Kendall Hulet and Joe Wilson - Silicon Slopes Lecture Series
On our website. The. Speakers that are kind of coming up if you if you go on there and then go down into the silicon slopes lecture series you'll. See who's coming in a little bio about them so you can come in prepare and, ready, to go I had a chance to visit your cult Kendall and Joe, just. As they were coming in to find out what you think about them Kendall's, a local guy he grew up with it Spanish work he's. A Spanish. Port guy, with. High school they're on the BYU and, then God's MBA from Wharton School. Prestigious. Business School very well known and. Was. Gonna. Tell a story about the startup of the business the unique thing about Joe, Joe's not from around here but he is now and. Remember. When the iPhone came out and. Nobody. Had ever heard of anything like an app and, what goes on the iPhone you got this. Really cool thing Joe. And, his team developed two, of the first 50, apps for, the iPhone, so. He is a pioneer, in the app development, standpoint you've, done a number of how many dunces, Angelis, part absolute. So. Okay so many of you are thinking about what does it take to build an app and how to get connected Joe's. A fantastic. Contact, or connection, to be able to answer this question so we're, thrilled they started their company just a little bit ago cake, browser does anybody got that on your phones by chance, okay. You will after for, sure because it's an awesome cool, thing so, let's hear it for Joe and rekindle and and. Hey. Guys. Here's. Us, yeah. So I'm Kendall and. Co-founder. And CEO of Kate and. This. Is Joe he runs a product, and will. Kind of explain a, little bit about what that means, exactly a little, bit about my background I, used to run product, and you exit ancestry. Anyone. Here ever taken the DNA test or their family, or somebody, it's. Pretty cool so fun. Product, is. Claim. To fame on that was last, year, on Black Friday it, was the number. Two highest. Selling product, on, Amazon, behind the Alexa, kinda, cool I'm, saying and that's what my work done. Say. Anything about yourself yeah. Tonight. Appreciate that yeah. I. Miss, that turn my Apple fanboy. Personality. Yeah. I. Have. Some successes there like a. Lot, of products. Applications. Or a lot of different industries, most. Recently most excitingly you Kate. Okay. So we're going to show this little video gives, you an introduction, to kink trouser what, cake is any. Of you guys recognize. This is esther, povitsky. Hi. I'm Esther, I'm here, to introduce you to Kate. Cake. Is a revolutionary. New mobile. Browser, you know like Safari or Chrome but. Better the, problem with the browser that came with your phone is that it wasn't meant for it it's a desktop, experience, that's been crammed to fit on your phone that. Is like me trying to put on my mascara with the toilet brush. Like. When searching for something on the web you, have to page back just to look for something new tap. Back button tap, that button tap, that button essentially, going backward, just to go forward and that, doesn't. Make a whole lot of sense did. You know that on a mobile browser it takes 87. Percent longer to get to your search results than it does on a desktop, no.
