Tanner Green

Product for Engineers dropped another awesome post recently: How we decide what to build. It’s a beautiful building-in-public look at how PostHog goes about product development. There is so much to learn from this newsletter. I love it. https://lnkd.in/ewNBSpu4

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Someone asked me how to move from SW to HW / robotics as a kickass builder excited to jump in. Love it! My response: robotics needs more great SW leaders who treat HW like a commodity, figure out a huge market need / GTM path, then pull in a team to unlock that.  With a SW mindset and SW architecture thinking. A lot of MechEs in love with their tech and the HW.  The HW is commodity - hard but commodity - and SW is where the interesting stuff is.  Simpler is better.  Most important is problem selection.  That is where you make / break the company and idea. And yes - there is HW innovation to be had - and I love folks doing that and doing it well. But there are far, far more opportunities for automation and problem solving with huge value creation now, with basically commodity OTS HW and SW. Choose problem, assemble solution, kick butt.

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What sets off alarm bells in my head? 🫨 Hearing early-stage founders make statements like, “We have a consumer product and a business product.”  🚨 Or “We are expanding to four new vertical markets this year.”  🚨 Or “We’re going to light up our reseller channel now.”  I see a lot of startups on the other side of getting stuck and I can tell you lack of focus is a huge problem. I get it: Staying true to your core—the one thing you do well—is tricky when you feel the pressure to grow from investors or people you hired to grow the business.  What’s key is being in deep alignment with your board and team around the reality of the learning process and what really matters. Stay lean and disciplined until you have proven your “one thing” beyond a doubt. Then you can raise money and grow faster when it’s irresponsible not to.  #Startups #Entrepreneurship #Reignition #Focus #Metrics

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Have you ever thought about how compliance laws are a lot like design systems? I recently spoke with Joe Toscano, founder of DataGrade, and he made a fascinating comparison. Joe explained how Brad Frost's atomic design methodology took an engineering approach to design: → Creating standardized elements → Templatizing them → Scaling them across a system This led to the rise of human interface guidelines (HIGs) from tech giants like Google, Apple, and IBM. But here's where it gets really interesting: Joe argued that privacy laws and regulations are like the ultimate HIG for product design. Just like how HIGs provide rules and constraints for design systems... Compliance laws set guardrails for what we can and can't do with user data. If we design something that isn't compliant, it doesn't matter how sleek the UI is. Legal requirements become the top-level framework we have to design within. That's what got Joe into studying laws - to understand this new "design system" for building products. So next time you're cursing a lengthy legal doc or trying to make sense of GDPR... Remember, it's all just part of the atomic design of compliance. — Do you agree with the analogy of compliance laws as the ultimate design system? Why or why not? Hear more of Joe's unique perspectives on the intersection of product, privacy, and law on the latest episode of The Minimum Viable Podcast.

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Hit a product development roadblock? Here’s how I guide my clients to breakthrough! ↓ Stop trying to push through without a plan.   Start identifying and solving roadblocks strategically.   Product development roadblocks often get a bad rap because they’re seen as "unavoidable setbacks."   But that's not how you should approach them.   Instead, treat each roadblock as a stepping stone to a better product. Here are 5 steps to help you identify and solve development roadblocks: 1. Pinpoint the exact issues slowing down your progress.      - Think of it as diagnosing the root cause of a persistent headache. 2. Break down each issue into smaller, manageable tasks.      - It's like turning a mountain into a series of small hills you can climb. 3. Use clear, actionable steps to address each task.      - Imagine you're following a recipe to bake a cake, one step at a time. 4. Highlight past instances where overcoming a similar roadblock led to success.      - Share these stories like you’d share a tale of triumph over adversity. 5. Implement a simple feedback loop to continuously identify and resolve new roadblocks.      - Think of it as regularly checking the oil in your car to ensure a smooth ride. Jump on team meetings, and walk through how you plan to tackle each roadblock.  At the end, ask, "How can we overcome this together?" You’ll know you're solving roadblocks effectively when your team starts saying:   "We’re making real progress now!" Remember — you're not just removing obstacles.  You're paving the way to success.  📌 If you want to tackle product development roadblocks (without feeling stuck). —-------------------------------------------- Hey, I’m Mohit Srivastava ! Follow me for more tips on product development and technology. I offer valuable, knowledge-driven, and actionable advice on current trends. Want to develop your product and launch in 2024? I help Founders make their dream projects come true, by helping them with everything that is “tech”. #ProductMarketFit #productdevelopment #startupstories #saasproducts #ArtificialIntelligenceDesign #AI #aitoolsforbusiness #uiuxdesigner #designinspiration #startegy #competitionalert #riskmanagement #founderlife #nevergiveup #MVPs #FoundersDay #entrepreneurshipquotes #engineering #execution #ideas

