Whether you’re working on an existing product or bringing a new idea to market, start the year off right by focusing your efforts on making sure you’re delivering the right product to your most passionate and valuable consumers.

The free Say Yeah Product Questionnaire hits on several key touch points of delivering a product to market which serves business goals while at the same time meeting user needs.

With this document you’ll consider:

1. What motivates you to deliver a great product.
2. Who your product users are.
3. The market you’re playing in.
4. The product that can best serve that market.
5. The business goals that need to be met to ensure your success.
6. The personality your product and team expresses to engage your target.
7. What you’ve done to validate all of the above points.

With a review of those points, you’ll be able to identify areas of strength and where further work needs to be done to ensure you’re focusing your resources and your product appropriately.

This holiday season is a great time to begin working through our free Product Questionnaire as a refresher for your team and to help ensure you’re on track in the new year.

Get the Product Questionnaire

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“Startups live on growth. It’s the indicator of a great product.”

Sam Altman recently kicked off Stanford’s How To Start a Startup course. The course is running now through December, leveraging all the experience Sam and related founders and advisors (including Dustin Moskovitz, Marissa Mayer, Peter Thiel, and more) have been building over the past 9 years at Y Combinator.

Y Combinator’s four areas you need to excel at in order to maximize your chance of success as a startup:

1. Idea
2. Product
3. Team
4. Execution

With a massive dose of luck.

So much great market insight from Sam:

For startups, you want an idea that turns into a monopoly. But you can’t be a monopoly in a big market right away. Too much competition for that. You have to find a small market in which you can get a monopoly. And then quickly expand.

It’s good if you can say something like: today, only this small subset of users are going to use my product, but I’m going to get all of them. And in the future almost everyone is going to use my product.

Dig in and enjoy this fantastic lecture series

And here’s Say Yeah’s contact page for when you’re ready to execute on that great idea.

The post How To Start a Startup, a Stanford lecture series led by Y Combinator’s Sam Altman appeared first on Say Yeah!.

Getting product right means finding product market fit. It does not mean launching the product. It means getting to the point where the market accepts your product and wants more of it.

The post Getting product right means finding product market fit. It does not mean launching the product. appeared first on Say Yeah!.

For a startup the biggest problem is almost never a competitor. The biggest problem is typically non-adoption.

Dan Moral rightly points out at StartupNorth that Apple introducing iMessage to the iPhone should help companies like Kik who up until now have been serving a space that only a small percentage of people likely knew or cared about, private messaging.

Nobody knows there is something better than texting available. Nobody knows that Kik exists. Well, Apple & iMessage are about to blow up the “private messenger” space. In an ideal world, as the market grows, Kik goes along with it.

This is a sound point of view contrasting the assumption that when Apple (or anyone with weight behind them) enters a market they destroy the incumbents. This jives with what we’ve heard from other app developers.

Here’s Marco Arment from Instapaper talking about Safari’s new ‘Reading List’ feature coming to iOS 5 and OSX Lion:

My biggest challenge isn’t winning over converts from my competitors: it’s explaining what Instapaper does and convincing people that they actually need it. Once they “get it”, they love it, but explaining its value in one quick, easy-to-understand, general-audience sentence is more difficult than you might imagine.

If Apple gets a bunch of Safari users — the browser that works best with Instapaper — to get into a “read later” workflow and see the value in such features, those users are prime potential Instapaper customers. And it gives me an easier way to explain it to them: “It’s like Safari’s Reading List, but better, in these ways.”

Daniel Pasco talking NetNewsWire with John Gruber reiterates this sentiment:

Safari’s RSS support is about as effective for serious information consumption as the notes feature in Apple Mail is for GTD.

What Apple brings to the table is mainstream awareness. And the more complex the problem they’re trying to solve, the more holes are left open for startups to tap into that awareness. In the case of RSS in Mail or Safari, there’s little doubt those tools do little for a news junky, particularly when Apple provides no means to sync these services to your mobile devices.

