Feature Sequencing

One of the biggest mistakes I've seen companies make over the years is improper sequencing of feature sets.

For instance, if the users themselves are the hubs of a social network, then why would you launch a social networking application before giving people a reason to come to the site in the first place? That's like saying, "Hey, come to my nightclub tonight...nobody's here, you won't meet any women/men, but it'll be popular one day so just drop by and keep coming back until we get hot!"

FAIL!

I prefer to think through feature roll outs in a very methodical way -- I don't take any credit for this either, it's been done many times by many successful entrepreneurs over the years. I just happen to enjoy copying what successful people have done in the hopes of one day becoming successful as well.

In fact, I once attended a talk given by Joshua Schachter of Del.icio.us fame and he pretty much said the exact same thing I'm about to share with you...building the right features at the right time is critical to the success of a product.

In my mind this can be boiled down to a three step framework and if applied properly, could mean faster roll outs, higher quality products, greater user satisfaction and more opportunities for revenue generation.

Here's the framework in a nutshell:

Utility - First create a product that's useful for a single user. For instance, Del.icio.us was valuable long before you were able to see other user's bookmarks. In its first iteration Del.icio.us simply allowed members to store their Favorites/Bookmarks remotely, thus allowing them to retrieve these pages from any computer they happened to be on. Later on they exposed the social content discovery components that turned the service into the viral success it has become today.

Network - After you've made a product that's useful for a single person, there's a good chance that MANY individual people will find it useful. When you attract a large audience of individual users then all you have to do is pull back the curtains and allow them to start interacting with one another. It's obviously more difficult than that, but you get my drift.

Ideally you'd want it so every piece of data one of these users contributes to your site somehow adds value back to the whole network. For instance, on Del.icio.us, each time a user bookmarks a URL it adds to that URL's popularity across the system which provides all kinds of useful information for new users, visitors and members who already have that URL bookmarked. It also allows like minded people to find one another and use these new connections as a way to discover new content (e.g. if another member has a handful of the same bookmarks as me then there's a good chance I'll want to see what else he has in his favorites).

And then this leads to (hopefully) the final step in the feature sequencing framework: Revenue.

Generating revenue has become an all elusive component of this framework. I think there are a number of reasons for this but first and foremost it's because most people save this step for last while it should probably be right up there with the problem you're trying to solve.

While this may be the final step in this particular framework, it should be one of the first things a businessman thinks about. Granted, you can have a wildly successful product (and ultimately, a wildly successful business) by simply building something people love, locking them in through the network effect and allowing the revenue model to reveal itself as time goes on, but in my experience you'll dramatically increase your chances of monetary success if you think this through from the beginning and iterate on it just like you would the software.

Ultimately you'll want your utility, network and revenue models to dovetail nicely into one another - e.g. Google and contextual advertising - so it'll pay to think through this framework in a holistic manner.

What This is NOT

This is not a bullet proof way of thinking through your product development plans. It doesn't even begin to address the many nuances of conceptualizing, building and launching a product. It doesn't address user needs, market size, etc.

Simply, think of this as a "back of a napkin" way of testing your product roadmap. Conceptualize your utility, then figure out how that contributes value back to a network and then think about how to monetize that.

I know it may sound simple and probably pretty obvious, but I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting in on product development meetings and someone is pounding the table demanding that every feature plus the kitchen sink be included in "Product Version 1.0".

By testing your product roadmap against a time-tested framework like this one, you'll stand a much better shot at getting a successful product out the door in a shorter period of time, period.

Legacy and the Web

I know I haven't updated this blog in forever, but with good reason. We've been working our asses off at TickerHound -- I wish I could share the big secret with you now but you'll just have to wait a bit longer.

In any case, I was finally inspired to write a new post as I was on the train this morning.

I had my headphones on and two of my favorite songs played back to back:

Big Pun's: You Aint a Killer
The Notorious B.I.G's: Warning

Aside from the fact that they both have "Big" in their names (and rightfully so), the other thing these two talented artists have in common is that they've both passed away -- too young, might I add.

But here I am -- along with thousands of other hip-hop fans -- listening to these young men weave rhymes that are over 10 years old and still thinking to myself, "Damn, these guys are good". I'll be 90 years old one day (god willing) and I'll still be thinking, "Damn, these guys are good".

