“If you have 64 days left– you should spend 30 days on product development and 30 days on testing, feedback, and raising money.”
That was the advice JFDI Mentor Bernard Leong to the founders on day 36 of the JFDI–Innov8 2012 Bootcamp. Bernard is co-founder and CTO of Chalkboard. He is a serial entrepreneur, having started companies in the UK and Singapore, and cofounder of Triple Point Media – SGEntrepreneurs.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl3G8BWtz44
What other advice did Bernard give the founders?
Think deeply about user experience
“Building a website or web app is no different than designing a building.”
Bernard showed two examples of popular shopping malls in Singapore, one which was always buzzing with people and another which barely gets foot traffic. What was the key difference? The more popular shopping mall had an MRT in the basement, which produced a steady flow of traffic. The less popular mall didn’t have easily accessible parking.
When you build your web app, think deeply about the user experience. How will users find your website? How will they navigate within your site? Bernard recommended that founders build a product roadmap and gave a framework of how to do so.
Design with the #1 action in mind
Think about the one thing you want users to do on your site and design everything on the site with that business transaction in mind. For example, if you are OpenTable, it would be making a reservation.
Who does this well? Bernard asked everyone in the crowd to think about a time that they’d stepped into a luxury goods shop. What do you see? “You don’t see price tags…you don’t see cash registers…and you walk into a spacious layout that gives the impression less is more.” The shop is designed to incentivize you to make a luxury purchase.
He also strongly recommended that startups refer to the Kano Model.
Distribution and PR are not the same thing
“Product Marketing has 2 aspects– distribution and PR– these are 2 different things, but a lot of founders think it’s one piece.” You need to employ different strategies when thinking about how customers access or buy your products versus how they hear about them. They also don’t necessarily work in tandem. Entreprenuer Jessica Mah received a lot of media attention for founding inDinero.com but admitted that the press coverage didn’t convert to increased business. Bernard offered some advice and gave frameworks on how to tackle distribution issues and work with the press to your advantage.
Take a break!
“You know you aren’t performing when you are yelling at each other.” Bernard encouraged startups to work hard, but to work with your cofounders to plan breaks (at different times of course). He suggested that during the 100 day bootcamp, each founder take at least 1 day off. Bernard was forced by his Chalkboard cofounders to take a break, so he took one day off…and that was the day that he met his wife!
Slides from the talk are available at http://t.co/BDePSB7F.
You can follow Bernard on twitter at @bleongcw