iToolBelt

The previous post noted how businesses need to focus on getting product to the customer. If you can’t get that product into the customer’s hands, the rest does not matter. This was the message that I heard at a seminar presented by the co-founder of FreshBooks. It was a great seminar for the price.

Some of the key points:

• Keep it simple.
• Focus on getting a product to market and stop adding features.
• Question whether features/bug-fixes requested by 20% take priority over a new feature that suports 100% of users.
• Name recognition matters for a successful Web Application Business.
• Pick your teammates carefully because you’ll be working with them long hours and for a long time. Trustworthyness and openness are a necessity.

It was not only informative but very motivational. I recommend it.

It was interesting to see and meet the people in attendance. I’m a C#/ASP.NET developer. The audience was mostly Apple users and Open Source developers. I wonder if there are statistics on Web Application Startup Companies. What percentage of the companies are using mostly Open Source technology and what percentage are using Microsoft technology, etc.

I was coming back from running some errands yesterday. It was one of those Saturdays where I was looking for something different for breakfast. A couple of interstate ramps before mine are streets that feed into and out of the older part of the city. Why not venture off the beaten path and look for something different? So off I went. 

I drove a ways into the city. Restaurants and small groceries were on each side. Nothing jumped out at me so I turned around to head home. I passed a little hole-in-the-wall bakery. I would have driven past but there were a good number of customers buying baked goods. Always interested in a small business and how they operate, I stopped in.  It was a pleasant surprise. 

People were walking around with tongs and a silver platter. They were selecting pastries from glass cases and open racks. The smell was wonderful. I took a minute to look around and then did the same.  There were no fancy cases and racks. The had a miss-match of types of glass cases. They even had a Krispy Kreme glass case! Just one person running the cash register with two in the back kitchen. 

The pastries were different from the standard sweet rolls sold in the grocery store. Instead of being overly iced and overly sweetened, these had a light sweetness in the dough with a thin sweet coating. They were great! I didn’t have the intense sugar rush after having one (or two ).

So here is my point. This bakery has figured out how to tweak a product that has been around for a long time. They’re focussed on delivering that product to the customer. The customer loves the product! Having coordinated glass cases, professionally printed paper products, and a custom designed drive-thru are not required (at this time). They’re getting a great product to the customer and building a customer base. They realize that if they don’t sell product and build a customer-base the rest doesn’t matter.

I’ll continue this discussion tomorrow and add my thoughts on FreshBooks.

I’ve been reading the book Getting Real from Jason Fried and the 37Signals group. I like the idea of keeping the products simple. But what I really like is the focus on getting a product to market and letting the customer help you define it. Keep it simple, get to market, then enhance as needed. Another good read is Jason Fried’s interview with Inc. magazine. I share Jason’s view on useless meetings. Meetings are a big productivity cost when you realize they tie everyone up for a period of time and break up your day (ability to have long periods to work uninterrupted).