Bad news about the Lean Startup Virus. It’s catching…

One of the questions that was asked approximately 250 times in an audience of 530 when we put our Eric Ries Lean Startup talk together in London this January (link to video and Q&A here), went along the lines of, “Yeah, yeah yeah, but this doesn’t actually effect us as we’re too big to be Lean.”

I wish I had read this article by Sukumar Rajagopal, CIO of Cognizant on the Pursuit of Employee Delight before then.

He has taken some of the principles of Eric’s Lean Startup and Geoffrey Moore’s concept of ‘Systems of Engagement’ and ‘Systems of Record’ and how this relates to the consumer/enterprise software IT divide (think Sunday night vs Monday morning…) and applied them pretty successfully in a company of 140,000 people. It probably doesn’t qualify as a startup…

“Sometime in 2010, June to be precise, I became CIO of Cognizant (Nasdaq:CTSH). Soon after starting on the new job, I checked with our top management (CEO, President, Group Chief Executive) on the primary goal of IT (Information Technology) at Cognizant. They unanimously said, IT should strive to produce “associate delight” (we call our employees associates). On behalf of the team, I accepted this goal as a key element of the IT charter – blame it on my newbie naïveté 🙂

“When I checked with other CIOs on this, they were highly skeptical. They said it is impossible for a corporate IT department within a Fortune 500 firm to produce associate delight through software applications. It seemed impossible indeed, but we were not deterred.”

By studying what their associates were doing in their business day, and using the simple example of a complicated time sheet system that took 5 clicks to get to actual time sheet as a proof of concept, Sukumar’s team came up with some big goals:

“We conducted this study by identifying the top 25 tasks that associates perform using corporate IT applications. We decided that the minimum viable product should be to OneClick-enable the top 25 tasks.

“Is this sufficient to produce associate delight? We went over the five major problems, which we outlined in the first post, again and decided that we needed to a few constraints to guide our designers. We came up with five that would enable us to produce delightful designs:

1. 500 millisec response time for the applications.
2. 500% productivity gain from the previous way of performing tasks.
3. No change management effort – no mail blasts, no marketing campaigns, no training/elearning, etc.
4. No email alerts from the platform.
5. Apps should be rolled out in a few weeks instead of the typical several months or years.”

I don’t want to spoil the story, (but it does have a happy ending and the good guys win), for more, go and read the whole post at Vinnie Mirchandani’s, ‘Deal Architect’ it’s worth the time even if the whole story could have been one post and not 5 separate ones.

The whole, ‘We’re too big for Lean’ discussion does seem to be a bit of a sideshow whenever ‘The Lean Startup’ is discussed. I stopped counting the number of people who I have met post our event with Eric Ries who come up to me and say they enjoyed the talk but they   didn’t think, ‘it’ would work in their organisations as they were too large.

This question is often asked of Eric in particular reference to Apple to which he politely replies he has no inside information so doesn’t feel able to comment in depth. Talking to Adam Lashinky, who wrote the excellent, ‘Inside Apple‘, and to Ken Segall, author of ‘Insanely Simple‘, it seems that in many respects Apple runs as the world’s biggest startup – people feel resource constrained when not working on core activities, work in very small teams, iterate incredibly quickly.

The principle difference between, Apple and Lean Startup is that, ‘the customer’, at Apple is a small, core group of people who make decisions. Most of the business is focused on developing ideas and iterating them to the satisfaction of this core group on a very regular – 2/4 week cycle.

The debate about applicability in large companies then, misses the essential message of Lean which seems to me to be to treat new ideas/startups as experiments and find ways to work stuff out quickly. Working out whether customers like something and are going to use it are at the heart of Cognizant and Apple’s approach. (Apple’s customer seems to be represented by an internal group but there is no argument about how rapidly they iterate).

‘The Lean Startup’ (TLS) is a highly viral, contagious, idea.

Some of those viral characteristics make it spread – simple to catch (it’s out there in the wild), easy to spread (everyone can ‘get it’ and pass it on). One other characteristic of viruses is equally interesting. Viruses are constantly mutating, to adapt to their environments, to new opportunities to spread. This isn’t the first time that Lean Startup Enterprise (TLS-E) version has been seen in the wild and it won’t be the last.

I wish Eric would hurry up and write, ‘The Lean Grownup’. There are some great case studies out there now.

A guest blog from Gregory Menvielle, CEO and Founder of Pyramediumand one of the smaller ISVs that come to Business of Software on a regular basis. We were happy to see Gregory when he came up to Cambridge recently to look at a Mummy (he is an Egyptologist in another life…).

We love hearing stories about people like this – so much of the value of something like Business of Software comes from the people you get to know, not the stuff you learn so thank you Gregory for some nice words and look forward to seeing you in Boston.

A few days ago I met with Mark and Marcin in Cambridge (UK) as they were kind enough to spend some time talking about a major business dilemma that my company is faced with. I will not describe what our (major!) issue is because this is a post about Mark and attending Business of Software. If you are curious, ask me, I don’t mind sharing.

