Show Notes

Martin is back! At least for this show. We’re giving you a preview of our upcoming book, Scoop - An Investigative Approach to Defining, Creating, and Selling Your Software.

This is a very exciting show and we hope you love it!

Show Notes

You’re going to invest a lot of resources into building your software startup company. So you want to be as confident as possible that this software product you’re building will sell, and sell well. It does happen, however, that we get heavily vested in a software offering only to realize that:

1. There really is not market for this thing (say, a desktop calculator that’s 10 times faster than the one that comes with Windows! – who cares????),
2. You’re just not that into it (in other words, you’re only only only doing it for the money—bad idea, cause you’ll run out of juice, trust me.), or
3. It’s too big for you (say, you’re going to build a better browser from scratch—that’s a tremendous undertaking).

So, this podcast tells you what you do to pick the winning offering. Enjoy listening.

Links

United States Department of Labor

InfoUSA

Show Notes

1. Innovation and Entrepreneurship – by Peter Drucker. I don’t know if this guy was right about everything he said, but he sure does know business. The choice was between this book and his tome, Management. Management is a great book that will teach you a TON about the actual running of a company… once it is off the ground. It will teach you about growing and hiring and building teams and a bunch of other stuff about an existing company. If you’re serious about growing a sustainable company that will last more than a generation, Management is required reading. But, if you want to get into the meat of innovation as a systematic discipline, and innovation can be systematically done (look at Apple, Microsoft, and Intel) then Innovation and Entrepreneurship is where you start.
2. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – by Stephen Covey will absolutely change your life. The very first chapter is the most profoundly revealing chapter in the whole book. This is where Covey tells the story of how he came to write the book. It’s fascinating. Seven Habits will, in a masterful way, get you to take stock of what is important to you. You’ll be surprised at what it is, and to take those things and zero in on why you should succeed. It will help you family and relationships… everything.
3. How to Build The [Your Name Here] Sales System – by Gil Wagner of honestselling.com. This is a book that is truly a hidden gem. I’ve never met anyone who has ever read it. I have read many sales books and, of them all, this one is the best, period. It is the very best sales book for Engineers. By the way this book is FREE.
4. Don’t Make Me Think – by Steve Krug. The subtitle of this book is “A common sense approach to usability.” This book is a classic. It is both an introduction to usability and a how-to for building a user interface so that real people can use it. The book starts off with the question/statement made by the author: “People often ask me: What’s the most important thing I should do if I want to make sure my Web site is easy to use?” The answer is simple. It’s not some rule about how many clicks away the info should be, or “speak the users language”, or even “be consistent”. It’s DON’T MAKE ME THINK!
5. The Art Of The Start – by Guy Kawasaki. Read this book first. This is the treatise for startups. Guy is the startup guy’s startup guy. Somehow, in a book of roughly 250 pages he manages to tell you everything you need to know about positioning your offering, pitching, how to avoid a BS business plan, and how to get money or funding. Read it.

Links

• Blog.GuyKawasaki.com – go and read the guy who introduced the Mac to the world. Enuf said.

Got an exciting show for you! Today we’re continuing from last week doing things a little different.  We’re talking about the Business aspects of building your startup on the side.

This time were talking about The Entreprenurial Crisis Matrix.

Click on and print the image below. It will make this software startup podcast even more enjoyable.

The Entreprenurial Crisis Matrix

Links

Harnessing Entrepreneurial Manic-Depression – Here’s a post by Tim Ferriss that has a similar idea. Essentially he is saying (by way of a guest writer) that it is completely normal for an entrepreneur to suffer manic and depressive states. That would explain to me wife what the problem is! I’ll also recommend Tim’s book, The Four Hour Workweek for its great ideas on trimming away time wasters and getting your productivity up. The premise of the book is that if your productivity is high enough you can work less. It’s true!

