Alex Osterwalder, Co-Founder, Strategyzer

At Business of Software Conference USA 2015, Alex Osterwalder described the key steps in designing an effective organizational culture.

In most companies, there is a gap between the actual culture and the desired culture.

“Your company’s culture is your operating system” – Dave Gray.

Conference Video & AMA Video Below

We often add something silly in our content just for our own amusement – and strangely, we often get notes from people saying, ‘X made me smile’. We’re always pleased when it entertains others. We get that little rush of dopamine you get when you let someone out into slow moving traffic and they thank you with a wave or by indicating right-left-right.

Delight is good too!

BoS Conference Pricing FAQs

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 us visibility on attendee numbers and cash to operate earlier than if everyone just turned up on the day.

There are a few questions we get asked a lot about pricing…

At BoS 2015, we asked all attendees to write down one thing that they resolved to do as a result of coming to the conference that would make a positive difference to their business and to suggest a date that we should check in.

How did they do?

The Lightning Talk section of Business of Software Conference is always a highlight.

Great ideas delivered in 7 and a half minutes: energetic, fast paced, sometimes funny, but always useful. A lightning talk takes all that is good about Business of Software, and then makes like a ZIP folder and compresses it.

Business of Software Conference USA 2015’s Lightning Talks were no exception. A wide ranging section for what was 37 and a half minutes of talks. Included is talks on women in tech, entrepreneurialism, design mistakes, problem solving and tech for good. See the playlist below for all the talks from last years event.

Jason Lemkin, founder CEO of EchoSign (acquired by Adobe), offers an interesting take on why so many SaaS companies fail to move beyond $20 million ARR.

In this talk, Michael McDerment (@mikemcderment) , CEO/co-founder of FreshBooks and serial entrepreneur, talks about how FreshBooks has survived and what they’ve learned. Michael shares his insights on decision making during product management and mistakes made along the way.

Video and Notes Below

BoS USA 2016 Provisional Program and Agenda

Please note, subject to change.

When it comes to building products, Agile and Waterfall just don’t cut it anymore.

It’s 2016.

Both of those things were popular in an era when talking to customers and getting feedback was hard. But today, there’s no excuse. Every team at your company should be talking to customers daily.

Your customers don’t operate in six-week release cycles.

They don’t think about weekly sprints.

They don’t want to hear “it’s on our roadmap for next quarter.”

Customer expectations have changed along with the rise of software-as-a-service and the on-demand economy.

And with so many options and competing products for your customers — do you honestly think customers are going to stick around until you fix that bug in your next release cycle in six weeks?

I wouldn’t stick around. And your customers won’t either. As a result, the way that we build our products and structure our product teams needs to change too.

This isn’t about politics, it’s about the tech bubble.

Yesterday, the people of Britain, (a small island off the coast of mainland Europe), my home, voted in a referendum to decide whether we should remain part of the European Union. The result was close:

• Leave – 17,410,742 – 51.9%
• Remain – 16,141,241 – 48.1%

We’re leaving the European Union.

How to Grow and Stay Agile – Top 6 Business Decisions

A guest blog post from Dirk Paessler, Paessler AG, serial attendee at Business of Software Conference. Dirk considers six key business decisions that built Paessler AG to 160 people without external financing over the past 20 years.

Business of Software Europe was great (it’s not just us that say it, our attendees rated it with an NPS of 93). One said attendee, Mike from CurationWall, put together this excellent infographic summarising the event. He’s also brought together his thoughts on the top three talks from the event from his perspective in a well written, long form blog post – seen here.

In a world where customer support is increasingly the difference between buy or no buy, stay or no stay, just about everyone loves to market themselves as ‘customer centric/driven/motivated/leading/delightors/dinosaurs/satisfyers/ninjas/hillbillies’.

A phrase I regularly hear is ‘we love to delight the customer’. But what does that mean? From a corporate point of view, it’s usually sales based – ‘we love to delight the customer’ = ‘we make people happy enough that they keep buying from us’. This counteracts the selfless act of delighting another human being – or, to remove the buzzword – unselfishly making another human happy for the sake of happiness.

With everyone apparently looking to ‘delight’ the customer, the companies that really mean it with true intentions still stand out from the pack. Amazon, Apple, and John Lewis (UK) are all examples of companies famed and loved for their customer service, a by product of which is customers come back again and again, or in the SaaS world… keep on subscribing.

I had a great experience that made me happy today. I wanted to share it quickly, because credit where it’s due and all that.

7 and a half minutes to make a talk we say? Easy! You say. Not so much, we say.

Get your idea heard on the Business of Software Stage. The BoS Lightning Talks 2016 are open for public application now.

Jeff Szczepanski, COO, Stack Exchange

In every successful technology businesses Jeff has worked in, the key challenge has been understanding how to scale technology and when to tackle the technical debt that inevitably accrues as a company runs ever faster and faster in pursuit of its business objectives. Jeff draws on his experience to help you understand what challenges emerge as a company moves from a Developer Centric environment to become more business focused.

How can you get the business people to have influence on a developer centric environment? How can you manage the challenges that marketing will present?! What principles can you apply to be aware of problems early? How do you trade Agile Practioners vs Architectural Astronauts in a fast growing business? What are the technical debt trade-offs, what problems can you buy yourself out of? What problems will kill you if you don’t move now?

Slides, Video, AMA & Transcript below

Gail delivered a talk for the ages at BoS USA 2012 with the “Long, Slow, SaaS Ramp of Death”.

At the tenth Business of Software USA, she returns to reflect on her time at Constant Contact with the talk “Lessons Learned in 17 years Building and Exiting a SaaS Business”. As someone who has been through growing a software company before – her experience is invaluable.

Business of Software Europe 2016 was last week. Missed it? You missed out.

We have saved and shared some of the best notes, writeups and interviews with participants so you can get a little bit of the action. We will put the slides and videos of talks up in due course. Leave us your email address and we will let you know when they are live.

One of Gail Goodman’s legacies to the software industry has been proving you can build a profitable business in the SMB space. Today, SME/SMBs are a recognised and attractive market segment for software companies and significant amounts of venture funding is available to go after it.

Beyond this, Gail delivered a talk for the ages at BoS USA 2012 with the “Long, Slow, SaaS Ramp of Death”. At the tenth Business of Software USA, she returns to reflect on her time at Constant Contact with the talk “Lessons Learned in 17 years Building and Exiting a SaaS Business”.

Before the conference, you have the opportunity to ask Gail anything on growing great businesses. As someone who has been through growing a software company before – her experience is invaluable and available to you during the one hour hangout.