Despite criticisms about Apple and especiallly its App Store policies, Apple has a unique ability to engage and excite customers and developers. No, Apple does not have the market cap of Microsoft. It does have 100,000+ apps on a platform that is less than two years old, customers that will yearly (even monthly) ante up for the latest Apple hardware and accessories, and a stock price just less than seven times that of MSFT.

There’s something to Apple’s madness. Their meticulous, proprietary, often questioned approach to business is all for the sake of quality, innovation, and perfection. It pays…literally. Customers flocked to creations like the iPod even though it was limiting and not the most “open” of all choices. Although kicking and screaming about App Store policies, developers have yet to abandon building apps for the iPhone. The reason is that the Apple approach produces. It produces better and simpler products. Customers are happy to give up control for better. Developers are willing to participate in Apple’s world because they have a higher probability of continuing to have livings as independent developers than with other options.

Mac and iPhone apps have a particular simplicity yet sophistication to them. Of course, most importantly, they are polished and very shiny. Shiny cost money. Not only is the Mac an expensive computer, most software isn’t free. Now, that might sound strange to those who have been working on a Mac for years but in the PC world, there are often dozens of software applications for any one particular task, many of which are free indefinitely (whether open source or freeware). In addition to there being far fewer options for a particular type of software, free is typically not an option on Mac beyond a fifteen to thirty day trial.

Yet Mac users generally don’t mind paying for Mac software, particularly because it seems priced fairly. Many Mac applications often are priced in the $20-50 range. Comparative to PC software, these costs are significantly less while the quality of the applications are (subjectively) much higher.

It’s amazing how many third-party independent Mac developers there are. They are making their livings by developing Mac software. The most interesting software on the Mac is not developed by Apple. Yet on Microsoft’s PC, the best software is written by none other than Microsoft and historically, that software has been very expensive.

Herein lies a major difference between Apple and Microsoft that is instructive on what’s happening with the iPhone and Android “smartphone war.” Apple’s commitment has been to be a platform. They provide that through owning the device (e.g., Macs and iPhones) and the experience (i.e., the operating systems on these devices) but not the applications themselves. While providing guidance and asking their developers to play nice in their carefully constructed world, they ultimately want their developers to be software innovators, to be the ones creating the most interesting applications. They want them to profit on the Apple platform.

Look at Android’s backer Google long enough and it’s not so hard to see it having hints of Microsoft’s approach. Google is now largely focused on its applications, as Microsoft was with its Office suite. Even though it has made acquisitions in the mobile space, those purchases were largely about monetizing the mobile market. A nice plan when all of its Web-based applications will eventually be optimized and running on Android devices. Google has thrived on innovating internally and scooping up other innovators externally but it has yet to tackle the same problem Microsoft never conquered — building an Apple-like ecosystem.

Sure, Microsoft has an ecosystem but it’s not Apple-like. Consider, for example, how long Windows Mobile has existed compared to the iPhone OS. Windows Mobile users were content to use their Microsoft applications and developers never had easy access to build, distribute, and generate profits from developing applications in that environment.

Android deals with some of these issues. It’s somewhat easier for developers to build applications. Unlike the iPhone, however, Android’s complete openness has lead to lack of standards, having to account for numerous carrier and device firmware combinations, and a multitude of other problems. Additionally, there is currently only one serious distribution channel — the Android Market on the device itself.

Based on the stats of how people discover iPhone apps, that last point may seem to be a non-issue. Apps are currently a major selling point for mobile devices though and there are basically no good ways for potential Android users to learn about Android apps until they purchase an Android device.

The value of a desktop companion like iTunes also surpasses app discovery. An iTunes Account provides a natural and existing payment mechanism for iPhone apps. iTunes itself acts as a library and backup of the device and its applications, as well as helps with the actual configuration and management of the device.

There are many other reasons the iPhone will likely continue its application dominance, including sharing code and easily being able to sync with its desktop counterparts. There’s a chance, however, that many of these points won’t matter at all. Although still early, Android appears to initially be catering to the same types of people that don’t buy Mac: technology generalists and purists. The generalist could be described as the person that has a PC and uses it “as is.” Their more important applications are Internet Explorer and Microsoft Word. The PC gives them everything they need and provided it runs fast (enough) and isn’t infected with a virus, they are happy.

The purists are the same types of people that run Linux, want everything to be open, and need ultimate control over their devices for ideological reasons. They’d sacrifice everything, including most software and applications, to ensure they own their device and can customize it as they see fit. If they can’t have an important piece of software, many of them will build it themselves.

In terms of the applications, the Android situation glaringly reflects why people like PCs and Windows Mobile. The best applications on Android are built by Google and those applications are presently the most compelling reason to get an Android device. It’s easy to “give up” all 100,000 applications for the 7-10 that someone really wants.

Both the generalist and purist come from a world where software is always “free” or just there. Google could be entirely satisfied and do quite well with serving these types of customers, becoming a Microsoft in the mobile market. To that extent, Android apps might not be so different than software on the PC – significant choices, many of which are just OK. Independent developers would have a hard time making a living in that environment.

Meanwhile, Apple may see history repeating itself. They might not be the ultimate leader in mobile device market share — and they are probably fine with that. They don’t need to be the biggest. They want to be themselves. They want the most crazed set of customers and developers. They want to keep and protect their ecosystem and continue to be a platform for users and developers, whether on the desktop or mobile device.

If all stays the same, Apple and Google will each be winners in their own rights with the losers being RIM, Symbian, Palm’s webOS (playing the part of Custer’s last stand), and to some extent Windows Mobile. That is an “if” but Google would have to aggressively change its style and approach, if it wants a bigger part of the Apple pie.

During that time, not so long ago, the business plan was still considered a main avenue to pique interest and secure investment. Today, the business plan increasingly appears to be a document for allowing an individual to articulate and capture personal vision, where its main use and value is to a founder. Externally, that is, to investors, venture capitalists, and other parties, its best use is probably to level unbalanced desks. The business plan is dying.

Anecdotally, I’ve engaged with enough investors to know that these days they aren’t seeing as many business plans come across their desks. Beyond that, I admit that I haven’t done an in-depth analysis of how many business plans are stabilizing VC’s desks throughout the world but consider two scenarios. The first is one where a business plan is sent in the mail or attached to an email to pitch an investor on the next big thing. The second situation is one where a VC is using a product, even a minimum viable product, that he finds innovative and useful. Both situations represent companies or individuals that need investment. Which is a more likely candidate to get funding?

