Associate Peter Hanschke is an Ottawa-based product management specialist. His post is part of our continuing series about the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market. We welcome your comments.
By Peter Hanschke
Startups begin with little to no money. Much of the early development of their product is funded by the owner, by his or her friends and maybe even by an angel. Every dollar is used wisely and focused at the topmost activity. To build the product from concept through to MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and to the point where a small number of customers can use the product, the company has one, maybe two, full- or part-time developers. In some cases the owner pitches in occasionally to help in development or testing.
Young and lean
In such an environment, drive, enthusiasm and the will to succeed fuels the development process. The product takes shape as the development iterations roll by. Occasionally more money is needed to fuel the development engine, which the owner must somehow secure. Without real customers validating the solution, it’s difficult to get significant funding to speed up the development process or build a more enriched product.
Despite the tough times at this stage of the startup, this is in fact a very desirable situation.
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This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from April, 2010. We welcome your feedback.
By Linda Forrest
I had a long and interesting chat with the publisher of a specialized trade publication this morning, the results of which turned my thoughts to the importance of getting a return on investment in PR. I mean this in two ways: first, getting the most value for your dollars spent with a PR practitioner or agency and second, getting the most eyeballs on your coverage.
With regards to the first, this was the particular scenario that I was discussing with the aforementioned publisher. Having pitched a series of contributed articles by email, I was calling to follow up and discuss the level of interest in my proposition. The publisher, a 30-plus-year veteran of the Canadian publishing world, talked about shrinking editorial space and how he’s unable to commit to publishing an article, however appropriate for his readership. With shrinking ad budgets, increasing competition from exclusively online publications and other factors, it’s not feasible for him to accept and commit, based on an abstract, to publishing something that would take up precious room on his pages. Rather, he’s suggested that we develop an article purely on spec, and that once submitted, he’ll review it and if he’s got the room and inclination, he’ll publish it.
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By Francis Moran
When the British Columbia Lions and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers meet in the 99th staging of the Grey Cup, Canada’s professional football championship, in Vancouver this Sunday, both teams will have squads of cheerleaders jumping and shouting from the sidelines in a loud and colourful effort to get the B.C. Place crowd roaring for their side. But while the young women in short skirts waving pompoms might be interesting for some to look at, nothing that they do is actually going to move the ball even a single yard down the field. They will score not a single point. Their contribution to the spectacle will not be captured in a single game statistic.
This morning, I was at the second event in as many weeks where the whole game plan seemed to be on pumping up the volume of the cheerleading rather than on the fundamentals of moving the ball down the field.
Speaker after speaker at these two events — last week’s kick off to Ottawa Entrepreneur Week and this morning’s regular monthly execTALKS event, both organised by the Ottawa Centre for Regional Innovation — spoke of the imperative that more “buzz” be created around Ottawa’s moribund technology scene as though sheer enthusiasm alone could overcome the very real challenges that face this critical sector of the local economy.
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This is the third article in a continuing series chronicling the growth path of CommentAir Technologies, a startup based in Ottawa, Canada. CommentAir is developing a wireless technology fans can use at sports venues to receive the same real-time commentary as fans watching from their televisions, a wireless technology that also creates a platform for targeted consumer interaction. We invite your feedback.
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
When we last spoke with CommentAir co-founders Katie and Luke Hrycak, the siblings were busy scraping up the cash for Katie to attend the 2011 Sports Management Conference and Trade Show in Toronto. Unfortunately, she never made it.
In our last post, we talked about how important it was for the bootstrapped startup to garner some face time at the conference with the sports industry decision makers who were in attendance. Katie was determined to make the most of the opportunity by having a working prototype in hand.
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By Alexandra Reid
Jeff Jarvis, a widely respected influencer in the media space, spoke at Third Tuesday Ottawa last week about his new book, Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live, the benefits of what he calls “publicness” and why it deserves just as much attention as privacy.
As a self-proclaimed “publicness advocate,” Jarvis says that “in our current privacy mania we are not talking enough about the value of publicness. If we default to private, we risk losing the value of the connections the Internet brings: meeting people, collaborating with them, gathering the wisdom of our crowd, and holding the powerful to public account.” Jarvis believes we have a “right and need to protect our privacy” – to control our information and identities – but also that the conversation and our decisions should include consideration of the value of sharing and linking. Jarvis’s intention is to work towards the protection of what’s public as a public good, and that includes the Internet.
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Take the higher ground: From product to leadership positioning
November 21, 2011 by Ron Weissman
Product checklists are the Silicon Valley product marketers’ crutch. They are so overused as to provide more cliché than caché, as they try “prove” that their product has better features than the other guy’s—as if that’s all that matters to buyers […]
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Making waves in radio and television
November 18, 2011 by Francis Moran
In our last post, we caught up with Screenreach Interactive founder and CEO Paul Rawlings on his way out the door to attend the Digital Signage Investor Conference in New York. We explored how the company has developed its target markets, including the digital signage […]
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Masterclasses in entrepreneurship
November 17, 2011 by Francis Moran
Two of the many events at last week’s Waterloo Region Entrepreneur Week featured presentations by young entrepreneurs who were generous in the sharing of personal stories and business and life lessons learned. Ryan Blair is a self-confessed former hoodlum […]
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What makes a good PR person?
November 16, 2011 by Linda Forrest
In my last post, I wrote about how PR practitioners annoy journalists. It’s ironic that many of the issues come down to the failure to implement the fundamentals of successful communication. So, in an effort to clear up exactly what it is that reporters want from PR […]
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Whetting your appetite for Social Media Breakfast Ottawa with Sean MacPhedran
November 15, 2011 by Alexandra Reid
If you’re interested in how the changing media landscape and consumer behaviour are impacting the future of advertising, the upcoming Social Media Breakfast Ottawa presentation featuring Sean MacPhedran is for you […]
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What an IP coordinator should know: The prior art wall
November 14, 2011 by David French
In the last blog posting in this series we identified how “loopholes” can seriously undermine the value of a patent. In an earlier posting we touched upon the novelty requirement for obtaining a patent. In this post, we address in greater detail the reality of the […]
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The benefits and detriments of Google Plus brand pages
November 11, 2011 by Alexandra Reid
As many of you probably already know, Google Plus finally rolled out brand pages on Monday this week. Upon first review, brand pages look very similar to Facebook pages, but a closer look reveals added benefits that will help businesses bridge closer connections to […]
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Driving steady organic growth on a shoestring
November 10, 2011 by Francis Moran
Many startups with aspirations of grandeur have fallen prey to the temptation to call themselves a “leading provider of …”. But at Teamly, founder and CEO Scott Allison and his team appreciate that earning the label is a “big hairy audacious goal” […]
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By Peter Hanschke
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