No. You didn't, that's, why I'm here to tell you these but. No more my friends, with cake choose, your favorite search engine to power your experience, then. When you search the magic comes with a swipe your. Search results preload, so swiping, from one results of the next is a fast, darris, a delightful, experience because. You don't have to suffer through slowly loading, pages because. Swiping, the results, is fundamentally. Way better than, looking at some boring list this. Swiping, experience, is possible, thanks to some fancy tech thing called index, suppression, only. Cake has it and yes its patent-pending and if. You're worried that someday you may, miss the standard, index view you, can now take a, deep breath, simply. Swipe to the left from the first result and there. It is another. Magical, ingredient, in cake is a concept, called page compete, it, takes the top search results, and makes them compete on page loading, times putting, the fastest, loading page on the screen first, it's. Kind of like a bunch of dudes all racing to get to my house to be the first one to watch me ice cream. Images. Articles, news or shopping giving, you a bigger view of the web than a single search service, would that. Means more fail videos, more, cat gifts more breaking, news more, fake moves and more comparing, prices on the ostrich pillow it's. Friggin awesome and sometimes I just want to get away another. Whole thing about, it's just how customizable. It is remember. You're, the boss here customize. Your search types by reordering different, search services, like, dynamic searches because. My mother tongue is millennial. Sorry. About data usage, or ad blocking you, can control, that it's your browser, can't. Even lets me cut through the clutter and choose the most relevant collections. Of websites, for my search term this. Is like no other browsers. You've ever seen, so, do yourself a favor put, cake on your iPhone home dog or make it your default browser on, Android your. Future, self will, thank you, download. Cake today to see how we're gonna use the internet on our phone from now on. All. Right. Yeah. So this, is a fun project for us we're we're, super excited about it because it's a really cool product so this. Is a wayback machine picture, from. The 90s about what Google looks like and if you think about what Google looks like today it's very very, similar it's almost the same and. When. You look at it on a phone it's. Like okay it's just the, same thing but smaller, and harder to navigate, because, the, click space is smaller the text is smaller it takes longer to scroll all these things, and. We just thought that was lame, and, it should be better it you, think about how everything else is evolved for mobile and it's, just such a better user experience, because it's built for mobile from the get-go right and and that's. Kind of what we thought like we can do with web browser there's a better user experience, so. Instead, of you. Know tap load, back. You, know ancestor, was saying with, cake it's super easy to swipe forward and through, your search results, and it's just way faster, because, it's faster and easier people, consume more content, and that's, kind of what you, want out of a web browser is it's easier to get to the content you're looking for. But. We're not just changing the way that these, experience. Works we're also really. Rethinking, advertising. And the way advertising. Works on a browser and so traditionally, with Google when, you do a search you get all those ads up at the top and you have to scroll past them or whatever, and.
Where The keep works is we just take the top organic. Result and put it into the first place but, as you start swiping through, we. Like to say we own the space between the swipes and. We can actually just put a sponsor. Web, page in the in that swipe stack, so. As you're swiping through, it a paid, advertiser, can get that in front of you so imagine, that you were a brand manager at Nike or, something like that right would, you rather buy a little, slot on Google's page where you can put 20 keywords or. Would you rather buy, a webpage where, you can put a picture, of your shoe front and center and it's, way more visual, it's way more appealing, and it's. Working people, really like it. Yeah. We're, old but, a, lot. Of the users of Katie are young and in fact our heaviest users are. Under. 2025. So, 88%. Of our content users. The highest-rated web browser on, the iPhone. And. Not by a small margin as like, Chrome and 3.7, Firefox. 3.9, whatever, so we're proud of that. And. We think it's because people love, it and they think it's just a better way to use, the web so, hopefully you guys will too it's a go play with it, and. Tell your friends it's. Ok, so we're. Going to talk a little bit about the lean startup, has anyone read that book so we in startup, got. A couple hands, it's awesome read it sometime if, you get a chance but, we'll summarize some, of the key things. From. It so the first thing is like you're. Always learning. This. Is a key thing, as you start a business you're developing a product, and. You want to learn as quickly and, cheaply as possible. There's. All kinds of stories. Or experiences where. People go and build something really. Big and then find out that the thing they built wasn't, a great thing and then they're out of money and they go belly-up right stuff like that ones all the time and in fact I'll tell you experience, from from, my days, at, ancestry. So I. I. Was hired. In ancestry, to. Basically. Revamp, their search engine, this. Is like a long time ago the search engine was really unsophisticated, so. You type in John, Smith and it would say you know three hits in database, packs or whatever stuff like that really, hard for people to use and so I was I was brought in to build a relevance, range search engine which basically the. Best John Smith's higher up in the list right, and. So I spent, all this time he, was super talented engineering. Team to build a really, search engine, we, released it and, we. Got like a modest, lift in conversion. Which, is what we're hoping, for a lifting conversion, but it was relatively. Modest it certainly wasn't anything. That got me super excited and I was, thinking to myself why in, the world isn't, this working better, and, so I started, doing a bunch of homework. The kind of stuff that that you, do if you're in product, so product, managers, basically, figure. Out about the customer, wants and then work with. You. Know the programming, team and, engineering. The engineers, and the designers to. Basically. Build a really great product right and, so, I, would. Say I was a little bit cart before the horse because I was there I built, a search engine we rolled it out and then I'm like huh why. Isn't it working better. So, I went, back and started listening to customers and watching. Stuff and, so, the first thing I did is I looked at the logs our, search logs I saw. That people were doing the same search every. Day over. And over and over again I was like how. Are they doing this so I started. Calling customers. And, they're, coming oh well, that's good you're always having new content, and I want to see if there's anything new for my ancestors. A. Ton of sense like okay it's really lame they have to do this same search over and over, and over but I get. So. I filed that away and, then, I started doing some user testing and, I, would bring people in from.