There are many reasons that building a prototype or minimum viable product (MVP) are easier today. I’ve explored several of them in the past, including requiring less capital and the presence of marketplaces like the App Store. With fewer barriers to launching some sort of product and the opportunity to immediately begin engaging and learning from potential customers and users, leaving a business idea on paper only is a major risk to not achieving success. So, don’t spend time in Microsoft Word writing a business plan. Roll up your sleeves and get prototyping.

We kept in touch since then and started doing some work together. Dave had already had a very successful book app called Audiobook (Download Edition), which has been firmly entrenched in the top five book category. Audiobook is exactly what it sounds like – an audio book player for the iPhone. Initially, his goal was for me to help improve that app but in our collaboration, we came up with a fresh, new idea – AudioBookShelf (iTunes link).

AudioBookShelf was built with a much broader audience in mind. Unlike the first app, which has a massive catalog of books available from the LibriVox project, we wanted to focus on the top books his audience were enjoying. So, we dug through some of his data, came up with a list of the best books with the best readers, did some editing, and finally, overlaid a really cool experience.

One element of the visual that we wanted to hit was to make AudioBookShelf feel like a real bookshelf. Many book apps stack books vertically or show them as they would be in a bookstore. We wanted to create an experience that allowed a person to browse a bookshelf.

AudioBookShelf just went live yesterday and we are already getting a good response. We expect great things from it and hope that you are able to enjoy the fun experience, quality audio books, and full feature set. For more information, check it out on iTunes, the re-launched AudioBookShelf website, or the Traveling Classics’ blog.

]]> http://www.technosight.com/audiobookshelf-listen-to-historys-treasured-masterpieces-on-your-iphone/feed/ 0 http://www.technosight.com/audiobookshelf-listen-to-historys-treasured-masterpieces-on-your-iphone/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/technosight/~3/OON3ZzZMJWc/ http://www.technosight.com/twrcon-dc-09-and-twitters-future/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:18:17 +0000 Ken Yarmosh http://www.technosight.com/twrcon-dc-09-and-twitters-future/ “I don’t see where Twitter will get its next one million users,” chirped Steve Rubel at the final TWTRCON DC ‘09 panel featuring him, Rohit Bhargava, Frank Gruber, and Clay Johnson.

Steve believes sites like Facebook are the ones that are prepped for larger growth. Yet, he has been surprised by the way that Twitter has been able to continue to innovate and grab attention, pointing to Tweetie 2 as a recent example. Of course, Tweetie 2 was not made by Twitter. It’s arguable whether or not the greatest innovations of Twitter are being created by them (e.g., their forthcoming lists) or by those using its API as a platform.

That, in some ways, is related to the main takeaway from TWTRCON DC. Ultimately, it wasn’t a conference about learning to use Twitter. Rather, it was one showcasing how people and organizations from different backgrounds and industries are actually using it. Twitter for business, non-profits, government, etc. are all possible because of Twitter as a platform.

Major destination sites emerged at the birth of the consumer web. Amazon is known for books (and now more generally, E-tail), eBay for being a secondary market, Google for search, and Yahoo! for content. A number of second generation “Web 2.0″ sites have also arrived. Facebook is the current leader in being the online social graph. Wikipedia is where people go to look up information. Craigslist is the definitive online classified listing and the strangest monopoly in history. Where does Twitter fit in the mix?

Clearly, Twitter represents a type of identity management and social graph. It allows people to search for information, although information of a different nature (real-time). Many organizations are using Twitter for recruiting and job postings. It’s touching on many of the strengths, features, and focus of these more traditionally established destination sites yet it was not built to replace them.

The future of Twitter is in how people are using it now – as a platform. Look at how the practioners of TWTRCON (i.e., not the pundits) think about Twitter. It’s a means for them to connect, market, serve, donate, analyze, find, employ, interact, and more with those who have a mutual interest in doing so. The future of Twitter is in it facilitating the pulse of the planet. Whether it can reach that point and overcome challenges like getting the next million users or if we should want it to are two topics for another discussion. In the meantime, TWTRCON held a great conference, highlighting how people and companies are using Twitter to currently transform the way we live and work both on and offline.

The response to Lowdown was significant enough that the developers temporarily shut it down and re-launched as a more serious effort. I finally took a look and decided it would be fun to do so as an “unboxing.” The screencast below is my first use of the product. Near the end, I briefly discuss Lowdown in relation to tools like Unfuddle.

Note: Sorry that the browser is a little hard to see. I wanted to try QuickTime Player’s new screen recording feature and it wasn’t initially clear how to specify the recording region (and it’s still not now).

Background
Tweetie was first released on the iPhone back in November 2008. The core philosophy of it then, as it is now, was speed, simplicity, and the Apple way. Unlike many iPhone apps and particularly iPhone Twitter clients, Loren embraced what he described as the “iPhone interface philosophy” and thus did not re-invent the wheel for the UI elements. He believes his design choices were part of his success.

In April 2009, Bigbird, a new core architecture for the then impending Tweetie for Mac was announced. At that time, Loren wrote that Bigbird would become the foundation for Tweetie 2 for iPhone.

Of course, that leads us to the present. All the big blogs are a buzz about the upcoming release of Tweetie 2 for iPhone, including tantalizing screenshots. Those screenshots are what have blinded the pundits to the most important news of the release — the architectural changes and what they’ll mean for Tweetie going forward.

Architecture
Going back to making iPhone apps leans, two of the big issues are testing features both from a true feature standpoint (i.e., validating usefulness and effectiveness) and stability (i.e., does it work properly and not have bugs). Unlike in a web environment, there’s no real ability to A/B test and as mentioned before, performing quality assurance is a pain in the ad-hoc distribution. There’s a handful of ways to think about dealing with these issues — but let’s focus on how Tweetie did it.

1) Tweetie for Mac

Like TweetDeck (and soon EchoFon), Tweetie has an advantage over other Twitter iPhone clients — it has a desktop companion.

Now, not all iPhone apps can or should have a desktop counterpart. But those that do will reap the reward of tremendous learnings. While clearly an iPhone app versus desktop or Web-based app requires some different thinking, having a non-iPhone environment for A/B and QA testing features can allow a more proven app to go into the App Store. Especially when…

2) Synced Codebases

Loren will soon sync the Tweetie for Mac and Tweetie for iPhone codebases. He writes the following,

“Once I sync the codebase for Tweetie for Mac and Tweetie for iPhone, expect an explosion in functionality. I will be able to explore new features in Tweetie for Mac, pushing out updates there instantly, and once I’m confident that changes are stable, push updates to the iPhone.”

