Edmonton Lean Startup Circle

Ideas are infinite, and in the absence of competent execution, they are worth nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Conversely, money in pursuit of outsized returns is plentiful. Thus, if both ideas and money are abundant, what is the scarce constraint in the fundraising equation?

Skilled entrepreneurs bring ideas and money together by building a bridge of trust.

Unless an investor specifically asks you to educate them regarding your space, focus your pitch on why you and your team are uniquely qualified to exploit the opportunity and turn the idea into a lucrative, self-sustaining business.

In its simplest terms, a value proposition is a positioning statement that describes for whom you do what uniquely well. It describes your target buyer, the problem you solve, and why you’re distinctly better than the alternatives. One of the classic mistakes of building a value proposition is diving headlong into the solution definition phase before really understanding the problem you’re looking to solve. To understand whether it’s a problem worth solving, I recommend exercising four U’s: Is the problem unworkable? Does your solution fix a broken business process where there are real, measureable consequences to inaction? Is fixing the problem unavoidable? Is it driven by a mandate with implications associated with governance or regulatory control? For example, is it driven by a fundamental requirement for accounting or compliance? Is the problem urgent? Is it one of the top three priorities? In selling to enterprises, you’ll find it hard to command the attention and resources to get a deal done if you fall below this line. Is the problem underserved? Is there a conspicuous absence of valid solutions to the problem you’re looking to solve? Focus where there’s whitespace, not scorched earth.

A VC who is interested in your company will usually define specific next steps at the end of the meeting.  E.g. "Why don't I get you together with 2-3 of my other partners later this week?" or "I will follow up with you quickly by Wednesday and we can discuss the data I need and next steps".

An uninterested VC will not suggest anything tangible to happen but will talk more in generalities.  E.g. "We should definitely keep in touch on this - I love you guys and your model".  This is a no, even though it sounds sort of like a yes.  Vague, positive-sounding generalities from VCs are almost always nos.

The most ambiguous situation is the data request without any further in person meetings.  In some cases, this is a legitimate request so the VC can quote data to get their partners interested in investing in your company.

Growth hackers are creative, constantly on the lookout for ways to increase acquisition, adoption, retention, revenue, and referral. They are disciplined, subjecting themselves to an empirical process to determine what works and what doesn’t. They understand that the product itself is the most effective marketing tool. And they are technical enough to leverage existing platforms to reach the billions of users at their fingertips.

Which questions are the most important for your company? That’s a question only you can answer. To give you some ideas, these are the questions that I use: Name – This indicates who filled out the form. Website – This documents which website was worked on. What service did you have completed? – This records which service the testimonial is for. Are you happy that you had this service completed? – This indicates whether or not the customer was satisfied with the service and provides a lead in to the next question. If yes, why are you happy that you had this service completed? – The answer to this question provides the first paragraph for the testimonial. Instead of asking someone to simply “write a testimonial or recommendation,” I ask a specific question prompting the answer that I’m looking for and leading the customer down the path I want them to take. Wufoo forms also allow you to provide explanation text on the right side as another way to lead customers down the right path. I like to use this text to provide a sample of the kind of content that I’m looking for. (An example of this can be viewed here.) On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely would you be to recommend this service to a friend or colleague? – This question provides the most relevant customer satisfaction data, according to a post from KISSmetrics.com titled “Why Customer Satisfaction Surveys Aren’t Useful and What To Do About It.” It also serves as a lead in for the next question. What would you tell them? – This question once again leads customer to provide the content that I’m looking for in a customer testimonial by asking a specific question. Once again, you can also use Wufoo forms to provide a sample testimonial for this question. What suggestion(s) would you give as a way to improve our service? – This question is the most helpful for customers who were dissatisfied for one reason or another, but the answers have to be taken with a grain of salt. Sometimes dissatisfied customers won’t be satisfied no matter what you do. It’s best not to make changes based on every answer given to this question. It’s necessary to ignore some suggestions because you can’t keep everyone happy and can’t implement every suggestion.  However, in some cases the answer to this question could lead to valuable insight on improving your offering. Do you mind if your name and website are shared on my customer testimonial page? (i.e. Do you mind getting a free link back to your website?) – This question asks for permission to share the customer’s testimonial, and it’s always a good idea to get permission before sharing something like this if your privacy policy doesn’t already include it.

p.s. If you’d like to check out my form to see how it works, you can view it here.

