dek's blog

Last month I wrote an article for the From Little Things blog called – Startups are sacrifice… for ALL involved.

Now I’ve been thinking long and hard about this. Why should entrepreneurs and the wider startup ecosystem care about startuppers and the points I raise in that piece? And how do we make them care?

There’s been a lot of talk about what the Australian startup ecosystem needs in order to grow and establish itself as a key player alongside other startup hubs like Silicon Valley and Israel. These discussions tend to focus on venture capital, government support and the ‘brain drain’ which happens with local startups having to leave our shores to secure vc funding.

What is missing from this debate is the local brain drain happening right under our noses. Aussie-based startuppers work in a startup or two and leave the ecosystem for corporate jobs, taking a wealth of learnings and experience with them. Anecdotally, just by looking at my LinkedIn contacts, I estimate that up to 90% of all startuppers I have worked with on about 10 startups have left the Aussie startup ecosystem. Of that 90%, about 10% are in startups overseas, 5% are now freelancers, and the rest are now in local corporate jobs. Very rough numbers and a tiny sample, but those numbers should worry anyone currently contributing to building our startup ecosystem.

There are serious implications of this local talent drain. A high churn rate is an obvious talent loss. There is also a time and monetary loss when we take into account what is then spent on bringing in new talent and training them up. It means that we have a really small pool of mature startuppers who could support an entrepreneur new to the industry. With a knowledge haemorrhage as severe as this, we will never get to a sustainable startup ecosystem. Not when every new startup is literally starting from scratch on all fronts. We absolutely need to keep knowledge transfer going, from entrepreneur to entrepreneur, entrepreneur to startupper, startupper to startupper and startupper to entrepreneur. We’ve done well with the first two flows with things like the Silicon Beach mailing list and the explosion of networking events over the last 4 to 5 years. The latter two flows however need a lot of work.

I admit it was heartening to see the Crossroads Report list increasing the numbers of people with ICT skills and improve access to startup expertise as two of their 7 key actions, but I think it would be akin to bailing water from a leaky boat using a colander if talent retention isn’t addressed. If we want to build a sustainable Aussie startup ecosystem, we HAVE to build a startup talent ecosystem inside it. And when someone like me, who used to proudly declare ‘I’m a startupper for life!’ has been interviewing for corporate jobs 7 years into a startup career, Australia, we have a problem.

I’ve been a product manager for a number of years now, and I still have trouble describing what I do. I tend to say “I’m the bridge between the different parts of a business – the executive branch, marketing, development, customers – and it’s my job to make sure the product speaks to and for all these segments.”
I usually get a puzzled look and then go into detail about various aspects of the role. Usually though, when the conversation is over, I walk away feeling like I didn’t do a good job of describing what I do.

It’s been a challenge. How does one succinctly describe a role that has so many different parts to it? Not just that, talk to two product managers and you’ll find that their responsibilities in their respective roles can vary widely.

Which is why this article grabbed my attention – Product Managers: Who are these ‘mini-CEOs’ and what do they do?

Specifically these bits:

Both Norton and Elman agree that the PM’s job is to help execute the company’s vision. In a way, it’s almost like they’re the mini-CEO, complete with the influence, but no authority — they aren’t the direct supervisors of the engineer or designer and can’t fire anyone for not following through, and focused on the success of the product’s mission.

What’s more, while a PM can be a mini-CEO, their responsibility is to make sure that the product not only matches up to customer expectations, but are also in line with the overall strategy set forth by the company’s founders and CEO.

I’m gonna adopt the definition put forth by Norton and Elman in my future conversations, and see if I find more understanding.

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what a PM is, what they do and how one might contribute to your business, I highly recommend reading that article and the additional references in it.

So now you know what a product manager is and think you need one? I can help 😉

I was invited to be a beta tester recently, and it struck me that I haven’t been seeing calls for beta testers being put out any more.

It might be that the beta testing period has been subsumed by Lean methodologies. After all, beta testing is about the feedback loop which is implicit in the lean process.

It might be that beta testing is just that much harder on mobile than web, and it was just left behind because it didn’t fit with the ecosystem any more.