Outside And have them use the product and so I was bringing, never, subscribe. To ancestor you never use it before and, I know that do a search and. Invariably. They, would search for themselves, first and I'm. Like this is bad because this is a database about dead people and, you're not dead so. Crappy. Results and. So that was really hard to get them excited about product, because, they weren't finding good hits and. So that. Was the next thing I filed away in my brain and then the third thing. Is. To, make. A really good relevance, during query you want to put as much information as, possible into, the query because. There's a lot of John Smith's in the universe but there's only so many that were born in 1883, that married Sally and, blah blah blah right and, you, want to triangulate, and find, the right one and, so, I would always have, all these little gimmicks in the UI or like even a guest can help and arrows and like things, to try and get people to feel stuck out and. They wouldn't it, sounds like okay people. Are really bad at writing really great queries so. I took, all of this information went, back with my team I had a really talented to you know just started talking to them about what was going on what we were observing and. Before long I it dawned on me that, we, had built the wrong product, and, of course it's really expensive to build a product that didn't roll it out to market and I. Realized, that if, I have done a lot of this research up front I may have built something entirely different and, so that's, why a day I went to the CEO and said hey I think we need to build something different and what we ended up building was a family, tree. So you start with yourself tell, us everything you know about you, that's easy everyone can do that and guess what people love to do that and, then they can tell us about their parents, and their grandparents, as much as they remember, now. Because, I have all this information and we save it I can, start constructing, these queries behind the scenes and they don't have to know how to write a good query because I can figure it out based on all the information available I can, start looking for content, and then what's. Really cool is because, they save all this I can search in the background, while they're doing you know while, they're sleeping or whatever and when we have new content we can push, it to them right and so that, really changed game and ancestry, and led to an IPO is a really cool experience it, goes back to this lean startup, here, we are we screwed up royally by building the wrong product. Thinking. Of the right thing because a lot of times customers tell you what they want they, want a better search engine but. That's not really what they want I was, looking for what is the root. That's. Not the case anymore right the reason this methodology. Is so important is because you want to make small investments, in community learning because. You're continually shipping product who stays right. You actually have the opportunity to get better. Product. Market fit better customer satisfaction continually. Not just sort of hoping that by the time you print that. So it's really becoming increasingly, important that you learning all. The time. So. One analogy that I've used to describe. This process a little bit is, your. Instant building like a wedding cake which would take a ton of time and effort, it's super hard to get right on the stuff maybe, start with a cupcake see. If the customer likes the flavor here since the Heylin you know it's a complete, thing so, what you don't want to do is be like well here's a bunch of. Stuff. Without, frosting. And not decorated, but it kind of gives you the idea of a cake you can see if your customer wants it that's it's.
