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.

Dr Sherry Walling, Founder, Zenfounder

We had a great conversation yesterday with clinical psychologist Sherry Walling. Sherry’s been working with Entrepreneurs for over 10 years – you may have heard her talk at BoS USA last year. We discussed a whole bunch of really interesting topics including:

• What are the signs that I might be setting myself up for burnout?
• What are good habits I can get into to help avoid burnout?
• How do I help an employee whose focus on work is becoming unhealthy?
• In a remote working context, how do you support your employees struggling with mental health?

Watch the Hangout below

Remember, ‘It Was Never a Dress’? It’s one of the most memorable Lightning Talks we have had a Business of Software Conference over the years.

Packed with humor, thought provoking ideas and with a powerful message, Tania Katan inspired us to look at something from a different direction.

Tania is coming back…

Ryan Singer, Product Strategy, Basecamp

Many thanks to everyone who joined us for our Hangout with Ryan Singer last Thursday. A thoroughly interesting conversation was had – I always come away from conversations with people from Basecamp with my head buzzing with ideas. If you didn’t get a chance to see it live, you can catch a replay here. We talked about Basecamp’s Hill Chart feature, why Ryan users ‘Hoppers’ not Roadmaps, and how to use JTBD effectively in customer interviews.

Watch Hangout Replay Below

Scaling To A Billion and Beyond – Zack Urlocker, COO, Duo Security

In 2016, Zack Urlocker spoke at BoS USA about scaling to a $ billion and beyond. He had done it before at ZenDesk (COO), MySQL (VP Product) and more and was then COO of Duo Security. Today Cisco announced they had bought the Michigan based company for $2.35 billion. This is a talk you will want to watch. Again and again.

Slides, Video & Transcript below

Rahul Vohra has some great advice about raising money.

He spoke to us in this interview just after his company, Rapportive, was acquired by LinkedIn in 2012. It’s still valid today.

Rahul studied Computer Science at Cambridge University before moving to San Francisco to build Rapportive. I caught up with him on a visit back to his alma mater. He shared some great advice about how to raise money and build a useful network when he moved to the Valley.

Watch or Read the Highlights Below.

Chris Savage, Co-Founder & CEO, Wistia

At the time of writing, Wistia have turned down the offer to sell the company and have instead taken 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. Last year at BoS Conference USA, Co-Founder & CEO Chris Savage talked about the process of scaling Wistia over the past couple of years, including some fascinating insights into how to communicate well internally in a growing company, and the importance of delegating as your company grows.

Video, Slides, & Transcript below

I apologize to David Meerman Scott for my unforgivable outburst on Twitter on Friday evening.

I thought I had deleted the tweet soon afterwards and did not have access to Internet over the weekend so had not  realized it was still online until Monday am. It should not have been sent and does not reflect either Business of Software Conference’s, or my own views. It is not how we go about our business.

This post has been sent to David in draft form prior to publishing and he has kindly accepted my apology and agreed that we can share it publicly.

Deleting doesn’t undo however and I want to take time to both apologize and try to at least explain what happened. Whilst in no way excusing my actions, I hope that it might provide some context.

Natalie Nagele, CEO/Co-Founder, Wildbit

Yesterday we sat down to chat with Wildbit’s Natalie Nagele about some of the interesting ways her company runs. Now a year into their 32-hour work week experiment, Natalie talked about how it’s worked in practice and why she’s planning this for life. We also discussed how their semi-remote team works, how she and co-founder and husband Chris re-focussed on why they were running Wildbit, and why BoS is her favourite conference (couldn’t resist!).

Catch the Hangout below

Supporter Profile: Logi Analytics

We’re profiling the companies that are supporting BoS USA. Today, meet Logi Analytics who make building data  dashboards easy.

Meet the team who will be in Boston…

Telling Stories

“One of the first (of many lessons) I have learnt from BoS is that telling stories is a much better way to sell you something than just bombarding you with facts and figures. Sadly the credit for that insight goes to Paul Kenny, not me.

So let me tell you my story…

Ryan Singer, Product Strategy, Basecamp

Jason Fried (CEO, Basecamp) gave a fascinating talk at BoS Conference 2016 about how the people at Basecamp work.

As well as making Basecamp, their project management solution, the team at Basecamp are committed to changing the way people work, to help alleviate troublesome work environments and to considering the role software plays in ongoing employee and team interactions.

How are you wasting time at work?

What could you learn from Basecamp?

Join us for a Hangout with Ryan Singer to discuss new ways of working and why Basecamp have moved away from such time-wasting activities as the daily stand up.

Lightning Talk applications for BoS Conference USA 2018 are now open.

Lightning Talks are tricky little beasts. You have 7.5 minutes and 15 slides, which advance automatically every 30 seconds.

Can you communicate your point clearly, use your slides effectively, and leave the audience inspired and enlightened?

If you conquer the challenge, you join the Pantheon of the Greats*. Below you can see brilliant Lightning Talks from Business of Software from Patrick McKenzie (patio11, Stripe), Des Traynor (Founder, Intercom), and Alexis Ohanian (Founder, Reddit).

Fancy yourself up to the challenge? You can submit your talk here.

*Actual physical Pantheon must be sourced by the challenger.

Think you have what it takes? Submit your application below.

Workshops take place on the 3rd day of BoS USA.

After 2.5 days of being bombarded by ideas, it’s time to step back and take stock. Optional, informal, interactive and fun, BoS workshops will help you prioritize and focus in order to maximize the value of your investment in attending Business of Software Conference.

Workshops are highly interactive, draw on the content of the conference and help you make sense of how your learning may be applied in your own organization. You will leave with an actionable ‘to do’ list of things to apply in your own company.

See the first set of workshops for BoS USA 2018 below.