Internal presentation to prompt conversation on product development process

1. Some thoughts on our ‘product
hacking incubator’ process
Version 0.1. Prepared by Nick. 28th Jan 2013.

2. Contents
1. Types of process
2. Why it matters
3. General processes to learn from
4. Personal experiences to learn from
5. Assumptions about our process
6. Financial targets
7. High level process candidate
8. Implications for the core Makeshift team
9. Practical recommendations
10. Summary of actions
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 2

3. Types of processes
• Ideation process - how we come up with new ideas
• Selection process - how we choose what to work on and invest in
• Development process - how we get products to market and manage teams
• Business process / model - how we make money out of the above
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 3

4. Why it matters
1. If you can't measure it you can't improve it (or invest in it)
2. We want to make a multi-product company, so we need a view of a higher level management process.
If we were just doing one product we'd just talk about the processes needed to ship that product.
Doing multiple means we need a way of avoiding spinning wheels but getting nowhere.
3. We want to create a culture of innovation and creative freedom - but also one of mutual value
creation. Process helps us avoid silos.
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 4

5. General processes we are starting with
1. Agile = Sprints, estimates, stand-ups, Product Owners, shipping frequently
2. Lean Startup = Building/measure/learn, Customer Development, Pivoting, MVPs
3. The design studio = Multiple projects, shared design languages, overlapping teams
4. Hacking = Getting good at getting fast, using existing stuff, experimentation
5. Tech startup investment ecosystem = Tiered investment stages, incubation, acceleration
ACTION: Get a reading list for all of us, and get copies of books on the desk.
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 5

6. Personal experiences we can learn from
• Paul and Stef's independent experience of doing different product centric startups
• Paul's experience of investing in early stage companies
• Stef and Nick's independent(ish) experience of running design studios
• Stef and Nick's shared experience of hacking on products together and Paul's independent
experience of the same
• Nick's experience of doing innovation process consulting for different big companies
• Paul’s experience of working on product development in different big companies
ACTION: Write a blog post on our experiences and what we learnt about shipping products people want.
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 6

7. Assumptions about our process
1. We want to make some significant money out of this business
2. We will always try to make evidence based / data driven decisions - this is hard at the start though
So, as a starter for ten…
Makeshift is an early stage product development company that is really good at creating products
that people want, and then building teams to take them to scale.
= Get good at making products people want
= Get good at building teams
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 7

8. Financial targets
• We'll make money in two ways: Revenue from software sales to end users, or, one off sales of whole
products to investors / acquirers, or, both.
• If Paul wants 10x on his £400k we need to create a business that could be sold for £16M with no
additional investment. This implies a business that reliably turns over £5-6M and is growing fast.
• Making money through model one we need products that make £100,000 a month = £1.2M a year.
We need to get three of these to get over our £16M valuation. Could be done in 3 years?
• Making money through model two we need to be selling whole products for £5-6M and need to have
done it three times? Could be done in 3 years?
ACTION: Create a credible three year business plan with revenue targets
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 8

9. High level process candidate
DECIDE DECIDE DECIDE DECISIONS
1. PITCH 2. HACK 3. MAKE 4. SHIFT
Have idea and create Create hack, do Launch it, get early Recruit a dedicated
mini business case, customer research, adopters, measure team, turn the hack
including estimated iterate project costs response, prepare full into a reliable product,
project costs business plan and costs get more users
~£1k ~£8k ~£30k ~£70-150k
~2 days ~2 weeks ~2 months ~3-6 months
5. RAISE
Raise external finance from appropriate
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy sources to invest into the business once we 9
have demonstrated revenue and growth

10. Implications for the core Makeshift team
• Product guys - takes responsibility for product vision and getting product shipped within the agreed
resources. Should be able to do some design, tech or marketing work, and be very comfortable and
able to support specialists doing this.
• Tech guys (hackers) - take responsibility for developing complete end to end software product. Needs
to conform to our shared software stack so we can get more than one person working on the product.
• Marketing guys - support product design from a marketing perspective and the early stage marketing
of the products
• Graphic guys - we need lots of freelance branding / graphics guys who can swoop in and add polish
• IMPORTANT - I think that product guys have to be separate from tech guys. Debate.
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 10

11. Practical recommendations
• Two week rhythm
• Get good at making decisions
• Get good at holding product leads accountable
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 11

12. Practical recommendations
1. PITCH 2. HACK 3. MAKE 4. SHIFT
• Anyone can do a pitch. We review pitches every two weeks.
• To go to the Hack stage we need to see a clear project plan, a product and business
hypothesis with projections, and there must be a product guy and a tech guy that
want to do it. The project plan is really important, because it allows us to get other
people in to work on stuff.
• You need a simple majority to get to the Hack stage.
• This team then gets its funding to do the hack and has to report in every two weeks.
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 12

13. Practical recommendations
1. PITCH 2. HACK 3. MAKE 4. SHIFT
• To go to the ship stage there must be a working prototype for us to
evaluate, and some validated customer demand (probably qualitative)
and a more detailed financial plan for the product and business. There
must also be a detailed resource plan.
• You need a consensus to get to the Ship stage.
• This team then gets its funding and has to report in every two weeks.
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 13

14. Practical recommendations
1. PITCH 2. HACK 3. MAKE 4. SHIFT
• To get to the Make stage you need evidence of use and growth.
• That's it.
• No product stays in ‘make’ for more than three months.
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 14

15. Practical recommendations
1. PITCH 2. HACK 3. MAKE 4. SHIFT
• Lets talk about this when we get there?
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 15

16. Another way...
Sack all this off for now
and just keep it open and
very experimental?
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 16

17. Actions summary
ACTION: Get a reading list for all of us, and get copies of books on the desk.
ACTION: Write a blog post on our experiences and what we learnt about shipping products people want.
ACTION: Create a credible three year business plan with revenue targets
ACTION: Start working to a two week sprint rhythm
ACTION: Start writing project plans for Bitsy, Listerly and Help me Write
ACTION: Create a standard pitch presentation template
We make products that give a leg up to the little guy 17