Going To be a failure, instead. You want to go the complete thing but you want to go a very small, minimalist. Thing and see if people like it and if it works and what's wrong with it and that's how you iterate, quickly because. The time and effort to make a cupcake is so much less than to build a wedding cake. We. Just talked about this. Well. So let's jump into it so we're. Talking about gathering feedback learning, early so let's talk about a couple methods, or. Gathering, feedback qualitative. And quantitative, right. These are things that you sort of learn, and they have four conformed your thoughts his ideas. Whereas, quantitative, stuff it, certainly informs you but it's much more empirical as actual numbers data percentages. That are attached to it right so. For qualitative testing, at Kate we like to do in-person, testing, we, have a new feature or, even, just our core feature which is early. We. Wanted to see how people reacted, to it in person, when we were in front of them. Sometimes. That's really hard to do but we have the internet so you can remotely. You. Can also look at the reviews that are coming back once you ship the product, and. Of course you have your support channels or people trying to tell, you something that's a great source, on, the quantitative front things like ratings, or well-constructed. Surveys, are. Wonderful, tools to sort of it's targeted information you're really looking to learn in a specific area and, of course the king of through quantitative, feedback. Is, going to be data in analytics. Which. Takes a lot of time and investment to get there but you always want to be thinking about that early on as, most of your learnings that scale with a product come from real. User behavior, in the wild and that's easiest to capture, by tracking the right things. Yeah. I'm the quant side I would just throw, out some advice which is figure. Out what you're solving for up front like what, is the goal here what, are you actually what do you want customers, to achieve, and, what. Metrics. Would allow you to measure whether or not they're succeeding with that and then, you want to tool, your. Software or whatever it is you're making and, this could apply to the hard goods anything, but you want to understand. How. Things are progressing toward, those metrics, right and so that's it's, very much an upfront exercise, a lot of people this, is kind of thing they tack on at the very end they're like oh crap. How. Should we measure this let's there's some stuff together if, you're doing that way it's like totally, backwards or kind of like you should be thinking very much upfront what, do I want to get, out of this why and that'll, help you craft the right project expands much less to find the right analytics, and metrics. You're, like. Fred.
If You want to know what are your key performance indicators, and how to track them. So. Let's. Let's try to make this real right, because those are just terms, and methodologies, right so. Prototyping. And getting feedback can happen at any stage right, you can come up with a business idea and say the person next to your friend or. Your mom hey do you think this is a good idea. Getting. Good data takes a lot of work as this mean sort, of teaches us your friends, even your. Colleagues, here we're excited about business, are excited about building, something making something is enthusiasm, just the bat sentiment, alone, they're. Probably going to give you really positive, indicators, and that doesn't mean that you're onto something that makes sense so, this, is something really important, keep in mind if you're looking for positive feedback. You. Sort, of learn subconsciously. Where to find that in your life and you're gonna get it if. You go to your mom she says it's a bad idea. Anyway. So. So. We've done a fair amount of user research at, Kate, and, elsewhere. And so here. Are some of the things that we've learned along the way that might help you as you start to do this I would actually argue that if, you guys are entrepreneurial, and you want to go through something this is like the first thing you should do you. Want to figure out before. You do anything so. Back. To prototyping, right you can actually build software, this kind, of throwaway. Code it's. It's, an early prototype and you're gonna massive but. I would argue that's really, expensive compared. To drawing, a picture and. Drawing, a picture is really expensive compared. To describing, something and you know and so what you're trying to do just like the, cheapest, fastest, way to get some feedback on something and then you take it to the next crane of, detail, and then you're gonna take it to the next grain but, when you do that when you ask people questions you, know I'm just sort of wing it it's, really, helpful if you actually plan upfront what am I gonna ask why am I asking that, is that a good question is, that a leading question and, you know that type of thing, and I think that'll help you as you as you actually script that out you'll, ask smarter, questions, to be more thoughtful. Right. And you know so preparation, is key you really want to know what you want to learn how you gonna learn asking. Good questions is, an art form and it takes practice so start. Young. Modify, your script. As you learned that day that's a bad question, another. Thing to know this is just a piece of advice always, get consent when you're doing user testing it's, just a quick form that says what. You're going to use that information for. Increasingly. Something, people are concerned. About these days and it definitely starts. You off on the right note of sort of information gathering and professionalism. Testing. A variety of subjects come back to our spongebob, be ready. It's, easy to get to your friends if you what. We're trying to build, can. Be challenging, can be daunting but it's very very very important. You, also want to test, a variety of age, groups. Gender. Like all kinds of different things right. Because. You're looking for a diverse group. To, understand, how they feel about your product and then.