I personally prefer to ask as few questions as possible for any survey I create.

Modern Techniques A decade later, things have changed since those early days of guerilla user testing. Now there are a few different ways to highlight usability issues and some of them are even easier, quicker, and cheaper to implement that the in-person tests that Nielsen popularized. Here are 4 test types that I’ve used: In person, moderated and lightly scripted: This is the traditional format of a usability test and of the in-person techniques, it’s the easiest one to get started with. A quick definition of terms: in person means that you’re sitting down with the user, moderated means that there’s someone talking to the user and acting as a sort of referee to keep things on track, and scripted means that there’s a fixed set of tasks written down in advance and that the moderator wants the user to accomplish. In person, moderated and unscripted: This is the Listening Lab technique popularized by Mark Hurst. It requires a bit more experience and finesse to pull off in order to gather valid usability insights without turning into a completely unstructured focus group. In it, the moderator asks the user what tasks he or she wants to accomplish before diving into the app, based on their demographic, a loose conversation about their interests, or their impressions of external marketing pages. Remote and moderated (scripted or unscripted): This can be roughly the same as the two techniques above, except the moderator and user aren’t physically present in the same room and use a video app like Skype to connect instead. This is especially a help to early stage projects, when initial early users can come from any part of the world. Remote, asynchronous and heavily scripted: This is the absolute easiest and most newbie-friendly way to try user testing. It’s enabled by relatively new tools like Usertesting.com, where the moderator and user don’t chat in real time and instead, the user is left on their own to follow step-by-step instructions on how to use the site or app in question, while their mouse movement and audio feedback is recorded.

The basic framework of an in-person tests is: Think about what goals you’d like the user to accomplish (yes, even for the unscripted tests because you still want to see if they can complete certain tasks, although in a looser, unguided format). Record everything – at least the audio and screen, if not also their face and body, so you can review later as well as share with the team. It’s a newbie mistake to try to moderate a test at the same time that you’re analyzing it for lessons, and even newbier to ask stakeholders to just listen to a summary when audio/visual feedback can have such a punch. Use about 5 or 6 people – any less has too much noise while any more has diminishing returns. Note that a qualitative research method like this is different from a quantitative one like A/B testing, where the cutoff is much higher and more users is always better. Let people explore and make mistakes on their own while also keeping them on task. Don’t talk so much that you’re explaining everything on the screen like a car salesman, but also don’t morosely sit back and let them feel judged. Try to strike a balance between friendly and observant.

Designing Basically, designing means how your software looks and how it works. The purpose of designer is to make software that's better than what already exists. A designer makes sure that a software is as simple to use as possible, execution is smooth and bug-free, and user never has any confusion in achieving his goals when he uses that software.

So, here are some skills and qualities that may help you in having a better life as a programmer. Social This is probably the most obvious one and that's why it's highly ignored. I can tell this from my personal experience. Whether you are in college or a company, being social always works in your favor. Often times, we ignore small things like saying a simple 'Hi' to a coworker or greeting them with a simple smile. I had this problem during my school days, and also for some part of college life. 

A programmers aim shouldn't be to simply write good programs, rather it should be developing really great products. Even the basic knowledge of designing can help a long way in accomplishing that. Recommended book : The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.

He said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds. He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.

He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.

What trait signified someone who was wrong a lot of the time? Someone obsessed with details that only support one point of view. If someone can’t climb out of the details, and see the bigger picture from multiple angles, they’re often wrong most of the time.