And that right there is the LEGACY these two men have left to this world. Their ability to take concepts, events and emotions from their lives and craft beautiful rhythmic sentences out of them.

The same applies to many creative people:

• Visual artists
• Film makers
• Actors and Actresses

These people, 100 or 200 years after they're gone, will have left a legacy here on earth that all future generations will be able to appreciate.

But what about us?

The rough and tumble entrepreneurs who are creating, crafting and weaving beautiful web experiences and products each and every day.

Sure, we make an impact now but what about 100 years from now?

Will our works of art (read: "our web sites") even be around then? What happens if we have to close up shop and shut down our sites?

All that creative energy just fades into oblivion.

And I know what most people would say: "that's business". And while I agree to an extent I have to imagine that the web is more than just business. The very nature of it makes it so that content can persist.

Our designers and developers put just as much creative energy into building a site as a Director would into making a film -- where's their legacy?

Sure, the "Portfolio" section of a designer's personal page or an item on an entrepreneur's resume/bio gives a viewer a brief glimpse into a product that no longer exists...but don't we deserve more than that?

Shouldn't someone be able to EXPERIENCE the sites and products we've built as we originally intended? Shouldn't they be able to ask a question on TickerHound, or vote for a story on Digg or find a great wine on Snooth?

I think sites like The Way Back Machine do a decent job at preserving a site's content, but not so much the experience.

I also think sites like Blogger, Wordpress, Flickr and YouTube have also greatly helped keep legacies alive - albeit in a static form.

But I think we need a new type of web archive -- one that allows a site's experience to persist throughout time. I want my grand kids to be able to go to TickerHound (even if it no longer exists as a business) and experience something I created when I was in my 20's.

What would a "legacy" service like this even look like? How would it function? Is it even possible?

I don't know.

All I know is if there were a way to make it so a young man, 25 years from now, could use TickerHound, Digg or Snooth (whether or not the businesses were still "alive") and say, "Damn, these guys are good", then I'd be one happy entrepreneur.

A Quote I'm Pondering...

From Brad Burnham at Union Square Ventures:

All of this means that you will see subtle changes in the way we invest our new fund. We will be even more selective about the early stage Web services we back, looking for compelling differentiation, a discrete market focus, and clear evidence of sustainable user growth. You will also see us invest selectively in later stage opportunities that we believe are poised to grow as more users become more dependent on the Web to manage their daily lives.

I concur...

Wrestling with Midgets...oops, I mean Widgets...

I'm a big believer in the web trending towards disaggregation.

I have this vision of the web as a gigantic supermarket with all of these different items on the shelf. And we, as consumers, get to stroll up and down the aisles picking and choosing what we want our dinner plate to look like.

But, picture life before supermarkets - before America operated as a surplus economy. We ate what we killed or what we were given. Same goes with how we used to consume content...

In the mid-late 90's it was all about the "portal" and the aggregation of as much content as possible. We would go to the portal that had the most content (e.g. Yahoo!) because chances are we'd find something we liked there.

Then we slowly evolved towards the aggregation, indexing and searching of content via sites like Google, Digg, etc.

But now we're at the point where people are savvy and willing enough to take charge of their experience on the web and decide what their "dinner plate" will look like. And if the web is the super market, then the widgets are the groceries.

For those that don't know, a widget is basically a small software utility that resides within another web site...think of it like having a site within a site. Some widgets play music, others allow visitors to communicate with one another, etc.

For entrepreneurs of today, widgets will play an increasingly important role in how we build our respective businesses. The game has changed from, "How do we get the community to come to us?" into, "How can we go to where the communities already are?".

The most popular application of widgets has obviously been on sites like Facebook and MySpace where widget developers have been able to build monstrous followings in very short periods of time - I've seen some Facebook widgets explode from 0 to 5 million registered users in a few short weeks. That's unprecedented in the "destination" web, but when you go to where the audiences already are, you really begin to leverage the physics of the "widgetized web".

So how does this apply to me and TickerHound?

Well, since we have such a belief in the web becoming more decentralized, we want to capitalize on that trend and position ourselves to take advantage of it. So we're building a suite of widgets for TickerHound that other financial publishers, content providers and communities can use to enhance their sites and make their lives easier.

