May 9, 2014 at 02:2612 lessons from project management and startup startups
I have developed about a hundred projects, including startups. Many of them reached a peak and died, some still work. Did both B2C and B2B.
Recently, there has been a stream of questions from acquaintances and friends who make the same mistakes. I would like to tell about my experience in the thesis post. And if he is successful, continue the series.
If you are too lazy to read - a video that expresses the main spirit and main meaning is at the bottom. The ad will be admirable - great, go do another release. The video will cause rejection - read the post before another reaction as much as you like :)
One of the first startups in my life did not take place because of the four friends who decided to make, nobody really wanted to make a project. If you are not able to think about a project and take real steps during each day of the month, you might not want to do a project.
I do not know how others do with this matter. Unless you read the same thing from colleagues and masters. But the idea is simple - in order to say about the solved problem, there is a phrase “here is the result”. In order to say about the <100% result, everything else exists. The problem is that bringing to the end always takes more effort, time and labor (sometimes by orders of magnitude), and it is not known where the border is.
We have undertaken several times over a certain time frame to make a project, not taking into account that a project is always uncertainty. And I did not start many projects simply because after the deadlines I was disappointed. Conclusion: get ready to plow until victorious at first, until the obviousness of the result is clear to everyone.
As early as 14 years old, looking at the yellow pages that were successful then, I first studied Perl, then the first ASP that appeared then, and launched search directories. But they did not take off, despite the fact that I really liked my code, and how it worked.
Knowing nothing about traffic, conversion, market capacity, and so on, I failed after failure.
And it will be with most of those who dare not study experienced businessmen and their actions on the path to success. Very well, in my opinion, and fully the first volume of knowledge is presented in "Startup without a budget" - take it and do it. Unlike motivational books from 37signals, which are unlikely to help a beginner with an idea.
Most people suffer from so-called cognitive distortions (google and read - the first step, do it). Just recently there was an article about Lucy at Megaplan, very cool. The bottom line is simple - the Dunning-Krueger effect, like the Dulles plan - does not exist, but it works.
As long as you sacredly perceive either your beliefs about the ability to make a startup, confidence in success, as well as unconditionally believe in any books - you are doomed to failure. As I was doomed to failure, I believed that motivation and unreasonable self-confidence guarantee a result. Making the city portal on a self-made engine with a partner, I was very confident in success and did not question anything for a minute. The project is still alive and feeds the partner with Google and in other ways, but this is not a success story.
My favorite example is hygiene. How many people know about the dangers of smoking and smoking. How much - what you need to wash your hands before and after the toilet, and do not wash. Etc. I thought that the read books “Perfect Code”, “Refactoring” would make my code brilliant - but that wasn’t without hours of disassembling someone else’s code and working on my own. I also thought that “Getting real”, by convention, will help to learn how to make successful projects - no, it does not work. Successfully launched a pair of startups in rare niches gained 500-3000 daily visits to the target audience and became indispensable in a number of large offices, but they were also quickly buried by my inability to develop projects further and experienced competitors.
Some kind of shift occurred after 2 years of work of 12 hours, 6 days a week under the guidance of an experienced project manager, a qualitative shift. Only then did the projects that I did and implemented became work for me, and not by pointing a finger at the sky. Therefore, until you do a dozen or two projects yourself or with the guidance of a mentor, most likely you will not learn to practice anything. And geniuses like Zuckerberg learn themselves and quickly - Mozart also composed operas when he was 11 years old. Do not be equal to them, if you are not a millionaire already - go along the normal path of developing standard skills.
I had a moment when we came up with a cool idea, as it seemed to us. We tried to make niche sites, for starters - for beauty salons. I was glad and did my best to calculate prices. Well, we thought with partners really try to sell and made sure that in beauty salons are completely different needs. A couple of months, the theme flew without a single sale.