As we were bouncing ideas and comments, I often referred back to BOS 2011 and how the conference’s benefits reached beyond merely attending the talks. Mark asked me to share these comments and I am happy to oblige (besides the curry was really good).

The human connections you will make at BOS are the true benefits and the reason you should attend in person.

• Let me cut to the chase. Business of Software is an expensive proposition for most people and making the trip to Boston can be a hard decision, even more so now that the sessions are streamed.
• Then again, I am old-school and treasure the opportunity to sit down and talk to people to learn more about who they are (rather than what they do). I will proudly admit to being part of the (most likely minority) who feels that social media is making us asocial and find it quite sad that now-a-days, most of the excitement revolves around measuring, tracking, and analyzing behaviors rather than making a difference in people’s lives.

Yes, people talk about metrics, testing, and analysis at BOS. Some entire companies are even built around this principle. Though there is something a lot more amazing happening there once the PowerPoint presentation goes dark: People meet, and talk. And I’m not just referring to the attendees: what made BOS standout from other conferences is you can interact with the speakers since most of them attend the whole conference. This tells you about the quality of the show: These people are thought of as experts in their fields, run companies –some of them quite large- yet take 3 days out of their schedule to attend this conference.

And as you meet, chat, and interact with all everyone group, you will learn a lot more than what was just presented. Let me give you 4 examples of how interacting with the speakers can lead you down some interesting roads:

• Patrick Foley works for the evil empire Microsoft, and since we use their technology, we talked a lot about Azure. As our chats continued post BOS, we also found that we had some other common interest that led to a great conversation about potential start-up ideas and avenues; not to mention a future bike ride to Alpe d’Huez (Paul Kenny, you are required to join as well!)
• Mark. Rumor has it that people keep in touch with Mark to find out who his shirt-maker is. All joking aside, Mark and the BLN group have an incredible, unique, perspective on the pulse of the software industry as they bring together people from all sides. Talking to him and his group will give you some great outlook on what the trends are and some ways to tackle some thorny problems.
• John Nese: I will bet that if you attended BOS last year, you now have a smile on your face thinking about John. I went to his store in LA a few months ago and while he was not there on that day, the whole store was like him. How many of us would have known about him otherwise and really, how many people like John would you ever meet at a software conference?

• Jeff Lawson and Twilio. I left Jeff for last because it really highlights the ramifications of BOS. Before BOS I had never heard about Twilio. I have no shame admitting it.
• Since his presentation was good (and taught the non-native speakers a few new expletives) I checked out what Twilio did and realized it would be quite interesting for one of my customers who is trying to make the world a better place. (Quick aside, Thanks Peldi for supporting TravelinWheels!)
• So rather than reading reviews online, and contacting customer service, I did the only thing imaginable: Talk to the Twilio team at the conference to see the type of people they were. Turns out they were the type of people you’d feel comfortable working with so we started using Twilio in some of our demos + platform.
• But doing so accelerated some things for us and lead to us being in the “interesting” situation I mentioned above which may lead us to apply for the Twilio fund. A lot can happen when you interact with others!

I have already booked my ticket for 2012. The speakers’ lineup is already quite impressive and the talks will definitely make anyone in the industry think harder.

Though let me leave you with the 4 things I am looking forward to, outside of the presentation (hint: you won’t experience it via streaming!)

• Meeting new and past attendees to learn about them (Stephen, looking forward to chatting some more about software verify over some food)
• The Band
• Rory Sutherland’s French Bashing (Come back Rory, I’ll bring you an Yqem)
• Being surrounded by a group of people who realize that software is more than just 0 & 1

See you in October!

Note to the reader: My only compensation for writing this entry was a dish of lamb curry which proves that I either need to seriously review my pricing scheme or that I am smarter than most of the contributors of the Huffington Post.

See you there Gregory. Thank you.

The awesome John Knox sponsored some Business of Scholarships last year to enable some deserving early stage companies to come to BoS. Korey Lee from SumAll was one of the lucky recipients. We’re really pleased for them to hear that his company has just raised a $1.5 million seed funding round from investors including Matrix Partners. SumAll offers real-time data analytics to small and medium businesses.

Here’s what Korey wrote about BoS: Business of Software was engaging, inspiring, and aspirational. Frankly it’s a conference that’s helpful for anyone who does business, even though much of the topical examples are in the technology or startup context. The sheer amount of intelligence, talent, and creativity present was simply stunning. From VCs to internationally renowned high-tech entrepreneurs to old school brick and mortar entrepreneurs, each keynote speaker was clearly hand picked and sequenced day by day with great discernment and care.

Topics included disruption, people management, hiring, social media, social change, UI/UX design, culture, psychological influence in marketing and many more. Like drinking water from a fire hose, I eagerly wrote as much down as I could in hopes that I could digest everything afterwards. Read more at John Knox’s blog Engineering Adventure.