Book: The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance – by Dudley and Goodson. This is a book I highly recommend for jumpstarting out of the grip of fear. It happens to the best of us. We start off with tons of enthusiasm, rush into a thing with all the greatest enthusiasm and then… we start to realize… this is going to take some work… or, this may not be the greatest idea in the world after all. This book, on the surface, deals with the difficulties that sales people have with making sales calls, but let me tell you, it is a real eye opener for any startup entrepreneur. See, I have found nothing quite as illuminating as doing cold calling in sales. For me it was terrifying. I called friends for support, bugged my wife about it, lay awake at night, all kinds of stuff, all because of some issues dealt with in this book. It is not a self-help book. Self-help rigmarole is the last thing you need when your company is on the line and you need to bring in revenue—and there are no customers or prospects in sight. I’ve been there. I’ve lived on credit cards. Check this book out if you get to the Conscious Incompetent stage and need to get rolling again.

Book: The World is Flat – This is the seminal book by Thomas Friedman that, though it’s simplistically wrong on some things, nails the fact that we are in a global economy and explains just what that means to Joe the Plumber and the rest of us.

Today we’re doing things a little different. In past shows we have focused on the software and programming side of things. We’re talking about the Business aspects of building your startup on the side; particularly on Execution.

http://www.ideasonideas.com/2009/01/startup_fail/: Why your startup will Fail. Written by Eric Karjaluoto (car-ja-loh-toe) who runs a web design agency (that’s why they call web design shops when they get big) that must be doing ok. Eric talks about all the reasons you won’t execute. And why all those reasons will be the doom of your startup. One of the most interesting things he says is that, of all the reasons you’re startup will fail, it won’t be because of your competition. It is great reading if you’re determined to make it. But if you not, well, maybe you shouldn’t read this. Really… it can be discouraging if you’re not serious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhqZ0RU95d4: Gary Vay-ner-chuk of Wine Library TV… if you’ve never heard of this guy, you’ll thank me for this one. If raw enthusiasm can make your company successful, he’s proof of it. I don’t think you can build a company on just raw enthusiasm, but he’s got it in spades. In this video Gary is supposed to talk about building a personal brand within the Social Media Landscape. But what’s really useful is the things he has to say about how to get your dream company off the ground “on the side”; you know, as a side job.

http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08: David Heinemeier Hansson at Startup School 08. I really like this guy, from afar. He’s probably kindof a jerk in real life, but most of my best friends are… and since I’m kind of that way too, I bet I’d like him in person too. David, the inventor/creator of Ruby on Rails (the VB6 programmers dream come true), gives some insights into creating a profitable software company. He really breaks the number down. The best part is how he essentially trumps all of the silly advice available about giving your product or service way. ‘Cause, if it’s worth anything, it’s worth paying for.

Show Notes

As a software entrepreneur building a startup means lots of things. One thing you’ll get used to is talking to your potential customers to get a feel for what they want. You wouldn’t want to invest the time and money into your world-changing idea only to have your target customers reject your baby. So, in addition to being a business owner, startup entrepreneur, money raising guru (rainmaker), and tax expert (yes, you become a tax expert), you also have to be a psychologist.

One thing you can do is to gather a bunch of your potential customers together and ask them what they want. Kindof hard to do if you don’t have a clear idea of what your world-changing software application is supposed to do for your customer. So very early in the startup phase of your software startup you’ll want to make a complete list of the features your software will have. Describe them in as much detail as possible. We talk about this at length in previous podcasts.

Then take that list of features and “analyze” them to get a list of Business Rules. This is the subject of Episode 6.

Show Notes

Book: Professional Software Development by Steve McConnell
Book: Quality Is Free by Philip Crosby (out of print, but can find it)

The word of the day is – Priorities

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Show Notes

WKRP In Cincinnati – Hoodlum Rock
Book: The Inmates are Running the Asylum – Alan Cooper
Book: About Face 3 – Alan Cooper
Campaign Use Cases – An image of Flowerpot’s Campaign Use Cases.

The word of the day is – Use Cases

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FlowerPot – Our sponsor

Show Notes

Book: UML Distilled – Martin Fowler
Overview Model – An image of the primary Flowerpot software Use Cases.

The word of the day is – you guessed it – Requirements

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FlowerPot – Our sponsor