There was also a great idea for an outdoor advertising aggregator, and I did a lot of strength, prototypes and promotion for it. But in reality it turned out that outdoor advertising agencies all need individual solutions, the problem is actually in the current base with prices. And the operators themselves (owners of the planes) do not go at all, they already have a carriage of people ready to buy for many months to come. Plus, there turned out to be one very tough competitor who in the bud crushed me and a number of the same guys in the respective forums and in the audience. A competitor who owns the planes. I eventually sold several sites with outdoor advertising engines and scored on it. Although a couple of years later a former client came up with an offer to become partners - I’m IT, and he type works with clients, I did not develop this cooperation, because he made a strategic choice in another niche and project. Especially against the backdrop of the fact that the outdoor potential in the Russian Federation fell and is falling - after half a year everything went worse in the outdoor, and I felt the right choice.
Therefore, the conclusion is simple - any idea should be tested taking into account reality, the market and a niche, customers and competitors.
A lot of friends come to me with B2C ideas. They think how to do it right away and cool, but we will consider this further. I will give you a simple account of why some ideas gave me money after the implementation (the same outdoor advertising, special guides, engines and admin panels are highly specialized), and people still stomp with TK or prototypes. I don’t take money from friends, but when startups come for an audit, sometimes I take for consultations. But it does not help much - see above about skills and the lack of awareness of wrongness.
The meaning is simple. Let's analyze this idea - a person chooses interests, and he is given quests. After that, he goes through quests of his interests, performing actions, and the companies that pay money are the source of quests. This is a plane with 8 decks (which they built and it shines and shines, and on the first take-off, the pilot says, “And now with all this muin we will try to take off).”
We take and limit the niche. Let's say we have a selection of contractors for organizing the holidays. It immediately becomes clear - on the one hand, we have those who organize holidays (Event agencies, people with good incomes at home, corporate secretaries on their own), and on the other hand, a very finite set of contractors. You can already go find your competitors. Talk with those and others, find out their problems and solvency. Calculate the market capacity, multiply by the average check and get the expected income. Also calculate the necessary rate of revenue growth, and expenses to serve the client. And the cost of launching the first real version to test the theory with practice.
That's the way it is with any “super-general” ideas. A specific example is the Eruditor group. They made and tested the scheme on tutors, then they started it for doctors, stars, etc. Do not be afraid to make a niche idea - if you succeed in it, scalability in neighboring and lard stories will be a matter of mechanics.
Actually, when I launched the comprehensive admin engines, it was not for sale. And when he began to sell admins for specific types (an inventory in a company with custom fields a la Zoho, a form with a contract generation for automating a network of stores selling business mobile phones, etc.), the money went.
Communication with customers and observation of competitors is where everything should begin and end. Everything else, as a rule, should be tied to these processes. Customers - survey, sale, feedback, ideas, etc.
As one smart guy wrote, find 10 people before starting the project who will give you money for him right now. And another 100 people after the launch.
At a slightly later level of professionalism, another phrase of one author will steer - in order to manage a project, it is enough to manage its risks. But this is a completely different story.
This is perhaps the largest and cornerstone in the launch and development. My project on the “turnkey” super-work for everyone has not yet taken place (a framework for a programmer + SaaS for business, customizable MS Access online, in fact). At first I began to make a super cool decision. Then he abandoned it, for there was no end in sight. Then they found Zoho. And then the guys whom I found after a couple of years of their failed idea, who wrote to me on Habré and asked how are you.
They stepped on this stone, they are stepping on and will be stepping on everything. The point is that you need to constantly strive to take a simple step and as quickly as possible. Get feedback and move on.
This contradicts something very deep in us - the programmer is trying to write perfectly, the designer is drawing, and the project manager is making an eight-deck aircraft right away. The problem is that it works and is needed in the construction of buildings. And in Internet projects this is prohibited.
The point is simple - if you have a burning thought to do "immediately and well" - postpone the project. While you will not seek to release every day, at least one button (ideally with a minimum of resources - "Startup without a budget" is actually called "Tualetnobumazhny businessman", look for why), and collect feedback for evolution point in doing a project there.
This kills 90% of my friends' startups, while my projects are already up and running, they still write TK in Villabaggio.