While Business of Software isn’t really about raising venture capital, we thought SumAll was interesting for a few other reasons. According to the GigaOm coverage of the fundraising, they have taken their own approach to building a different kind of company. They have decided to go beyond adopting the status of a certified B Corporation to draft the SumAll constitution.

“They created the charitable foundation SumAll.org and allocated 10 percent ownership to it; they also make their corporate documents, including venture agreements, ownership, salaries and bank accounts, open to the entire team.

“The existing corporate structure is ripe for abuse mostly due to obfuscation,” Atkinson said. “We have built a system where every member of the company has a voice and in many ways can reshape the company.”

Congratulations on daring to be different and getting some great investors on board. Good luck with everything and look forward to catching up with you at Business of Software this year.

Putting on a conference is hard work (we know, not as hard as running a software business!) and these were just a few of the things that people said last year when we sat back at the end of the conference, exhausted, and said, “Was it worth it?” Thank you.

• “This is the best conference I’ve ever attended. Nice work!!!”
• “BoS provides excellent content that can be applied immediately, the forum is the best for networking with peers who have the same ideas and problems”
• “Epic”
• “The opportunity ever software person should take to see what they do in a totally new way”
• “This is a conference where the content is as great as the people”
• “Great theme, keep it up, make it just a little bit better every year”
• “Awesomeness OD!”
• “One of the best avenues out there to understanding to create great software companies, kudos!!”
• “Injecting inspiration back into your business.”
• “If you’re running a software business you need to be at this conference”
• “You have given me what I need to finally get my startup moving. “
• “Head exploded”
• “BoS is a gathering of engaged like minded people who freely share ideas to encourage innovation & promote success in the software industry”
• “Thought provoking”
• “Very rare opportunity to be amongst my people, wonderful break from day to day operations to think big thoughts”
• “How to make happy customers”
• “Like TED but for software entrepreneurs”
• “I’m not worried about my sales funnel, I’m worried about this new idea funnel I have to manage thx to this conference”
• “Inspirational to do list”
• “Thought provoking, high paced talks by people who have actually done real sh*t, attended by interesting people your happy to meet at breakfast – stuff”
• “The highest prize I can give this conference is that I wasn’t ready for it to end… I am still hungry for more!”
• “Excellent opportunity to sit back away from day to day operations and share others experience & reflect on that.”
• “The place to be for people who run small, growing, sustainable, software businesses”
• “A recharging and reinvigorating for my business.”
• “I signed up based on the speakers and content. I leave w/the inspiration to build better software and engage w/ customers. I will be back next year.”
• “Mindblowing and inspirational talks, now #JFDI”
• “Fantastic speakers combined w/networking makes for great learning environment, lots of stimulating content & thought provoking conversations.”
• “One of the best decisions I ever made was to come to BoS”
• “Phenomenal, the best conference I’ve attended, with the best attendees.”
• “It makes you think the rest is up to you”
• “Disconnect from work to connect with people”
• “An avalanche of actionable knowledge”
• “If you’re hungry for stories, BoS is where to go”
• “At tech conferences, the best I might walk away with is a new technology or tool to help my business. At Business of Software, I walk away with ideas & actions that will fundamentally change the way that I approach my work”
• “Great talks. Great people. Fantastic opportunities to exchange experiences”
• “The conference is an amazing global community of passionate entrepreneurs willing to share their experiences and capitalize on the knowledge of the pioneers and gurus who have preceeded them.”
• “How about two words? Entrepreneur Recharge”
• “The smartest people in the business presenting their wisdom, humbly and genuinely. Just awesome!”
• “Useful context switch”
• “Best conference I”ve ever attended”
• “Excellent speakers plus really smart attendees = incredible conference”
• “Spa for nerds”
• “Mandatory attendance if you’re serious about building a software business indispensible advice and inspiration.”
• “Highest quality sessions w/actionable advice of any conferece”
• “Good, interesting ideas to use in my business”
• “We have been searching for a conference or association that supports the startup commercialization and growth of software business. I have finally found exactly what we and other ISV’s need.”
• “The forum to talk with others passionate about improving software and making the world a better place”
• “All the ideas I need to keep improving for the next 12 months”
• “A great experience… not just the speakers but the pure connections are phenomenal”
• “Insanely great software (and business) conference “nuff said!”“
• “Honestly? Senior management at Redgate has been asking me “what do you want to do?”for the past 2 years and this conference has been part of the ________ that answered that question.”
• “The networking opportunities at times equal or outweigh the incredible presentations and speakers in terms of value to a start up or existing entrepreneur”
• “Another awesome yearat BOS. It’s like an annual shot I the arm to get me super energized about my industry”
• “The 24 hours long I,500 mile drive and 3 flights, was totally worth it! I would do it again without thinking!”
• “The only difference between the speakers & the audience to see is how eloquently they speak to a crowd.”
• “Great content. Great attitude.”
• “A must for any exec in the software business”
• “Fantastic! Inspiring! The only problem is that I know I still had a lot to do, now I have to do even more, but with some great guidelines.”
• “Excellent organization, content and speakers, good enough to make me fill out one of these cards and that makes good”
• “If you’re thinking about going to #BOS2012 #JFDI”
• “Get the push to get data driven and learn consumer psychology. But the awesomeness was to get pumped up that what I’m doing is on the right track and small software businesses can make the world suck less”
• “Great minds, good intentions, great inspiration from real people in software businesses.”
• “TED for the real part of the software industry”
• “Like an eating contest, except with ideas. Awesome! Amazing community, but the key is to DO!”
• “Nerds learning how to do business with other human beings”
• “Opportunity to think differently. Think of the possibilities.”
• “Big ideas, need to change thinking process and apply to our business”
• “An avalanche of thought provoking, insightful mind food. Very humbling.”
• “Continues to be the single best “business” “experience” I have each year. Outstanding!”