Tweetie’s unique advantage is that its desktop app is native to Mac. Unlike TweetDeck, which in all probability has to port many elements of its AIR-based app to the iPhone, Tweetie will have one core architecture powering both of its applications.

The key point, as he indicates, will be that Tweetie for Mac will become a test bed for Tweetie for iPhone. Once that occurs, Loren can quickly test different features across a much larger number of users, both for validation and QA, before incorporating them into Tweetie for iPhone.

Part of this testing will be facilitated by the fact that his architecture can “push out updates there [Tweetie for Mac] instantly.” Building his application this way seems to indicate that he is very interested and committed to trying out new features and learning what works best.

Concluding Thoughts
Ironically, it took the Tweetie applications nearly a year of what probably would fairly be described as non-agile development to make it more agile and lean. The last major update from Tweetie developer Loren Britcher was in April 2009, which means he has had his head down in development for about 4-5 months.

Although his initial reasoning for building Tweetie for Mac was likely not motivated for being able to test features, clearly that’s now a major benefit because of his new architecture and being based on the Mac platform.

The “Tweetie approach” can definitely serve as a model for making iPhone apps more lean. But it is a model. There are many cases where it wouldn’t make sense to have a counterpart or companion application on the desktop or Web. For those that do, having a native Mac application, even a stripped down MVP-style one, could go a long way towards making iPhone app development much leaner.

With the old adage that 9 out of 10 businesses fail within their first year, you’ve got to be smart with starting your startup. You need to have a realistic understanding of the size of your marketplace and fully grasp the risks associated with pursuing your idea. The decision to pursue your idea is not a simple “potential money > risks.” The goal in outlining your risks is not always to defeat them but instead to understand what you need to mitigate in order to have a better chance at winning the market.

Spending all your cash, as well as losing out on potential earnings are some of the biggest concerns for an entrepreneur starting any startup. A founder, if indeed a relatively competent one, can easily garner a comfortable salary at most companies. So, the cost of building a startup is not just any personal money that is invested into the company. It also needs to include the wages not earned.

There’s generally been two camps on how to deal with these types of issues. The 37signals perspective is that quitting a job to build a startup doesn’t deserve applause. They propose an organic, start small, and do it on the side approach. Others like Ryan Carson believe that entrepreneurs should launch a business and not a side project. Carson nicely outlines the go to market plans of most of today’s product companies:

1. Identifity a niche need that you have that’s currently under-served
2. Bang out somewireframes (or better yet, just start HTML’ing)
3. Ask a designer or developer to help out, in return for a bit of equity.
4. Tweet about an invite-only beta
5. Listen to beta feedback and make tweaks
6. Launch
7. Get TechCrunched
8. Build recurring revenue till you can quit your day job
9. Live the good life

While he fairly (and perhaps scarily) identifies the thinking of most entrepreneurs doing a side project, his outline equally applies to many who are working full-time on building a startup. In fact, even though many “building a business not a side project” startups have some sort of funding, their strategy and marketing plans often look the same as someone building a “side project.” Thus, this particular point does not support his argument.

For those that have compelling reasons to quit their day jobs or who require large amounts of capital to execute their idea, unless independently wealthy, raising money is a smart approach. Even though the present circumstances may allow entrepreneurs to choose whether or not they need VC investment, having money in the bank empowers entrepreneurs to focus more on building a business and less on how to pay their mortgages.

This leads back to both 37signals and Carson’s concluding point. The 37signals’ approach of not quitting a day job correlates to the security of VC investment – runway. By keeping a day job, there’s less, “oh no, how are my paying for my bills next month” moments. Critics would counter by saying that founders are less serious about their startups when those startups are not responsible for paying the bills. But if an entrepreneur doesn’t take his startup seriously as a side project with money in his pocket, why would he take it more seriously as a full-time endeavor with nothing in the bank?

As Carson writes in his concluding thoughts, and this point is important in linking these camps together, it may actually take more time post-launch than it did pre-launch to make a startup successful. The 37signals team spent a year on Basecamp as a side project before they could work on it full-time.

Provided that you are committed to your idea and particularly the post-launch activities, including product iteration, marketing, and advertising, it is hard to argue with the start small approach of 37signals. Today, there are also other frameworks like the lean startup and customer development, that all play to organic means of growing products and startups. Of course, this assumes that you aren’t starting off on the wrong foot by trying to build a dumb idea.

All of the panelist had a focus on early stage investments and engaged with their companies as angels or incubators. Since the event was focused on the government, Errol Arkilic of the NSF had the most relevant experience understanding the way it operated and how his organization functioned more along the lines of the private sector. Errol was proud of being able to do deals in four months to Dave McClure’s surprise, where he stated something along the lines, “I might die in four months.” More details about the event are on the GOAP blog.

The difference in perspective between celebrating or cringing at the four month investment cycle might be marked by Mark Walsh’s observation of the modus operandi of DC and Silicon Valley,

“The difference between DC and Silicon Valley is inertia versus urgency.”

That comment holds true when generalizing the DC area to be represented by the mega bureaucratic federal government. In the context of the event, it makes perfect sense. But I feel that it reinforces a stereotype of those who live outside DC, one perpetuated even by the event itself, that the only interesting innovations for this region are related to Gov 2.0 and helping the government adapt the ideas and models of Silicon Valley.

Having spent time in Silicon Valley and previously living in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and now DC since 2003, I could generalize each region, as DC is often generalized. There are typically truths in generalizations and stereotypes but they often purposefully and sometimes ignorantly miss the details to simplify or support a point.

Being in the weeds, I can tell you that innovation and entrepreneurship have been happening in DC well before Gov 2.0. It’s highlighted in the strength and success of groups/events like TECH cocktail (co-founded by local Frank Gruber), Ignite DC, Refresh DC, Twin Tech, The Capital Cabal, and Social Matchbox, as well as in people and companies getting recognition outside of this region. I believe the DC metro area is uniquely positioned to breakout from the pack and become an increasingly important area for startups and technology innovation…aside from Gov 2.0. Here’s why:

For those unfamiliar with this area of the U.S., read some background on what demographers consider the Washington Metropolitan Area. I’ll use “DC” to represent this region, which consists of parts of Maryland, Virginia (referred to as “Northern Virginia”), and Washington, D.C., due to their close proximity to one another.