I do not know the arguments that would overcome this harmful belief. Only your own cones.
In the early stages, I was pleased with the feedback from lay people about the projects. But managing positive or negative without numbers is impossible.
Measure everything that is possible and what is impossible - sort out the error and figure out how to measure.
A typical example of what is being discussed, besides the obvious statistics of attendance. You can hear “bad design”, “you need a beautiful one”, “let's redraw” as much as you like. This is garbage in vegetable oil. Firstly, the project must earn the right to good design. Secondly, it matters only how specific elements (or their absence) affect your client’s solution of tasks. If you precisely, let’s say, have identified a client’s problem, made a decision, then write a user story. And optimize it by minimizing the number of clicks and mouse movements (A / B testing, etc.) and maximizing the indicator that you need (applications, sales, registrations).
All. Only numbers input-output, adjustment of the project and functionality for numbers, and no emotions.
When my former client suggested becoming a partner and doing a joint project on the outdoor, I figured out and understood two things. First, I’ll take it and physically don’t stretch two projects. And the second - making a project with an unclear future and not very fond of it (see below), I am missing out on opportunities for the project I am striving for and which is close to me.
By doing one, you are not doing the other. This is a fundamental principle, a couple of examples of its application. Making a beautiful design, you spend time and money, while you could buy a domain, a template for 10 bucks from wrapbootstrap and pay money to someone who really brings the project to life - the programmer. Making a large and complex prototype, you spend money and time and don’t get feedback from customers (with whom you could communicate), while a virtual competitor has already launched on Livestreet and plug-ins, traveled 10 offices, threw everything away and does it already, what I received money from firms. Sapienti sat.
Most of the things I did not finish. Bringing it to the end is a difficult thing; look for a lecture on process and productive people from a cool person and businessman, whom I respect very much, Sergey Kotyrev.
When you take on some kind of task - to increase the number of registrations, or there are views per person - then set a goal and go to it until you succeed. Of course, you need to reconsider - sometimes the goal can be unattainable. But in general, this is similar to the state of the flow during programming - you should focus as much as possible and think about it all the time, do, think, do until the result comes. For having abandoned even 99% of the way, you will then lose time, everything will roll back and you will have to start all over again.
Once we wrote an aggregator of special offers (a generator of leads from the site on promotions and discounts on the services of a group of companies), I already wrote this case. The first few weeks we focused, tuned application forms, content, traffic delivery channels, worked on conversion. And after a steady trend of traffic and applications, the project fed for almost a year, boiling down to updating content and regular marketing events.
I would like to end up with a message that really, you need to do what nature lies to. In the long run, if the project does not pretend you for real, you will lose to those who will compete and who will win.
I did not partly do this partly. I did not have experience in outdoor advertising, I did not want to deal with it, and after the acquisition, despite the clear money, my soul did not lie to this. But I like to do projects that automate processes and improve people's lives. As well as communicating with customers and making them satisfied and happy, solve problems. I think this decision has become one of the most important for me in recent years.
Find in yourself talents or features, and a project for them. Do a project, if after six months or a year you feel that the light is not on in his eyes and is not being restored in any way - change it to another, or after projects - look for another vocation. Remember the missed opportunities and the fact that we have only one life.
I could write many more points and I will do it if the article receives successful responses. Not everyone wants to read marquees and practice, but I really missed it and had to catch grains of gold, washing dozens of tons of sand books and lectures, tips and criticism.
For example, I left unsolved examples of successful and unsuccessful struggle with competitors, the choice of a scalable niche, the issue of partnerships, attracting users, working with clients and much more.
I want to wish all those who make projects, start-ups or work as a project manager, success in knowing themselves and the world, and achievements with failures, because achievements are encouraging, and failures are taught.
And I bring the promised video, which perfectly illustrates what I call the philosophy of a successful startup.
Recently, there has been a stream of questions from acquaintances and friends who make the same mistakes. I would like to tell about my experience in the thesis post. And if he is successful, continue the series.