Gradually. Hone in under your target market should be based on some of the feedback you get and, if, if. You're only talking to people who look and act like you you're, you're. Totally missing the point, and you may be starting a business where you think you know what your customer, is you're. Doing yourself a disservice by, not talking people outside the circle who you think your customer, base and. Then. You always want to help set people at ease people, get really nervous when they feel like they're being observed and. That's. Normal, and so, you want to set them at ease and, you. Know I moderate. A lot of use of testing and when I do that I just say hey how's it going, and I start chatting, with them before we even start and, then we get kind of get into it but I've sorted set them into use I'm their friend you. Know that kind of thing and and that helps them I think be more honest, and less like nervous and kind of. You'll. Get better answers from them if they're willing to talk and, don't feel like you, know they're, worried, about everything, that's going to come out of their mouth so the, first time. The engineers, on the product and, Kendall, sat down and he you, know set the subject, at ease he asked them about them, he used the line that I think is great which is we're. Not testing you testing. The product if you find something that's wrong that's good for us to learn letting, them know that we're. Not testing how well they can use the software right we're testing out of all the software. But. Any fact if you get stuck on something that's great that's, it that helps us it's, like okay you want to sort of send, them on a, little. Bit of finding. Mission. But. Then Kendall said I didn't make this product you, can't hurt my feelings, so. One. Thing that's really important is when you're building a business you're very invested, you. Very passionate, about you should be. Right. So. You do definitely, have to make sure that you're being, is empirical, as you can possibly be, if, you're the one running the test, which is often the case in the early days of a business. Really. Quick on the dues you are recorded, and possible, sometimes. You start talking with a co-founder. Or colleague, and say well actually I thought they'd do this or I thought they did this for that reason a video, recording. Is really easy to go back and look at, okay now that she said this we're. Going to be surprising how much that. Comes, comes. In handy, I mean, involving the right team members if you're doing in-person testing you don't want overwhelm, somebody. But. Sometimes it's better to have more than just you and the test subject in the room or just say this is something so it's, gonna take notes for me you. Know put them at ease but it's good that other people, if. It doesn't, then work doesn't go right that a lot of people room that's why I would also record, so you can share that information with. Other team members so. You may think well how am I gonna go hang people so we've done all kinds of different things so one thing you can do to recruit people if you go to Craigslist, or something like that oh stuff, you go to post it on social media, or what have you so, those are ways to do it you guys are lucky because you're at a college campus degrees, and you just walk around and be like hey you got two minutes don't give this thing right a, famous, thing that people do and the tech world does it go to Starbucks, and like hey I'll buy your coffee for, you if you'll take two minutes to you, know look at this thing I got you. Know that's kind of a thing, that happens. You. Know get, creative, you'll find good people to test, yeah. So back to the notes we've already covered a lot of them one, thing again just to remind don't take it personally, information, is good even, if it hurts a little bit but. One. Of the bigger things up here is by not assuming, statistical. Spring just.