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NWA and Tulsa friends, to build more local knowledge I'm making a list of NWA and Tulsa-based software startups, particularly B2B SAAS and analytics. So far my list includes AcreTrader, Nuqleous and SupplyPike. Who else should I know about? #startups

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This article showed up and was appropriate for what's going on in my world now and in September at Business Technology Association event in San Antonio. It's almost as if someone is tracking my interests. 🚀 AI, like all the next shiny things, without a real-world application to drive revenue is more than a distraction, it can be counterproductive with out an actual roadmap. Don't get me wrong, I rely on AI daily to increase my bandwidth and the team's efficiency, and it's working. 💪 We are able to do things faster, better, and most importantly reduce the investment needed by our clients to utilize the platform. We didn't get there as efficiently as we should have and the new shiny thing needed work. 🤖 ChatGPT, Claude, and embedded AI make a difference, but they're still only as good as the talent you have prompting the response. Thinking that AI will make you efficient at a new skill that others have invested years to be be subject matter experts at is not a great investment. 👏 West McDonald is a great conduit of all things AI and provides guidance for companies looking to explore areas of AI that are beneficial. I attened his break out session this week at the BTA event, and he gets it. West McDonald's partnership with Keypoint Intelligence is a great resource for you to consider when navigating this new world and I am positive he can reduce the learning curve for utilizing AI. 📅 In September at the Business Technology Association event in San Antonio, Texas, I will be sharing AI tools ERPIZO used to shorten and automate business planning processes from hours to minutes. 🙌 Faris Delija was instrumental in creating this workflow and he will be joining me to share our process that you can hopefully use with your team. We are not AI experts but found this process beneficial internally and for our clients. 🎙️ I will also be hosting a panel of business owners who have found benefits in AI and are willing to share their real world application. If you would like to share how you are using AI in your daily business, give me a shout or drop a comment in the post and I will send the link to get you started. It doesn't have to be rocket science - just beneficial and repeatable. 💡 The hope is, given the changes in workforce and the imaging channel model, we can combine enough of these processes to be more profitable. Brent Hoskins, thanks for the opportunity to participate! #AI #BusinessEfficiency #ERPIZOInnovation #AIInBusiness #BusinessTechnology #ProductivityHacks #AIPanel #BTA2023 John Cheney Tim Renegar Dale Fowler John Kuchta Jim Sheffield Mick Dean ERPIZO Brett Apold Michael Mertz Kyle Lasseter Suzanne Bandimere Randy Dazo

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This is a must listen to for anyone B2B founder. How to figure out Product Market Fit. One of best frameworks I've seen in a while. https://lnkd.in/ghSmhVNB

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A lot of pre-product, pre revenue startup clients approach Calibrate to architect, design, and develop their first web or mobile app. One common theme we see among many of these ambitious co-founders is trying to launch with a larger feature set based on what they THINK their users will find valuable. In scenarios such as this, our team always advises our clients to consider pairing back the feature set to an MVP (minimum viable product). We start this process by asking our clients “what are the critical features absolutely necessary to launch your product and start getting valuable feedback from the user base?”. Anything beyond that is speculation and unnecessary. In the startup world (or even with software SMBs are launching), it’s imperative to get to market as quickly and cost effectively as possible to start establishing a POC (proof of concept) and collecting feedback; MVPs ensure that happens. Through collecting real user feedback, clients can prioritize and execute on their roadmap (aka new features) with FACTS (aka data driven insights) v. CONJECTURE (aka speculating on what users want). Check out the blog article on our site for some tips to help narrow down the feature set of a product to an MVP: https://lnkd.in/gHTeynVb

