Good news! Once again, you can watch the livestream of every talk at next week’s Business of Software Conference. We know it isn’t the same as being there to talk and network with some of the most interesting people in the software business today – but you will see some brilliant talks about growing long term, sustainable, profitable software businesses. Thanks to the generous support of Avangate, The BLN, Bulger Partners and Red Gate Software for making this possible.

To watch, you will need to set up a free BoS account with a valid email address – you will also be subscribed to the Business of Software email list. (You can unsubscribe at any time and we will never sell your email address). Make sure you choose your username carefully – it cannot be changed. You only need to do this once.

To set up your FREE BoS account with a valid email address, click the big orange button…

You will receive a confirmation email and if your browser is set to accept cookies, you will be logged in automatically when you return to the BoS website.

Once you’re logged in to your BoS account, to access the livestream, click the big yellow button:

Note you will not be able to access this unless you are logged in to your BoS account.

Follow us on Twitter @bosconference and use the hashtag #BOS2012 for your tweets.

Watch sessions anytime during the event (running 9am-6pm EST Monday 1st October, Tuesday 2nd October and 9am-12.45pm, Wednesday 3rd October).

Business of Software is a single track conference where every session is Keynote quality – we hope you will get a lot out of it.

We know it isn’t the same as being there but we hope you will be able to catch some of the talks from some brilliant people: Peter Bauer, Mimecast; Bob Dorf, The Startup Owner’s Manual; Dan Pink, Drive; Joel Spolksy, Stack Exchange; Gail Goodman, Constant Contact; Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot; Noah Kagan, App Sumo; Peldi, Balsamiq; Mikey Trafton, Fire Ant Software; Paul Kenny, Ocean Learning; Jason Cohen, WP Engine; Adii Pienaar, Woo Themes; Dan Lyons, Newsweek; Professor Noam Wasserman, Harvard Business School.

With excellent timing, Mimecast, supplier of cloud-based email archiving, security and continuity for Microsoft Exchange and Office 365, today announced a $62.15 million Series C funding led by, Insight Venture Partners. Existing investors Dawn Capital also participated. Mimecast will use the funding to accelerate the development and deployment of new technology, and to support plans for rapid expansion in the US market.

Peter Bauer, CEO & founder of Mimecast, who is speaking at the Business of Software Conference in Boston on 1st October about, ‘Founding Principles vs Scaling Principles’ commented,

“We are pleased to have secured funding to accelerate the growth of Mimecast’s business in the US and across the world as well as to drive more innovation in corporate email. Even better and most importantly though, it means the drinks are on me at Business of Software next week.”

Please note we might have just made this quote up…

Seriously, congratulations Peter and the whole Mimecast team. You have created a business from nothing that is putting a dent in the corporate email universe. We look forward to seeing you next week in Boston.

You can watch the livestream of Peter’s talk, along with all the others, for free, by registering here.

We received this email amongst others…

“Sorry to bother you with a trivial question, but this is my first time at BoS and I was curious as to the dress code at the conference.  Thanks.”

I am always tempted at this point to respond by saying, ‘Black Tie’.

The dress code for Business of Software is, ‘Clothes’.

Please come and wear what you feel comfortable in, and comfortable thinking and talking in. People wear all sorts of things.

The bell curve would cover shorts and thongs/flip flops at one end, three piece suit and tie at the other. The majority of attendees will wear t-shirts of casual shirts, skirts, chinos, jeans. Hats optional. Ties are not  advised as they can constrict the flow of blood to the brain thus making thinking harder but it is entirely your choice as long as you don’t offend others.

This is a guest post from Joca Torres. Joca is the director of product development and product management at Locaweb, Brazil’s leader in web hosting, cloud servers and SaaS applications like email marketing and online stores, serving more than 250,000 customers. His first startup experience was in the early 1990s when he founded and ran one of the first Brazilian ISPs. He has been working with internet related software ever since.

Joca is also the author of The Startup Guide: how startups and established companies can create and manage profitable web products. The book is in Portuguese, but Joca was kind enough to translate a few sections of it for us. Sadly, this is Joca’s last guest post in the series. Joca also posted all of the book’s content on the “Guia da Startup” blog (in Portuguese).

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During BoS 2011 Alexis Ohanian made me think a lot about the reasons that move people to build a software startup in his talk entitled “How to Make the World Suck Less Using Software“. Alexis’ talk kept coming to my mind when I wrote this post in March.

This post will be more philosophical than my previous posts. It will bring more questions than answers. The purpose of these questions is to help readers think about the real goals in having a startup. Building a business from scratch is very difficult and consumes time, energy and money, but can bring many rewards. The reward does not necessarily come in the form of money, so it is very important to put some thought on your motivation and goals before starting this journey.

Why create a startup?

A startup, like any project, requires considerable effort. When we invest some effort into a project we normally expect some reward that does not necessarily mean money.

Let’s leave aside the startup world and think about other endeavors. When we invest in a romantic relationship with someone, we know that this type of relationship has a good side but also has its tricky side. What rewards are we expecting from a romantic relationship? When we have a pet, with all the joy and love that the pet can bring, we know it also brings responsibility and commitment to care for this animal for years. What reward are we after? If a pet is already demanding, what about children? It’s commitment and responsibility for life, with very high cost, lots of worries, great chances to hear outrages, especially when they become teenagers. What is the expected reward when someone decides to have children?

Ok, I went a little too far in the example of the children since in this case there is an unconditional love that is impossible to explain, but I think I’ve achieved my goal to make it clear that not every project has a unique focus on money as a reward.

Growth startup vs lifestyle startup

Sometime ago Rafael Rosa, who worked with me at Locaweb, introduced me to the concept of lifestyle startup lifestyle as opposed to most commonly known concept of growth startup:

• Growth startup: are startups that have one main goal, accelerated growth so you can make founders, investors and shareholders substantially richer when the startup is acquired or goes through an IPO. When you are focused on accelerated revenue growth, or accelerated growth of number of users, all your actions are motivated by this goal, which has priority over all other issues, including customers, products, employees, suppliers, quality, etc. unless those issues help you achieve your growth. In this type of startup you normally hear questions like “how do we make this product sell more?” or “can we create a different product or add-on to collect some extra money from existing customers?” or “how do we double our user base in X months?”. In this kind of startup it’s common to find people who put money as priority.

