for real people. He used to think that the only way to have a business was to raise funding and have a multimillion dollar company, but there are other ways of doing things. You can have a focus on a niche market and have a successful business that requires only a couple of hours a week of your time. For that, you don’t need a huge investment. Think big, but keep it small.

Jeevan was one of our first guests in Season 1 at Escape Velocity. We catch up with him, to see how he and his company are doing. Sifteo has grown a lot since our last interview.

Sifteo makes fun little cubes, combining the best of human interaction technology with a classic game approach. It is a very creative product that allows users come up with incredibly innovative design ideas.

As the company was growing, Jeevan has learned a few interesting things. While you know your product inside out, you can’t do everything. Look for advisors from day 1. They will help you make and weigh your decisions.

When forming your team, hire talented people who enjoy what they do. Make sure they can demonstrate their passion. If you are hiring a developer, he should have cool stuff he can show you, something he is doing just for fun. Look for signs of genuine passion.

Finding talent outside your field of expertise can be hard. Start by identifying someone who is excited about a role. Do not underestimate the value of a business person. As your company gets bigger, you will slowly become more of a business guy yourself. You will spend more and more time trying to clearly communicate ideas than coding.

Things will get very busy as your company grows. Prioritize. In the morning, make a list of tasks you need to get done. Listen to your customers, always keep improving.  Find the talented people out there. Sharing your success is just great.

Daniela Schiffer is the co-founder of Changers, based in Berlin. Changers have created a solar charger that allows you to generate and produce your own renewable energy. It can be used with any device chargeable through USB. The idea behind it is to motivate people to act against climate change within an online community.

Entirely manufactured in Germany, the solar charger keeps track of your carbon dioxide savings. These savings are rewarded by credits. The playful, gamified approach makes this device special. The community  built around it shows that smalls efforts, put together and connected, generate meaningful changes that help protect the environment.

Changers launched in sunny California in Autumm 2011. Daniela Schiffer takes us through the development phases of the product, and talks about lessons learned: try not to compromise beyond what you can do, and communicate your message clearly. Together we can make a change.

Shownotes:

Ordr.in makes the food ordering experience easy, linking buyers and sellers. Ordr.in is a set of APIs that turn any app or website into a way to order food. A flexible, customizable solution that gives clients control, building trust and fostering creativity.

David Bloom

David Bloom tells us how he makes customers and strategic partners understand and be part of his vision. Customers look for concrete examples, whereas co-founders want to find out about the opportunity. Achieving the balance between specific and conceptual ideas can be challenging.

David talks about the difficulties of finding a tech co-founder. Being part of the startup community helps him build an engaged team that shares the same values and feels emotionally rewarded. He believes that domain expertise, deep knowledge of the industry and hard work are crucial to make a difference. Listen and learn how to build a team and business and capitalizing on a market opportunity that you see.

Shownotes

Between is a social network for two people. For you and the one you love. A private space to share data safely. Between had launched in Korea three months ago. The number of users just keeps growing. Download the App at:  www,appbetween.us

Edward Lee

Edward Lee, Jaeuk Park  and his team, a group of students at Seoul National University, started working on Between thinking of couples and how can they share their secrets without worrying about privacy issues. In Between, you can share photos with your partner, chat, and keep all your memories in one place. If for some reason the relationship does not work out… There is always a 30 day “grace period” to get back together and recover your data.

Edward talks about the challenges the app is facing: user experience, monetization, retention, life cycle and target markets.

Jaeuk Park

Shownotes

Wello is a company with a bold mission to deliver clean water where it is needed the most. From their website:

The WaterWheel is an innovative leapfrog technology that will replace piped water infrastructure in the same way that cellular phones have replaced landlines. In the process, Wello creates jobs, improves health and increases access to education; it’s the girl effect in action!

We have been trying to talk to Cynthia for a while and finally had a chance to catch up with her. Listen and learn about building a business in India, the field and operational challenges and the vision for the future. The simplicity and elegance of the product and its potential impact is what caught our imagination.

This week, Ben and Hrishi talk to Dr. Cory Kidd who joins in from Hong Kong in a very interesting episode about building and releasing a brand new product. Listen and learn about market research, finding a niche, developing a team and a company.