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Next week is marking 📣 Trying to finish a few major code changes tomorrow. After the initial bump from Product Hunt and Hacker News traffic has subsided. I was able to keep users and customers -- but I will need to re-engage with new users and brainstorm on new acquisitions. Two main things: 1. Viral loop - the sharing loop is in there. I'd like to try to see if I can activate it. 2. Reddit launch - I'd like to launch to a few more subreddits to get new users and figure out additional places to launch.

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It’s rare to find someone who has gone through a decade scaling developer workflows in a single company. I sat down with Kent Wills recently discussing the evolution of developer platforms at Yelp and dove into their ownership architecture. Listen to full episode on Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Youtube: https://lnkd.in/g722icVw Some key takeaways: 1️⃣ Yelp transitioned from a monolithic codebase to a service-oriented architecture that improved code ownership and productivity. 2️⃣ Yelp has internally built most of the tooling circled around ownership to handle tech debt and track vulnerabilities. 3️⃣ Yokyo Drift is an internal tool to support migrations across the organization Pre-commit is an internal tool (now open source) to help standardize the coding practices 4️⃣ AI-powered coding assistance has the potential to further enhance productivity and reduce repetitive work. #developerproductivity #ownership

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YC is right about so many things, but I think it gives one piece of unhelpful startup advice: "Don’t worry about competitors; listen to your customers." This advice worked when there were few excellent tech companies. Just listening to your customers and building fast in tech was a way to differentiate. But that’s no longer the case. Listening to your customers is still essential but must be paired with a strong strategy. I have wasted a lot of time treating this advice as gospel. I built a product that a small group of people loved but could not break into the market because listening to our users was not guided by a sound strategy. In an increasingly competitive market, you must understand how you will differentiate from your competitors in a way that cannot be quickly copied or competed away. Ultimately, there are three broad approaches to do this: Do something your current or future competitors (A) can’t do or (B) don’t want to do. Approach (A)—traditional “moats” or “powers”—sounds great, but it requires particular circumstances when in a crowded market with similarly funded and sized competitors. (B) is often the right strategic move for most startups competing in a crowded market—doing something your competitors don’t want to do. Three ways to do (B): 1. Adopt a counter-positioned business model If most competitors pursue a particular business model (e.g., freemium, PLG SaaS), switch to closed free trials through salespeople. Or vice-versa. The model still must work with your segment and give you some asymmetric advantage. But if so, it will be hard to copy you. 2. Focus on an undesirable segment Find a sub-segment of your market that is unattractive for some reason (e.g., longer buying cycles, harder needs to satisfy, harder to reach) and focus on them. They still must have a burning problem that your product meets in a differentiated way. And there should be a path to grow deeper with or extend beyond them. 3. Narrow to an uncomfortable level so that it feels like your “TAM” is too small This is a subset of 2: Find a way to further segment your existing ICP into a more targeted/narrow definition. This deeper segmentation needs to be along a meaningful dimension that creates differences in needs, preferences, and behaviors. It's a bonus if this smaller segment is fast-growing (H/T to YC for the excellent advice). Often, people are scared to do this because of a smaller “TAM,” but focus is a source of power. TAKEAWAY Struggling to get traction in a crowded market? Start doing one of three things today: change your business model to something hard for your competitors to copy, focus on an undesirable segment, or narrow your ICP to an uncomfortable place. Doing so will help you run in a less crowded lane where you’ll control your destiny. — I wrote this with Alper Yurder 🤝 at Flowla 🌊 from a discussion about how we're competing in crowded markets. Check out what he’s building; he’s thinking about this right.

