Comments for Martin Kleppmann at Yes/No/Cancel

Comment on Learning about our customers by Nick Barker

Nick Barker — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:18:22 +0000

I couldn’t agree more Martin. Learning and iterating your product is the key. Flickr (started as on-line games), Youtube (Hot or Not) and Blogger (project management) are all great examples of product ideas which iterated to a different final product. They all leant what the customer really wanted and defined a market :)

Comment on How we totally ignored our customers by Learning about our customers – Martin Kleppmann at Yes/No/Cancel

Learning about our customers – Martin Kleppmann at Yes/No/Cancel — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:54:45 +0000

[...] in December I wrote about my realisation that we had not been spending enough time learning about our customers at Go Test It. Since then, I [...]

Comment on How to negotiate a price: Return on Indignation by links for 2010-01-30 « Blarney Fellow

links for 2010-01-30 « Blarney Fellow — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:32:00 +0000

[...] How to negotiate a price: Return on Indignation – Martin Kleppmann at Yes/No/Cancel (tags: negotiations sales brezmejnik startup) [...]

Comment on How to negotiate a price: Return on Indignation by Mark Dalgarno

Mark Dalgarno — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:39:58 +0000

I think it’s generally-accepted that it’s easier to keep selling to existing customers than to new customers so it makes good business sense to find a deal that all parties can be happy with.

Of course there is a parallel perspective to this – where it makes sense for buyers not to negotiate the sellers prices down too much.

I worked on a project for a short while with the professionsal negotiation team of a motor company – some very tough negotiators – even here there was a recognition that they should not drive their suppliers prices down too much if they wanted them to (a) stay in business and (b) continue to have a good working relationship.

It’s a shame the supermarkets don’t do this with their suppliers. Of course their business models rely on their customers, i.e. us, preferring cost over quality and not caring too much about the inequity of this situation…

Comment on How we totally ignored our customers by Martin Kleppmann

Martin Kleppmann — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:29:32 +0000

Thanks Jon, a valuable comment. Of course things always look different with the benefit of hindsight, and you never know what could/would have happened differently. Indeed, trying to do it by the book would have slowed me down a lot. However, reading this book I did get the impression that all the questions it encourages you to ask are very valid and valuable ones, and if you go about it with some focus, you can probably get some pretty good insights into customers’ lives in less than a month of work. And the book gives you some pretty clear ideas about what to ask, so you don’t have to invent that from scratch.

So, given another chance, I would probably do a few things differently. But then I do obsess about continuously learning and developing personally, which is a never-ending process — we’ll never get to the point of knowing the true ‘right way’, we can only hope to make fewer silly mistakes. :)

Comment on How we totally ignored our customers by Jonathan Markwell

Jonathan Markwell — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:19:48 +0000

Thank you again for some great insight Martin. The Four Steps to the Epiphany is now on my reading list.

Are you really sure that you should have done things differently?

It strikes me that you’ve had a very good outcome given the odds were against you as they are with all startups. Even if you did have a cofounder, taking the time to do things ‘the right way’ or ‘by the book’ may still have held you back from delivering what you have.

The distractions of following procedures, well documented approaches and taking on too much expert advice are some of the things that hold organisations back from innovating. I think successful startups are built by founders scratching their own itch under the direction of their own gut feel. Obviously startup founders need luck on their side, ensuring that enough other people have the same itch.

The alternative to the gut feel approach is potentially much worse than depending on luck. If founders invest too much time at an early stage taking on other people’s advice and following procedures they might find themselves with a project they are no longer personally passionate about. Needless to say, without that passion the chances of a startup delivering something brilliant with a small amount of time and resources are massively diminished.

Comment on Yes/No/Cancel causes Aspirin sales to soar by How we totally ignored our customers – Martin Kleppmann at Yes/No/Cancel

How we totally ignored our customers – Martin Kleppmann at Yes/No/Cancel — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:52:27 +0000

[...] got into web development and ultimately into building Go Test It. Hahaha! By the way, that’s why this blog is called Yes/No/Cancel.) And nevertheless I totally ignored it. We were not doing anything like user-centred design, let [...]

Comment on My first exit by leovernazza

leovernazza — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:27:35 +0000

Congratulatios Martin!

Comment on My first exit by charly

charly — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:08:13 +0000

Congrats Martin, wish you all the best for the future.

Comment on My first exit by Mat Clayton

Mat Clayton — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:38:37 +0000

Congratulations mate, can’t think of anyone who has worked harder than you on a start-up. Well done.