Key learning points on building a Rock Star product

On 14th June, a workshop on “How to build a Rock Star product” was held to equip entrepreneurs with a better understanding of what is a good product development process, furnish them with the latest news on product design and the know-how on the relationship between Scrum-based development and key business decisions. Speakers included Tanguy Lesselin of Cartouche, Andy Marks and Xiaodan Wang of ThoughtWorks. The workshop was co-organized with SGE.

Check out the key learning points generously contributed by the speakers from the workshop:

Tanguy Lesselin

• Work Lean and Agile from the start to get fast to Product-Market Fit (in other words, admit from the start that you may be wrong with regards to your business and product vision)
• Try to make sound business decisions with your product plan by thinking in terms of potential ROI
• Aim at simplifying your product instead of just adding new features Read more

How to make a Rock star Product? – 14th June

Having a Rock Star Product is a starting point for almost anything else. It attracts customers, investors, candidates, partners and the rest. The reality is that less than 0.1% of start-up projects get big, and that they each spend 80% of their cash and time on product development.

So how can you maximize your chances get to the KillerProduct fast? The answers lies partly in “Lean Start-up” and “Agile Development“. This is what the next workshop will be all about.

Whether you are a business founder or cofounder, or a technical or UX guy, if you want

• To have a better understanding of what is a good product development process
• To get the latest views and top worldwide experts on product development and product design
• To know how Scrum based development relates to key business decisions

And you:

• Have already developed a prototype or even a version 3 of your product/service
• Have 3-30 people teams
• Want to make more impact with your product

then you may be interested in attending this workshop “How to make a Rock Star Product? ”. (REGISTER HERE.)

Tanguy Lesselin, a serial entrepreneur who has launched and financed companies in content management software, innovative e-commerce, and online services, as well as an angel investor will first make the introduction on the subject and tackle the CEO’s perspective on what makes a good product and how to decide on a product roadmap.

Then, his two invitees Xiaodan Wang  and Andy Marks, senior Singapore consultants from ThoughtWorks, who are among the best experts in the world to talk about Agile development and User Interface Design will share their most updated thinking and practical advice with you on this issue.

Through technical, Product Design and Business perspective, they will help you crack critical questions like:

• Considerations for Product Design by Xiaodan Wang:
  • What defines a good product and why good design ensures the product’s success?
  • How to do quick’n'dirty user testing and prototypes to get the information you need?
  • How to find good designers?

 

• Speed versus Quality: Technical trade-offs for Startups by Andy Marks
  • Why is time-to-market so crucial if you are working for a startup ?
  • How does that necessity inform your technical decision making? 
  • Which technical decisions can have immediate, near-term and long-term impact on your ability to evolve, pivot and scale your application? 
  • How to invest sensibly in software quality?
  • How to responsibly delay technical decisions in times of uncertainty?

At the end of the session, we’ll also have a Q&A session with both Tanguy and the ThoughtWorks’ team.

 

Event details

When: Thursday, 14 June 2012

Time: 6:30PM -8:00PM

Price:  $45 $0 – subsidized by Microsoft!

Where: Level 22 CF-12, Microsoft Singapore, One Marina Boulevard, NTUC Centre – Singapore 018989

 

The session is subsidized by Microsoft. If you are interested, kindly register your interest. If you’re a startup that doesn’t fit the target as above, your registration may still be considered. As the number of participants is limited (we had over 80 attendees for the two previous sessions: “How to fire up your dream team” and “How the hell can we raise money”), we will come back to you within 48h to confirm your attendance.

Speakers’ biographies:

Xiaodan Wang:

Xiaodan Wang is a leading Experience Design consultant with ThoughtWorks Singapore. Prior to this she worked at Yahoo! and Microsoft on full life cycles of multiple international online products. She has extensive experience in iterative and user-centric design, and has a track record of improving KPIs for multi-lingual websites through in-depth market knowledge and understanding of local users. Besides her internet work, Xiaodan also published an interior design book “Contemporary China” with UK publisher Thames & Hudson, and is the co-author of book “London”, published in Shanghai, China.

Andy Marks:

Andy Marks is a 10-year veteran of ThoughtWorks and Technical Principal for the Singapore office, having previously been Market Technical Lead for the Melbourne and Perth offices in Australia.  Andy has significant experience leading, coaching and working in Agile software development teams. In his various roles within ThoughtWorks, he has been involved in solution delivery, coaching, mentoring teams

Tanguy Lesselin:

Back in 2003, Tanguy Lesselin had already co-founded, built, raised 6M Euros in venture financing, and sold the first company Tekora (web content management software) to a listed company. He then went on to start another one, CV Premium that became profitable from year two onwards and still enables executive job seekers to get help writing their resumes today. Tanguy’s third company, Sokoz, was the first live shopping platform back in 2008. It earned industry and media recognition, got 150K active members in just 6 months, and 350 high-end brands and pro-sellers operating on the platform. Tanguy raised 2M Euros from business angels and was nominated e-commerce manager of the year in 2010 by the leading e-commerce magazine in France. Today, Tanguy is working on a stealth startup in Singapore and also invests as a business angel.

That thing you (forget to) do part 3: Product management

Recently, I was invited by startup incubator JFDI.Asia to deliver a talk entitled “That Thing You (Forget to) Do” (inspired loosely from Tom Hanks’ movie “That Thing You Do”) on best practices of product development, management and marketing. In the last part, we focus on product management and how start-up teams should generate, organize and analyze data that comes with the rollout of the beta product (see part two). Read more

That Thing You (Forget to) Do Part 1: Product Development

Recently, I was invited by the incubator JFDI.Asia to deliver a talk entitled “That Thing You (Forget to) Do” (inspired loosely from Tom Hanks’ movie “That Thing You Do”) on best practices of product development, management & marketing. In this article, I will focus on product development and what lessons & best practices I have drawn from my own experiences.
Read more