We've already kicked off development on a couple of the widgets but now that we're approaching the more complex stuff, we've been wrestling with some tough questions.

I'll be sharing some of those issues here and on the TickerHound blog in the coming weeks. I hope to get some great feedback from all of you!

The TickerHound Battle Station

Ok fine, it isn't a battle station, but we love our offices nonetheless. So, we figured we'd share some photos of our lovely office space with you today. If you're ever in lower Manhattan please let us know - we're only a couple of blocks off of St. Marks Place and are always up for a cup of coffee with other TickerHounds.



The view! Silicon Alley at its finest!



The TickerHound conference room -- where all the planning for world domination (oops, I mean for creating a useful site) begins. :)



George, our technology guru, explaining the finer points of how the site works...go George!



The WHOLE office!



Wow, we do have some funny looking people working here ;)

We hope you've enjoyed our little tour of the TickerHound office...come back again soon!

TickerHound.com has Launched...Finally!

So we finally did it, we got TickerHound outta the dog house and back on the street!

For those who don't know, this is the project I've been working on for the better part of this year and I can't even begin to describe how happy, relieved and stressed I am (yes, all at the same time).

Happy - that the site is finally out there and getting used by investors for the first time.

Relieved - that it actually got launched on time (we set a pre-Christmas deadline and we beat it by a week!).

Stressed - we had our initial burst of traffic yesterday (not even a lot compared to other sites) and the site started to lock-up. We've got some code optimization to do! But not to worry, we have such talented people over here that I know this will get taken care of sooner than later.

Now my goal is to spread the word about what we're doing and get as much feedback as possible from our members. I really want to include them every step of the way in our planning and product development process.

That's the beautiful thing about doing business on the web - there's never been a time in history where businesses could rely on REAL TIME customer feedback to augment their product development process and strategy. Before the web we had focus groups -- people would come in, use a product in a controlled environment and answer a questionaire. This took time, money and you never got a very clear picture of how a product was used in a more "natural" setting. Don't get me wrong, focus groups are a useful tool and they have their place in a product development process (even a digital one). But, when I can use an automated tool to tell me exactly which links, features, and text are the most appealing to my visitors then I feel that I'm operating with information that will help me make the best possible decisions.

And forget bringing people into a room to answer questions - we have polls, blogs and forums where we can get information from customers right away. Not only d we get great information but our members now have a vested interest in the success of this product because they helped build it! Think about how powerful that is.

That's really what this is all about - building a service that will solve a problem for real people. If we keep listening to our members, giving them what they want and solving problems for them then I'm sure we'll do just fine in this market.

So definitely give TickerHound a look - I'd love any and all feedback.

And check out the official launch post on TickerHound Blog's by clicking here.

Mixed Feelings on Facebook's new Ad platform

So yesterday at ad:tech Facebook announced its long awaited ad platform. Here's a quick recap:

New services:

• Beacon - Beacon gives site owners the ability to integrate a user's actions on their own site into Facebook's newsfeeds. So if you have a customer who is also a Facebook user and they buy something on your site, it'll get displayed in their news feed.


• Social Ads - The social ads tool allows you to take Beacon a step further by having these "social actions" broad casted to people outside of your customer's network on Facebook. It's also highly targeted - you can target by gender, age, location and even political affiliations.


• Facebook pages - Now businesses can set up a page on Facebook where they can recruit fans/customers (new phrase: fansumer), and use FB as a new point of contact. The pages allow you to set up photo areas, discussion boards, a wall and even a messaging center so it's easy to keep in touch with your following. It's basically a souped up version of Facebook Groups.
  


• Insight - Facebook Insight is an analytical tool that helps you measure your reach and penetration into your target market on Facebook.

I must say, it's a pretty comprehensive suite of features and it definitely shows some forward thinking on Facebook's part.

But in light of Google's OpenSocial announcement last week, I don't see this as being a killer app.

If you look at the argument I laid out in my last post, you'll quickly see how Google has the potential to cripple Facebook's ad platform. I mean, all Google has to do is get the rest of the social networks (and it's network of existing publishers and advertisers) to line up behind a new social ad platform, and then POOF, Facebook's value is greatly diminished. It becomes just another site to advertise on as opposed to a category killer like Google's AdWords.

