Motivation Matters

Kathy Sierra is a Business of Software Conference favourite for good reason. She talks sense.

These talks, in particular the Badass User ones, are often cited as being some of the most influential talks people have heard about product development – Web 2.0 Business Models – 2009, Building the Minimum Badass User – 2012, Building  the minimum Badass user part 2 – 2013.

Here’s a talk you may have missed from Business of Software Conference Europe 2014. Motivation Matters.

Video & Transcript below

Patrick Campbell, CEO, ProfitWell

Patrick considers why SaaS companies obsessed by User Acquisition and User Acquisition Cost are focusing on the wrong metrics, missing the far more important growth drivers for a SaaS business: monetization and retention.

A data rich talk that shows the importance of developing your product in collaboration with your current users to understand the needs of the people that are paying for your product. While user acquisition is important, a 1% improvement in customer monetization or user retention will have 3-4x impact on bottom line over user acquisition.

Slides, Video & Transcript below

Now here is a reading list. We asked this year’s Business of Software Conference USA speakers…

Please don’t think about it too hard, just reply with the first one that comes to mind:

• What book has had the biggest influence on your business life?

As you know, they are a smart bunch of folks so we thought it would be interesting to hear what things they have read that have had the most influence on their career and thinking. They are well read, many have written books of their own and we wanted some new things to read on the plane out to Boston. (We can’t wait).

Want to know what some of the smartest people in town think are the most influential business books they have read, wait no more!

What can SaaS CEOs who have led businesses for over a Decade Teach You?

Mimecast Founder & CEO Peter Bauer has been named one of the top ten most influential figures in the world of cybersecurity and has run Mimecast for over 14 years. Peter spoke at Business of Software Conference USA in 2012, soon after he moved to the US to build Mimecast’s presence there.

His talk title was, ‘Founding Principles vs Scaling Principles‘ and it’s well worth another watch.

Jason Fried, CEO, Basecamp

Since Basecamp was founded in 1999, it has pioneered a different way of doing things, a different way of working, a different approach to doing business. Started with four people, today Basecamp has about 50 employees across 32 different cities across the world. Everyone at Basecamp is free to live and work wherever they want.

This talk is about dog-fooding. Getting an opportunity to see how a company like Basecamp is run, using Basecamp, (other project management tools are available as Jason freely said), was a great opportunity for attendees to see inside the workings of a company that chooses to do things differently. It is a fascinating insight into the inner workings of a company recognized by Forbes this year as one of America’s 25 best small companies – Small Giants, companies that value greatness over growth.

Laura Roeder, CEO, MeetEdgar

Almost everyone running a consulting, training or agency business, however successful, will admit at some point that they wish they could run a product business. Why don’t they?

Turns out it is quite hard – many of the skills required are complementary but stopping taking on paid clients to allow a team to build a product with no immediate prospect of return requires a brave and bold move. Laura decided to make the move a couple of years ago, while pregnant. Organically funded, the new business reached $100k MRR within a year and continues to grow – at $200k+ MRR when this talk was given. She shares some of her experiences changing her business and some of the things that have propelled the growth of SaaS business, MeetEdgar.

Slides, Video & Transcript below

Rather than tell you how great our talks are, and how many cool people you’ll share space with (as all conferences do, let’s be honest), we’d rather let our attendees speak for us.

“Do yourself a favour, get to the next BoS if you want to learn how to run your business better.” Steve McLeod, Barbary Software

“If anyone is in the tech space or is the CEO of a fast growing tech business or software firm, it’s the right place for them.” Eloise Bloniarz, Future Workshops

One of the things which makes us different from other events is the type of people you’ll meet at BoS.

We are for people who are building long-term sustainable businesses; people who aren’t about short-term hacks and flipping, but who are looking to grow something durable.

57% of BoS USA attendees are C Level, VPs or Founders.

The rest are Product Managers/Leads, Software Engineers, Developers and Marketers who want to know more about how their bits fit into the rest of a successful business. (Fun fact: the Marketers are most likely to have either “Overlord” or “Shepherd” in their job title.)

Great to see Mikey Trafton is coming to Business of Software Conference this year.

One of the things we love about BoS is that speakers come back to be in the audience.

Just registered for @bosconference. Can’t wait to hang with @peldi, @asmartbear, @MarkLittlewood and my other BOS peeps.

— Michael Trafton (@mikeytrafton) July 25, 2017

As Mikey says, this will be his fourth time, he spoke twice before. Once about his framework for building a world class culture in business – a lesson he learned the hard way. The following year, he talked about hiring a great team. both talks were funny, thoughtful and packed with practical advice.

Welcome back to BoS USA Mikey. Check out the talks below.

