The story up until now:
A while ago I announced that I am writing a book. I called it Ship or get off the Pot.
My career has evolved from building large scale web platforms to consulting on early stage strategy. Recently, I have evolved my consulting to early stage in-trepreneurship. I go into a large or mid level companies that already have an established market and work with them to put together the strategy, the processes and the team so they can build a product thrive and scale in the market.
What is SOGOTP about?
Ship or get off the pot is a no nonsense guide to building and launching a tech product then iterating on that.
I will break down what the greats like Google and Github are doing that allows them to be constantly shipping new products and features without losing focus on their core value.
Then, I will walk you through step by step how I meticulously copied what they have done, applied the 80-20 rule and applied to my own businesses and the companies I have worked with.
Who this book is for:
Ship or get off the Pot is intended for Aspiring Innovators. This is anyone in an organization from the interns to the CEO in a mid or large level organization that are currently feeling the pains involved with trying to grow or stay competitive in the tech product game. If you or someone you know it banging their head on their desk because of any of the following pains this book is written for them.
The Painful Questions:
If you have ever asked one of the following questions this book is intended for you.
How do I launch our product when we have all of these "cool" features that still need to be built?
What aspiring innovators are asking:
Our customers said that features X, Y, and Z would be really cool features. We need to have them in so we can launch. How do we get all of this built so we can launch our new product?
My answer:
Don't! Don't bother building out X,Y,Z. Hell cut out half the features you already have put in. Cool Features kill great products. I reverse the question to you: What is the one feature that your potential customers can't live without? What feature is the one feature that can cure which ever pain your customer is suffering from that causes them to scream, shout, shake his fists at the sky while cursing his maker.
Fixing someone's pain is far more valuable than cool features so don't bother holding back launching your one pain killer feature on account of all of the other B.S. features.
Why can't we position our product as "the product" in a Market?
What aspiring innovators are asking:
We have a good product, why can't we ever seem to get on top of our target market. We seem to blend into the crowd of other competitive products. At trade shows people are always asking me "How is your product better than product X?" I tell them about our cool feature X,Y, and Z; they just don't seem to get it (see how I tied that back in there).
My answer:
The question isn't really "How is it better?" The real question is "How is it different?" Trying to squeeze marginal value out of a product by packing it with cool features is asinine.
I was a wrestler so I use a wrestling analogy to explain it:
Would you rather be that wrestler that practiced 50 moves and managed to be successful with them 50% of the time? Or would you rather practice one move until you become unstoppable and be successful 100% of the
time?
Coming from the startup life with a bootstrap budget I learned pretty quickly how to niche in and focus on being great at that one thing so that I was unstoppable with it.
How do I hire the talent required to run a tech product?
What aspiring innovators are asking:
*I hear that one a lot and right now tech talent is in high demand. Rockstar developers are being hired by companies paying salaries I could never compete with. So how do I hire a team of rockstar developers in such a competitive market? *
My answer:
Don't even bother hiring a 'team' of rockstar developers. Find one or two teachers. From there hire young hungry individuals eager to learn; willing to plunge toilets and lick the floors clean if that what it takes to get the job done.
How do I keep that talent from getting hired away?
What aspiring innovators are asking?
I just lost 3 developers to bigger salaries at bigger companies. How can I compete with that?
My answer:
Give them something money can't buy. Give them purpose. Give them freedom. Give them culture. Give them community.
_See my post titled Help! My team is jumping ship! - How to keep your top talent
Why I am writing a book?
In an effort of to stay on topic, I split this topic into a separate post.
See Why I am writing a book and not code
How I break it down?
I have decided, like my strategic consulting, to split the book up to cover three main topics.
Strategy:
- How to find your niche in the market and hammer in.
- How to cut away every cool feature and end up with the only Pain Killer in the market place. Then how to market your product.
- How find everyone suffering from that pain in the market eager to gobble down your Pain Killer so you don't have to force it down anyones throat (gross analogy).
Process:
- How to recruit when development talent is expensive and scarce
- How to use lean and Agile principles to craft your product and continually iterate and improve
- How to structure your organization in small cross functional team for fastest development time and optimal end product
- How to Ship
Technology:
How to structure your web application around a simple core product then release mini-apps disguised as features. Allowing you to iterate faster. Allowing your teams to take ownership of a specific piece of functionality and really go above and beyond.
What to look for when picking your technologies of choice from a non-technical business view.
How can you help:
Writing a book is an exciting process but it is an extremely challenging process. I won't be able to do it alone. Every bit of feedback, good and bad, is important. I am extremely grateful for all of your support.
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