Update on Peldi’s talk for Business of Software 2012. As so many people coming to BoS want to think about ‘Growth’ Peldi is going to be talking about what he learned in growing his company so quickly. Expect lots of actionable tips and tricks and a sprinkle of Peldi humor.

Coding is the easiest part!

If you think your ability to code up a new web app in the course of a week-end is your ticket to startup success, think again. Soon you will realize that coding is the easiest (and most fun) part of your job.

Building and growing a business is HARD, and filled with, “what the…?”, moments.

In this talk I will talk about a number of strange things that happened to me in the 4 years of bootstrapping Balsamiq into a global, multi-million-dollar tiny little company. Lots of quick, direct and immediately applicable stories that will save you tons of time and frustration when they happen to you.

If you have been at the sharp, painful end of a growing business, what is the one thing that you wished you knew before you started?

Anyone who has been to Business of Software will have bumped into our amazing camera guy, Lerone Wilson at some point in the course of the event. There was us thinking we were paying him to make those awesome Business of Software videos that you can view at your convenience post event but NO! In one of the most blatant and audacious rip-offs of our intellectual property you could imagine, Lerone has actually been listening to the talks and learning stuff. Not only has he watched them all at least three times, he has now got off his butt and taken action.

This is a guest blog from Lerone Wilson, BoS ‘camera guy’ and now founder, ‘The Blackline Magazine‘.

Notes from the Video Guy – Lerone D. Wilson

Hey, it’s me- the video guy.  I’m the one who gets between you and your perfect view of the stage each year.  The guy who makes you wish you had taken the extra minute to comb your hair in the morning as you realize that the audience is occasionally recorded as well as the speakers.  The one who ruthlessly unplugged your laptop from one of those electrical outlets in the back of the room in favor of some piece of equipment that doesn’t look important (it is).  Yep, that’s me.

I’ve worked at every Business of Software conference since 2008.  Because of the nature of my work, this means that I’ve listened to each speaker’s entire presentation once while shooting it, and another once or twice (sometimes more) while editing them.  Oddly enough, this has never bored me.

You must understand that in my line of work you get used to being bored quite regularly.  Whether it’s doing an hour long interview with a guy because his brother is famous and maybe he’ll connect you, or waiting for that gaggle of geese to move past the frame in just the right way (Pro-tip: Never actually do this. It turns out that geese are really mean), you get used to being mindlessly bored as a matter of course.

That said, what has surprised me each year about the Business of Software, is that the organizers consistently book some of the most interesting and entertaining speakers I have ever encountered.  They are brilliant, yes.  They give amazingly accurate and much needed advice, of course.  But most importantly, they inspire.  So much so that after last year’s conference I was compelled to call a few old friends and colleagues and put together a startup of my own.

Earlier this month, after nearly a year’s preparation, we launched ‘The Blackline Magazine‘,” an HTML 5 based news magazine optimized for iPad, which covers the stories and issues that really matter.  From Bo Obama defending his initial term as First Dog, to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings admitting their instant selection is crap, to a three page write up on how Tetris pieces collectively despise the long straight piece for routinely showing up late, if ever, Blackline covers the issues that the “lamestream” media routinely overlook.

So far Mashable, TUAW, and a few other tech blogs have had some very nice things to say about us.  In fact, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even ran an ad in our inaugural issue to make it plain why she’s absolutely not running for president (Hint: “Because F**k you, that’s why”), so for now we’re calling our launch a success.

Magazine aside, however I can say with some authority that this startup is something that I wouldn’t have ever attempted if not for my past with the Business of Software.  Particularly important, is the sense of inspiration and encouragement you get from being around so many successful and active tech founders at one time (the audience at these events are routinely just as qualified as the speakers, they just don’t have PowerPoint slides).

I recall with great clarity Alexis Ohanian’s speech last year about the amazing ability tech founders have to make the world suck less.  The entire room was gripped by the collective realization of the incredible sense of agency that founders have over the world and how it functions.  Put simply, it was more inspiring than that scene in “Independence Day” where Bill Pullman convinces what remains of the U.S. Air Force to go on a suicide mission to defeat the aliens.

