Michael Pryor, CEO, Trello and Paul Kenny, Ocean Learning.

Michael Pryor is CEO of Trello, the tool that helps entrepreneurs organise their businesses and lives. He’s also the co-founder and President of Fog Creek Software, sits on the board of Stack Exchange.

In this interview, with Paul Kenny, Michael talks about some of the things he got wrong building Trello and discusses the reasons things went wrong as well as what was done to get it right.

Video & Transcript below

Congratulations to the team at Trello. Today it was announced that they have been acquired by Atlassian for $425 million in cash and stock.

The best Lightning Talk never to grace the BoS stage…

Join Bridget Harris, (YouCanBookMe) and Peldi (Balsamiq) to discuss remote working and more…

Bridget’s, YouCanBook.me has grown since 2011 from tens of customers, to now booking in over 750,000 appointments monthly. Watch Bridget speak at this year’s Business of Software Europe on investors, remote working, inclusivity, hiring and more here with notes and transcript.

Peldi runs Balsamiq, home of easy mockups, with a team of great people spread around the globe. Here he is talking about growing up, reluctantly, at last year’s BoS USA. Both Bridget and Peldi are longtime friends of BoS and both have a passion for building businesses that dare to be different.

Thursday 24th November, 1600 GMT

My First Lightning Talk – Jessica Hall

Jessica Hall blogs about her experience at BOS USA 2017 where she gave her first terrifying talk – find out how she survived the experience!

Thanks, Jessica for sharing your speaking premiere!

Four massive mistakes startups make that they’re probably not even aware of.

I feel compelled to share four simple things startups can do to get more paying customers based on our search for a new web casting solution. They are really easy to solve. No engineering or product development required.

“Wait a sec… if I DON’T take your money, I will fail. If I DO take your money I will likely fail… what?!”

Bridget is the co-founder and CEO of YouCanBook.me, a SaaS tool which allows your customers to easily book your time, fuss free. At BoS Conference Europe 2016, she discussed the growth of the company, and likened her busking background to that of her experience of growing a company. She touched on many of her experiences in growing YouCanBook.me, from dealing to VC’s, to remote working, to the hiring process and their policy of ‘blind hiring’ to ensure the best people get the job based on merit alone, and shared actionable tips on each of these.

Comprehensive notes are found below, courtesy of Jonathan Prisant,  as well as the full video and transcript of the talk.

One App to rule them all

During our breakout session on Monday 12th September, we asked participants,

“Wireframe an App that would make your life better.”

You can find some of the designs here.

Add a comment below and let us know what you think.

Business of Software Conference USA 2016 Summary.

Attendee notes from Business of Software Conference USA 2016. If you attended and want to share something, please forward us a link in the comments or direct to us by email.

From our breakout session on Monday 12th September, we asked participants to design a picture/cartoon or take a photo which sums up the spirit of Business of Software.

Below are a few of the designs submitted.

How do we select speakers for Business of Software Conference?

Business of Software has gained a great reputation over the years as being one of the best software conferences in the world. As a result, we receive tens of approaches a week to speak at the event, despite only having 15 slots to fill over 3 days. Most of the speakers at BoS are previous and/or regular attendees. Many people who attend the conference would be keynoting at another event but we are lucky to be able to convene so many great people together under one roof to discuss the things that really matter in their businesses.

In the hope this helps your application to speak at any event, we’ve put together a list of things we look out for in potential BoS speakers. Related to this, we’ve also wrote up the 15 traits of the most brilliant conference speakers too.

From our breakout session on Monday 12th September, we asked participants to suspend M&Ms from a structure made from materials including spaghetti, marshmallows, strawberry laces and other things they had at hand. Scores were calculated by multiplying the number of individually suspended M&Ms suspended at least 2 inches from the structure by the height of the lowest M&M off the ground. (Simpler than it sounds!).

Below are a few photographs of the mess that was made genius designs they came up with!

From our breakout session on Monday 12th September, we asked participants:

“Why Agile Sucks?”

They have a minute to explain.

From our breakout session on Monday 12th September, we asked participants:

“Why Agile Rocks?”

From our breakout session on Monday 12th September, we asked our participants:

“Which Software Companies Inspire You, and Why?”

Here are a few short videos of what they said.

From our breakout session on Monday 12th September, we asked our participants:

“What are software executives consistently wrong about?”

Here are a few short videos of what they said:

From our breakout session on Monday 12th September, we ask our participants:

‘Tell Us Something You Have Learned at BoS That Is Important To Your Team.’

Here are a few short videos of what they told us.

“Where’s Neil Davidson?”

“Is Neil coming?”

The two most asked questions from regular attendees at BoS Conferences… Many of you will now that Neil set Business of Software Conference up when he was co-CEO of Redgate Software. He stepped back from the world of software a few years ago to study art history and latterly, fine art. A huge change in personal direction but one that he seems to have embraced with his customary zeal. He has just helped set up an artists’ co-operative, Lot5 Collective, specialising in emerging contemporary figurative artists.

He wrote a blog post that could be as applicable to software developers as artists. Enjoy.

Business of Software Conference USA 2016 was awarded with a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 88 by the attendees at the conference.

We’re thrilled because it means you love what we do – so thank you to everyone who contributed to result. But, you might still be scratching your head wondering what on earth this NPS score is about, and why it matters.

From our breakout session on 12th September 2016. Attendees had a piece of paper and a pair of cheap scissors. The aim of the task was to cut the paper into an unbroken ring and get as many people as possible inside the ring without breaking it.