• DC has money. Five of the top ten highest income counties in the U.S. are in Virginia and Maryland, with three of those five in the top five. That’s mucho mula.
• DC has talent. Georgetown, George Washington, University of Maryland, and American University represent the established well-known schools, while George Mason was recently selected by U.S. News and World Report as the nation’s top “Up-and-Coming School.”
• DC has innovation. For the past five years, the DC metro area ranks as number six on the percent of startups distributed per state. LaunchBox Digital is a startup incubator program, much like Y Combinator, that just completed its second successful class of startups. The Northern Virginia Technology Council has 1,050 member companies and enterprises representing approximately 186,000 employees and is the largest technology council in the nation. And yes, we do have Gov 2.0.
• DC has history. No, I’m not referring to the kind you find on the National Mall (that’s not a place for shopping, btw). Remember a little company called AOL? Maybe you are trying to forget about them or still using their CDs as coasters. No matter how you feel, they brought the Internet to the common man. Now, that was a world (or country) changing idea.

The growth in DC in the six years I’ve been here has been incredible. A massive project, which will continue to fuel this momentum, is the extension of the rail system to the Dulles Airport. The result will be easier access from the exurbs of Northern Virginia through DC proper and up into Maryland.

It’s an exciting time to live in this area. The foundations have been laid for DC to become a major center for entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation. Get in on the ground floor, or as close to it, while you still can.

I understand that founders put their blood, sweat, and tears into their companies so, I’m not trying to be cruel. In fact, I’m being kind by hopefully preventing them from wasting lots of time, effort, and money on an idea that will go nowhere.

The harsh reality is that some of the smartest entrepreneurs with the most innovative ideas fail for one reason or another (e.g., poor timing). Now, consider those chances for success when your foundation is a dumb idea.

You are wondering, “Am I building a dumb idea?” I am tempted to write a series of “You might be building a dumb idea if…,” but I think Jeff Foxworthy has that bit covered. So, here are some ways to prevent you from building dumb ideas:

Note: There’s a difference between dumb ideas and inane, gimmicky, childish, or immature ones that are well-executed. Consider some recent examples on the iPhone including iFart or most of Smule’s apps, which I’m sure have made boatloads of cash. Also, while “dumb” may be subjective, there are plenty of ideas where we collectively were left scratching our heads.

Build What You Know

An easy way to not build a dumb idea is to focus on a marketplace you know. While it is not absolutely required, industry expertise will ensure your product or service includes the “no brainers” while also smartly addressing complexities, details, and edge cases.

If you have an idea that is outside a particular area of knowledge, try to surround yourself or consult with those that are subject matter experts. For consumer-focused applications, that could be as easy as working with those who are using similar products or services.

Market Research and Filling a Gap

You can lessen the chance of building a dumb idea if you know your market and your (prospective) customers’ mindsets better than anyone else. That means not only knowing all the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors but also understanding complementary and alternative services or products. This approach is different than the first in that it might not be an industry that you have hands-on experience or intimate familiarity.

As I pointed to in my how to build a non-$0.99 iPhone app post, I’m a big fan of the blue ocean strategy. If you’ve never read the book, go buy a copy. The authors present a number of tools to help companies get out of the red waters of competition and into the blue oceans of new market space, including the strategy canvas and the four actions framework.

A key point of the blue ocean strategy is to look at competitors and non-competitors and customers and non-customers. This perspective allows the proper defining of the “factors of competition” for the strategy canvas and subsequently which factors need to be eliminated, reduced, created, or raised to plot the new value curve.

Consiglieri and Junto

While you can look to “insiders” to help validate your idea, don’t underestimate the importance of insights from consiglieri or members of your Junto.

You might remember the word “consigliere” from The Godfather, which means “counselor” or “advisor.” Having people you trust, and trust in the sense that they will give you sound, objective, non-ego stroking advice is critical to ensuring you don’t veer into the lands of dumb ideas. Your consiglieri (that’s the plural form) should likely not be your peers and preferably should consist of mentors, seasoned business execs, or startup veterans.

Benjamin Franklin initially created the Leather Apron Club, also called “Junto,” as a way to facilitate discussion among similar-spirited individuals about improving Philadelphia. It later evolved as a way for its members to to improve themselves and their community. A key element to the Junto was that the members had diverse professional backgrounds. Hopefully, you have a group of colleagues and friends — your “Junto” — that are outside your professional bubble, who can keep you grounded, in touch with reality, and provide alternate yet informed viewpoints. These people should be another sounding board for avoiding building a dumb idea.

Minimum Viable Product

According to Eric Ries, the goal of the minimum viable product (MVP) is to build a, “product which has just those features and no more that allows you to ship a product that early adopters see and, at least some of whom resonate with, pay you money for, and start to gave you feedback on.”

Like how Tim Ferriss came up with the name of his bestseller The Four Hour Work Week, Eric describes how a landing page and a pay-per-click campaign can be used as a quick, barebones (and super cheap!) way to discover what products or product features customers are willing to purchase.

Customer Development Model

The Minimum Viable Product and the “lean startup” philosophy are based off of Steven Blank’s The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Professor Blank is in the midst of his series on the customer development manifesto, where he provides the background on why the traditional product development approach fails and what the customer development model is about (my emphasis):

The greatest risk in startups —and hence the greatest cause of failure—is not the technology risk of developing a product but in the risk of developing customers and markets. Startups don’t fail because they lack a product; they fail because they lack customers and a profitable business model. This alone should be a pretty good clue about what’s wrong with using the product development diagram as the sole guide to what a startup needs to be doing. Look at the Product Development model and you might wonder, “Where are the customers?”

The reality for most startups today is that the product development model focuses all their attention on activities that go on inside a company’s own building. While customer input may be a checkpoint or “gate” in the process, it doesn’t drive it.

Concluding Thoughts

These are just a handful of ways to check yourself before you wreck yourself. Do they ensure success and a huge exit? No. Will they absolutely prevent you from joining the dead pool? No. But they will work to prevent that by putting you on the path to success.

Jonathan Wegener provided a nice framework for market sizing. There’s also those in the community that have been kind enough to either due some homework or even share their own sales data. While the number of iPhone and iPod Touch devices continues to grow, meaning that this data will grow stale and less relevant over time, there is still much to glean from this information.

I’ve decided to share my synthesis of what iPhone developers and industry analysts have provided. The deck below quickly highlights information about users and apps, meaning there are details ranging from how users discover apps to the number of downloads it takes to get to the top of the App Store. It’s by no means exhaustive and is purposed to function more as a reference guide. I’m only cherry-picking the data I’ve found most relevant and interesting.