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One awesome thing about our work at Groops is that the organizations who seek us out are the ones who care deeply about their people. Summer Friday is one of those companies. Culture is built into their core values and shapes everything they do. Every decision they make is grounded in how it impacts the human doing the work. I know because they have Groops for their entire company and I also lead their executive Groop. We have been with them for over a year now. We bring experts in organizational psychology to meet with their teams on a regular basis, teach core content in high cohesion / high performing teams, and help them have regular, honest conversations about what is working and what they want to improve. We provide ongoing insight reports with recommendations so everyone stays in communication. So, we end up knowing our partners well. They invited us to lead a full day (virtual) retreat last week where everyone took a personality assessment and we spent the day discussing how team makeup impacts their performance, how engaged they feel, and the direction of the organization. This is particularly important for them as they are a virtual company and clear communication and exploration and articulation of team functioning are mission critical. Having these types of conversations is also how cohesion is built. Bravo Summer Friday. We are proud to be your partner. Awesome work Rob Simone, Sarah Roberts, CPA, Michael Cruz, and Alicia Wiedemann. You are great leaders. And thanks Charlotte Bingaman MArch EdM , Sydney Davis, and Allison L. Barnes, MA, PCC. I am proud to have you on our team. #peoplematter #workplacewellness #peakperformance #IOPsychology #IOPsych #industrialorganizationalpsychology #cohesiveteams #connection

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Half baked thought: would be cool to run a hackathon with your users. Basically match 1 to 2 users with 2 employees and build a product for/with them. Not entirely sure which users would self select into this - I’d assume power users, which may be limiting your builds. But maybe if you paid folks to participate you could get more invovlement? Generally think it’s an interesting way to bring in the voice of customer and build for actual needs

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Here is brutal advice for companies < $10 million. Firstly, I want to say this advice only comes from experience. I scaled Trade-In Tech to $14 million annually in 5 years. Then I grew Distribution Bros to $21 million annually in 2 years.

I’m now growing Inventoryy and we plan on doing the same thing. This is what I learned along the way… 1. Your business is worth nothing unless you have something proprietary. 
 2. The only true growth is when your profit doesn’t shrink. 3. A partner doesn’t make you 2x better, it makes you 100x better.
 4. Your data will be good to you, only if you are good to your data. Take this advice with a grain of salt… If you want to scale past $10 million, it will take a lot more. The underlying truth is it takes so much effort that any sane person would think you’re crazy for doing it. But that’s the level some love to play at.

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There's basically nothing proprietary about food delivery... Within the food delivery service industry, a few major players effectively form an oligopoly,(Uber DoorDash Grubhub )to name the big ones)- controlling the majority of the market and limiting competition. We see that here https://bit.ly/3W1IpeU , an interesting read about the future of food delivery services.🍟 🍔 Branded Hospitality Ventures Michael Schatzberg Jimmy Frischling Aron Hollander Zachary Kandel Purba Majumder Jordan Stack Josh Buchmann Tony Xu Ryan Parietti Howard Migdal Craig Whitmer #Restaurants #Hospitality #Technology #FoodDelivery

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A unicorn founder told me recently that Staff/Principal Engineers who have stayed at the same company for 5+ years are a bad fit for early-stage start-ups. I tend to agree with them. Their explanation was the longer an engineer stays, the more they may depend on the “scaffolding” that surrounds them. It’s a bell curve... they start strong, reach a high point of creativity, and then slowly start focusing more on upkeep instead of new ideas. The best move is to prioritize folks who are dealing with challenges and adaptability over titles/years of exp. because if you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind.

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Startups are inherently risky, but prematurely going all in is even riskier. Instill a bootstrapping mindset to get you to the first significant milestone. Not Product/Market Fit, but Problem/Solution Fit. Problem/Solution Fit is when you go from hoping you’ll create something people want to knowing you will. Spend three months now to save you three years later. The Bootstrapping Operating System: https://lnkd.in/gqusDjhU

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