If you are too lazy to read - a video that expresses the main spirit and main meaning is at the bottom. The ad will be admirable - great, go do another release. The video will cause rejection - read the post before another reaction as much as you like :)
1. The most important thing is desire
One of the first startups in my life did not take place because of the four friends who decided to make, nobody really wanted to make a project. If you are not able to think about a project and take real steps during each day of the month, you might not want to do a project.
2. Completion is measured by result, not time.
I do not know how others do with this matter. Unless you read the same thing from colleagues and masters. But the idea is simple - in order to say about the solved problem, there is a phrase “here is the result”. In order to say about the <100% result, everything else exists. The problem is that bringing to the end always takes more effort, time and labor (sometimes by orders of magnitude), and it is not known where the border is.
We have undertaken several times over a certain time frame to make a project, not taking into account that a project is always uncertainty. And I did not start many projects simply because after the deadlines I was disappointed. Conclusion: get ready to plow until victorious at first, until the obviousness of the result is clear to everyone.
3. Without knowledge you are doomed to failure
As early as 14 years old, looking at the yellow pages that were successful then, I first studied Perl, then the first ASP that appeared then, and launched search directories. But they did not take off, despite the fact that I really liked my code, and how it worked.
Knowing nothing about traffic, conversion, market capacity, and so on, I failed after failure.
And it will be with most of those who dare not study experienced businessmen and their actions on the path to success. Very well, in my opinion, and fully the first volume of knowledge is presented in "Startup without a budget" - take it and do it. Unlike motivational books from 37signals, which are unlikely to help a beginner with an idea.
4. Understanding your wrong is the first step to success.
Most people suffer from so-called cognitive distortions (google and read - the first step, do it). Just recently there was an article about Lucy at Megaplan, very cool. The bottom line is simple - the Dunning-Krueger effect, like the Dulles plan - does not exist, but it works.
As long as you sacredly perceive either your beliefs about the ability to make a startup, confidence in success, as well as unconditionally believe in any books - you are doomed to failure. As I was doomed to failure, I believed that motivation and unreasonable self-confidence guarantee a result. Making the city portal on a self-made engine with a partner, I was very confident in success and did not question anything for a minute. The project is still alive and feeds the partner with Google and in other ways, but this is not a success story.
4. Without the development of knowledge skills are not worth anything
My favorite example is hygiene. How many people know about the dangers of smoking and smoking. How much - what you need to wash your hands before and after the toilet, and do not wash. Etc. I thought that the read books “Perfect Code”, “Refactoring” would make my code brilliant - but that wasn’t without hours of disassembling someone else’s code and working on my own. I also thought that “Getting real”, by convention, will help to learn how to make successful projects - no, it does not work. Successfully launched a pair of startups in rare niches gained 500-3000 daily visits to the target audience and became indispensable in a number of large offices, but they were also quickly buried by my inability to develop projects further and experienced competitors.
Some kind of shift occurred after 2 years of work of 12 hours, 6 days a week under the guidance of an experienced project manager, a qualitative shift. Only then did the projects that I did and implemented became work for me, and not by pointing a finger at the sky. Therefore, until you do a dozen or two projects yourself or with the guidance of a mentor, most likely you will not learn to practice anything. And geniuses like Zuckerberg learn themselves and quickly - Mozart also composed operas when he was 11 years old. Do not be equal to them, if you are not a millionaire already - go along the normal path of developing standard skills.
5. The idea does not cost anything
I had a moment when we came up with a cool idea, as it seemed to us. We tried to make niche sites, for starters - for beauty salons. I was glad and did my best to calculate prices. Well, we thought with partners really try to sell and made sure that in beauty salons are completely different needs. A couple of months, the theme flew without a single sale.
