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“So when it comes to matters of style and perspective and creative work, we find the, ‘Wisdom of the Crowd’ does exactly the opposite. It cuts away the interesting edges, leaving you with something bad.” Jason’s talk at Business of Software Conference 2012 was typically funny, insightful and thought provoking. Jason Cohen, CEO of WP […]
Adii Piennar, founder and CEO of Woothemes was one of last year’s Business of Software Conference speakers. Watch his talk (with transcript) about running a global business from the edge of the world here. Adii’s company, Woothemes celebrated it’s 1,000,000th download this week but Adii has moved on… Adii Pienaar… When I was a kid, […]
To celebrate the 1,000,000th download of Woothemes, we thought it would be nice to share Adii Pienaar’s Business of Software Conference talk from 2012. Stay tuned to the blog too as Adii shared some news with me last week when I caught up with him in London that he will share in a guest blog […]
This is a talk about some of the big challenges founders face when their ideas take off. Not the challenges of growth that people usually discuss – hiring, operations etc – but the challenges that growth bring to your own personal identity, your values and principles and those of your company. Can the principles you […]
A wonderful, short, readable, helpful eBook from Mike McDerment, CEO of Freshbooks and Donald Cowper. (You might remember Mike’s talk on the litany of product development mistakes he made at Freshbooks a couple of years ago at the Business of Software Conference). Take a look – remember, it is an ebook and it’s free so take […]
This is an hilarious and actionable talk from Dan Lyons, aka Fake Steve Jobs, aka technology editor at Newsweek when he spoke at Business of Software. He left shortly afterwards to become Editor-in-Chief at ReadWrite but by the end of the year he was working for a company that most Business of Software attendees will […]
Instead of doing that really important thing that you should be doing, have a look at this instead. It gives you some great ideas for making yourself more productive, less stressed and probably, less of an a**hole about work. In a world where many talk about the insane hours they have to work in order […]
When I first joined the BoS team last year and was told about the Lightning Talks I was startled. I thought that Lightning Talks would be a contradiction in terms for the reserved and introverted software crowd. As soon as I started watching the first talk I was hooked – I have so much time for the […]
So many people have asked us how we select speakers, or how they propose speakers for Business of Software Conference that we thought we would offer some thoughts that are relevant, not just to Business of Software specifically, but to any approach or submission to a conference. We have seen some terrible proposals and some […]
This is a guest post by Jennifer Rullmann. Jen is a developer-turned-entrepreneur based in the Washington, D.C. area. Her company makes Convey, software that plugs friendly, cost-saving user guides into your application with very little effort. She blogs about creating delightful companies and software at Software Smitten. ——————————————————————————————————————————— Every startup begins life with infinite choices, and there […]
This is a guest post by Paul Pedrazzi. Paul is a novice coder, aspiring designer, and professional product manager at companies like PeopleSoft, Taleo and Oracle. Paul blogs at http://craftedresonance.quora.com. ——————————————————————————————————————————— The Business of Software is easily my favorite conference of the year. It is held annually in Boston. The next event is October 28–30, […]
So rather than write an introduction myself to Gail Goodman, CEO of Constant Contact‘s talk from the Business of Software Conference last year – ‘The Long, Slow, SaaS Ramp of Death’, I will introduce it with some words from Patrick McKenzie, Kalzumeus Software and @Patio11 on Twitter. Patrick, if you don;t already know him, is a […]
Stop what you are doing and watch this is you are involved in making software. Most people have been doing it all wrong. The inspirational Kathy Sierra kicked off the Business of Software Conference 2012 with this brilliant, brilliant, talk. Not only some of the smartest advice anyone has given about how to approach software […]
Blessed are the disruptors (pirates) for they shall be less of a pain in the backside than the incumbents (bandits) who can get into all sorts of nasty little habits. Here is our experience at Business of Software for having a phone number so sales people can call us and make terrible pitches for products we […]
While this was the last talk at Business of Software 2012, we are publishing it first as Dan Pink is just releasing the book - To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others- and despite not being published until December 31st it is already a number one bestseller. Nice work Dan. Like it or […]