Likewise, it was a bit eerie even how the interpersonal issues Joel Spolsky discussed in his 2010 speech about founding Stack Overflow, matched almost exactly those that we had founding Blackline.  So much so, that I have long considered penning a literary response to “Joel on Software,” titled “Lerone on Joel on Software.”

Interestingly enough, back in 2005 I interviewed both Joel (then running a 6 person software company out of a tiny New York office) and Alexis (then working on a yet to be released project called Reddit) for a documentary I was working on.  What made them both remarkable then in my opinion was that they both were incredibly motivated and passionate, and incredibly well informed.

This is the type of conference that will do just that for you and your startup; inspire and inform (The videos are really, really awesome too).  After all, this is the conference that makes startup founders from even the video crew.  Just please be careful not to use the power outlets in the back by the A/V equipment.  I’m totally cool, but the rest of the A/V team is quite vengeful…

I thought this would be a good opportunity to run this guest blog from Stephen Kellett of Software Verify, prompted by a note I received this morning… I haven’t had permission to publish the details of the email so I have removed any personally identifiable information. The essence of the question though is, ‘Should bootstrapped businesses come to BoS?’

“Mark

I run a small bootstrapped software company.

We have a samll US team of 2 employees (me & wife, and some part time contractors)  and have a remote team that is full time from India.

I am trying to evaluate if BoS would be the right conference for me to attend given our stage of the business.

My cell is below if you need to reach me.

Thanks
S
213.xxx”

My take, in short – while we try to focus the content of the event on the how, who, why, when and where of growing a successful software business, almost all of the content is incredibly valuable to software entrepreneurs who are starting out on their journey. We have a single customer at BoS – you, the attendee. No sponsors or exhibitors to keep happy. Just the delegates. Of course you can go to ‘cheaper’ events, but we think that people come to BoS because they are able to learn, share their ideas, their fears and ambitions with a  very special group of people. You will find people who are incredibly willing to help a single founder/startup – everyone started out at some point and it is wonderful that so many people are willing to “give something back.”

You can also see all of the feedback from delegates at Business of software 2011 here.

I figured it is a question that a lot of bootstrapped companies will ask so I have tried to answer it with the help of Stephen’s guest blog. Stephen is a single founder and Business of Software regular so perhaps his thoughts will be useful…

“In October I travelled again to Boston, MA for the Business of Software conference. This is the number one conference to go to for folks aiming to create a software business to last the long term. This isn’t a place to come if you want to create a Facebook then flip it and walk away with millions. Nothing sustainable about flipping companies.

Twitter seemed to come into its own at and before the conference. People using phones, iPads, laptops to coordinate who they were eating with and when. #BoS2011 became unmanageable. Mark Littlewood’s advice to use Tweetdeck was well received.

Audience

Its a self selecting audience. They’re all very bright, self motivated. A lot of the people attending run their own businesses, from one man companies to some larger organisations like Red Gate who brought a good chunk of their staff with them. 30 people? 50 people? I don’t know. A lot – more than many people have on their entire staff. I spent Saturday evening with 5 Red Gate people and most of Sunday with some more Red Gate folk. It seems that Red Gate is being quite entrepreneurial with its staff – exposing them to conferences like this and training them for the future. It seems like a much more thoughtful vision for their future than most companies take.

Microsoft had some people in attendance too. The only Microsoftee I met was Patrick Foley, who was brave enough to give a Lightning talk. One attendee had travelled all the way from Romania, using three planes to get to Boston. He was probably one of the youngest attendees too. I spent a chunk of Tuesday evening chatting with him in The Whiskey Priest. Not sure I’d have been that keen to travel that far for a conference at age 25. Kudos.

The quality of the speakers was incredible. I thought Clayton Christensen would be the top draw (I’ve read most of his books, found them really interesting) but as it turned out I preferred the speakers on the second day – Rory Sutherland and Josh Linkner in particular. Most speakers manage to weave humour into their talks. I don’t know if this was planned, opportunist or just something you get good at.

Note taking

I took very few notes at Business of Software. I was just too wrapped up in what was being presented. When I look at my notes its in my typical unreadable “I should have been a doctor” handwriting, with a good chunk of the notes not about the talk being given but about ideas for improving the software process at Software Verification. Its as if being there was stimulating me to take action over what we will do in future. Part of me is pleased with this and part of me is frustrated I didn’t take more written notes.

[Actually, Stephen’s notes are pretty good. You can read them all here on his blog – Business of Software 2011 – Mind Food].

The Business of Software goodie bag was unusual – full of stuff I will actually read. Books from some of the speakers. Their talks were interesting, so that bodes well for the books they wrote.

Business of Software Team

The team Mark Littlewood assembled were superb. They were always on hand to help. When I asked them for help with some nuts (I needed protein as the vegetarian food was all carbohydate and had no pulses etc) they to my amazement found some fruit and nuts for me. I expected them to tell me where I could find a shop. Later that evening two of them saw me collapsed on a seat at The Whiskey Priest and came over. They wanted to walk me back to the hotel until I explained I’d be alright in about 20 minutes – when my blood sugar had become normal again after eating (I shouldn’t have had the beer so soon after eating with the noise of the Business of Software band – too much).