The point is that in a crowded market, there needs to be a way to standout. Iconfactory, maker of the once firmly entrenched Twitterific desktop client, has done just that with its new game Ramp Champ. Ramp Champ is a case study in how to (re)define a market and it’s going to be a huge success. For a review of the game itself, check out Touch Arcade’s post.

iPhone Play

Many iPhone games simply don’t leverage the touch screen or accelerometer to full capacity or do so in a way that’s annoying. One of the reasons Flight Control, Paper Toss, and Harbor Master have been exceptionally popular is because they’ve allowed the finger to be the controller.

Ramp Champ leverages the increasingly popular “flick” interaction in a skeeball-like environment. Unlike in skeeball, there are moving targets but like it, rolling or in this case, flicking harder or softer allows the ball to go higher or lower.

Of course, Ramp Champ wouldn’t be Ramp Champ without its carnival-type music or incredible aesthetic. Mixing all of these elements together creates a steller iPhone “play” experience.

In App Purchases

Because of the way the game was built, with each game of Ramp Champ feeling like its own level, the developers have made it easy to offer in app purchases. Ramp Champ launches with two in app purchases already available. I’ve talked to some game developers about this approach because continuing to spin out new levels for free versus offering in app purchases can really transform the economics of a business.

Now, this approach is somewhat untested on the iPhone platform. But it’s not everywhere else. Upgrades for new levels often require customers to open their wallets. By developing an app that essentially uses the same programming but changes the design and scenery to create a sense of levels or different games plus having in app purchases available at the launch of the game, the developers have set consumer expectations. The result is that the lifetime value of a Ramp Champ customer will be considerably higher than other popular games.

Virtual Goods

The stats show that keeping users engaged beyond a week is difficult. Ramp Champ’s in app purchases is one way they’ll keep people coming back. The other is incentive to perform and not just in the sense of breaking records but in collecting goods.

Anyone who grew up playing in arcades was likely once swept away by collecting tickets and redeeming them to get toys and trinkets that would cost much less if they were bought directly. Virtual goods are big business and Ramp Champ plays to that obsession by allowing users to redeem tickets won in games for virtual goods in the “Loot” area. Users can also collect trophies.

Because the Iconfactory is well, good at making icons, there are some very shiny objects in there, including the Twitterific mascot Ollie.

Conclusion

I’m sure you’ll read or see 58296 other posts about Ramp Champ today. But it’s as important to think about an app like this one strategically, as it is to laude it being fun, creative, and well-made.

I’ll get to those answers shortly but overall, I feel that there’s a gap when it comes to specific tools for those involved in product management and product strategy. For example, developers have FogBugz or Bugzilla (and more), support has Tender or Zendesk (and more), and sales and other staff have innumerable dedicated tools. Now, product strategists also benefit from these applications and they are full of rich and important data that feed into feature lists, prioritization, and a product roadmap. But won’t they don’t do is help manage and facilitate all of this information.

Here’s the bad news: there really isn’t one piece of software — desktop or web-based — that does. There are, however, a number of tools that help both with that and with many of the tasks of the product strategist’s day. They aren’t specifically developed for a product strategist or product manager but still are part of the toolkit nonetheless.

I’m sure my list of tools is not exhaustive but below I’ve done my initial cut at the product strategist’s toolkit. I break it down into four high-level categories, which does not include the more well-defined and familiar areas of bug and issue tracking. I already mentioned a couple of the tools I’d recommend for those areas in the above paragraph. One final note is that I only include tools I’ve used regularly or recommend; there are many more in each category.

User Experience

I hope your product people are actively involved in user experience. They don’t need to be a formally trained or polished UX designer but they should help provide initial guidance and direction based on marketplace knowledge.

For me, I like to dig into user experience and often will do the first pass at a wireframe or use edited screenshots to help designers and developers. Of course, user experience goes beyond screenshots, PDFs, and PSDs:

• Screenshots - Jing (Mac+Win); SnagIt (Win); Aviary (web)
• Wireframes - OmniGraffle (Mac); Visio (Win); Balsamiq (web)
• Image Editing - Pixelmator (Mac); SnagIt Editor (bundled with SnagIt); Photoshop (Mac+Win)
• Browser Tools (Firefox) – Web Developer Toolbar; MeasureIt; ColorZilla; FireBug (+ CodeBurner + Firecookie)
• Browser Testing – IETester (Win); BrowserLab; CrossBrowserTesting.com

Data Collection

One thing you’ll find plenty of at startups are opinions. Everyone thinks they know the right set of features to build into a release. Everyone thinks they know the way the customer acquisition page should look. The reality is that without a way to substantiate instincts, there will be many debates with only the strongest or most important person winning. That comes at a cost to users and ensuring that the product is meeting their needs.

I’ve talked and written about analytics for years but many startups simply aren’t making data-driven decisions. They continually look only to customer emails or other anecdotal sources of information and leave out hard data points. Let me be clear, both are needed. This list focuses more on the latter:

• Customer Feedback - UserVoice; IdeaScale; Get Satisfaction;
  
• Customer Surveys - Google Forms; Crowd Science for demographics; Survey.io for customer development
• Analytics – Google Analytics and WebPosition for web; TapMetrics for mobile; ClickTale for recording of user sessions; visitrac for form analytics; CrazyEgg for heat map analysis; Google Website Optimizer for A / B testing; Compete.com for competitive research

Project Management and Collaboration

Project management for product development is the area that is the least refined and with the fewest number of choices. IM, email, and spreadsheets are still major forces in this arena. The key missing features here are: 1) Ways to seamlessly integrate in other data sources from sales, support (including bugs), and other customer-facing portals. 2) The ability to then sort, sift, organize, and prioritize this information. 3) Facilitating detailed views for specific user stories versus a release-oriented or roadmap view. 4) Learning and adapting over time; Pivotal Tracker is the first tool I’ve seen to address this point.

Historically, I used a spreadsheet to help manage my roadmap. There are still benefits to this approach but I’ve now migrated to using a wiki, which is what I showed Alex. The top part of the wiki includes columns for each release (with the estimated release dates). In the release columns are the major and minor stories and bugs for each release, with each element linking to the actual description and more details lower in the page. The last column includes a backlog of feature ideas.