Because Someone gives you a piece of feedback, just. You know there's a motion attached there's, feelings. And, there's weight. That comes across and how people sort of convey their feedback it just tastes for a feature of something that. Doesn't be stantly mean that it's, bad or, they love a feature. That's. Not really statistical. Strength those, are good signs we, need to take into consideration, the. In-person testing, like this is really on the qualitative side it's. Really about this good sense of this is confusing they, just aren't getting it. Don't. Assume because someone, is really. Saying something. That, has lost assistance. On your decision. So. Take. It for what it's worth over value, but don't undervalue it, but try to get even keeled as you can with that feedback which, again is why it's important that multiple, team members sort, of looking. At this data to feedback so nothing gets you. Know promoted. Or demoted. And. Also. The way you ask questions, you can get the answer you want so, you gotta be super careful about that and you definitely want to try to stay as unbiased as possible as you're asking questions and, so that people will give you their their. Real feedback it's very easy to do again don't, you think this is pretty cool you know that kind of thing that's terrible, right and. You. Certainly don't want to leave people into that. Another. Thing that I do when I do user testing is, often people say well what, does this do or something like that I. Don't. Know what do you. Always. Back. To them because. What you're trying to figure, out is how are they thinking are, they stumbling, here is it because they don't understand, user inner there's, some other problem, and, if you actually answer their questions. You're like a crutch, for them and that's not going to happen in the real world as, soon as they run into some obstacle like that they're just gonna like ditch your. Okay. So. How. Do you make decisions and. Is. It your gut. I. State. I think Joe and I feel strongly, that it's. A balance, between all of these things right you're looking at user feedback but, that's, like one voice right, it's not the only voice you want. To be customer centric and. Customer, driven but you. Also know what time I like to say that like your, brain you are like a super, sophisticated. Machine. Learning algorithm, right your brain is constantly taking, in data you're, trying to figure this kind of stuff like you're running regressions, all the time you just don't know it and so. You're, lunging all that stuff so you're your. Gut right your intuition, is actually pretty smart. Especially. If you've been there and done a lot of stuff and it means some experience, because, you've seen a lot of patterns, and that's. Essentially, what your intuition is I, mean.
Then Lastly it's just actual, rocking a tray what are the analytics, telling you. And. I would say you can couple your intuition. Your driving, your learnings, or your desired work with. Sort of the honesty. And that you're. Really gonna be better off because you'll maintain your passion for the business your drive for the business but you'll be able to say okay you know I thought that was a great idea, it, isn't that doesn't mean I'm down that doesn't mean we, did something wrong that just means we have more information now it's, informed, us that better intuition can we can go forward faster, we're, really getting that one Amana students yourself with intuition, and thought what reactions hearing from customers their data points can. Be tough in a business that has started with passion, and gussto right but fast she can get to that sort of level of honesty with yourself the. Faster you're going to decide to prioritize, and make decisions from as user feedback. So. Here's a fun. Example that, gets under my skin. There's. Also this thing where users tell you they really want something and you. Want. To be receptive, that you want to be a user driven, a customer feedback driven company right, but. It just doesn't align with your. Business goals or it doesn't align with your current resources, right every company even, the biggest companies in the world of limited, resources. And they, have specific goals right, setting goals is immensely. Important in any business that any stage of the business all, the way down to minor product decisions right what's the goal what we're trying to get out of it so here's an example that. Our, QA, team person tells me all the time said, people want dark mode. Okay. Dark mode is a buzz turn right now raise your hand if you like dark mode. Dark. Mode is great in some applications, the issue of the browser's I don't control the content. Right so. In other words we have about ninety, 90, percent of the screen that's not my, you. Are UX that makes, sense, so, I'd like they've been dark. Okay so but, I had our cue difference of seven asking people what do you mean when dark what do you actually want how are you envisioning it that the answers came back all over the place, but, even after sort, of digging in and really trying to understand, user we realized look we, need to do as a business right now as increased retention when someone downloads cake I need them to make it their primary browsers, set, up as their default on Android put in their dock on my phone that