Category: startups
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Software Tree of Life follow up
I presented my idea of the Software Tree of Life at #LeanCoffeeKL #74. It was a pretty high concept session but I think it challenged everyone that attended. It certainly challenged me as the attendees brought up a number of interesting points I had not thought of. If you look at the full-sized whiteboard photo…
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The Software Tree of Life: Finding the shortest branch to success
The Premise Software is often described as a “living thing,” something that grows and evolves. Each point release offers a new evolutionary adaptation, spurred on by complications in the production environment, and sometimes a competitive business environment. One might discard this metaphor outright simply due to the common job title of software designer. Life has…
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The untapped talent well in Kelowna
In a constrained startup environment pushing for change it is important to identify and connect the “capable” members of a community. What I mean by “capable” is a bit nuanced, but effectively they are the “DO-ers” of society. If given the proper opportunity, these people could do great things, whether that means community engagement, creating…
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Startup Genome
https://startupgenome.co/kelowna-britishcolumbia-can/?embed=1&hide_filters=true&hide_right_side=true&global_search=false Are you on this map? A strong startup network will have a high density of links between a variety of different nodes. Through our startup events we can reach out to all our audiences and try to connect up all the nodes we can. But, not every node will be attracted to the events…
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Startup Kelowna: Events
There are a number of technology events that have a pretty decent following in Kelowna. The Okanagan Tech Sector Community Events Meetup group has 133 members. Digital Okanagan and OKDG each have almost 900 followers on Twitter. Startup Weekend Okanagan was by all accounts a great success. Last week, after our discussion of Startup Communities…
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Startup Kelowna: Audiences
Having an inclusive startup community not only means being accepting of new members or changes in the the network, it means pro-actively creating a variety of opportunities to allow new members to connect to the network in a manner most comfortable to them. When planning events we should obviously consider the entire entrepreneurial stack (first…
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Startup Kelowna: Network
When building the startup community here in Kelowna, I think it is important to remember that we are trying to build a network rather than a hierarchy. Networks are loose and informal, can be very inclusive, and most important are resilient. If a node or a few nodes on the network disappear, the network as…
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LeanCoffeeKL 60: Startup Communities
This morning’s #LeanCoffeeKL discussion about Brad Feld’s book Startup Communities (my review here) had a great turnout. We had 20 people representing the local startup and tech communities come out at 8am to discuss this book. Pretty amazing considering only two of us had read it. It was particularly encouraging to have the CEO of…
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Startup Communities
In the past few days I have devoured Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City by Brad Feld. Rather than write out a synopsis of the book, just check out the Startup Communities Book Trailer and watch Brad draw out the Boulder Thesis in about 3 minutes. If you want more, check out…
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Maximum Viable Product
How good can you make a Minimal Viable Product? Last night Allen Pike tweeted about a talk proposal on “Maximum Viable Products”. A conversation ensued. I thought more about what Allen proposed and whipped up a graphic of the wide spectrum of Lean product development: From the left, you have no product. Just some wireframes…