How to tackle roadmaps and similar items differs from startup to startup — but here are some of the tools that can help:

• Project Management - Basecamp for traditional PM; Pivotal Tracker for story-based planning; Google Docs for requirements and other ad hoc needs; Things (Mac) for individual to do list management
• Collaboration - PBWorks for notes and customizable workspaces; Campfire for group IM; Yammer for internal micro-blogging
  

Tech

Many product managers and product strategists won’t venture into this next area — tech tools — but it’s amazingly freeing to not have to rely on developers and engineers to help support and improve a product. Whether you actually use this software or work with your team to build out internal products to common problems and tasks, it’s critical to allow your more technical team members to not get bogged down with supporting internal staff or responding to the most basic of customer requests.

• Text Editors - TextWrangler (Mac); TextPad (Win)
• Web Development Editors – Coda (Mac); CSSEdit (Mac); TextMate (Mac)
• File Transfer – Transmit (Mac); WS_FTP (Win)
• Terminals – Terminal (bundled with Mac); Putty (Win)
  
• DBA - Navicat (Mac); Toad (Win)

End Note
If you have a product or are developing a product that you think I should check out that is not listed above, feel free to leave a comment or get in touch with me. I’m most interested in product development tools similar to Pivotal Tracker but am always happy to review new software and share tools I use with others.

*Note: Bantam is currently not a client but that may change in the future.

Here are some highlight of the companies I found most interesting –

TapMetrics

TapMetrics is a LaunchBox Digital startup that offers analytics for iPhone apps — but eventually will expand to other platforms. I previously met co-founder Chris Brown at iPhone Dev Camp D.C. His idea spun out from building iPhone apps — both under his own and client brands — and needing better insight into how to improve them.

TapMetrics provides both product (the app) analytics and sales data and includes neat little tools like the Tap Mini. Chris demoed some new features that will further streamline collecting insight about how an app is doing in the App Store.

Unblab

Tired of email overload? Unblab is a cloud-based system, which they call “Smart Cloud,” that uses machine learning to help identify the most important email in an inbox. Their first product is Gtriage, which works with Gmail and Google Apps. Another LaunchBox09 participant, the LaunchBox site also lists iTriage for the iPhone but it does not appear to be released or mentioned anywhere else yet.

Unblab will eventually focus on the enterprise market, positioning itself as a Postini for email overload. One issue on the consumer side — and a reason why I’m hesitant to use it — is that the tool scans and assumably stores some amount of data about an inbox on its servers.

Earth Aid

Earth Aid is basically Mint.com for household utilities. With a cleanly designed and intuitive site, Earth Aid is able to pull in data from most utility companies by accessing it through those providers front-end web portals. This circumvents tedious back-end integrations, providing users much more opportunity to have a complete perspective on energy use.

GrouperEye
GrouperEye has big plans to completely re-architect the college recruiting process. Instead of the traditional go to college campuses, interview lots of students, talk about resumes, etc. recruiting process, GrouperEye has built a platform that helps identify and surface top talent by allowing companies to see students do actual work.

Companies create “cases,” which challenge students to submit solutions. An example could be Disney requesting a new ride that should be designed. Students have forty days to submit the best solution, at which point the companies evaluate and select a winner. The incentive for students is a small cash prize and consideration for employment.

Launching in approximately twenty plus days, GrouperEye is focusing on building relationships with HR and recruiting departments to establish itself as the leader of this new approach.

Honorable mentions – Grasshopr, SEC Watch, wegora, WinTheTropy

At iPhone Dev Camp D.C. — Leon Palm of MagicSolver — passed around a link to an App Store review scrapper, which provides similar functionality. But AppCritics makes this process easier because an app can be searched for versus providing an application ID or iTunes Store URL.

Once selecting an app to review, AppCritics begins polling all the different App Stores and the number of reviews associated with them. The main screen also shows the link to the iPhone page, developer info, price, and the ability to favorite the app for future quick access.

By selecting one of the stores, it’s possible to start browsing the reviews. For reviews in other languages, an individual review can be translated or all can be translated with the click of a button. The translations aren’t flawless but definitely capture the essence. While my Italian and Spanish are a little rusty, I read some native language reviews and then compared to the translation to find that they were definitely good enough.

AppCritics is a great little tool, whether for a developer to track his apps, competitor apps, or generally, to be more knowledgeable about the marketplace. For $0.99, it’s well worth the download (iTunes link).

While Gmail is now a more comforting environment to those used to working on the desktop, it still is missing more than several of its counterparts’ features. For example, there is no way to attach old emails to a new one (common when a new employee starts or for context’s sake), it is not possible to drag-and-drop attachments onto a message (unless using Mailplane or an outdated Firefox add-on), or “Work Offline.”

For that last case, this point is not referring to the ability to use Google Gears and access or send mail (to the Outbox) while physically not connected to the Internet. Instead, it’s related to a little productivity trick — silencing the inbox from the day’s onslaught of new emails.

Fans of GTD, 4HWW, and other paradigms follow simple rules for processing email, such as only checking it during some times of the day. But the problem is that in today’s work environment, not having the inbox open is nearly impossible. The inbox houses documents, contact info, meeting notes, and often original thoughts, all of which need to be accessed throughout the day.

In the world of Outlook, Thunderbird, and other desktop email clients, this “problem” is overcome by a little flip of the “Work Offline” switch. Toggling that setting ensures no new emails arrive into the inbox, while at the same time being able to compose new messages and access the archive.

With “Offline Gmail,” whipping up a similar feature to force Gmail to “Work Offline” — even in the presence of an Internet connection — would not be difficult. It would curry favor with the productivity mavens and bring Gmail one step closer to assuming traditional email client features.

Until the Gmail Team gets after this one, if anyone wants to work with me on creating a Firefox add-on or Userscript to support “Work Offline,” drag-and-drop email attachments, or the ability to include include old emails as attachments to new messages, drop me a line. Gmail Team…I’m also available to help spec these out. :-)

Through the years, other tech companies have mustered the strength to rise to the level of Microsoft fame. The definitive Internet company derived its unofficial slogan, almost as a below-the-belt punch to the PC giant, “Don’t be evil.” But even Google faltered and failed at upholding this value…according to the digerati.

The target’s now been shifted again. This time to a company that seemed off limits even though it has, in many ways, had a much stronger grip and reign than the big bad Google and Microsoft. Apple has, after all, been the company that continually produces consumer electronics with the highest prices, with the least amount of ways to diagnose or repair its devices (i.e., Apple parts for Apple devices), and a penchant for locking consumers in to the proprietary Apple way (e.g., iTunes).

Consumers have been fine with that. They willfully submitted to this closed world because they wanted simpler, more beautiful products. For years, they’ve traded away their rights to have shiny Apple hardware and polished Mac software.