is still our biggest, need. As a company, is to get more retain users. When, you put dark mode in that. It's. Really just not that important so and, I would also say this it's good to have customers asking for things because in the sense that means they are somewhat, invested, in, your product sometimes I say I don't use your product because it acts but, oftentimes it's your most active users who are the ones asking for things and you need to be like Kendall said earlier start filing that way making sure you're listening responding. Sometimes. It's good if you really can but the users you want to do something like that but we're working on something more important. But. It is important to make sure that just cuz you can learn something doesn't. Mean that's. Your. Point. A to point B line and product development, or business development you, still need to make sure that aligns with your business goals. So. It's, this balance of being sensitive to your loud customers, who really want something but also that grounding, of being, data-driven. Right, we can make dark mode all day long but, if nobody keeps getting as their primary browser. Right. Humans. Are also conditioned, to avoid pain and loud. Customers. That complain are really painful and after a while you're certainly let's just freakin to dark mojo, we could get this done because I'm sick of dealing you, know that's a natural tendency and that will happen to you and you've gotta like be thoughtful. About that because it's just a natural thing that, you don't want to succumb to necessarily, just that loud voice you want to make sure that it that's. Joseph alignment, that goals and, this is, the right thing to do right and that can be difficult, sometimes, that's. That's the positive of having a goal right Kendall, says hey maybe we should do dark most everybody wants that I can say. So. You, know the Lean Startup methodology is, really, boils. Down to you. Know, inexpensive. Development. Learning, iterating. Back, to the drawing board against the cycle, of learning, as you go in, a really methodical way, but. One thing we learned with Kate that was really interesting is, we had large beta test groups was. That our users.
Behavior In the wild was still radically, different any. Type of user testing has bias we should try to avoid it like we discussed earlier but it's. Going to be biased as something, the next or, if they know they're part of a special program or, a small amount of people those things can actually bias behavior, pretty. Significant, for. Example we will browse where we sort of learned that people just wanted, we. Wanted them to just sort of test that we've ever made it clear to them to warn them to actually use it as, their full-time browser, and, that was good enough to use the circle time rather because a beta, program, right so, you. Know user researcher. This qualitative, area, where you're talking to people when you're doing it in person testing, that sort of thing really, gonna actually only get you so far, and it's something you have to continually, do especially as you're watching new products new features. But. Is the data and analytics, portion, once you've actually shipped, in awhile you say ok the. Users send interviews, of X amount of times a week after. They actually do because that's what matters right how. Many searches it and actually doing how many people are actually keeping as their core, browser, that's. What you learned once you actually ship, something so don't. Use the Lean Startup methodology as, an excuse, not to ship, products. Product, doesn't need to be perfect and. Sometimes, we look at each other and we say I, don't. Know how to test this in. Isolation we just have to ship something. So. You can actually. Yeah. An, example, of this we have this feature that, in user testing, I was like wow this is so cool and they, would totally geek out over it, and they loved it and whatever then. We put it out in the wild and like I don't know 5% of all users ever use. This. Thing we're supporting this feature that. Even. Though they say. That is super cool so, you, know sometimes though having, a feature like that's awesome because, it, will sell. The, product, you know. Necessarily. Discount, but it's. It. Wasn't. Sometimes. It's actually matters, scale right, product, like cake and we're talking millions million, users. So we have a five hundred people in a beta test that might seem statistically. Significant, but, if they're all sort of from, around here or all sort of demographic magazines, for us to get to or invite. To the program it's just not going to be the same thing as we've seen why so there's huge. Importance, than actually getting things out of there but, again the purpose of the Lean Startup methodology is, to make sure you're not you. Know basically. Spending all your money to get something out there that's not right you're, committed to this continuum. So. I think that nothing unites, a team like, feedback, that, you watch or, participate in, together I, I've. Had all kinds of teams over the years that, have been fractured and, divided. You know the engineering, team has this agenda and they want to do this so. And so it's just a patsy for this yeah well how about all this like politics, that starts entering into your business and it's stupid.