Intuitive Automata builds Autom: “a weight loss coach that has been proven to help you successfully lose weight and keep it off over time.” We explore the space of personal robotics and the future of robots as helpers enhancing the human experience.

Shownotes

What I learned in 2011?

1. It’s all about the team – Make your start-up an exclusive club, where only the best of the best can get in!  At the same time, connect with other individuals, businesses, and start-ups who care about your goal/the vision of your start-up.  All too often we associate with people and organisation who may be interested, but don’t really care if your start-up takes off.
2. Solidarity is a strategy - Strategically work with other relevant start-ups.  They understand your pain and as they grow they will take you along.
3. Mind your IP – It is crucial to protect your idea, even when looking for advice or brainstorming with others.  Get your idea and your IP protected legally.  At MoWoza, we thought an NDA would be sufficient.  It is not.  Get contracts in place before you ask for development, designs or advice from industry specialists/innovators.
4. Patience is a virtue – Be patient and prepared for the model to take shape.  Everyone says this, because it is true.
5. The cashflow story - Have a cash flow strategy and an ‘emergency/fire’ network for when the bank overdraft is flashing amber.
6. VCs want to help! – Contrary to popular opinion, if you are on to something with your enterprise, venture capitalists will help.  They will ask for updates, follow you, put you in contact with Angel Investors, tell you which grants to chase, introduce you to strategic partners and inform you about competitions you can enter until they are ready to step in.
7. Angels want to make money too – While Angel investors may seem more patient and kinder than VCs, they still want to make more money than they would earn parking it in the bank.  Choose an Angel with ‘skin in the game’, someone from a similar background, who has experience of start-ups, rather than someone who inherited a pot of money or acquired his wealth through a large corporate performance bonus.
8. Determination - this needs to be ENDLESS.  The drive must be ENDLESS, the vision must be ALL encompassing.
9. Dream HUGE - Need I say more And keep at it.

I have signed up to Dittit to help with my Escape Velocity tasks.  I’ll let you know how I get on with it.  Ben was particularly keen on the punishment side of things, so that tells you everything you need to know about Ben.

Dittit caters to goals of every scale, from climbing Mount Everest to going running once a week.

As Steven said, ‘most people experience moments of motivation.’  The great idea behind Dittit is helping people expand their motivation.

In a departure from our usual format, the guys had an informal round-up of some of the highlights from this season’s podcasts, revisiting what they learned from the guests, what worked and what didn’t work so well, and reflecting on our future goals for Escape Velocity.

Enjoy the podcast, happy holidays and thanks for your feedback and support.  As always, you can drop us an email at feedback @ reachev.com.  We won’t respond, because we’re going on a group skiing trip until the new year.  See you in 2012.

We’re big fans of TED, here at Escape Velocity, but I’m particularly excited that this year’s TED Prize has been awarded not to an individual, but to the concept of the City 2.0.  Cities are already hubs of innovation and creativity, but how can we reconfigure them to be more creative, innovative and sustainable, socially, economically and environmentally?  TED wants to harness your thoughts.  Let’s go!

Finally, EV Recommends two documents to stimulate your brains, via Matthew Alberto’s excellent blog, one by Gregory Dees, entitled The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship, and a short but inspiring essay by the redoubtable Jeff Skoll.

Years ago, 3D printing sounded like a fantastical Sci-Fi concept.  You load up a design for a table or engine components into my computer, hit print and it reproduces it for me.  Sounds like the replicator from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but while I cannot yet commission my computer to make me tea, 3D printing is now accessible to consumers.

Okay, say you’re not a Trekkie, why is this big news?  Well, it means that designers can prototype a design or show proof of concept without going through an expensive and lengthy manufacturing process.  And while 3D printing is not quite in our homes yet, remember that 40 years ago the idea of owning your own computer seemed equally fanciful.

Iteration is an important concept in 3D printing.  So it is in design and entrepreneurship.  Sounds like a marriage made in heaven.  Or possibly New Zealand.