So, why, oh why, have they suddenly had an epiphany that their beloved Apple is, dare I write, the most evil of them all (at least, in their opinion)?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the evilest of them all?

Maybe it’s their lovefest with the iPhone and anger towards not getting a couple of apps (but really one) they wanted. Maybe because Bing has made Microsoft cool again (”Do you Bing?”). Maybe they just need someone new to be mad at for awhile.

What’s just silly though, is to think that after the digerati has essentially helped build the Apple empire — on very clearly known closed, proprietary policies — that some ranting and raving is somehow going to shift Apple’s approach to the market. Would Apple be impacted if it lost all of its early adopters? Sure. Is Apple going to lose all of its early adopters? No. Is Apple going to lose some of its early adopters? Probably…or rather, possibly.

To those who are doing more than complaining and actually going to put their money where their mouth is, I’d like to wish you luck on Windows.

First of all, be honest, you are going to use Windows and not Ubuntu or another Linux platform. Secondly, you probably will wait for Windows 7, which in many ways is a service pack for Vista.

OK, that might not be fair. But having just left Windows and the PC world in the last several months, Vista was not only one of the most frustrating operating systems in terms of usability, it also was one of the worst performing. Everyday I’d deal with slower than molasses performance, hanging apps, or sluggish startups when moving from location to location. In fact, the main reason I left Windows, after not caring about Macs for the entirety of my adult life, was because I was tired of all the time I wasted rebooting my machine or waiting for it to start or restart.

I’m obsessive about keeping my system tuned, so I’ve seen much worse Vista situations than mine. For those PC friends that now call me a Mac fanboy, I also see them eyeing me when I roll in, pop up my MacBook and quickly go to work. Meanwhile, 15-20 minutes later, they are still trying to get connected to the network.

The hardware and OS performance is nice but Mac software is what “Apple was so yesterday, back to Microsoft” converts are really going to miss. I do believe that Mac software actually makes you more productive. For example, there’s just nothing as well designed or as useful as Things, 1Password, or Tweetie on Windows. Believe me, I’ve tried everything. Even cross platform apps like Evernote are better on the Mac.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Windows or Microsoft hater. In fact, I think Windows Live and technologies like Live Mesh are going to be big for them. And I’ve heard good things about Windows 7, in terms of stability improvements. But will Windows 7 suddenly compete with Mac OS X on performance and stability? Will it suddenly usher in a new era of cleanly designed, easy to use, shiny software, like on the Mac? I think you know the answer.

Who knows how long the digerati will be down on Apple. They make some good points about what they consider unfair…but they should have been making those points years ago.

Good luck on Windows.

So, how do you break the cycle of $0.99? Well, before I launch into my ideas, I need to point out that they are ideas. I’m only in the process of launching my first app and assessing the right non-$0.99 price. I’ve researched the topic extensively, talked to many successful and not-so-successful iPhone app developers, and done some lightweight price testing. Now that my disclaimer is out of the way, here are the ways you can avoid going $0.99:

1. The Duh Route – Unique Product / Features

Why do so many developers price their apps at $0.99? Because they had what they considered a good idea and started building it. No market research. No App Store research. No discussions with potential users.

In a crowded marketplace, developers compete on price…only. They have to if their app looks the same, functions the same, and is the same as dozens of apps in the App Store.

It is critical to vet those “good ideas.” Keep a running list of them and then do some homework to understand if developing the app is going to add value to the marketplace and be a worthwhile investment of time and money. There are many tangible ways to do that, including leveraging frameworks and tools like:

• Porter’s Five Forces Analysis; SWOT analysis; Blue Ocean Strategy
• App Store keyword searches / category browsing; web searches
• Customer Development Surveys
  

Of course, even doing this sort of work can still mean entering a marketplace with competitors. That’s where features, user experience, design, customer support, and other factors besides price will still differentiate a product. Pricing your app at $0.99 basically says,

“I’m the same as every other app out here. I’ve spent the same amount of time developing it, have not really thought about why mine is better, and can maintain this app for you going forward at this price point.”

Spend some time and money up front thinking strategically about your product to reduce a potentially much larger and more costly investment. For the matter, get a product strategist involved.

While price is not the only factor, it is a factor. Price the app according to or in the range of comparable apps; comparables need not be direct competitors. If all apps are selling at $0.99, then unless yours absolutely destroys the competition, you probably can’t price it at $9.99. In that case, $1.99 or $2.99 are very reasonable price points and could make significant impacts on revenue.

2. Lite Plus Pro

An increasingly popular approach to overcoming the cost of free and $0.99 is to launch a lite and pro version of the app. Developers typically pull out features or somehow limit functionality in the “lite” version, offering users the ability to experience the app without purchasing it.

Since the iPhone does not have the ability to support a trial period, this approach may most closely mimic that paradigm. That’s especially true because there is data that supports application “opens” generally decrease with time. If a user is compelled to continue to use an app over time, thereby overcoming this trend, there’s a likelihood that he’ll convert to the paid application.

The key to this approach is allowing the customer to get a complete sense of the application without removing the incentive to convert or upgrade to the pro version. How to break out these features is highly dependent on the category and use of the app. Do some research to see how comparable apps handled the feature break out.

To really make the lite plus pro method hum though, there has to be a very simply upgrade path. Many developers link to the pro version on the App Store from within the lite app. That’s not bad. A more elegant solution, however, could be an in app upgrade, which would allow the user to maintain settings and data.

3. Companions and Bundles – Web + iPhone / Desktop + iPhone

More and more web or desktop software have iPhone companions. In most cases, the iPhone apps are priced independently but will sync or complement the full app. These apps are almost always priced at or above $1.99. For example, check out Hog Bay Software’s WriteRoom and WriteRoom for iPhone ($4.99) or Simplenote ($1.99). Simplenote is particularly interesting because the website is actually a selling point for the iPhone app and not vice versa.

Another option is to price the web or desktop software with the cost of an iPhone app included. The benefit to this approach versus two separately priced apps is that the customer does not have to open his wallet twice. There are some intricacies to this approach, such as how to position the app on the App Store and designing the apps so that they are only useful together.

Conclusion

Remember that the App Store model means that once users download the app, they indefinitely get updates over the lifetime of the developer (YOU) maintaining it. Therefore, the way the app is priced should consider support costs and additional development time. If you plan on doing more than just bug fixes and investing in new features or if your app has long-term value (i.e., probably not a game), then it’s a no brainer to not price at $0.99.