Lifestyle startup: in this type of startup the revenue sustains the business and the lifestyle of its founders and employees. Revenue is like oxygen, you need it to live, but you don’t live for, you don’t live to get as much of it as possible. As soon as this issue (the company’s sustainability and sustainable lifestyle of founders and employees) is resolved, the company may have total focus on the customer, product, employees, suppliers, quality, etc. It is common to hear questions such as “how do we make a great product that solves real customer problems?” or “how can I improve this product so it solves the problem of more people?”. In this kind of startup it’s common to find people who put other people and their problems as a priority.

Note that the above concepts apply not only to startups but to any company.

Sometimes it can be difficult to identify what type of startup we’re dealing with, as both can produce products with excellent quality that solve the problems of many people.

You may be wondering “If the two types of startup can produce good products, great quality, isn’t it better to grow fast and get rich soon? I know this is going to be very tiring, but the reward is huge!”

I cannot answer that question because it is a personal choice. There is no better person than yourself to decide that. However, you need to remember that the chances of a successful growth startup tend to be small since there’s not much space for fast growth since this type of accelerated growth normally requires a lot of financial investment, which in turn will make you seek an outside investor.

It is also important to mention that the startups that achieve accelerated growth are rare. According to the Organization of Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) publication, Entrepreneurship at a Glance 2011, less than one percent of companies with ten or more employees are gazelles – employers that have been in operation for no more than five years with ten or more employees that increase employment by 20 percent per year or more for three years. According to the same study companies that grow faster than the pace of gazelles (the super gazelles) are even more rare – so rare that it is very difficult to measure them statistically.

As we know that the number of employees is often directly linked to revenue growth, it is easy to conclude that the revenue super gazelles are also very rare, so rare that they don’t have statistical relevance. Except that they are absorbing all the media attention, precisely because they are exceptions.

On the other hand, a lifestyle startup has greater chances of succeeding since by having few customers it can already show positive results. A lifestyle startup can have evolving goals. Initially the startup goal is to pay its own bills. Then the next goal may be to add up to your monthly salary to help you buy a house or pay for your kids’ education. And so on. With a lifestyle startup it can grow at your own pace.

Nothing prevents you to start with a lifestyle startup and it grows up to the point where it catches attention of investors who will make you an investment proposal to turn your startup into a growth startup. At that point you can decide whether to continue with a lifestyle startup or want to get into the rhythm of accelerated growth. Again, this is a very personal choice and the only person able to answer is you.

What kind of doctor are you?

Let’s move the viewpoint from the startup founder to the customer, i.e., use your customer hat and think as a customer. What type of startup do you think would you, as the customer, prefer to solve your problems?

People who read my posts on my personal blog know that I like to make comparisons between business world and medical world:

• Leading is similar to being a doctor
• Software development, craftsmanship and how to choose a professional
• The Checklist Manifesto

So here goes another analogy using the medical world. Move again your point of view and suppose you are a patient who received the news that you have a certain issue that requires surgery. What doctor would you choose to do this surgery, one who’s primary purpose is to get rich with medical practice or one who is really passionate about medicine and about making other people’s life better? Again, sometimes it is difficult to identify the type of doctor we are talking to, but normally the way she describes your case and how it could be solved will give you hints on what type of doctor she is.

Tweet from the Dalai Lama

I follow the Dalai Lama on Twitter. He posts a daily message related to Buddhism. For those unfamiliar, Buddhism is a religion that is concerned about why people are not happy and how to help people to be happier. That’s how I explain Buddhism to my 6 year old daughter.

Back in March, in the same day I was writing this chapter of the Guia da Startup book that you are reading now in English he tweeted:

“Wealth may contribute to our happiness, but it’s not the most important factor; by itself wealth fails to bring us deep inner satisfaction.”

Quite in sync with the reflections that are necessary when we are thinking about our future projects, including starting a startup.

Ask yourself

Ask yourself some questions to be sure you really want to have a startup, and if you’re with the right motivation:

• Have you heard so much about startups that you don’t want to be left out of the trend?
• Or do you actually found problems of a group of people and with your knowledge you think you can solve them?
• What reward do you expect from your startup?
• If money is a solved question in your life, would you still want to solve this problem of a group of people?

Example of a non financial reward

To illustrate how we can have other kinds of reward other than money I’ll tell the story of a ContaCal user. ContaCal is a web product I created in 2011 during nights and weekends with no connection with my day job in order to experiment with building a startup using the most recent methodologies and best practices. ContaCal is a calorie counter system with a twist. Besides telling you the amount of calories you’ve ingested it also tells you the quality of these calories. If you want to read more about it, you can read my previous posts.

The quote below is from a lady over 70 years old who weighed more than 105 kg (231 lbs). She is a priest of an Afro-Brazilian religion named Candomblé, hence the name “Mother Shirley”. She suffers from coxarthrosis, a degenerative disease, which leads to the destruction of the hip joints, more specifically, the coxofemoral joint. Since she was overweight, she needed to loose 15 Kg (33 lbs) in order to be eligible to be submitted to surgery. She found ContaCal, signed up and started to use it. Below is her testimony:

“Dear friends, as you know and guided me very well, I’ve been doing the diet and counting my calories since June 2011. So far I’m 17 kg (37 lbs) thinner, eating 1,100 calories per day. Now the doctor said he will be able to perform the surgery on my coxarthrosis. Thank you for always encouraging me to go forward. God bless you.” – Mother Shirley.

She didn’t pay a penny because she used ContaCal prior to January, when I started billing, but the simple fact of knowing through testimonies like this that ContaCal is able to help people is a reward that, to me, outweighs the financial return.

Next steps

This is the last post of the Guia da Startup series. I was planning to be at BoS 2012 so we could talk in person about software and startups but unfortunately I won’t be able to be there. :-/

I’m pretty sure BoS 2012 will be fantastic and you’ll enjoy it a lot, so please don’t forget to tweet and post about it so the ones who were not able to be there like me can grab a bit of what’s rolling.

And feel free to contact me anytime via Twitter, my personal blog or email me.

This is a guest post from Joe Corkery. Joe is Vice President of Business Development at OpenEye Scientific Software in Cambridge, MA. Remarkably, Joe has been with OpenEye for nearly 13 years helping it grow from 3 people to over 40 at last count. In an earlier life, Joe ran away from writing code to attend medical school, only to be drawn back in after graduation. Despite not having access to a prescription pad, he is passionate about drug discovery and the impact computers have on that process, among others.