Shownotes

EV Recommends the Aravind Eye Care System, whose amazing work in Tamilnadu, in Southern India, was documented on NPR this week.  Aravind’s surgeons not only treats severe sight-loss, with state-of-the-art surgery, with efficiency that dwarfs the performance of their Western counterparts, but Aravind set up its own manufacturing division to meet the huge demand for lenses.

If you listened to Suzana Moreira’s interview on this weeks podcast, you probably have some idea about how ubiquitous and how important mobile phones are throughout Africa.  This BBC article shows that it is absolutely exploding.

Bianca Bartz reported on the work of a health clinic which caters to low-income women in Nairobi.  Check out the video above, which explains some of the challenges they face.  Penda Health opted for a for-profit model in order to be free from the demands of donors and to be more sustainable.  Amazing!  EV Recommends!

Migrant workers are particularly vulnerable, as they are often unregistered and so cannot use traditional banking services.  moWoza serves as an agent for these workers to send remittances back home, in the form of food and even electronics.

Remittances are clearly vital to these migrant workers and their families, but the pipelines between A and B is leaky at best, with lots of places where goods can be lost or stolen.  So rather than reinvent the wheel, moWoza tackles the problem with 21st century tactics, bringing together the ubiquity of the mobile phone and the existing cross-border commerce.

One of the other interesting points about this enterprise is that it is capturing data about a market about which very little is known.  If moWoza takes of there is a lot of potential for addressing the needs of this vulnerable group.

Shownotes

Melissa Steffan of the Washington Post wrote a great feature about the future of philanthropy.  Guess what, it’s business.  Heartening to see the idea of for-profit social enterprise gathering momentum.

And finally, EV Recommends a really interesting report from Stanford Social Innovation Review about Design Thinking for Social Innovation and also an article by Tim Brown about Why Social Innovators Need Design Thinking.  Very thought-provoking.

‘We need banking but we don’t need banks,’ says Prosper’s CEO, Chris Larsen, in an article by Chikodi Chima, on Venturebeat.  Prosper is a US peer-to-peer lending and investment startup.  Given the popularity of banking at the moment, this may be good news.  And the ire is hardly limited to Greeks or #OccupyWallStreet protesters.  Lots of small businesses are having trouble securing loans to keep themselves going in tough times.  Maybe it’s time to rethink the whole deal.

Alex Goldmark had a good article on public radio’s Marketplace program about the number of MBA’s now going into for-profit social enterprise.  Let’s hope a bubble is not forming.  Kill that buzz!

Finally, EV Recommends McKinsey’s shout out for social innovators to post short videos – 60 seconds – that show smart solutions to chronic social issues.  Fantastic idea!

Rafael joins us from San Francisco and talks about his company Uber Shelter. Listen to this episode and learn about pivoting, understanding your market and going back to the drawing board. We had a great time with this.

Here are the show notes: Shownotes

Also, EV Recommends an article on Fast Company called ‘Five Social Enterprise Myths, Dispelled.‘ While it is aimed towards the investor’s perspective, it’s author, Kristen Ace Burns, of the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, makes a lot of points that are relevant to anyone involved in social enterprise and hits the nail on the head with her no-nonsense description of its realities.

Determining whether a social-enterprise business is succeeding is rarely a simple analysis. Ongoing tracking is key and requires a level of complexity that can rival (and in some cases exceed) that of a regular business. A robust accounting system is critical – one that can separate the enterprise’s activities from those of the agency as a whole and monitor such things as inventory and cost of goods sold, which are often not part of traditional nonprofit accounting.

Jeff Skoll at The Tech Awards in San Jose | Photo by Charlotte Fiorito

A fantastic (and free!) online toolkit for developing an enterprise in terms of understanding its impacts, is Proving and Improving, which is a product of the UK’s New Economics Forum.  It walks users through a number of steps, to help them understand their enterprise and choose relevant tools to measure the success of their actions.  It certainly stimulates the brain.

Ah, it seems like the world is catching on to EV’s ‘make profit, but make a difference’ message!  The New York Times featured an article on Sunday about the work of the Unreasonable Institute, a hothouse for (would-be) enterprises with impact.

