Jared Spool, Founder, UIE

Design is a process where we finely tune our intuition to create great user experiences. Yet, sometimes, what we think is best rivals the metrics. What do we believe – our gut or the data? In the world of KPIs, some practices, like growth hacking Monthly Average Users (MAUs), have hurt the online experience. What can help designers have better instincts? What do you really need to help management interpret data and create analytical experiments that provide design insights? This talk will show you:

• What easily-collected analytics, like bounce rate, actually tell us about our users’ experiences
• Why techniques like a money-left-on-the-table analysis can show us how metrics impact design
• Why asking, ”Would you recommend this?”, is a bad way to measure brand engagement

See the Video, Slides, and Transcript below

Paul Kenny, Founder, OceanLearning

Paul Kenny is no stranger to the Business of Software Conference stage. A sales coach with experience working with software companies including Redgate and StackExchange, Paul has a huge amount of experience and insight to share on the process of selling your software. In this talk from BoS USA 2017, Paul talked about the important things to get right to set your company up well to turn your software into money.

Video, Slides, & Transcript below

Rahul Vohra, CEO/Founder, Superhuman

We had a fantastic Q&A session with Rahul Vohra of Superhuman last week. Rahul gave a fantastic talk at BoS USA 2018 about how Superhuman built a method of optimizing for product-market fit. Rahul’s method has been widely discussed in the startup world, and with so many people wanting to implement it we jumped at the chance to chat with Rahul. We were joined on the Q&A by an audience at our office in The Bradfield Centre, who asked some great questions.

Watch the hangout below

Q&A with Rahul Vohra, 9th January, 12.30pm ET

Did you know that you can measure Product-Market Fit?

Not only that, you can optimize for it. When building Superhuman (the world’s fastest email experience), Rahul Vohra and his team built a Product-Market Fit Engine – a way to measure and optimize for PMF.

In his talk at Business of Software Conference USA 2018, Rahul laid out the framework they used to improve Superhuman’s Product-Market Fit. The talk got an incredible response at #BoS2018, with many attendees deciding to implement the process at their own companies.

Join us at 12:30pm on 9th January 2019 for an online Q&A with Rahul Vohra about The Product-Market Fit Engine.

Guest blog post from Mark Stephens, CEO/Founder of IDRsolutions…

I have always said that Business of Software is an unusual conference.

Everyone shuts their laptops to focus on the talks and speakers generally turn up because they want to hear the other speakers and hang out with the attendees.

And when you return from a BoS conference, things change.

As long time followers of Business of Software will know, apart from Lemmy, we believe that Mr Richard Paul Astley, is one of the greatest musicians of all time. You might *think* you know but I guarantee you do not know where that links to.

It was one of those days in the office when some things weren’t working and almost all of my time was spent jumping between ‘real work’ and dealing with tech support. Inevitably, we had to keep chat on all the time and decided to see how many song references we could slip into the exchange without affecting the meaning of the conversation.

I’ve changed some details – removed name of company and support guy and for the record, they ended up solving the problem in the end.

How many can you spot?

Business of Software Conference USA 2018 – Some Highlights

The 12th Annual Business of Software Conference USA took place in Boston, MA, last month – October 1-3. What an incredible few days. A huge thank you to all the speakers and attendees who made it one of the most memorable ever, for all the right reasons. The talks will be edited, published and transcribed in the next month or so but until then, here are some of the notes, blog posts and other highlights from some of the attendees.

Read on to see Slide Decks, Highlights, and Notes from BoS USA

Bruce McCarthy, President, Boston Product Management Association

A few weeks ago I sat down with Bruce McCarthy, Founder of Product Culture & President of the BPMA, to chat about Bruce’s favourite topic – Product. Specifically, we talked about:

• Bruce’s fantastic talk from BoS Europe 2018 about the importance of cultivating a Product Culture
• How to think entrepreneurially inside a big organization
• Why you should always be looking to the horizon beyond the one you can see
• Why Bruce loves BoS Conference
• Bruce’s upcoming talk about Prioritization at BoS USA 2018 next week

Watch the hangout replay below

Chris Savage, CEO/Co-Founder, Wistia

Recently, Wistia turned down the offer to sell the company and instead took on $17m of debt – seemingly a strange move. Why? Because Wistia are in it for the long run – they want to run their business their way.