Joe gave a Lightning Talk at Business of Software 2010, and he has been gracious enough to share his experience with us. In his first guest post, Joe explained why you should give a Lightning Talk. In this guest post, Joe shares some insider tips on preparing for a Lightning Talk. Thanks for sharing, Joe!

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So, if you are anything like me, you probably put off preparing for your Lightning Talk as long as I did in preparing this blog post. Sorry about that! Nevertheless, I think the advice is still valuable and applicable even this close to the meeting.

Have a provocative and memorable title

The title of my talk in 2010 was “How to make a billion dollars in 7.5 minutes” and based on the conversations I had at the meeting, it really caught people’s attention and piqued their interest. When you only have 7.5 minutes and are sandwiched between a number of other speakers, it is a huge help to have people thinking about your talk before it begins and able to remember the hook afterward. However, it is important that the subject matter of the talk relate to the title, because otherwise, remember the title won’t reinforce your actual performance.

Put your name on your slides

I know it seems like an obvious thing, but it easy to forget (I know I did), so make sure that your first slide has your name and the title of the talk on it. I had forgotten to do this and was very fortunate that this was pointed out to me as I was loading my presentation onto the conference computer.

In addition, put your name on the last slide too. Either your first slide or your last slide is going to be shown during the transition between speakers, so you might as well keep your name in front of people so they don’t forget who you are.

Network

In my previous post on Why You Should Give a Lightning Talk, I talked a lot about how giving a Lightning Talk would enhance your ability to network at the meeting. What I didn’t mention then though is that as a result of those efforts, you can start to build a little hype (and/or mystery) around your talk and if you are lucky, find a way to incorporate some inside jokes for the crowd.

Practice

I know this should go without saying but you need to practice, a lot, (much more than you might think). Getting the timing right is extremely difficult especially when you are not the one controlling the advancement of the slides. Once you have the slides created and the basic content down, you need to go find a quiet room and set PowerPoint up to auto-advance your slides every 30 seconds and just keep practicing your talk. By the time you actually present, you should know exactly how long it takes you to present the content of any given slide. Unfortunately, what you won’t know is how the audience will react to each slide, so you need to prepare built-in talking transitions for each slide that can be adapted to the unexpected laughter or to the deadening sound of silence as you realize that nobody got your joke.

In addition, I would also recommend that you practice presenting with a big digital timer in front of you counting down (as well as counting up) your time so that you’ll be prepared for either circumstance when giving your talk. I found the experience of watching a timer count down to be very disconcerting as it threw off my internal time tracking process (I had practiced using a stopwatch that counted up).

Your slides are context not content

One thing I noticed in reviewing the previous years’ winning talks as well as those that I thought went well my year is that their slides were very minimal. The slides were usually just brief touch points occasionally visited during the talk that provided the audience a reminder as to what you are talking about.

Making your slides too central to the talk sets you up for a significant challenge because if your slide needs to be visible to make your point, you may find yourself stalling while you wait for the slide to advance if you didn’t have your timing just right. Trust me, idling at a transition can be very painful to watch as well as experience.

Furthermore, don’t even think about putting enough text on your slide so that you are tempted to read from the slide. There is nothing worse than watching a speaker read their slides and in a situation like this, you can’t afford to waste any time not engaging the crowd.

Be relevant (and funny)

I have to admit that I was really excited about my talk because it was drawing from my background in drug discovery and exploring how lessons learned there could be applied to software development. I agreed that it seemed like a bit of a stretch and Neil even asked me when I applied whether I could make it relevant. In the end I think it was relevant enough and I think people could see my passion for the subject matter, but when I saw Patrick’s and Portman’s talks the next day I knew I was in trouble because they were talking directly to the audience in a language they could understand and to which they could relate. When you couple that with both of them being very funny, the game was up.

Learn from previous winners

Sadly, I was called out of town last year and missed the Lightning Talk session much to my dismay so I don’t have a lot to say about the winner at Business of Software 2011 except that I heard great things about the talk afterwards. But what I do know is that the videos from the winners from the previous years are available online and I’ve included them below for your convenience.

Watch Justin Goeres’ talk from BoS 2011.

http://blip.tv/business-of-software/justin-goeres-quicktime-h-264-5964366

Watch Patrick McKenzie’s talk from BoS 2010.

http://blip.tv/business-of-software/patrick-mckenzie-marketing-to-minorities-4951666

Watch Mark Stephens’ talk from BoS 2009.

http://blip.tv/business-of-software/mark-stephens-at-bos-2009-3287655

Watch Alexis Ohanian’s talk from BoS 2008.

http://blip.tv/business-of-software/alexis-ohanian-at-business-of-software-2008-1363422

Prepare for disaster and be ok with it

Sometimes things just go wrong and there isn’t anything you can do about (especially when the clock is ticking). The more gracefully you are able to handle your slides not working as behaved the better off you’ll be. That being said, do everything in your power to avert disaster in advance. One way of doing that goes back to a previous point – don’t put a lot of content (especially media) into your slides!

Heck, if you’re really serious about it, trying practicing your talk with no slides at all to prepare for the case when all your slides come out all one color.

Lastly, have a good time

Win or lose, giving a Lightning Talk at a conference like Business of Software is a great and rare opportunity. I met more people at that meeting as a result of the talk than I could have imagined – it truly was a unique opportunity, so embrace it!

See you soon.

It’s fair to say that one of the things that makes Business of Software interesting for the attendees is that while everyone cares about building the best software businesses that they possibly can, the sheer depth and breadth of interests of the attendees makes for some incredibly stimulating conversations in the corridors, at mealtimes, in bars and tea rooms.  Aside from the conversations that people have about the rewards, benefits, trials and tribulations of growing software businesses, you almost always meet incredibly memorable people who are passionate about something.

Nothing illustrates this better than the eclectic nature of, ‘Talk to me about…’ Every attendee is asked what they would like to appear on their badge under the heading, ‘Talk to me about…’ Here are the responses so far. Something for everyone we think!