And Annoying. But. I found one thing that cuts through it like, every, time and it's watching customers. Try to use your product, and fail and, then suddenly I was like home. And we gotta fix that and suddenly you're all rowing, together in the same direction and. It's, awesome so, when we try to as. Joe says here on this light let the pain unite, year we've. Tried to institute. A program. Where we Pizza together watch user testing, videos, and fields, of pain together and then. The. Reality is Kendall's right at the end of the day Kate, doesn't matter unless people use it and love it anatomically right, so, when. You know your professors, or these other lectures, you look like one of the hard things in business this. Is really one of the hard things in business which you have to get used to it you have to learn to love it. People. Whose picture is sort of various stages of clothing whatever. My. Guess is Joey's, the one that actually engineer. But. There was they're watching together. Solutions. It's. Just such a. Key. Point here, across. All of this is don't, build the wrong thing how do you avoid building the wrong thing you test a bunch of stuff early, she, right, that's what you want to do whether it's a picture whether, it's like an actual model or a prototype that you made or whatever it is test, early and often you'll. Avoid a lot of, expensive. Mistakes, and your probability, of success will, go over a lot that doesn't mean you're going to succeed it just means the probability of, success will go up and I, think that's really really critical, when you're trying to start a business I, just can't afford a lot of a lot of, expensive. Mistakes as you go, so. That's all we got we're open to questions broad questions, specific. Questions about prototyping, testing. Or. Cake, or anything. Okay. So the question is she's working on an app she's got it almost to a prototype stage and she's wondering what, company would she go to or who, could help get this app created. I'll, let you answer yeah. So. Your. Question is say, no we're. Going to get that made my. Response, to you with the validate, validate validate, all, the things we've talked about today who. As much of that as possible right. You can do that on paper you know keynote, or PowerPoint. There's. Also a lot of cool tools it might describe it to you prototyping, tools yes I mean if you really want to. But. Whatever you can do to articulate, your eyes. So. You definitely don't wanna make that mistake another. Piece of advice I always did people are citing it in half based, business. Is. If you're open to it. Make. Your life a lot easier suddenly. They have those skills, that pocket. For, it's. Wildly. Words. Your. Ownership, their business they have the right partners. So if, you're not yourself an. Engineer, or a designer, I. Would, certainly starting, to look for people that can get behind your vision and believe in it as well that's.
One Piece of advice but if. You want someone. On. Them to think I'm just there uh later there, have been many times where. I've. Been. Like okay yeah. Okay. Presentation. Software. All. Capable. Go. Find someone, is. Able to create software if you want to do something like software find someone to do software. But, what you say is the best way to find some how to do that so the question is basically how, do I find maybe technical co-founders, or, technical. Partners, in a business you. Have to be in places where they are I know. Things, like Startup Weekend, that's one thing or any valuable resources, for finding people who may share, with. You the. Only piece of advice that would give you if you're approaching the business plan is that any mole or a partner today whatever you're gonna bring it in business you, really got to bring it right, engineering. Is very empirical we, know exactly what needs to be done to, get a product engineer that attacked was a very close to exactly right now whereas bizdev is very much more, frequently, than X, amount of people before you have a break whatever so, if you're the partner in a business that isn't bringing a technical, skill like that my. Advice to you is to really sort of put. It upon yourself to be constantly proving your value of work that I've thought this idea of validate I'm gonna talk to customers, that's, what engineers want to hear because you, know. This is a little bit of a dated stereotype, a lot of Engineers don't necessarily want to it's not to customers, we force them to a Katie sometimes right but you. Got to be that person so make yourself, available go, to events where people are. Dropping. Out in CS area. I'm serious, like go, meet friends with a bunch of computer science people they're. The ones you have the skills right and so, just go start mingling and you'll find some like-minded people, there's a bunch of meetups and stuff like that too so on that networking. Events, are part of part of that they help you meet other people there's, open. West conferences. Let's. Search for Joe and Kendall. One. Last quick thing interleaving. We have a couple internship. Options. Available so, stop, by and see Chris on the way out at the table even learn more emergency, then. Your attendance both word is validation.
2019-01-21 07:05