We spoke to Chris Savage, Wistia’s CEO & Co-Founder, about the thought process behind the decision, how it affects their future planning, and the pressure of taking on that responsibility as a CEO. We also discussed some of the growing pains Wistia faced as it’s grown over the past few years, and why Chris thinks taking time out of the office is so valuable

Watch the hangout replay below

Business of Software Conference USA 2018 is under 2 weeks away.

As always, the #BoS2018 schedule is designed to help Software Founders, CEOs, and Product Managers lead with confidence and grow a better business. Over 12 years of Conferences we’ve seen over 200 talks given by some brilliant speakers. This year at BoS USA there are 8 returning speakers.

Read on to find out who is returning and to watch their previous knockout talks.

Supporter Profile: Software Secured

We’re profiling the companies that are supporting BoS USA. Today, meet Software Secured – experts at Continuous and Traditional Application Security testing, who help your applications launch securely with unparalleled accuracy.

Meet the team who will be in Boston…

What makes Business of Software Conference speakers so smart?

Like most smart people, they read a lot. We always ask which books have had the biggest influence on their business lives and what they are reading now. It’s fascinating to hear what books other people read and great to see so many BoS speakers appearing on the list. This year’s book list is here. (There is more diversity in the book list than the speaker walk on music choices this year by the way – any guesses as to most requested walk on music this time round?

A great reading list.

Seth Godin on Making Software

Seth Godin spoke at Business of Software Conference USA last year to share some of the many lessons that he has learned in his 33 years in the software industry.

You can watch the talk here.

Bruce McCarthy, President, Boston Product Management Association

Bruce McCarthy has sensed a movement in Product Companies – a movement away from ‘how do we sell more of what we’ve already built?’ and towards ‘what new value can we provide?’. He calls this movement ‘Product Culture’. In this talk, Bruce argues that this more entrepreneurial approach walks all over a more corporate ‘Execution Culture’, and outlines the 4 key aspects of a Product Culture:

• Lead with a vision of Human Awesomeness
• Build small diverse teams
• Trust people to manage their work
• Learn and improve continuously

Bruce will also be speaking and leading a workshop at BoS USA 2018 (1-3 October, Boston MA). Find out more here.

Video, Slides, & Transcript Below

Supporter Profile: Shield GEO

We’re profiling the companies that are supporting BoS USA. Today, meet Shield GEO – your new best friend if you’re a remote working company.

Meet the team who will be in Boston…

Supporter Profile: Bambora

We’re profiling the companies that are supporting BoS USA. Today, meet Bambora – the customer-focused payment experience company (with a purple giraffe mascot).

Meet the team who will be in Boston…

Ever wished you could speak at Business of Software Conference?

Well, here’s your chance.

You have 7 days to submit a Lightning Talk for #BoS2018: 1-3 October, in Boston MA.

The format for Lightning Talks is difficult: you have 7.5 minutes, and a slide deck that advances automatically every 30 seconds, to communicate something useful to the BoS Community. Tricky – but very, very impressive if you execute it well. And hey – all Lightning Talk speakers get a free pass to the conference. Worth a shot? Absolutely.

You Should Submit A Lightning Talk For #BoS2018 If…

A little-known fact about the Business of Software Conference is that every year a group of people attend BoS for less than $20.

And you could be one of them this year.

Thanks to our wonderful sponsors and attendees, there are a number of 99% reduced tickets for #BoS2018 available now. These tickets are available to deserving members of the software community who, for whatever reason, wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend Business of Software Conference. A BoS Scholarship Ticket gets you access to the whole Conference. BoS Scholars are not singled out at the conference. You attend, just like everyone else – it’s a level playing field.

Read on to find out why you should apply.

Bridget Harris, Co-Founder & CEO, YouCanBook.me

“Who you hire will make the single biggest difference to your business” – that’s the premise Bridget Harris opens her talk from BoS2017 with. As founder of a SaaS company, Bridget knows this first hand, and wants to help you make sure you hire the right people for your business.

In this talk, Bridget lays out a framework for making sure you hire the right people. Create a company that you want to work for, and aim to hire people who want similar outcomes as you – then document it, describe it, defend it, talk about it, share it, and make decisions based on it.

Video, Slides, & Transcript below

When it comes to smartphones, Apple rules the world.

They might not have the most devices but they are far and away the most profitable handset manufacturer.

This research from Counterpoint estimates the share of profits from the ten most popular smartphones in 2017.