• ERP and Saas
• Organisational culture
• Data and visualization for the non-developer
• Programming & beer
• Growing an Enterprise SaaS Company
• International distribution
• Conference fear, humor, running, pragmatism vs negatism, my recent corporate move and adventures.
• A technology enthusiast, sport addict, early adopter, nature and aerospace lover. Most of time BI consultant.
• My life as a consultant
• windows phone 7 crossfit SOA
• Stuff
• Scientific data and distributed collaboration networks
• What you would like to do for the rest of your life.
• Mobile apps
• Anything that’s on your mind:)
• drinklobby
• Entrepreneurship, Investing
• How much you spend on coffee every month?
• Email
• Scrum Software
• Cloud Databases
• SEO, SaaS, ASP.NET
• WordPress, Social Media, SEO
• Your pain with email volumes, mobile applications, startup, inbound marketing, getting useful stuff coded faster, …
• International expansion and transformation from on premise to SaaS
• Desktop software!
• Transitioning a company from services to products
• Growing without blowing up
• SharePoint + Enterprise Mobility Applications
• Online Advertising
• Anything (I have domain knowledge in both licensing — a.k.a. anti-piracy — and update software).
• Software for scientists.Working with outsourced programmers.Site licensing.
• Financial analytics
• Changing the world. One career at a time.
• developer happiness.
• Growth in new markets
• Marketing
• bootstrapping
• Email Marketing, Bootstrapping
• Managing virtual teams
• Marketing
• developer happiness.
• Software components market, online marketing and how you want to takeover the world.
• Bootstrapping a company for over 6 years in NYC
• Startups, Web, JavaScript, HTML5
• Startups, VC, Web/Mobile, Hacker News, Tennis, Beer
• Scalability, Mobile
• Growing an Enterprise SaaS Company
• Email
• Email marketing
• Creating awesome user experiences for affinity groups.
• Scaling culture
• Software Development Help with tech team building Prototype to Production path
• Company Culture
• Helping Communities Engage and Interact
• Things that make you happy.
• Sydney Australia, Lean startups, B2B, SaaS stuff
• Reducing administrivia Hiring geeks
• Re-engineering products from on-premise to SaaS
• Delphi
• String theory
• Next year’s Business of Software.
• Infrastructure & Hosting
• how to build a community online and around your products and solutions
• Helping Communities Engage and Interact
• Lean Startups (especially within existing businesses)
• rural entrepreneurship Alabama Football
• Performance
• Microsoft, social media, JavaScript
• Helping Communities Engage and Interact
• Delivra
• FoxPro, Germany
• Programming for Kids
• Riding Bikes
• Mobile Apps, Beer, Photography
• HelpSpot
• How to scale a people heavy software business
• Anything
• Egyptology Working with universities Having a team on multiple continents
• Innovation, creativity, software, marketing, folk music, dancing, bagpipes
• Growth
• Bootstrapping profitable web apps
• you
• budgeting. Or other stuff.
• Why is shipping software so hard?
• AuditShark
• Cool stuff
• Bootstrapping
• Network Uptime
• landscape photography
• Selling your company
• I am the office Administrator and do not have an answer for this
• All things Google
• Anything under the sun
• Building a software business
• selling enterprise software online
• Agile Development
• Budgeting
• Global Spec, Inc.
• your software engineering challenges.
• Branding, Customer Acquisition & Finding balance as a working mom
• developer happiness.
• Growth strategies
• Marketing
• Cloud marketing, basketball.
• Brooklyn
• Trello, FogBugz, and Kiln!
• Everything
• I am the office Administrator and do not have an answer for this
• Anything that Makes Your Company a Success!
• Apps For Kids
• Your great new company
• Adobe AIR
• What one thing you did this past year that had the biggest impact on your business
• Scaling internationally
• Continuous deployment, hiring, wine.
• Mobile apps
• The future.
• Design, User Experience, Entrepreneurship
• Document Management, Technology, Aviation
• Converting traffic into sales-ready leads
• Organic Growth
• Ruby/Rails
• Anything
• Delivra
• My favorite speaker so far…
• Community Web Sites
• Ubuntu
• APIs
• Finding the right market problems to solve
• What’s the next paradoxical truth that will change the world?
• Your dreams; your challenges; where you’re going.
• Rhino 3D
• Life
• Helping Communities Engage and Interact
• I am the office Administrator and do not have an answer for this
• 3D Modeling
• Relativity
• Teaching, scaling infrastructure to millions of users, distributed source control, and sushi.
• Anything
• Can I help you with Email Overload?
• Hacker News, web dev
• Helping Communities Engage and Interact
• Growing a successful B2B brand
• Improving site SEO
• International expansion and transformation from on premise to SaaS
• Building off-the-shelf software for an industry dominated by Consulting
• big ideas i can learn from
• Everything!
• The “right” way to validate a business idea.
• Competitive Analysis, Startups
• Boot-strapping a business.
• Visual Communication
• Making drugs
• TBD
• Company Culture
• New Ways to Work
• Challenges working with offshore teams
• High-frequency/wireless electronic design software
• Jobs to be done
• Growing the team
• Scrum Software
• Helping Communities Engage and Interact
• how to build a community online and around your products and solutions
• Scrum Software
• TEA or Coffee but TEA is my life!
• Scaling personal customer support
• Software
• Working @ Stack Exchange!
• startups, bootstrapping, branding, africa
• Burritos
• organic growth
• Helping Communities Engage and Interact
• Disruption of mainstream media by new media.
• The Startup Owner’s Manual
• The business of software
• WordPress Hosting
• Channels
• Computer Assisted Document Review (Predictive Coding)
• Engagement Marketing
• Sales
• Inbound Marketing Startups
• Microsoft, Rails, Agile, Big Companies
• Virtual Phone Systems
• Microsoft, Office, Large scale engineering challenges
• E-commerce, site search, SaaS, SEO
• Black Bear Ops
• Agile
• POS
• Machine learning
• Data Analysis
• your first startup
• Browser Security
• Packaging CAD Software
• Small start-ups
• Interacting with your customers via Mobile
• lean decisions, heat maps, life hacking
• Channels
• ProProfs.com, Freemium, SAAS, Web Apps
• Snowboarding!
• Growing your business
• Customer Succes, Retention and Engagement. Real-time In-App messaging based on behavior
• Please leave blank
• Please leave blank
• Anything
• Lean software development, PaaS
• Liverpool FC
• Changing enterprise software modells
• Licensing Protection, Remote Support and anything about software