There’s a new coffee machine in town. It’s a bit intimidating.

One of the great things about working at Redgate is the coffee. The company is spread out over three floors and they have one single place on the ground floor where everyone has to go for their daily fix of caffeine, (or a bewildering array of juices, teas, herbal teas, breakfast cereals etc). It’s good for meeting other people in other teams.

But coffee is a big thing here. Last week the coffee machines were replaced. The new machines are scary…

Business of Software Conference – Code of Conduct

Always worth reminding people that this is important for us all. We expect everyone who attends our events in any capacity to treat other human beings well whoever they may be.

All attendees, speakers, sponsors and volunteers at our conference are required to agree with the following code of conduct. Organizers will enforce this code throughout the event. We expect co-operation from all participants to help ensure a safe environment for everybody.

The Quick Version

Social media is great for shouting. Less good for nuanced debate. It rarely changes mass opinions.

If people don’t share your view, you’re unlikely to change their mind by being outraged and emotional on social media. It might feel like you are making well received points, but only other people like you are listening..

A pustulent boil finally burst in the software industry.

Two very high-profile investors, and a few other wannabe high profile investors, have been accused of multiple instances of sexual assault and inappropriate behavior with potential and current employees and investees.

The investors are male. The investees all female. No surprises there. There were a few surprises to come…

Dharmesh Shah, Founder/CTO, Hubspot

Hubspot, the company Dharmesh co-founded in 2006, has grown over time to become a publicly listed company with over 1,000 employees, revenue approaching $200 million and a market cap that makes it a public unicorn. In this talk, Dharmesh shares some of the things he got right as a technical founder but more importantly, some of the mistakes he’s made that challenged his assumptions about how to grow a big ass software business.

Slides, Video & Transcript below

A chance to attend Business of Software Conference USA as a scholar.

Business of Software is a paid conference with limited sponsorship. We focus on delivering value to our customers – the attendees. We know that this means that not everyone who would like to can afford the cost of attendance so we are very grateful to the lovely people at Balsamiq Mockups, Pragmatic Marketing, John Knox and Software Promotions who are supporting scholarships to bring some great people to Business of Software Conference USA,Boston, Ma, 18-20th Sept.

We are always particularly keen to support entrepreneurs are the beginning of their journey and underrepresented groups in the software ecosystem.

BoS Conference Pricing

Pricing conferences, like pricing software, is an art not a science. Like most conferences, we work using a series of price points over the course of the year so that the closer to the event, the more it costs to attend. The logic behind this is fairly simple – the earlier someone commits to attend, the less they pay. This gives guests a guarantee that they can attend, book flights accommodation etc. It also gives us visibility on attendee numbers so we can plan effectively.

We had a theory: Whenever we put the price of the ticket up, we get a rush of registrations, often in the final couple of hours before a price break hits. Using that logic, we decided to offer more, smaller, price breaks over the year giving people more chances to book before the price rose.

A lightning talk is 7 minutes, 15 slides. The slides advance every 30 seconds… can you get your point across, engage your audience and leave them inspired/enlightened/informed?

If so, get your application for a Lightning Talk in now: applications close on July 21st.

Successful applicants get a free place at the conference, but competition is fierce so plan your application carefully.

David Cancel, CEO & Founder, Drift

David Cancel is a five-time entrepreneur, two-time CEO, angel investor, and currently the CEO at Drift, a startup that’s making it easier for businesses to talk to their customers. Previously, he was at HubSpot as Chief Product Officer after they acquired his company, Performable.

Every company claims to be ‘customer-driven’. They’ll have framed posters on the wall – “Solve for The Customer.” None of that means anything unless you actually make the structural decisions to ensure it. Why is hiring people who are customer-driven the key to a successful product team? David explains in this talk how to structure product teams to increase employee retention and customer focus. What does a feedback loop directly between the engineers and customers look like? Roadmaps solve for the company not the customer. What solves for the customer is non-stop testing and continuous improvement. Introducing unnecessary process can create barriers to customer centricity. What processes should you incorporate? What metrics should product teams and engineers be guided by?

Slides, Video & Transcript below

This is a very interesting slide deck considering the software business and the long term future of the software industry.

Two particularly useful sections:

• The five forces accelerating software’s growth.
• Considerations for the modern software CEO.

Well worth looking through.

We had some fantastic applications for the scholarship places, and we’re delighted to announce that the BoS Europe 2017 scholars are:

• Sam Heter – Hoopfix
• Lucy Friedman – Switchmetrics
• Theo England – Cucumber
• Faisal Chohan – Cogilent
• Mohammed Al Rasbi – Research and Development
• George Bettany – Sanctus
• Stefan Magnusson – Mystery Applicant
• Seun Awoyele – Devcenter