There was also a great idea for an outdoor advertising aggregator, and I did a lot of strength, prototypes and promotion for it. But in reality it turned out that outdoor advertising agencies all need individual solutions, the problem is actually in the current base with prices. And the operators themselves (owners of the planes) do not go at all, they already have a carriage of people ready to buy for many months to come. Plus, there turned out to be one very tough competitor who in the bud crushed me and a number of the same guys in the respective forums and in the audience. A competitor who owns the planes. I eventually sold several sites with outdoor advertising engines and scored on it. Although a couple of years later a former client came up with an offer to become partners - I’m IT, and he type works with clients, I did not develop this cooperation, because he made a strategic choice in another niche and project. Especially against the backdrop of the fact that the outdoor potential in the Russian Federation fell and is falling - after half a year everything went worse in the outdoor, and I felt the right choice.
Therefore, the conclusion is simple - any idea should be tested taking into account reality, the market and a niche, customers and competitors.
6. Niche is everything
A lot of friends come to me with B2C ideas. They think how to do it right away and cool, but we will consider this further. I will give you a simple account of why some ideas gave me money after the implementation (the same outdoor advertising, special guides, engines and admin panels are highly specialized), and people still stomp with TK or prototypes. I don’t take money from friends, but when startups come for an audit, sometimes I take for consultations. But it does not help much - see above about skills and the lack of awareness of wrongness.
The meaning is simple. Let's analyze this idea - a person chooses interests, and he is given quests. After that, he goes through quests of his interests, performing actions, and the companies that pay money are the source of quests. This is a plane with 8 decks (which they built and it shines and shines, and on the first take-off, the pilot says, “And now with all this muin we will try to take off).”
We take and limit the niche. Let's say we have a selection of contractors for organizing the holidays. It immediately becomes clear - on the one hand, we have those who organize holidays (Event agencies, people with good incomes at home, corporate secretaries on their own), and on the other hand, a very finite set of contractors. You can already go find your competitors. Talk with those and others, find out their problems and solvency. Calculate the market capacity, multiply by the average check and get the expected income. Also calculate the necessary rate of revenue growth, and expenses to serve the client. And the cost of launching the first real version to test the theory with practice.
That's the way it is with any “super-general” ideas. A specific example is the Eruditor group. They made and tested the scheme on tutors, then they started it for doctors, stars, etc. Do not be afraid to make a niche idea - if you succeed in it, scalability in neighboring and lard stories will be a matter of mechanics.
Actually, when I launched the comprehensive admin engines, it was not for sale. And when he began to sell admins for specific types (an inventory in a company with custom fields a la Zoho, a form with a contract generation for automating a network of stores selling business mobile phones, etc.), the money went.
7. Remember customers and competitors.
Communication with customers and observation of competitors is where everything should begin and end. Everything else, as a rule, should be tied to these processes. Customers - survey, sale, feedback, ideas, etc.
As one smart guy wrote, find 10 people before starting the project who will give you money for him right now. And another 100 people after the launch.
At a slightly later level of professionalism, another phrase of one author will steer - in order to manage a project, it is enough to manage its risks. But this is a completely different story.
8. RERO in everything
This is perhaps the largest and cornerstone in the launch and development. My project on the “turnkey” super-work for everyone has not yet taken place (a framework for a programmer + SaaS for business, customizable MS Access online, in fact). At first I began to make a super cool decision. Then he abandoned it, for there was no end in sight. Then they found Zoho. And then the guys whom I found after a couple of years of their failed idea, who wrote to me on Habré and asked how are you.
They stepped on this stone, they are stepping on and will be stepping on everything. The point is that you need to constantly strive to take a simple step and as quickly as possible. Get feedback and move on.
This contradicts something very deep in us - the programmer is trying to write perfectly, the designer is drawing, and the project manager is making an eight-deck aircraft right away. The problem is that it works and is needed in the construction of buildings. And in Internet projects this is prohibited.
The point is simple - if you have a burning thought to do "immediately and well" - postpone the project. While you will not seek to release every day, at least one button (ideally with a minimum of resources - "Startup without a budget" is actually called "Tualetnobumazhny businessman", look for why), and collect feedback for evolution point in doing a project there.
This kills 90% of my friends' startups, while my projects are already up and running, they still write TK in Villabaggio.