• This is my second startup.
• Dreams
• Community
• Your favorite interview question.
• Amazing customer service experiences.
• Technology, education, managing tech teams
• Address management & validation
• Deployment Automation
• Project Sequencer
• Continuous Delivery
• I’m a product-tech-business-healthcare guy
• Painless, Paperless Board Meetings
• Improving software sales
• Selling for people who hate sales
• ISV’s, WPF, Desktop Development
• Moving to the Mountains in WNC
• custom software development
• the important elements of growing a software business
• Startup Selling
• Making events more memorable
• software product management
• design, data or development
• Virtual Phone Systems
• Anything
• Medical Imaging
• Disruptive cancer startups.
• Product Management ERP Systems
• Growing a software group
• Risk Management, ITIL, TOGAF
• iOS, Rails, Full-stack products
• Tiny, One Man, Software Shop
• User Experience, Design, Mobile stuff, Art
• Mr. Flibble, creativity & user experience.
• customer development, ideas, cool experiences and war stories 🙂
• MEP Ninja
• Entrepreneurship, Social Media, iPhone Development
• Product Configurators
• Dale Lutz Co- Founder and VP of Product Dev of Safe Software Inc.
• Don Murray Founder and President of Safe Software Inc.
• Anything
• Enterprise software
• Heroku, Web Apps, Mobile Apps, Ruby
• Audio
• feedbackpro.me
• Quovus Technologies
• The Cloud and intrapreneurialism
• Anything
• Lean, MVP, Agile, Sales
• Automation of Best Business Practices
• iOS apps
• turning value into money, and leading people. (experiences to date include sales, marketing, playing “lean startup”, leading small teams)
• Product Management
• Growing new business in a big company.
• TBD
• software, comics, magic, and running
• TransferBigFiles.com
• Sales, Marketing, Agile, Project Management, Product Management.
• Capturing and acting on employee ideas for new software services, talent development, eudaimonia, fishing
• Technology for CSAs and farms!
• Data/cross border commerce/Anything international
• Website Builders (think Weebly). Design.
• Enterprise software
• SaaS eCommerce solutions
• my crippling shyness
• How to be successful with software as a service
• SaaS and Talent Management
• Mobile Applications
• Founding dilemmas
• Everything
• Finding customers’ pain, open source business models, data porn.
• FreshBooks, Swordfighting, Comic Books
• Scaling Software Business
• Corporate Finance, Machine Learning, Mountain Biking
• Configurators
• Hiring Developers
• E-Commerce, Automated Production, Hiring and Managing Engineers
• Differentiation
• Marketing & Growth
• Measuring foreign aid results.
• Anything!
• Data Mining & Profitability Software
• sorting out messes, especially technical ones
• Building your next great idea.
• Product Management, Design and customer communications, in a startup
• My “Aha” Moment
• CrossFit
• User Superpowers
• User Superpowers
• Wodify
• IBM Lotus Domino
• Backup and Disk Imaging
• Agile Growth Strategies
• Staying healthy and taking over the world.
• Eat real food and more around more.
• Fearless Marketing
• Agile, TDD
• Product Strategy
• your company
• Network Monitoring Software
• Agile
• Culture & HR in the Tech World
• Software startup culture inside large companies
• Lean and Agile development. Behavioral economics. Software processes (unit testing, refactoring, pair programming).
• metrics
• Scaling my software businesss
• IBM Lotus Domino
• Business of Software
• The Business of Software
• Business of Software
• Databases
• WordPress, nonprofit technology & developing world surgical care
• leadership and being a part-time remote CEO
• Business partnerships and development, small biz
• Working with us! Ruby apps for the enterprise.
• Metrics
• The Internet of Things
• Cloud, Strategy, Cooking
• Founding member of jQuery Project Front-End & Mobile ExpertFormer developer, now CEO
• Open Web Technologies
• Product Strategy
• Windows 8 Apps
• Retention, Trial Conversion, Lifecycle Marketing, User Onboarding
• Business, programming, college football/basketball, poker
• GIS, SaaS, DaaS, Scrum and the terrible weather in the UK
• Software and Accounting
• emerging trends
• Technology, Wine, SaaS, Scaling Culture
• Founding and Scaling.
• Starups, Mobile Payments, Physics
• micro-ISV’s; scaling; founder transition; leveraging external resources
• SaaS, Data Quality, Cloud Computing, Address verification, International address validation
• Usability, Analytics, SEO, Polyphasic Sleep, Travel
• Product Quality, Growing customer base, Prioritizing list of product demands
• Product Lifecycle
• Partner Strategy
• Mahesh PaiAffinnova, Inc.
• Increase productivity of rapidly growing development teams.
• SaaS Ecommerce solutions
• SaaS eCommerce solutions
• Snagit Camtasia Studio Coach’s Eye
• Backup and Disk Imaging
• Scaling a technology business
• Inbound Marketing
• Why you’re at BoS & what we can do to make it better
• Web and Mobile Design and Development Services for Startups
• Medical Informatics
• Geo-location and Product Management
• Products
• Web AppsBug Tracking Funnel Optimization
• You
• Sales channels best practice
• your best practices in development, testing and support
• b2b product marketing and sales
• Being a CTO, product marketing, triathlons, document management
• Is validating your idea more important than creating the product?Do you really need investment capital to start a software company?
• Things!
• BoS Scholarship Winner
• How engineers can do marketing
• What’s next?
• 3D Sudoku
• Growing sales in foreign markets
• SaaS, Surfing
• SaaS, Email
• Scaling a technology business
• Bootstrapping Outsourcing Task and Project management
• Sending smarter emails
• Managing hundreds of remote workers
• Marketing, analytics, security, SaaS
• Sales & Marketing
• Early stage investment and mentorship
• Business Intelligence Analytics
• Code Can Be Beautiful
• Education software.
• Cazoomi
• Software as a Service; Software Entrepreneurship
• Pattern Recognition
• Organizing the process of building great software products.
• Promoting your Software on BitsDuJour!
• How we make BI Analytics easy for business users?
• Custom software development, product development
• product management, project management, agile development
• your company
• SaaS, software development, IT infrastructure, programming frameworks
• Life after product/market fit
• capital and acquisitions
• Simple marketing for complex products
• Humanism and non-profit marketing
• Great companies need great leadership talent. This is where we come in…
• Startups & Parenthood… And what makes those great
• Growth
• Our 3-D Extravaganza!
• Agile Growth Strategies