And finally, Escape Velocity recommends The Tech Awards, which took place last week, in San Jose, California.  The Awards are run by The Tech Museum, and as well as envying its excellent motto - ’technology benefiting humanity’ – we applaud the Awards’ global span, recognising the work of companies in areas such as Health, Equality, Education and the Environment, and garnering the support of Intel, Nokia and Microsoft.  Check out the list of current laureates and get busy before next year’s awards.

This was a really fascinating interview and the whole EV team was inspired by it.

The great thing about this interview is that while Robert is a really humble, modest person, his idea is anything but.  We were all blown away by the huge potential of what is essentially clean, mobile energy-generation.  Imagine a farm in rural India or Africa, being able to power its farming equipment, water pumps or vehicles; or mobile hospitals in disaster zones.  The applications are unlimited.  After all there is wind everywhere.

Robert was very candid about his struggle to attract investors to Windlift, despite the obvious appeal. It speaks a lot to the conservatism of venture capitalists.   But more importantly, it speaks to Robert’s determination, that Windlift is off the ground.

Shownotes

I have just discovered Give to Get Jobs, whose tagline is “for profit jobs that give back.”  It offers a twist on the jobs/career website, connecting professionals with social enterprises.  Nice work if you can get it.

Finally, EV Recommends Managing the Double Bottom Line, an interesting resource posted by the Social Enterprise Toolbelt.  It’s a manual to help social entrepreneurs plan their market-led social enterprises, but it has a lot of relevance for for-profit enterprises aiming at a significant social impact.

Ben and Hrishi interviewed the MIT graduate and co-founder of Global Cycle Solutions, an innovative company which helps small farmers in rural Tanzania harness pedal-power to make big savings on some of their more time- and labour-intensive tasks.

This week’s Shownotes: Shownotes

Lots right?  Okay, I’d better keep it short.

I’m thinking about attention; what it is; why it’s important; how to get it.

Like a lot of people I have an ever-shortening attention span.  I consume a lot of media (in a wide variety), but I am brutally intolerant of anything I feel is not enriching me, or worse, is wasting my time.

If this happens more than once, for example with a TV show, I give it up.

And this is ironic, because at the same time I am frequently distracted by twitter, facebook, incoming email, my daily routine and my to-do list.

And so I’m really thinking about our interview with Project Noah’s Yasser Ansari.  Yasser said several things that have given me a lot to think about, especially in regard to attention.

I mean I knew that attention is the real currency of business.  In fact, you could say that the best brands are simply those that people trust with their attention.  And people trust those brands to add value when they do give over their attention.

But the innovation of a product like Project Noah is not just to grab attention for itself, but to leverage the user’s attention, to make use of that attention.  Project Noah allows users to observe and document the wildlife they directly encounter.  Users can also take part in ‘missions’ which utilise the data they gather for research projects.

Not only can I observe, catalogue and learn about wildlife – and maybe contribute to a scientific understanding of it – but I become more aware of my environment, my attention is activated.

This is a rare gift in a busy world.   And it is hidden the bonus of Project Noah.  You get some of your attention back.

If you found this post worthy of your attention, please share it.

References: 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonoberholtzer/2011/08/30/how-to-focus-in-the-age-of-distraction/

Listen to Yasser Ansari discuss his Citizen Science tool, Project Noah, with Hrishi and Ben.

In show number two of our new season Yasser Ansari explains Project Noah and Citizen Science.

Yasser’s resume combines molecular biology and product development in wireless technology, so Project Noah engages many of his passions.  Project Noah is a website and mobile app for documenting the natural world.

Project Noah combines an educational tool that children (and adults) can enjoy, which also provides hard data to biologists looking at biodiversity in different environments.

Yasser is a really interesting entrepreneur and we hope you enjoy our interview with him.   If you have any feedback, please email us or leave a comment here on the site.

Check out the Shownotes

Website: http://www.projectnoah.org/

Twitter: @projectnoah

As our conversation with Bill Liao underlined, social entrepreneurs look for ways not just to contribute, but to steer the direction of contribution, they want to address old problems in new ways. In a sense it is the reframing of discussions about how to help.

It is becoming clear that the work of many NGOs could be more effective, just as it is clear that government models for managing their own problems, let alone those of the rest of the world, are hopelessly out of date.