Apple’s foray into these areas is to serve casual users, not solve power user concerns. Once the average user is hooked on this basic functionality, then the opportunity arises for you to reach out and show them a more feature-rich app that helps them solve problems rather than just teases them as Apple is wont to do.

This is where it pays to understand when big players in the app space like Google, Apple, RIM, and Microsoft are looking to put their weight behind a particular trend or function.

A camera on every phone, with a very rudimentary Camera app opens up opportunities for apps like Instagram, and so on.

Marco continues:

Safari’s Reading List is either going to have no noticeable effect on Instapaper, or it will improve sales dramatically.

Watch these trends. Solve big problems in smart, easy to use ways. Win at being a startup.

The post Startup apps and competition from heavy hitters. appeared first on Say Yeah!.

No company can succeed in the long term by restricting customers. Such a strategy may succeed for a few years, maybe even a decade, but in the long term, the market demands open systems.

Really? Name one other “open” system in the mobile space. And don’t bother mentioning Android because Google’s killed the Nexus One, the only phone that’s currently being updated with the latest version of Android, leaving a number of fractured Android builds out there, all controlled by the carriers, with the added exception of Google’s bullying of Motorola. As Elia Freedman pointed out last week:

We have been distracted by ridiculous arguments and fabricated “wars” for too long. We have been distracted by thinking that Google is Microsoft and Apple is Apple in a doomed fight already fought 20 years ago.

But that is not the fight we should be caring about at all. The fight we should be talking about, but aren’t, is the fight between mobile device makers and the carriers. This is the only real fight that matters.

Of course, Brandt’s not making any such salient point. The point he’s making isn’t about the openness of the mobile operating system or even the openness of the carriers who, with the exception of Apple’s phones, are the ones with control over the openness of the operating system.

So what did he mean? Well, it’s possible Brandt’s conflating customer openness with developer openness. Brandt cites the example of Microsoft allowing their OS to reach any Intel hardware in the 80s instead of the restrictions of Apple, whereby it’s their hardware or bust, thus giving Microsoft developers access to a huge volume of customers compared to Apple. But the flaw of this argument is the mobile ecosystem and PC ecosystem are not the same, with mobile introducing a whole other level of player, the carrier (do you see a trend here?). And another equally important point when comparing old Apple to new Apple: Apple of the early 1990s stopped innovating. I can assure you, new Apple knows this well and will not make the same mistake.

Or perhaps Brandt’s implying that, because the App store is curated, users lose access to content. How does this make sense to him? To back up this point he refers back to 90s era carriers, intentionally restricted access to the Internet or, more specifically, gave preference to content providers who paid for access to mobile subscribers. (So, once again, like Google.)

The point missed here (besides ignoring the carrier’s role in this decade) is that Apple’s apps are in addition to the Web. The only thing you’re missing in iOS right now is Flash, which isn’t directly preventing you from accessing content (after all, Flash developers are free to provide access to their content using another technology), and which otherwise isn’t much of an omission considering the drawbacks of awful battery life, broken websites, slideshow equivalent video, and more crashes than ever. Or the bottom line that Flash is not available to the vast majority of mobile customers, Apple or otherwise. But sure, Flash is missing as a direct result of Apple’s policies. And, okay, Google Voice, which I agree is a mistake and that I’m sure will be rectified in short order.

But, again, who’s noticing this? Less than half of a half of a percent of mobile users? After that, what’s left? What does “open” mean in this environment?

Apple provides the best in class Web browser on their mobile platform and does very little cow-towing to the carriers, who want to limit access or pre-install crap (based on evidence with Android). Apple’s behaviour here generally shows an interest in providing unfettered access to content, not limiting it. We’ll see how Microsoft fairs in this space, but if Android is any example, it’s Apple that’s going to be seen as the most open. And, in the end, should Brandt’s point about openness hold true, Apple will be the most successful player in this market.

But this certainly can’t be in Brandt’s make believe world, where Apple and RIM are doomed because they provide software and hardware that work together without manufacturer or carrier fiddling.