Every year, when the Business of Software finishes, some people want to leave for the airport, jump on a plane to get back to their family and start doing stuff in their business. However, lots of people want to stick around and talk about some of the issues the conference has raised, what they will do in their businesses as a result of what they have learned and what goals they will set themselves for the coming year. Others have asked for the opportunity to look at some areas that might be of less interest to the overall group but could be of value to a subset of our attendees. Finance is often raised as a subject that some people would like to discuss and understand in more depth for example and we recognise this is an important topic for a section of our attendees.

This year, we are going to try to let people with common interests get together in small groups to discuss some of these issues. No lectures, no powerpoint, just discussions led by people that might have some experience in a particular topic, or people who want to try to solve a particular issue that they face with others that have been through the same experience. There is no AV and no presentation, simply a room and a circle of chairs. Everyone who participates in a small discussion like this should come prepared to listen and talk.

We have a few suggested sessions already, and you can sign up to attend from here. Places are limited to ensure an open, constructive discussion where everyone gets the opportunity to participate effectively.

Click on the links to register.

• What next? Commit to action one idea from BoS and sharing the outcome with this group over the year.
• Exits: Building for successful exit – what should you be doing  if you are thinking about selling your business?.
• Growth strategies: Buy vs Build. What are the advantages and disadvantages of growth through each approach?.
• Partnering: Effective partnership strategies.
• UX and Engaging Customers: Troubleshooting Customer Trials and the Onboarding Process.
• How to get the right advice: How to choose advice & advisers at different stages of company growth.

If you’re coming to Business of Software in Boston in less than 2 weeks time, try to find some time either side of the conference to take in some of Boston.

It is a truly beautiful city.

Here is a flavor in time lapse video from Yao Li with a soundtrack from the film Inception.

The City of Boston from YaoLi on Vimeo.

I want to apologize to you if you have been trying, unsuccessfully to register for BoS over the past few days. There has been an issue with our registration system that has given a conference full message when people have tried to register. We still have some places left and also still have some space left at the conference hotel at our conference rate.

If you have any problems with either, please contact wendi businessofsoftware.org for assistance.

We were trying to think of a way to show why the delegates at Business of Software, make the event so special and valuable for all the attendees. Then is struck us, these videos of previous delegates, will make you understand.

Everyone cares about building great software businesses.

If that is you too, its not too late to join us this year, but it is getting close!

On site delegate feedback 2011 – 3 minute version.

On site delegate feedback 2011, with added morsels from speakers – 9 minute version.

On site delegate feedback 2010, with added morsels from speakers.

On site delegate feedback 2009.

If you feel the same way, come and join a community of people who are passionate about building great software businesses.

I know a lot of folks have been waiting with baited breath to hear about the winners of the Avangate scholarships at Business of Software this year.  There was an extremely strong field with nearly thirty entries, so big congratulations to the victors:

• Edwin Siebesma, MeetingKing
• Vineet Sinha, Architexa
• Brice Wilson, In Touch Teacher LLC
• Antony Goldbloom, Kaggle
• Clint Wilson, Cazoomi

There’s a warm welcome waiting for you at BoS, chaps.  And commiserations to all who didn’t make it this year, but can I just point out there is still a $500 discount for the next thirty registrations?

Congratulations to the winners of Moving Average’s Student Scholarships to Business of Software Conference. Three scholars will receive a pass to attend our Boston event. Look out for them there.

The winners are:

• Andrei Pop
• Joseph Regan
• Adam Spinoza

Huge thanks to John Knox for supporting the program once again and you certainly made at least one day. We received this note from one of the winners this morning.

“WOW!!!  This is great!

“Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to start a software business.  When I was 13, I created an application that you could play practical jokes on other people’s computers (JS WinTriX)  and actually made some money from this (until McAfee classified it as a virus!)

“Now that I’m in my 20’s and out of school, I have a much better idea and I’m SO ecstatic that I’ll be able to attend the conference!”

Our latest caption contest features Patrick Foley getting a little too excited during the BoS Monday night party.

Patrick Foley is a two time Lightning Talk speaker and the co-founder of Tribbon.

Leave your caption suggestions in the comments below.

Image credit: Betsy Weber

Who is coming to the Business of Software Conference in Boston, 1-3rd October? We don’t publish people’s personal information but this should give you an idea of the type and level of person attending as well as the names of the companies who are already signed up. We have just 50 places remaining. The next 30 registrations will receive a $500 discount on full ticket price.

Wordle of Attendees by Job Title

For those of you that love poring over data, this is the full list of Job Titles.