Just as a side note, Google's AdWords is a category killer for a number of reasons. It's ease of use is just one reason, but the real value is in Google's reach (the network effect). The more publishers that serve Google's ads the more valuable the service becomes to an advertiser because they no longer have to reach out to all those publishers individually. The same will apply to any social ad platform that Google creates.

So all in all, Facebook showed some real vision due to the fact that this was a platform that had probably been in development for quite some time (definitely prior to the Google announcement). But they'll have to do a lot more if they want to protect their castle.

Choosing the Right Vendor

When it comes to the topic of building and designing a web application, I can really say that I've been on both sides of the fence.

I've owned and operated a development studio before and now that I've gone through the tedious process of finding the right people to help build my own web property, I feel that I have a unique perspective on this (possibly) tortuous process. So, I wanted to impart my knowledge (or lack thereof) upon you and hopefully it'll be helpful as you go forth and try to take over the world.

I. Define The Scope and Goals

The first mistake that many people make when hiring a new development or design firm is that they fail to accurately convey the scope and goals of their project.

It's easy to say "I want this feature and that feature" - and I'm sure many out there have fallen victim to the "Design by Metaphor" (e.g. "I'm creating a MySpace for rock collectors") trap. Thinking the project through, from how it will function all the way to how the end-user will actually interact with it, is where the first step in a successful project begins.

For example, on my latest application I wanted there to be a notification system on the site to tell users when new content specific to them appeared. So instead of trying to describe the feature or relate it to something I saw on another site, I busted out my yellow legal pad and sketched it out, then I scanned it and pasted it right into the RFP (Request For Proposal). My developer literally thanked me and we haven't had to go through the usual "back and forth" on that feature once.

The other thing that's very helpful is to define end goals for the application. Right at the beginning set up success metrics for the app. This is easier to do if you're enhancing or redesigning an existing web site because you'll actually have benchmark metrics to compare it to, but even if you're building something from scratch try to conceptually think about what would define a "successful project." Then pass those goals onto your developer or designer - they'll now know what they need to do in order to make you a happy customer.

What this all really boils down to is expectation management -- if you expect one thing and get another you won't be satisfied. And when you're not satisfied it leads to a vicious cycle: you pass revisions back to the developer, they try to fix it, you're still not happy and now the project is late and you're getting angry and impatient. But now the developer is going over budget and they are getting angry and impatient and before you know it you're in their offices about to punch the project manager in the face...ok fine, maybe that was just me and it was only once, but you get the point.

Plan properly and set goals - that's the bottom line.

II. Finding Firms

This is probably one of the most difficult parts of the whole process. There are several ways to go about finding a firm to build and design your web application, some more effective than others. So for those of you who don't have a friend in the business or have never worked with anybody before, I'll go over some helpful ways to find a number of firms to send your RFP to.

1. Personal Referrals

This is by far and away the most effective way to find a quality design and development partner. If someone you personally know is willing to recommend a firm, then chances are they do quality work. Think about it, why would someone risk the screaming match you'd get into afterwards if the firm they recommended to build your "dream" sucked?

So before trying the next few options, tap your personal network first. Ask why they liked the person(s), what level of service was provided post-launch, etc. I've found designers and developers 8 years ago that I still work with to this very day by going through my personal network of contacts.

2. Favorite Sites

This one is a little harder, but also very effective. If you have web sites that you absolutely love then you should check out their "About Us" section - they sometimes list their development and design vendors there.

If they don't, your best bet is to Google the site along with terms like, "Clients", "Portfolio", "Design", etc. That'll help you nail down the firm(s) that they worked with to get their site built. You can even e-mail somebody at the company, if they worked with an outside firm they usually don't mind referring business to them.

3. Blogs

Once you find a few design firms you like (either through your network or via Google) you might want to check and see if any of the head designers, developers or owners have their own blog. This can be one of the biggest assets you have in selecting a firm - you get to take a peek inside the mind of the people that might be building your web application in a few months. You'll immediately know if they share the same values as you, if they have a similar personality, etc.

It's very good for filtering out the good from the bad.

Case in point: We recently contracted with BlueFlavor.com to design the user interaction and information architecture for our upcoming application. How did I find BlueFlavor you might ask...through their blog!

I read through a ton of posts from every employee there and just knew that these guys were a quality shop.