I do not know the arguments that would overcome this harmful belief. Only your own cones.
9. Only numbers
In the early stages, I was pleased with the feedback from lay people about the projects. But managing positive or negative without numbers is impossible.
Measure everything that is possible and what is impossible - sort out the error and figure out how to measure.
A typical example of what is being discussed, besides the obvious statistics of attendance. You can hear “bad design”, “you need a beautiful one”, “let's redraw” as much as you like. This is garbage in vegetable oil. Firstly, the project must earn the right to good design. Secondly, it matters only how specific elements (or their absence) affect your client’s solution of tasks. If you precisely, let’s say, have identified a client’s problem, made a decision, then write a user story. And optimize it by minimizing the number of clicks and mouse movements (A / B testing, etc.) and maximizing the indicator that you need (applications, sales, registrations).
All. Only numbers input-output, adjustment of the project and functionality for numbers, and no emotions.
10. Remember the missed opportunity
When my former client suggested becoming a partner and doing a joint project on the outdoor, I figured out and understood two things. First, I’ll take it and physically don’t stretch two projects. And the second - making a project with an unclear future and not very fond of it (see below), I am missing out on opportunities for the project I am striving for and which is close to me.
By doing one, you are not doing the other. This is a fundamental principle, a couple of examples of its application. Making a beautiful design, you spend time and money, while you could buy a domain, a template for 10 bucks from wrapbootstrap and pay money to someone who really brings the project to life - the programmer. Making a large and complex prototype, you spend money and time and don’t get feedback from customers (with whom you could communicate), while a virtual competitor has already launched on Livestreet and plug-ins, traveled 10 offices, threw everything away and does it already, what I received money from firms. Sapienti sat.
11. Achieve a steady trend
Most of the things I did not finish. Bringing it to the end is a difficult thing; look for a lecture on process and productive people from a cool person and businessman, whom I respect very much, Sergey Kotyrev.
When you take on some kind of task - to increase the number of registrations, or there are views per person - then set a goal and go to it until you succeed. Of course, you need to reconsider - sometimes the goal can be unattainable. But in general, this is similar to the state of the flow during programming - you should focus as much as possible and think about it all the time, do, think, do until the result comes. For having abandoned even 99% of the way, you will then lose time, everything will roll back and you will have to start all over again.
Once we wrote an aggregator of special offers (a generator of leads from the site on promotions and discounts on the services of a group of companies), I already wrote this case. The first few weeks we focused, tuned application forms, content, traffic delivery channels, worked on conversion. And after a steady trend of traffic and applications, the project fed for almost a year, boiling down to updating content and regular marketing events.
12. Do only what your soul lies to.
I would like to end up with a message that really, you need to do what nature lies to. In the long run, if the project does not pretend you for real, you will lose to those who will compete and who will win.
I did not partly do this partly. I did not have experience in outdoor advertising, I did not want to deal with it, and after the acquisition, despite the clear money, my soul did not lie to this. But I like to do projects that automate processes and improve people's lives. As well as communicating with customers and making them satisfied and happy, solve problems. I think this decision has become one of the most important for me in recent years.
Find in yourself talents or features, and a project for them. Do a project, if after six months or a year you feel that the light is not on in his eyes and is not being restored in any way - change it to another, or after projects - look for another vocation. Remember the missed opportunities and the fact that we have only one life.
Conclusion
I could write many more points and I will do it if the article receives successful responses. Not everyone wants to read marquees and practice, but I really missed it and had to catch grains of gold, washing dozens of tons of sand books and lectures, tips and criticism.
For example, I left unsolved examples of successful and unsuccessful struggle with competitors, the choice of a scalable niche, the issue of partnerships, attracting users, working with clients and much more.
I want to wish all those who make projects, start-ups or work as a project manager, success in knowing themselves and the world, and achievements with failures, because achievements are encouraging, and failures are taught.
And I bring the promised video, which perfectly illustrates what I call the philosophy of a successful startup.