The world will not tolerate three or four competing smartphone systems with roughly equal market share. Eventually, one system will dominate. Apple’s iPhone OS and BlackBerry’s RIM are not candidates for that role because they’re not available for other phones, which only leaves Google’s Android and Microsoft’s WinOS as candidates for global domination.

Of course, making several sub-sets of software for dozens of phone models (see Nokia) is a much stronger long term strategy than making a single unified mobile OS that runs across several devices (see Apple’s iOS). Not happy with the Nokia example when Brandt doesn’t even mention them? Keep in mind this is exactly where Android is at right now, never mind the sorry state it’s in if it’s adopted by more manufacturers and carriers. Of course it remains to be seen what happens with Microsoft, but they’re no stranger to espousing a confusing multiOS path.

Microsoft has a tremendous advantage here – it has 30 years of experience in developer support.

So let’s say they have an advantage over Google. But what does this has to do with Apple? Apple’s been working with developers as long as Microsoft. Never mind that we’re back to the previous point, which is: developer ease of working with one OS and very few screen sizes (Apple) versus the nightmare of building for a multitude of OS’s on a multitude of devices (Microsoft and all their hardware partners).

Brandt further attempts to back up his point on Microsoft’s developer advantage by stating the volume of Google search results:

According to Google there are 10 times as many web pages providing developer information for WinOS than there are for Android.

But what kind of information are we taking about? Security notes? Troubleshooting? Complaints? Equating value to volume is just plain silly. (For that matter, what the hell is WinOS? Is this the term Brandt is using to sum up the vast array of Windows operating systems that are in the wild? Oh there’s little doubt managing that is of no advantage to the developer community.)

Apple’s strategy will eventually lead to the iPhone occupying a similar niche to the Mac – a minuscule market share sustained only by the fanatical loyalty of dedicated followers.

Here we are back to that old argument of Microsoft vs Apple in the 80s. An argument that seems to be a fallback for simpler minds who aren’t interested in actually analyzing the current environment. That said, while there’s no real evidence to suggest this may happen, and while Apple’s foray into the mobile space is far different than their price point and strategy in the Mac (desktop and notebook) space, the fact that Apple currently has the majority of marketshare in the +$1,000.00 computer market in the US and the majority of profit in the hardware industry, I have to wonder: if the above statement had any factual basis, would that be anything to complain about? We know that companies like Nokia and Dell that go for market share over profit share do not do well for themselves or their investors in the face of real competition, so why would Apple play this game?

Those examples are from just one page of Brandt’s endless tome. I don’t recommend you read it all because it’s mind-numbing drivel, but if you feel like knocking yourself out, Way Back Machine has faithfully archived it here.

Oh, and the article is called Why iAds Will Fail. If you’re interested in that topic, you can just skip through to Page 5, since the rest of the article has nothing to do with iAds.

In any case, we can all recognize that there is a multitude of platforms to consider when you’re developing an app, mobile or otherwise. From the Web (and any network therein), to iOS, to Android, Blackberry, or Windows. Choosing where to put your marketing and development resources is dependent on the market you’re looking to reach. Where your potential customers are at now is of utmost importance but, to be sure, expecting that your customers will stick to a platform for the long term is always a gamble, whether you’re talking iOS, Facebook, or otherwise.

Looking for additional platform and market insight?

Look no further. Whether it’s our market definition research work our other product strategy, we’re here to help organizations understand how to shape their products and services to best deliver value to the markets they serve.

Get in touch

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Sadly, mainstream media is already on the app market doomsday bandwagon with Fast Company’s “Expert Blogger” Aaron Shapiro pontificating about “The Great App Bubble”. Backing his leaps of logic up by making statements that don’t correlate to his points, Aaron looks to be on a mission to save companies from this impending app bubble, where small businesses implode, VC money is lost, and developers are left homeless. He’s discovered 8 signs of the impending app bubble, all centered around Apple’s slice of the market. Let’s have a look see:

1. Apps don’t generate profit for developers.

CEO Steve Jobs has said, the App Store has generated more than $1 billion in revenue for developers. That sounds like a big number. But in this context it’s not. One billion dollars in revenue for the approximately 225,000 apps is $4,444 per app–significantly less than an app costs to develop.