Co-Founder, CEO, IT Manager, VP of Application Development, Founder, Senior Software Engineer, CEO, COO, CEO, VP of Engineering, BI consultant, Product Manager, Senior Software Engineer, Managing Partner, Seed Funds, Senior Manager, Senior Development Manager, CEO, CEO, VP of Product Development, CEO, CEO, CEO, Chief Sumo, CEO, IBM Advisory Software Engineer, CEO, CEO, CEO, CEO, CEO, General Manager, VP of Atalasoft Products, CEO, CEO, CMO/SVP Marketing and Products, Senior Director of Marketing, VP – Sales of North America, CEO, CEO, CEO, CEO, CEO, VP Marketing, CEO, Entrepreneur, CEO, CEO, VP of Marketing, VP of Software Development, CEO, CEO, CEO, Software Developer, CEO, Skill Engineering, Skill Engineering, CEO, CEO, All-around Coder, Founder/CEO, CEO, Co-Founder, President, Co-Founder, President, Co-Founder, Director of Engineering, Software Technology Manager, Co-Founder, Co-Founder, Founder, Co-Founder, President/CEO, Co-Founder, President, Co-Founder, Architect and hat wearer, Co-Founder, Director, Logistics, CEO, Head of Marketing, Co-Founder, Co-Founder, Co-Founder, Founder, Product Manager, Founder, President, Founder, CEO, Founder, Owner, Founder, CEO, CTO / CSO, Director of Client Care, Director of Human Resources, Director of Product Strategy, Director of Programming, Director of Sales and Marketing, VP of Operations, VP of Sales and Marketing, Founder, Founder, Founder, Founder, Founder, CEO, CEO, Development Team Lead, President/CEO, VP Sales, VP Engineering, Director Engineering Delivery, CEO, CEO, Center of Excellence Leader, CEO, VP Engineering, Director, Founder/CEO, Center of Excellence Lead, VP of cure.org, Director of Market Strategy, Exec Jr VP, CEO, Director of Software Development, President/CEO, President, President, Software Developer, CEO, CTO, Director of Marketing, General Manager, CXO, CEO, Author, CEO, Marketing, Information Security Consultant, CEO, President, Director of Engineering, Director of Engineering, President, Product Manager, CEO, CIO, CTO, Product Marketing, Head of Product Development and Online Operations, CTO, Sr. Director, Product Management, Art Director, Partner, Founder/CEO, Product Designer / Developer, CEO, Member of Technical Staff, Member of Technical Staff, Senior Developer, CEO, Lead Developer, Partnership Development, VP Biz Dev, Founder/CEO, Designer / Developer, Chief Innovation Officer, Chief Cat Herder, Web Developer, Chief Technology Officer, Co-Founder, Co-Founder, Founder, Senior VP Engineering, Owner, Consulting Architect, President, Manager, Software Engineering, VP, Corporate Cloud Services, Founder/CEO, Product Manager, CEO and Founder, President, COO, Director of Software Development, Development Manager, GLA Manger, EMT,GLA Board,Product Manager for S Pl, North American Regional Manager, Regional for EMEA, Founder, Professor, Co-Founder, Marketing, Marketing Manager, Support Engineer, Co-Founder and CTO, Controller, CEO, VP, Founder, Partner, Partner, Software Developer, CEO, CTO, Senior Software Engineer, Senior Technical Writer, VP of Business Development, Owner/Head of R&D, COO, Owner, VP, CEO, CEO, Product Marketing Manager, Consultant, Partner, Principal Architect, CTO, Marketing Director, Marketing, Marketing, Head of Marketing, Sales, Sales, CEO, CEO, CEO, Founder, Co-Founder, Co-Founder, Chief Servant Officer, CEO, COO, CTO, Director, Product Development and Product Manageme, Founder, Director of IT Development Firmwide, Director of Product Development, Business Development Manager – Apps, Development Lead, Director, Cloud Strategy, Program Manager, VP, Cloud, Founder/CEO, Co-Founder, Business Director, Founder, Founder, President, Founder, Technology Editor, Founder, Human Resources, CPO, CTO, Director, Product Manager, VP, Business Development, Founder/CEO, CEO, Technical Director, CEO, Chief Scientist, Chief Scientist, Founder, Dev & Ops Manager, CEO, CEO, Co-Founder, Co-Founder/CTO, Co-Founder/President, CTO, Head of Marketing, General Manager, CFO, Co-CEO, President, Chair, Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, CTO, Director of Software Development , President, VP, Operations, VP, Sales, Director of Engineering, CEO, Founder, Director, Product Manager, CEO, CEO, Head of Creative, Innovator, Oracle Tools Business Unit Manager, Product Manager, Product Manager, Software Engineer, Joint Head, Fledgling Markets division, Business Unit Manager, Head of Product, Product Manager, Co-Founder, Project Manager, Founder, CEO, Director, Student, CEO, Director, CEO, Programmer, Rhino Product Manager, President , VP of Product Dev., CEO, Senior Product & Marketing Manager, Dir of Engineering, Dir of Engineering, Director of Applied Research, Co-Founder, Special Projects, CEO, President, CTO, VP OPS, CTO, CEO, Owner / Founder, Founder, Google Fighter, President, VP Development, CEO, Chief of Staff, Director of Marketing, VP of Products, CEO, CEO, Rabid Generalist, Senior Software Engineer, President, Chief Evangelist, VP, VP, Web & Enterprise Services, President, CEO, President/CEO, CEO, Business Development, Marketing Manager, Entrepreneur , CEO, Lead Software Systems Engineering, Managing Director, VP Product Strategy, CEO, Development Manager, Services Manager, CEO, Co-Founder, Co-Founder, President, COO, Founder, CEO, Marketing Associate, Professional Services Director, Senior VP, Operations, Director Product Management, Director Software Development, VP, Product Management, Sr. Lead Software Engineer, Sr. Manager, Release Management, Sr. Technology Manager, CEO, Product Manage, Product Manager, President & CTO, problem solver, Director of Technology, Developer, Founder, CEO, Co-Founder, Founder, Lead Architect, Operations Manager, President, Product Manager, Product Specialist, VP of Sales, Co-Founder, Founder, CEO, President, Founder/CEO, Lead Software Architect, Founder, CEO.

Companies Attending

This is the list of companies attending – the companies have been de-duped so if more than one person is coming from a single company, it will only appear once.

Safe Software Inc, Canonical USA, Compete Inc, Intercom, GoECart, agileDSS, TBD, The Birdy Inc, Fire Ant Software, Enova, 4ormat, Acquia, Adzerk, Appointment-Plus, Apptegic, Avangate, Avontus Software, Balsamiq, Biamp Systems, Computer Technology Solutions,  Inc, Cosoft, CURE International, DoX Systems, drinklobby, Encryptomatic LLC, EngView Systyems Sofia JSC, Esri UK, Foxpert, Gantry,  Inc., GlobalSpec,  Inc, Google,  Inc., Greycon Ltd, Icon Enterprises, Jude Apps, kCura, Playdriven.com, Progressive Solutions, Red Gate Software, Red Gate Software Ltd, Senior Living Properties,  LLC., Servolutions, SherWare,  Inc., Software Verification, VHT, Viewpoint Construction Software, Webapper Services,  LLC, westborough online, Nolasoft, Wodify, wyDay, Linchpin People, xHedra Solutions inc, Light Point Security, Vistaprint, W3 EDGE, Small Farm Central, Ascensus Ltd, Locaweb, Ingenious Group,  Inc., Axosoft, WooThemes, 25000+, marcucio.com, McKinsey & Company, Pellucid Analytics LP, Sitrus LLC, SLI SYSTEMS, Terraine,  Inc, WhippleHill, Physion Consulting, Yesware, White Light Computing,  Inc., Widefido, Relevance,  Inc, Mindscape, PipelineDeals, Administrate, Northwoods Consulting Partners, Red Carp Studio, SoftwarePromotions, Totango, General Assembly, Inkstone Software,  Inc., Interapptive,  Inc., ProProfs.com, Rivo Software, SportsSignup, Tribbon, Widen, Daxko, Global Data Consortium, Lancom, Wavetronix, Technoideas,  Inc., Open for opportunities, Drive,  A Whole New Mind,  To Sell is Human, Competegy:Competitive Strategy for Software Companies, Feedbackpro.me, Tuff Decisions Inc., Elbrys Networks, DDL, CivicPlus, Harvard Business School, Harvest, Decade Nine, STERN SOFTWARE, Fog Creek Software, Generation Genius Learning Tools Inc., Structlab/Cocoa Controls, Delivra, Design Master Software, Designing Interactive, Freelance, Ocean Learning Ltd, You Need A Budget, TechSmith, Stack Exchange, Bettermarketing Inc., Formstack, accesso, CM Water Group,  LLC, Method R, ParElastic, PowerChurch Software, ShipCompliant, Steelray Software, The BLN, The Engine Room Ltd., The MITRE Corporation, TIBCO Software Inc., Wave, Cape Horn Strategies, Fidelity Growth Partners, Jitbit Software, LabTech Software, Moving Average Inc., Telerik, Veson Nautical, AWR Corporation, Glasgow Foundry Ltd, Willdbit,  LLC, OpenEye Scientific Software, Constant Contact,  Inc., SavvyBox,  Vircom, Wildbit,  LLC, Intelerad Medical Systems, Total Synergy, Grasshopper, ABIS,  Inc, kCura Corporation, Computational Hydraulics.