As well as the BoS team, the conference centre staff were helpful and courteous. Americans really understand service. So often I’ve had bad experiences in the UK.

Coming home

After the conference everyone had a chance to grab some food, possibly be interviewed by the roving cameraman. He got me. I don’t think I made a very good subject. I think you’re either good at this or not. When asked a question that required a thoughtful answer I should have paused and thought. But no. So a bit of a disaster on that front. I’m sure other people had better things to say to the camera than I did.

I milled around for a bit then a group of us headed off to a local restaurant for some pre-flight food. Mark Littlewood said he’d come and join us, but he took so long he met us on the way back to the hotel. Better luck next time Mark.

[Ha! You got me. We ran a few optional post-event workshops that started at 1.00 pm. They were supposed to finish by 2.30 pm. The last one finished at 4.30 pm and I figured I should be around to see people off the premises… :-)]

The photo shows (left to right) Krishna Kotecha, Patrick McKenzie, Corey Reid, Patrick Foley, Levi Kovacs, Tyler Rooney.

TO DO List

My notes are littered with TO DO items scrawled done as a speaker sparked something in me. On the plane home, reflecting on the conference, I found that every few minutes I’d have to write something down. In total I have about 4 pages of TO DOs, 1 per line. That’s about 120 items to do or research. All directly from attending the conference. Not all of the TO DO items were new to me at the conference, but the conference reinforced my pre-existing thoughts and coallesced them into an action point.

Conclusion

If I could summarise Business of Software into a few words, it would be “Incredible mind food, stuff to think about for a long time”.

Would I go again? Yes.

Am I glad its on the East Coast of America? Yes. 5 hours out is one thing. 8 hours out another altogether.

If anyone wants to share their experiences in the comments – or via a guest blog, please get in touch.

Seems appropriate that one of the first guest blog posts on our new look site will be from one of the first speakers we recorded back at Business of Software 2008.

Professor Noam Wasserman is professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the author of the recently-published Amazon bestseller The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup.  He will be speaking at this year’s Business of Software conference in October about how some of the lessons from his research can be applied to more grown up organisations.

We are touched and very grateful that he has taken some time out of a very busy schedule to tackle a question submitted by our readers. Noam considers some one of the biggest issues faced by founders – when is the right time to, ‘let go’.

Question:

“When is the right time to let go from having your fingers involved in everything about your company, and just focus on the vision and strategy and actually running the organization?  Also, HOW to let go?”

“Letting go” is one of the toughest challenges founders face, for very understandable reasons.  Founders’ strengths include their passion for the idea, their attachment to the early people who came aboard to help build the venture, and their love of working in the strong culture they created.  Along the way, they also become accustomed to their central positions and leadership roles.

“However, as the startup evolves, the demands on the founder often expand to include a lot of tasks and responsibilities they do not enjoy, or aren’t good at doing.  For instance, many founders love leading the charge during the early technical or scientific stage of product development, but later find themselves having to worry about sales and marketing or other functions they do not enjoy.  They also often find that they have little time for doing what they truly love.  The disconnect occurs at the levels of “can” and “want.”  To the extent that they do not have the skills to do those new functions well, they no longer “can” do the job as well.  To the extent that they no longer have an interest in those new functions, they no longer “want” to do the job as much.  At either of those points, you need to realize that it is time to find another role that is closer to your abilities and/or a better match for your interests.

“Founder-CEO succession can give us insights into the challenges and dynamics of letting go.  As I describe in Chapter 10 of The Founder’s Dilemmas, at the point where they have raised their C-round of financing, 52% of founder-CEOs have been replaced.  In only 27% of those replacements, the founder initiated the change, often understanding how the path would be a mismatch for his abilities or a mismatch for her preferences.  Two-thirds of those founders stayed as a lower-level executive in the venture, stepping into another, more-targeted executive position.  For example, one-quarter of the replaced CEOs – most often, those with a technical or scientific background – moved into the Chief Technology Officer or Chief Scientific Officer roles.  Many of the business-oriented founder-CEOs moved into the VP of Business Development role after being replaced.  Those specific roles were a better match for their abilities, and hopefully for their interests.

“As hard as it is to do so, there are strong benefits to initiating such a change yourself.  For one, seizing the initiative enables you to gain more control over the transition process.  Founder‐CEOs who initiate their own replacement remain on the startup’s board of directors 96% of the time, and remain in an executive position 37% of the time. In contrast, when the board initiates the change, those percentages drop to 60% and 24%, respectively.

“For you, the key questions are twofold.

• First, do you understand the road ahead of you and how it will change the demands on you?  (If you can’t answer yes, learn more about that roadmap, possibly by reading about it.)
• Second, do you believe that those changes will still match your abilities and desires?

If you can concretely answer yes to both questions, then it’s not time for you to let go.  Otherwise, start looking for a more targeted role that fits your passions and talents, so you can rekindle the magic while handing the steering wheel to a new, later-stage driver.