Another benefit of not going $0.99 is that you will price yourself out of the customers you don’t want. Consider who your audience is and how, for example, a $9.99 app could ensure that you don’t get reviews from people that clearly don’t understand what your app is supposed to be doing. Talk with likely customers, use data from your customer development surveys, and look at the market to understand the non-$0.99 price that still makes purchasing your app fall into the “why not” bucket.

Of course, you can follow all or some of these approaches and the app still be a bust. So, be prepared to cut your losses and move on to the next idea. Keep engaged early on to understand if your app has the legs to be a longer term investment. Experiment with short-term price cuts to see how users respond — launching above $0.99 means that you have the ability to try something other than free.

Additional Reading –

iPhone Apps Aren’t iPod Songs
How to Price Your iPhone App Out of Existence
The Penny Gap
iPhone AppStore Secrets

Image credit to AppleDifferent

SMS

More and more, I find both myself and others using Twitter to communicate while on the go. Using apps like Boxcar or iTweetReply — which provide push notifications for mentions or direct messages — also makes Twitter feel more like SMS. I literally get a SMS-like notification on my iPhone when people either “@” or “DM” me.

Email
Even when I am sitting at my desk (wherever that may be), Twitter has become the faster, more lightweight way to email. It’s perfect for the quick coordination or logistical note, giving props, saying “hi,” and many other 140-characteresque communications. Interfaces like Tweetie, also thread all direct messages, so in some ways, it provides significantly more context and easier access to find messages since it’s “people-based.” No need to worry about subject lines or multiple different emails from a single person.

Address Book
One of the reasons that TwitterFon is my favorite iPhone client (and more generally, has some of the best Twitter features regardless of the platform), is its “address book” capabilities. When writing an update, it is very easy to access the address book to reference someone.

Getting my first look at Brizzly, their search box works in a similar manner. With Twitter users following hundreds of people, searchable (and integrated) Twitter address books are going to no longer be optional.

RSS
There’s been much written about how Twitter has killed or is killing RSS. It’s interesting that some on the Brizzly team used to work on Google Reader — I wonder if they saw the writing on the wall.

As a point of clarification, I don’t necessarily agree about RSS being dead because RSS — as a technology — is very much alive. I just see how consumers use it as changing quickly.

I’ve written before how most of my attention has moved to the stream and real-time web and opined about how Google Reader has now fallen out of my workflow. Twitter and similar sources act as a filter, leveraging my self-selected social graph, to point me to the links I should absorb and give my attention.

Answers
Before Aardvark and TweetBrain, Twitter served as real-time Q&A service. Why trust someone on Yahoo! Answers or comparable sites, when you can get an immediate answer from someone you trust? Services like Aardvark take it a step further by making Q&A easier and smarter.

There’s also instances where the people-oriented architecture of Twitter makes it more efficient to find specific sources or information you need. Here’s one case I recently RT:

RT @startupcfo : Twitter beat google for research. Found an expert on Twitter, and raided tweet archive. Way faster than searching on goog

Memory
As the self-proclaimed, “What are you doing?” platform on the web, Twitter captures not only what we are doing but what we are paying attention to, where we are, who we are with, how we perceive things, and much more.

For this particular article, I relied heavily on Twitter and Topsy to search my stream for old updates and links. It would be very easy to overlay a bookmarking service on top of Twitter and tag or file tweets into folders.

Beyond
Of course, there are many, many more uses and applications for Twitter — these are just some of the ones that interest me (right now).

There is a whole list of ways we get measured — publicly measured — including subscriber counts, followers, mentions, links, diggs, comments, RT’s, and more. Were these particular measurements of popularity or success what initially pushed us to become bloggers, that compelled us to join Twitter, or use social news sites?

Of course not.

It is time to get back to the roots of our motivations and re-assess how we define success. It is time for us to clearly recognize that the technology we find fun, entertaining, and lucrative, cannot be the end in itself.

Each of our particular motivations and particular successes metrics might not look the same. But they need to be deeper than follower counts and more significant than dollars in the bank or new client work. These are not intrinsically wrong but when they become what drives us — being heard, being important, being recognized — we’ve devalued ourselves. Ironically, such superficial motivation will never push us to produce our best work, leaving us stuck in a frustrated and depressing cycle.

Our roles, as early adopters, is to ultimately vet technology and make it more useful for the masses. By being on the cutting edge and by being people that once understood how to program a VCR and now understand a message that looks like,

“@crzhandle yeah that’s true #ftw RT @obnxpers Twitter is no longer #fail and stuff http://sh.pr/4Twr9″

we have a responsibility to not get lost in the blogosphere, Twitterverse, or in technogadgetry obsession. If we cocoon ourselves in these worlds, then we lose out — because without the voices outside these places, we only hear our own.

]]> http://www.technosight.com/understanding-motivations-and-defining-success/feed/ 0 http://www.technosight.com/understanding-motivations-and-defining-success/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/technosight/~3/dheMCnze-iQ/ http://www.technosight.com/your-product-startup-needs-a-product-strategist-a-five-minute-overview/#comments Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:37:43 +0000 Ken Yarmosh http://www.technosight.com/your-product-startup-needs-a-product-strategist-a-five-minute-overview/ Product guys and gals continually face the challenge of describing what “we do.” Even for folks who understand job titles like “product manager,” these positions are typically viewed as required only in more mature and stable companies. And that’s a big “oops.”

While hanging at iPhone Dev Camp DC, with a bunch of developers, I was chatting with Rob Rhyne of Digital Arch, who was one of the camp organizers. Rob is both a developer / designer and we talked a couple of times throughout the night. After a long discussion about one of his very cool (and under wraps) upcoming projects, he finally said, “So, I have your card…and we’ve talked for a while…but what do you actually do?”

I hear that sort of question, in that same fashion, over and over again. I’m sure part of that is related to my need to better communicate my focus…but it also goes back to the fact that I’m not a designer, developer, and for that matter, even a project manager. I’m a product strategist.

Product strategy often gets subsumed into other roles, especially in early stage startups. The results are disastrous with poorly executed but more importantly, bad ideas going to market. When I talk with companies about how I can help them, I often provide a simple example,

“You wouldn’t want the plumber doing your interior design, the mason handling your architecture, or the demo guy running the job. So, why think about your product that way? Your product startup needs a product strategist.”

I threw together a five-minute overview that should help entrepreneurs understand how, in many ways, having a product strategist from the start of their product actually will save them time, money, and most importantly, lots of frustrations. Enjoy.