Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Selecting beta users.

In the past start-ups often used a golden rule to select their beta users: first come first served (I’ve written a post about this before; see http://deram.net/2010/06/26/some-thoughts-on-riding-the-google-wave/ ). As more and more services are launching; it gets harder and harder to find good beta users. Recently there are some initiatives like http://launchrock.com/  to solve this problem. I believe that you should have a mixture of beta users: people who spread the word, people who give feedback and some hardcore users. If you would like to attract these mixed profiles, your selection methods to find/select beta users should be adjusted. You can use launchrock to find the people that spread the word but you can also provide a blank space (before your launch) where people can indicate what they expect from your start-up. Based on this you can find the users that are good at giving feedback on the concept and can influence your roadmap. So consider the criteria that you want to use to select your (first) beta users; the first come first served principle is not applicable anymore if you have a lot of requests (hey, you can be picky!).    

Check betali.st to be the first to discover and get access to the latest internet startups.

 

Superinnovators

Although I believe that the diffusion theory is obsolete on some points, it still has its value. For example the concept of 'superinnovators' used by Rogers (1995) in his masterpiece 'the diffusion of innovations'. The concept  of a superinnovator reffers to someone who decides to not adopt a certain innovation (for example pesticides) but is already anticipating on the next wave of innovations (for example biological based farming). They may seem like laggards but in fact they are superinnovators because they will be an innovator for this new innovation (Rogers, 1995). For example consider the problem of traffic jams. The next big thing might be a system to give indications to drivers how to drive. A company might decide that this system is not relevant and thus might be a laggard and work on a system for cars that drive themselves and be a 'superinnovator' on the long term. It is thus important to decide what is the best decision for your company or you as a person. Are you an innovator or a 'superinnovator'?

My first start-up weekend (in Brussels). (for more info: http://www.brussels.startupweekend.org/)

54 hours, 1 team, tons of coffee. It doesn’t take much more to create a start-up.

Friday:

I prepared a list of ideas the week before. If you are planning to pitch on a start-up weekend, I would suggest that you just pick one or two ideas because there are a lot of people that want to pitch in a short period. I discussed some ideas with friends before to get a grip on their reaction. My idea didn’t get picked but I was contacted to work on it later on. Some ‘captains’ were actively composing their team because they wanted to combine different skills.

Saturday:

Developing your product/service in just one weekend is a tradeoff between wasting time on discussions and building the wrong things because you don’t get enough feedback from the team or from your users (eg. lean start-up). It’s thus important to get some agreement in the team on the concept in the short term. 3 of the 11 teams stopped working during the weekend because of different reasons but this was one of the main issues. We splitted up in two smaller subteams: one focusing on the business side and the other on the technical aspects. We showed each other our progress and discussed issues on a regular basis so that the whole team was posted on the progress and we could help out each other.

Keeping your team motivated is a great challenge, especially in the late hours. We did this by ‘celebrating’ each small step in the progress to a working product.

The feedback of the experts was very helpful because you notice that they know the tricks. There were also some speakers as a welcome intermezzo; we were not able to attend all these speeches because we wanted to build a product that worked to show something on the final pitching moment. We already started working on our presentation/pitch on Saturday.

Imag0188
 

Sunday:

We used the technology of emotive.  http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html Our team attracted a lot of attention while we were working because people were interested in this new technology. We had to deliver on Sunday and there were some last minute issues; at that moment you could really feel the energy in the air. We were not able to demonstrate our robot but we were still able to convince the jury of the value of our project and won ‘the mad scientist’ award (heck we even had a robot!).

Conclusion:

I’ve met some incredible people this weekend and I will definitly sign up for the next edition!

I would like to thank the organizers of the event (@leoexter @ramonsuarez @beneworld @belgianfounders) and everyone who made this possible ;)

Kodesk was the final winner, congrats! (http://www.kodesk.com)

Complexity

 

Reducing the complexity for your users is very important if you want to increase the adoption rate of your product. Tesler’s law stipulates that you can’t reduce the complexity (of an application) once you’ve reached a certain level (for example you need some input for the program to work) (Saffer, 2007, pp. 54-55). Once you’ve reached this treshold, you are only able to shift the complexity (eg. from the user to the program by calculating the input).

Active vs passive capital

Active capital is capital that people currently use (like time, money, energy). Passive capital on the other hand are things that are not used (for example empty car seats). Converting passive into active capital can be very interesting. For example an empty roof is passive capital, if someone hires that roof and installs solar panels on that roof, this becomes active capital. The investor gains money and the owner of the roof received the rent.

The power of ideas.

·         Ideas are worth…

-          Nothing: often people think that ideas are the currency but they are not; if you want to build a great service you will have to network and create a great team and network. If a company announces an investment, I will always look at the investor and not the amount because  the network of the investor can make a significant difference. People invest in teams, not in ideas. You can copy ideas in a snip; how you execute them is the key. Often ideas change; you start with a first build and after a few iterations you notice that your final product is different from your starting point. You should be able to improvise.

-          A lot: If you can built a great team and a positive vibe around your product or service. Big companies often have the resources but often wait until it’s too late because they don’t want to take the risk. They are outsourcing the risk of innovating (eg. puma strategy).

A note on the diffusion of innovations.

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The diffusion theory states that people some people are more reluctant to adopt an innovation. They resist against it and  ‘earlier adopters (eg. innovators and early adopters)’ stimulate them often to adopt. But if I talk to some twitter users (eg. earlier adopters), they often say that they don’t like it that other people are starting to use it. So some earlier adopters don’t want that the later ones join, which is not fully stated in the diffusion theory. This might be a problem for some services.

Trends for 2011 (in my opinion).

 

* Skype+ 3D= immersive communication=awesome. Voip will grow very fast.

* People want projectors at home, not just another screen.

* People realize that there are just too many online services (eg. the end of there is an app for that); they want simple solutions that solve a lot of problems.

* Unified inbox (!),

* Devices are able to communicate based on the newest dlna standards.

* Certain smartphone producers (like nokia) decide to work together to fight android/ios.