The other thing that you can gain from a blog is access to other people in a firm's field. If they have a fairly popular blog then there's a good chance other developers and designers comment or post on it as well. I can't tell you how many other firms I found by bouncing around the comments section on some of these blogs.

The bottom line: Do as much research on a firm you're considering before you ever contact them. It'll save you a lot more time and heart ache in the long run -- and even if you don't like the firm, they might lead you to a firm that you love.

III. Make Sure the Shop is "Suitable"

It's very easy to say, "I want to find a great developer and a great designer", but what's "great" for one client might not be great for you. So you really need to find a company or person that shares the same vision and principles as you do.

I'll bring this back to my current venture to illustrate my point.

I have this big belief in minimalism in design - I think it's easy to make complex functions on web sites. On the other hand, I think it's very difficult to make a complex function appear to be a simple one. And that's the beauty behind many successful web applications, they make the complex appear to be easy. So that was the first thing I wanted to make sure my design shop was focused on: minimalism and simplicity.

So when I was going through various portfolios I would tend to get a knot in my stomach when all I saw were Flash sites or pages with crazy colors and graphics everywhere. On the other hand, if I saw a portfolio that was filled with sites that had a lot of white space, small logos, were quick loading and yet had a high degree of interactivity, I'd be very pleased.

What helped me the most was sitting down with my partners and actually writing those principles down. It really helped us and our design/development firms decide if we'd be a good fit - or "suitable" - for one another.

IV. The BIG Decision

Ok, so now you've put together a tight RFP: it outlines the features, how the user will interact with them, the goals for the site and what your core principles and values are.

Then you went out and found a handful of quality shops that you sent your RFP out to. They all came back with bids and now you have to make the BIG decision - which firm do you go with?

They've all demonstrated an understanding of your application, you know they have the right experience and principles and after a couple of phone calls you should know which people you get along with on a personal level (very important as well by the way).

So now how in the world do you choose one proposal from another?

This can be gut wrenching - you're about to drop a substantial chunk of change on a single firm...it's like betting on "Red17" at the roulette table and crossing your fingers -- but it doesn't have to be. If you come up with a strict set of selection criteria beforehand, then you'll find it easy to choose the right firm. For me, I find that the following criteria really helps me narrow down my choices:

1. References - If a firm can't provide me with several quality references then I can't do business with them. With that being said let me make something else very clear, a firm will obviously only give you access to people who will say good things about them. However, you can tell from the quality of those references whether or not to take them seriously.

For example, if they give you the number of the CEO of XYZ Company, and XYZ's website is hard to use and gets no traffic then I'd take that less seriously than if they used Digg.com as a reference. Maybe it wasn't the design/development firm's fault the site wasn't successful, but why take any chances?

2. Transparency - If a firm can't clearly tell me why they're charging what they're charging then I won't use them. I'm a numbers guys and I break my time down to the minute each day - I expect vendors I work with to do the same.

So when a firm says that they can't tell me what their hourly rate is because they work on a "per project" schedule then I automatically assume they're trying to hide something. At the end of the day they may work on a per-project schedule, but they must use some type of time-based calculation to come up with their estimates. If they say they don't then they're either stupid or lying, either way I wouldn't want to work with somebody like that.

For me transparency is equivalent to honesty - and when it comes to honesty in business, I'd pay a premium for it!

3. Accountability - A firm that is willing to be accountable for their work is a firm I want to do business with.

For instance, we used an overseas development shop to write the core code for our latest application. In the agreement we put together with them they were the ones who added the "financial penalties" section - so if they were X days late on a particular milestone, the final cost dropped by Y%.

I can't even begin to describe the warm and fuzzy feeling I got in my stomach when I saw that.

Happy Hunting!

So in conclusion I wanted to wish you happy hunting in your quest for a quality developer and designer. It's a tough decision to make and it's arguably one of the most important ones.

If you work with someone good then you can focus on building a business and not playing "baby sitter." You also get your product out the door on time and it'll work and look how you wanted it to. Also when you feel comfortable with your site you'll be able to go out there and be confident when pitching customers, partners and investors. That's why some of the suggestions I've made may seem time consuming and tedious, but in the end the upfront time investment will pay off in spades down the road.

Good luck!