But then the feedback loop isn’t visible to me these days. At least in the young startups I’ve been following. From the outside the process most startups seem to follow is: announce idea on Launchrock -> launch MVP -> growth hacking (simplified obviously). As a user of these services I am not asked for feedback, and I don’t usually see any obvious feedback collection mechanisms on the app. Is everyone relying on metrics these days?

Did beta testing lose its value because early beta testers are a very niche segment of the market, or not even a customer segment at all?
When I worked at Tangler.com, we had a dedicated beta testing forum where startups would put out the call and beta testers would jump in, test the products and let loose with their feedback. It wasn’t always easy for the startups to handle it – we had a bunch of very early adopters who had technical backgrounds so they tended to have really high expectations and …. let’s call it brutally honest feedback.
In addition, there’d always be the inevitable drop off in usage. Beta testers would flock to the new shiny, test it and move on. From a startup’s perspective this was a roller coaster ride. They’d get a spike in sign ups and activity, and then have to deal with the lull. Well that was a bummer….

There was one shining example of a success story however. A bunch of us were invited to test out Weewar.com, an asynchronous, multi-player strategy game, and in the process of testing the game, we were all hooked. A bunch of us brought our non-tester friends in – just so we could keep playing while waiting turns on other games! The founders of Weewar were very active in responding to feedback and this was also evident in the product’s evolution. Weewar was eventually acquired by EA Games.

What I think is a big loss with not actively running in a beta testing phase is the feedback loop between startups and users. (I’m not using the term ‘customers’ on purpose.)
There is an implicit social contract at play – as users we will use your product and provide feedback, as startups we will listen and consider the feedback. There is a lot more to this than obvious at first glance. As a user I am more inclined to provide feedback if I know there is a purpose for it. That it will be considered by someone. As a startup it affects how I run my communications strategy, whether or not I include a feedback mechanism into my product, how I manage my backlog.
Beta testing is a state of mind for all involved.

So startups, look at yourselves, evaluate whether running a beta testing phase is a fit, and then do it. You will get invaluable insights into your product’s UX, features and potentially even its future.
And beta testers, instead of throwing out a whinge on Twitter (GUILTY!) hit up the startup’s contact page and make a valuable contribution.

Oh, and the startup that kicked this post off – Formula Legend. Make sure to check em out and sign up if it’s your thing.

I attended SydStart yesterday. In many ways it was just what the doctor ordered. It was a really good event with great speakers and a friendly community of startuppers. (I don’t like the term entrepreneurs for a crowd like this one. Startuppers is more descriptive and inclusive, don’t you think?)

Hours after I’d left the event, my brain was still buzzing. (I could go as far as saying the sleepless night I had was all SydStart’s fault….. ok, so I will. Dammit SydStart!!)  The biggest observation I have about the startup community is how much it’s grown. Not just in terms of numbers but also in terms of thinking and ideas. I remember there was a time when it was rare if I’d not heard of the products being pitched in a session before it was pitched. Maybe I’ve been out of the local scene too long, but last night was remarkable. So many new faces and so many new companies. And everyone seemingly open and willing to share. That’s truly awesome. Let’s keep this up Sydney.

The other thing that hit me only later was how good an event like this one is for the startupper’s soul. Sitting in front of the screen, obsessing about product and strategy and design and marketing and competitors and roadmaps and wireframes…. It can get uber stressful and feel like the  designer of the startup rollercoaster forgot to add enough peak bits. (Really, who does that?! *tsk*)

Going to an event like this one is how you get your highs fellow startuppers. The passion and enthusiasm you’ll encounter is so energising, you’ll feel like you just got back from a two-week vacation at the end of the day. (And then you’ll lose some sleep, but take it as jet-lag….)
I’d made a decision to get out there and get more involved in the community this year, do what I can for whomever I can, and I’m glad I did so. It’s gonna be so damn easy to stick to it with events and people like SydStart.

Oh, and I tend to take it for granted that everyone knows that I’m always open to a chat, coffee, brainstorm session…. ummm so now you know. I’m happy to help, so drop me a line, let’s talk startups!