How does Aaron come to this conclusion regarding profit versus development costs? Well, it follows after he’s careful to acknowledge the “well thought-out analysis” of his source:

A typical iPhone app costs $35,000 to develop.

Really? So where does that number come from. Aaron’s source, Tomi Ahonen, is kind enough to produce a disclaimer regarding the numbers he’s published, since the information they’ve used to determine these numbers is, you know, cobbled together using surveys and assumptions. Tomi states he’s prepared his report:

…with all data I have managed to find.

Now the trouble here is, if you read Tomi’s original article, you’ll see that he’s sourced his numbers from another random data gathering group, the Internet Retailer, whom he’s stated as being an “independent source” as though that makes their numbers any more accurate. Of course, Tomi hasen’t provided a link back to the Internet Retailer’s source material and I can’t find their May 1 report online, so there’s a roadblock there. But Tomi has listed his backup source (again, no link), but it’s clear it’s a press release on prMac from iPhone App Freelancer which contains the following sentence:

With companies now scrambling to find anyone capable of making these programs, some developers command upwards of $200 per hour and applications cost between $15,000 to $50,000 to create.

Surely a credible resource for these kinds of numbers since Tomi trusted them, iPhone App Freelancer lists no source for this single sentence which has made its way into a publication I previously assumed was reliable, Fast Company.

Seriously, is this the state of reporting in 2010? Back up random leaps of logic with a series of sources that have no foundation for the statements they make. It’s embarrassing.

But it doesn’t end there. To take a general statement that apps cost between $15,000 and $50,000 and conclude the average app costs $35,000, well, that’s just ridiculous. There’s absolutely no basis for assuming that the average cost of an app equates to the median of the two. If 95% of apps cost $15,000, then the average cost is nowhere near $35,000. And since we also know that some apps are completed in a matter of hours, costing nowhere near $15,000, relying on unfounded numbers to make up averages is just unacceptably lazy reporting and by no means should be considered “well thought-out analysis”.

The fact that Aaron then used these made up numbers to back up his statement that “Apps don’t generate profit for developers” is sad.

What’s worse is, he goes on to use several out of context statements to attempt to back up further statements, including item 2 in our sure signs we’re in an app bubble:

2. Apps aren’t very profitable for Apple either.

Specifically:

The App Store’s gross profits amount to just 1 percent of Apple’s total gross profits.

So, compared to several distinct groups within a company, one group has a smaller percentage of overall company profit and therefore isn’t profitable. Oh, sure, inject the adverb “very” in there and it’s okay to make such a ridiculous statement.

But let’s get back to Aaron’s point: this is the second “sign” that we’re in an app bubble. So, apps make up a percentage of Apple’s overall profit and therefore we’re in an app bubble. What? Oh, it’s that apps aren’t very profitable compared to other aspects of Apple’s business, that’s why we’re in an app bubble. No, that doesn’t make sense either. There is absolutely no correlation between apps as a percentage of Apple’s profit and any state of the app market whatsoever.

So here we are on just the second of 8 signs of an app bubble and I’m quite frankly worn out. If you want to deal with the rest of this useless article, you’re welcome to. Instead, I’d recommend considering what we actually know about the app market.

Let’s look at the facts without conjecture

Some App Store developers are making a killing because they’ve released quality apps that the market responds to. They don’t all require dozens of developers, or take months to make. Whether your app is $0.99 cents or $9.99 doesn’t define the potential of your app. And whether some apps cost $25,000 or $100,000 to develop is not relevant to your development requirements.

What we know is that there are a lot of apps out there and, like any business, when you’re putting resources towards a market you should do your due diligence in determining the opportunity, what resources you’ll need to reach the market, and whether you’re solving a problem that will be of value to your customer.

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