“Such a transition is never easy for the founder.  As Les Trachtman observes in Ch. 10 of the book, the founder thinks that the change will simply be a “title change,” rather than the “tidal change” that it will truly be.  However, that tidal change becomes smoother when you can find a new magical role for yourself and find a successor to whom you feel comfortable handing the reins (another central issue in that chapter).  Good luck with finding both!”

Thanks for taking the time to guest blog Noam. We look forward to seeing you in October.

If you want to see Noam speaking about the ‘Rich or King’ dilemma at Business of Software 2008 here he is…

The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup is an extraordinary book distilling the wisdom and hard learning of literally hundreds of founders across the world. A must read for entrepreneurs and we strongly recommend you read it. (Though a slight hint, if you are coming to Business of Software, you might not need to buy your own copy just now).

We thought it about time we moved the Business of Software website from the Jurassic period into the 21st century. But what do you think? Is there anything here that you think is missing?

Leave your comments (now that is a new thing :-)) and we’ll do our best to make the appropriate changes.

I want to apologize to you if you tried to register for Business of Software 2012 over the weekend to take advantage of our first Early Bird offer. Our event registration system was down for routine maintenance on Saturday and we have received a number of emails from people who were unable to register. Given the circumstances, it seems fair that we extend the deadline for registration and have done so to midnight PST on Tuesday April 3rd.

We also have some brilliant new speakers who have confirmed their participation at Business of Software 2012… 

• Joel Spolsky - will decide what he will talk about nearer the time. Needless to say, it will be topical and relevant to BoSers!
• Bob Dorf, co-author with Steve Blank of, The Startup Owner's Manual – The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company. Bob was founding CEO of Peppers and Rogers, the inventors of customer-centric marketing, before joining forces with Steve. He will be talking about fueling growth in enterprise software companies and the differences between web/mobile businesses where customer feedback and product iteration happen faster and in far greater volume.
• Dan Lyons, Technology Columnist at Newsweek where he covers software, mobile and social media. Dan also wrote the popular (over 1.5 million views per month), 'Fake Steve Jobs' blog. He will be talking about what technology companies can learn from Apple, how to get the attention of the media and why Silicon Valley is not the center of the software universe.
• Gail Goodman, CEO, Constant Contact. Constant Contact, provides software that helps small businesses manage CRM. She has led Constant Contact for over a decade through incredible growth and IPO to a point today where the company employs over 900 people and has 500,000 customers. Gail will talk about the challenges of targeting the SME market and share some of the things she has learned about how technology and people mix. 

Three other things for you…

• You can view all of last year's Lightning Talks here including Justin Goere's very moving, 'Getting to Nowhere'. This talk considers Nobel-prize winning physicist Richard Feynman's decade long quest to visit Tannu Tuva. Some great lessons in software development and life along the way.
• All the talks from last year can be accessed from here with a pass code. Last year's attendees have a passcode that lets them access all the talks from last year in their own steam. Attendees for BoS 2012 also receive a code so they can see the full set of talks when they are registered for BoS2012. Other talks are posted over the course of the year.
• If you are London based, you might like to join us for an evening event, CEO Tales, with Peldi of Balsamiq Mockups who will be talking about customer-centric software development amongst other things on the evening of 17th April, 6-9pm.

#BoS2012 takes place over 2 and a half days 1st-3rd October, 2012, at the Intercontinental Hotel, Boston. We advise booking accommodation early, whether you stay at the conference hotel – we hope you do and have a special conference rate – or choose another location. There is a $900 discount on the full ticket price till midnight 3rd April. If you didn't make it to last year's event, you will also get access to all of the talks from BoS 2011 when you register for BoS 2012.

We hope to see you at Business of Software 2012.

Below are the lightning talk videos from five speakers at the Business of Software conference 2011, starting with the winning talk by Justin Goeres of JKI. Lightning Talks are terrifying and very hard to pull off – each speaker was allowed 15 slides with 30 seconds for each slide.

That’s 7 minutes and 30 seconds in total. Done.

Nice to see some proof that sharing some of the BoS love brings more cool people to the physical event. Just got this note…

“Just ordered my ticket, and am really looking forward to it. I attended live stream from my living room couch last year. It was great, but felt like I was missing out on the networking and interaction. One question. It says the ticket should be printed. Will it be possible to show the ticket on my iPhone instead?

Thanks,
KR”

Look forward to seeing you there and, ‘Yes’, you can bring the paper ticket with you if you wish but as long as your phone has a screen that can display the registration details, that is good enough. See you in Boston!

Don’t forget, registration for BoS 2012 is open now. We hope to see you in Boston October 1st-3rd 2012 and the first EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT tickets run out midnight, March 31st. Save $900 on full registration.

Confirmed speakers this year include Professor Noam Wasserman, Jason Cohen, Mikey Traft, Adii Pienaar, Joel Spolksy, Peldi, Paul Kenny, Bob Dorf, Dharmesh Shah and others who spend their lives at the sharp end of software businesses around the world. We hope to see you there.