In many cases we are stubbornly refusing to accept the old proverb ‘Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish he will feed himself for a lifetime.’ Indeed, in these straitened Economic times, Western governments and charities may go short of a few fish suppers themselves.

The concept of Microfinance came to public awareness when Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, for its work in empowering small enterprise in Bangladesh. There are now microfinance institutions all over the world, emulating Grameen’s model.

One reason why we love Kiva so much, is that it supercharges the microfinance concept, by giving more involvement to the investors. Harnessing the power of the crowd, via the Internet, Kiva directly connects micro-investors with microfinance institutions and entrepreneurs.

The exciting thing about Kiva is to make a micro investment, see it bear fruit, and then receive that loan back and reinvest it in another enterprise. Speaking for Escape Velocity, it’s incredibly rewarding to see money that we have helped to collect go out into the world, supporting entrepreneurship and making a real difference to people’s lives.

Kiva is a project that everybody at Escape Velocity really believes in. At the start of this season, we set our goal to raise €1000 by the end of 2011. Our generous contributors have already helped us reach €850 with a few months to spare!
The bar has been raised!

We want to try to raise €10,000 for Kiva projects over the next year. You can help us. Contribute to our Kiva Team and help us live up to our mission statement!

Here’s a follow up to the interview we conducted with Bill Liao, plus some of Bill’s Huffington Post articles.

We cannot save the Environment.

There I said it.

What a relief. We’ve all been thinking it, right?

Climate change and the challenges posed by human impact on the environment seem to be both overwhelming and urgent. My recycling, consumption or water conservation are almost meaningless to the scale of the problems at hand.

Our responses to huge challenges like the environment can result in despair, feelings of bitterness or futility or of action that assuages these feelings without really addressing the issue.  Basically, we stick our heads in the sand and either ignore the problem or hope that some miracle innovation will save the day, rage publicly or privately against government actions or policies. Likely the actual effect will be negligible.

In Tuesday’s podcast Ben and Hrishi spoke with Bill Liao, an entrepreneur who has thought deeply about a specific environmental problem and how to take action on it. Bill’s WeForest project combines the reforestation of degraded environments with an education program, so that locals can make use of them.

Before you accuse me of being a treehugger, as Jared Diamond points out in his marvelous and sobering Collapse, degraded local environments provide the conditions for regional conflict. Or to put it another way, if you could solve local environmental problems and you would go a long way towards creating social and economic stability and markets for investment.

Sustainability is the name of the game here.

With his reforestation project, Bill has struck on a simple and direct action which addresses multiple problems. Trees help seed clouds and stabilise local climates, they enrich soil and protect against erosion, they offer shelter to more fragile plants and they provide habitats for species, promoting biodiversity.

WeForest is on a long road to reach its daunting target of a trillion trees restored to the Earth, but it is also an incredibly inspiring one. And this is the key, to make an action that is big enough to inspire, but small enough to achieve.  A trillion is a lot of trees, but the fact that WeForest has managed to plant 1000, 000 in two years shows just what is achievable.

I am a fan of the Japanese business practice of Kaizen, of continuous process improvement, and of Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits blog, of small habit change, and I believe the idea of iteration is critical. Often we look for one big innovation to completely solve a problem, rather than taking one small, maybe simple action that could make an incremental improvement.

Sometimes, as in the case of WeForest, an idea can be innovative and iterative.  That’s when you can begin to feel hopeful.

References:

• http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/deforest/deforest.html
• http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/areas-affected-by-deforestation

Please note that bold links are affiliate links to Amazon.com.

In this first podcast of our shiny new season of Escape Velocity we spoke with Bill Liao about a new and very interesting project, Weforest, which takes an entrepreneurial spin on both environmental activism and aid to developing nations.Bill is an author and serial entrepreneur, probably best known for his involvement in Xing, a German social networking site.  Bill takes a bootstrapper’s approach to what is a traditionally NGO- and government-driven sector.

Bill is all about action, which is clear from this interview and its an inspirational start to what we hope will be our best year yet, at Escape Velocity.  As always, please drop us an email or post a comment here on the site.

Here are the Show notes: Shownotes

Website: http://www.weforest.org/

Twitter: @liaonet