All of the talks from the 2012 Business of Software Conference are now online. Over the course of the next year we will make the majority of them available as videos and transcripts to everyone via the blog. All attendees to the 2012 conference have been given passwords to access all of the talks now […]
Over the years we have accumulated a great deal of really useful content from BoS conferences: guest blogs as well as talks. But we know a lot of you come here for the presentations, so we have decided to index everything from 2011 and earlier here to make the search easier (of course, all talks […]
At the end of a packed 2.5 days in October we asked the attendees if they could sum up their BoS experience. Here are their responses – uncensored. Thanks for the feedback: where we can, we will tighten things up. And some of you definitely need more sleep. It was an action-packed thrill ride. I’m […]
This is a summary of Noam Wasserman‘s Business of Software 2012 presentation. Startup Failures Most startups fail. Let’s accept that. However, there are things we can learn about these failures that can move the chances in our favor. Looking at the failures in VC portfolios will give us some insight. 35% of failures are due […]
This is a summary of Noah Kagan‘s Business of Software 2012 presentation. Rogue Marketing Strategies Contests Relevant location $0 partnerships Sponsor niche sites Free things/inbound marketing Build a relationship Marketing is only good if your product doesn’t suck. Kagan pyramid for exceptional You’ll make the most money when you don’t focus on money. The Kagan […]
This is a summary of Peter Bauer’s Business of Software 2012 presentation. Founding and scaling principles According to Peter, the four principles to a successful company are: Build something with friends Deal constructively with fears about success Never allow an investor to change the chemistry or assert their agenda above that of the company Clear […]
This is a summary of Jason Cohen‘s Business of Software 2012 presentation. Metrics – You’re Doing it Wrong The way you’re approaching metrics in your business is wrong. How you’re using data is wrong, because the tools you’re using are wrong. When asked to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar, individual answers […]
This is a summary of Kathy Sierra’s Business of Software 2012 presentation. Getting Customers It starts with “I’m going to start a startup.” Then your friend tells you you need to get funding first. “Funding?,” you ask, “Users will just pay for it.” For some reason people forget that getting paying customers is the ideal way […]
This is a summary of Adii Pienaar‘s Business of Software 2012 presentation. The Beginning When Adii started WooThemes he didn’t have a whole lot of experience starting a business. And to complicate things even more, he did so from Cape Town, South Africa – not exactly a startup hub. So how did Adii get to […]
This is a summary of Dharmesh Shah‘s Business of Software 2012 presentation. Your Company Your company should be coming from a place of love. Zynga’s motto is “do evil.” It is one of the most evil places from a culture perspective, and in its business approach. Before you gamify your product, you should decrapify it. […]
This is a summary of Joel Spolsky‘s Business of Software 2012 presentation. Joel is the CEO of Stack Exchange. Stack Exchange gets about 266 million monthly page views and 22 million unique views. Stack Exchange is about the size of Texas in terms of the number of monthly visitors. Usenet and Online Forums Cultural Anthropology […]
This is a summary of Dan Lyons‘ Business of Software 2012 presentation. Mobile as a Medium Dan Lyons is the writer behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog, which at one point was supposed to be turned into a TV show. In the process Dan learned that the TV business is completely broken. Lesson learned – writing […]
This is a summary of Mikey Trafton’s Business of Software 2012 presentation. Company Culture Company culture can have a real impact on your bottom line. Mikey shared two stories that demonstrate this. Story 1: Mikey stayed at a Four Seasons hotel, and ordered room service with ice cream for dessert. When the food was brought […]
This is a summary of Peldi’s Business of Software 2012 presentation. Peldi’s Law of Learning Learning is like a roller coaster ride. Peldi theorizes that we learn in a sort of upward sine wave pattern. We hit peaks and valleys in our quest to educate ourselves. At times we think “Wow, I’m smart and can […]
This is a summary of Gail Goodman’s Business of Software 2012 presentation. The Silver Bullet? The inexperienced assume there is a silver bullet to success. Free Viral Network effect Have you ever heard someone say that his marketing plan consists of going viral right after launching? It shows a lack of experience. 1 out of […]