If you came to Business of Software 2011, you can access all the talks from last year here using the passcode you were sent by email. Anyone registering for this year's event will also receive a code to access the talks prior to their general release. Click on the talk you want to view and enter your passcode.

The talks will be released, with transcripts, over the course of the year.

• Professor Clayton Christensen, Professor, Harvard Business School, How to Create New Growth Businesses in a Risk-Minimizing Environment. LIVE
• Josh Linkner, Founder, CEO, Partner, ePrize, Detroit Venture Partners, Unleashing Creativity. 
• Jeff Lawson, Founder, CEO, Twilio, SaaS & the art of pricing.
• Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Ogilvy, Praxeology – Lessons from a lost science.
• Jason Cohen, Founder, Partner, WP Engine, Capital Factory, Naked Business: How I made more money through honesty than through typical business behavior.
• Dharmesh Shah, Co-founder, CTO , HubSpot, Building Big Ass Software Businesses.
• Alexis Ohanian, Founder, Reddit, Hipmunk, Using software to make the world suck less.
• Alex Osterwalder, Managing Partner, Business model Generation, Building competitive advantage through business model thinking.
• Patrick Mckenzie, CEO, Kalzumeus Software, Engineering your marketing outcomes. LIVE.
• Tobias Lutke, CEO, Shopify, How to make sure your business is on the right side of history through code & culture.
• Michael McDerment, CEO, President, Freshbooks, A litany of product management mistakes at Freshbooks.
• Peldi & John Nese, Two Geezers Talking, Balsamiq & One Stop Pop Shop, What matters in business.
• David Cancel, VP Product, HubSpot, Data driven businesses. 
• Laura Fitton, VP, HubSpot, Making social media work in business to business.
• Paul Kenny, Principal, Ocean Learning, The Art of Asking.

Don't forget, registration for BoS 2012 is open now. We hope to see you in Boston October 1st-3rd 2012 and the first EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT tickets run out on March 30th. Save $900 on full registration.

Confirmed speakers this year include Professor Noam Wasserman, Jason Cohen, Mikey Traft, Adii Pienaar, Joel Spolksy, Peldi, Paul Kenny, Bob Dorf, Dharmesh Shah and others who spend their lives at the sharp end of software businesses around the world. We hope to see you there.

We were very excited when Professor Noam Wasserman, author of The Founder's Dilemmas - Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup agreed to speak at Business of Software this year especially when he offered to get involved in a guest blog to see whether we could apply some of the lessons he has learned in his studies to some of the more grown-up businesses that come to Business of Software.

(Here he is speaking at Business of Software 2008).

His book was due for publication on 25th March, (here is the Publisher's Weekly Review) but he dropped me a note on Friday to let me know that not only had the publication date been bought forward, but the books was already on the Amazon best sellers list. Congratulations Noam!

We would love to get some sense of some of the things that you worry about as founders – not just so he can try to offer some answers, but to help him craft a talk at Business of Software this year that answers the issues that are relevant to you. 

If you get a moment, please complete this VERY short Survey Monkey Questionnaire. You can do it anonymously, but if you leave your email address, we will contact one person at random and send them a signed copy of the book. We have extended the deadline for submitting your question by two days so please submit by midnight Thursday 22nd March.

Link to that VERY short Survey Monkey Questionnaire.

Don't forget, registration for BoS 2012 is open now. We hope to see you in Boston October 1st-3rd 2012 and the first EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT tickets run out on March 30th. Save $900 on full registration.

Confirmed speakers this year include Professor Noam Wasserman, Jason Cohen, Mikey Traft, Adii Pienaar, Joel Spolksy, Peldi, Paul Kenny, Bob Dorf, Dharmesh Shah and others who spend their lives at the sharp end of software businesses around the world. We hope to see you there.

I am still celebrating the news (you heard it first here!) that Professor Noam Wasserman has agreed to speak at this year's Business of Software on the subject of Founders Dilemmas.

Not only that, he has generously agreed to try to answer some of your questions in a guest blog to be published at the end of this month. How very, very cool is that?

Here is where you come in…

If you have a Founder Dilemma, leave us a brief summary of the question or issue you have (anonymous or named, entirely up to you), here by midnight on the 18th March. We pass on the best to Noam. Watch the blog for updates…

Two great pieces about introverts from the past couple of weeks. Always makes me think of Business of Software!

Sacha Chua on introverts and how to be shy effectively.

Susan Cain, talking at this year's TED Conference in Long Beach on the power of introverts.

Three take aways from Susan's talk.

• Stop the madness for constant group work – we need to teach people how to work on their own.
• Go to the wilderness – we could all benefit from unplugging and getting inside our own heads a bit more often.
• Take a good luck at what’s inside your own suitcase and why you put it there. When you have watched the talk, it makes perfect sense!).

Don't forget, registration for BoS 2012 is open now. Hope to see you in Boston October 1st-3rd 2012.