Attending

We currently have just 50 tickets remaining. The next 30 sold will receive a discount of $500 off full price. BusinessofSoftware.org

Join Mikey Trafton, CEO of Fire Ant Software to hear why culture matters in business and some great tips for ensuring the people you hire will support the culture you want to create and sustain.

• Got questions about Mikey’s blog on hiring for cultural fit and what culture means for your business?
• Got some interview tips you want to share?
• Want to know what Mikey is going to talk about at Business of Software – or make some suggestions for topics you would like see covered?

The video stream will be here from 11.00 am EST.

This conversation will be broadcast live at 11.00 EST on Wednesday 5th September, from this blog post via YouTube and we will take your questions live on air. Join us, here, live, on September 5th. Follow us on Twitter at @BoSConference for details and more updates.

If you’ve been to Business of Software before, you know that on Tuesday night (2nd October), delegates organize themselves into groups and form ad hoc ‘Listeners’ Dinners’.

Avangate, sponsors of some free scholarship places for Business of Software will be hosting a dinner for their Scholarship Winners on Tuesday evening and would like to invite Business of Software delegates to join them for an evening of networking, BoS Talk and fun at one of Boston’s top restaurants, Radius.

Michael Ni, VP Marketing at Avangate and long time BoS attendee told us,

“We wanted to do something special and fun for our Business of Software Scholarship winners and inviting them to meet some of the other BoS attendees seemed like a great way of helping connect them directly with a useful, interesting and relevant group of great people.”

If you are registered for Business of Software and would like to join the BoS Scholars on Tuesday evening, please register directly with Avangate here.

PLEASE NOTE: All attendees welcome but attendance limited to 30 places so be quick.

This is a guest post from Mike Taber. Mike is a Boston area entrepreneur who is the founder of Moon River Software, Moon River Consulting, and co-founder of the Micropreneur Academy. He blogs semi-sporadically at SingleFounder.com and is currently working on AuditShark, a security product designed to provide awareness of the security posture of your servers.

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Last year at the Business of Software conference, I found myself in several conversations where I was either asking for an opinion on one of my ideas or giving an opinion on someone else’s. I thought I was being a good conference attendee. I thought I was offering people a different perspective and expanding the number of approaches they could use to achieve their goals. I thought I was helping people. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Telling people what you think of their ideas is a terrible thing to do at a conference. It’s not helpful. In fact, unless you’re their target market and they’re pitching you on their product, you’re probably only hurting people when you give them your opinion.

The problem with offering an opinion is that it doesn’t solve a problem. What we think is irrelevant. What our peers think also tends to be irrelevant. What matters is whether an approach to solving a problem works or not. You get that from asking your customers questions. You get that from testing peoples’ behaviors. You get that from analyzing quantifiable metrics. You don’t get it from opinions.

There’s a fine line that needs to be walked between offering an opinion and providing alternative approaches to solving a problem. It’s the difference between “Have you thought about trying X” vs “I think you should do A because X, Y and Z”. This first provides you an additional approach to try out while the second tries to analyze which is better. The opinionated approach works when someone is in unfamiliar territory. It falls apart when two solutions are both on the right path and you’re trying to decide which is “better”, whatever that might be.

As entrepreneurs, we face problems all day, every day. We want to find solutions. We want to solve these problems so we can move on to the next problem. Debating whether to do X or Y simply isn’t helpful. Neither is debating which is better.

We need to determine how to test these ideas so that we can measure how effectively they’re solving our problems. We also need to be able to measure the solutions against one another. If you can’t quantify the results, it’s impossible to justify one solution over another. At that point, you might as well flip a coin. And I’m not personally fond of letting a coin flip dictate my future success.

One way to effectively solicit help at BOS is to rephrase your questions to people. Instead of asking what someone thinks of your idea, tell them what your idea is and what your underlying hypothesis is. Then ask how they would test it to see if it’s the correct approach because it turns out that testing your ideas is a crucial part of the learning process. You can substitute just the word “learning” with nearly any aspect of your business and it still holds true, whether that word becomes marketing, sales, software development, customer development, etc. This leads to the conclusion that it’s not that testing ideas that is important, but that testing in general is important. I think we all get that.

But the problem is that we’re not doing it. More importantly, when we’re meeting up at conferences to learn from others, we spend our time explaining our ideas and asking what people think in a futile attempt to pick out the best idea, presumably so we’re not wasting time on the second and third best options. As I said, what we think is generally irrelevant. It’s the reality of the situations that is important and until we test those ideas, we have no way to prove or disprove our ideas. In fact, it’s on that very basis that many companies get funded or don’t get funded.

“No customers yet? Here’s a pile of money.”

“You’ve been live for six months and have ten customers? Let’s talk later when you’ve got more interest from other people who are interested in giving you money because let’s be honest. I’m a herd animal.”

We laugh at that for the same reason we laugh at Dilbert. It’s not funny because it’s funny. It’s funny because it’s true. In the face of uncertainty, you must have the ability to quantify results if you’re going to optimize your efforts for success. Picking the second or third best way to do something will usually still get you where you need to go. But sometimes it won’t. And if there’s a better way to do something, you need to know about it.

Let’s try to solve this problem. Here’s a thought experiment to try out at the Business of Software conference this year.

The next time you hear someone asking what you think of their idea, don’t tell them. Instead, determine their underlying hypothesis and discuss how they can quickly test the accuracy of that hypothesis. It is only through testing our hypotheses that we will learn what does and doesn’t work for our own businesses because every business is different.

See you at BOS.