David Cancel - Latest Comments

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

Alvin Tan — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 01:54:10 -0000

I would say that any sign that a customer is dilly-dallying is good evidence that you are not solving a critical problem. Critical problems are urgent and they can practically kill when not solved. Just gauging the relative bargaining positions of the parties would reveal whether the problem is big or critical enough.

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

Tom Asacker — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 17:21:00 -0000

Great post David. And I would add:

4. "I've never heard of it. Who's using it."

We are, after all, risk-averse, socially-influenced creatures.

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

Brant Cooper — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:22:59 -0000

@Vlaskovits provided a good example at Market By Numbers:"To wit, his site had gone down for a few hours, and he hadn’t known about it. In the interim, there had been nothing but silence. None of his users had squawked or had made it publicly known that the site was down and they were angry/frustrated/furious/going to switch providers/fed-up-with-this etc., etc."

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

Eugene Mandel — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:56:36 -0000

David, loved reading your post - actually, I did hear at least 2 out of 3 of your comments with regard to one of my previous products :).

To your question, here is my criterion:

1. Create a landing page that describes the upcoming product and lets visitors sign up for alpha
2. Promote it (bloggers, meetups, one-on-one interviews with potential users, etc.).
3. Give yourself one month. If during the last week of this period you don't see at least 5 people signing up for your alpha daily (without you talking to them directly), pull the plug.

-Eugene

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

David Cancel — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:17:27 -0000

Vin - I totally agree, especially with your comment on the importance of cohort analysis (see my Data-Driven Startups post).

My post is focused on the very early days of your product development before you have enough users and time-series data for a proper cohort analysis.

Thanks for the great comment.

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

David Cancel — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:14:16 -0000

Thanks Andrew, I'm pretty sure I stole that idea from you if I'm remembering correctly. It should come with attribution. ;-)

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

Andrew Warner — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:11:01 -0000

Love the link to HN.

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

Vin Turk — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:07:18 -0000

Good ideas but I think the volume of those types of responses in regards to overall product usage need to be analyzed before making rash decisions.

For example, if your product has 10,000 active users and you receive 5-10 of those types of responses each week, I dont think thats enough to warrant a pivot, or even re-segment.

I think a better gauge of if your product sucks is the attrition data on your users (how many use it once/never after signing up) using cohort analysis. Although this won't get you "what" sucks about your product, it will give you a general consensus of whether people find enough value in it to continue using it after the first few uses.

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

David Cancel — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:48:41 -0000

Chris-Thank you!

That means a lot coming from you. I've been a big fan of your blog for a long time.

Cheers,
David

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

Jon — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:45:38 -0000

Clearly, Basecamp.

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

Chris Yeh — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:38:52 -0000

Awesome post. I just RT with my highest recommendation. I wish all of my entrepreneurs would read this post.

Re: Startups Should Solve Critical Problems

Ruang — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:57:34 -0000

What's the useful app with the sucky UI that you're talking about?

Re: Announcing the Super Conversion Button

Terran — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:00:19 -0000

That's both pretty funny and pretty cool david! Sure makes creating new buttons easy.

Re: Data-Driven Startups

David Cancel — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:40:36 -0000

Kevin,

Thanks for stopping by. The only repeatable patterns that I know of all lead to failure.

I don't see the contradiction. I am suggesting tools to add to your toolbelt. If you were building a house I'd advocate for using a hammer, but using a hammer doesn't mean you'll be successful at building a house.

Re: Data-Driven Startups

David Cancel — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:33:41 -0000

Good point, totally different for your business. Most startups won't have enough users to warrant a cohort analysis.

;dc

Re: Data-Driven Startups

David Cancel — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:55:34 -0000

I totally agree with you! I don't use them at all, wonder what compelled me
to include them in my presentation....

;dc

Re: Data-Driven Startups

Hubert Palan — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:38:47 -0000

Great presentation! One thing though - I vote for using pie charts 0% of time :)

Re: Data-Driven Startups

kevindewalt — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:54:33 -0000

Nice presentation (and entertaining), but it looks to me like your assertion that "there are no repeatable patterns to startup success" is completely contradicted by the rest of your presentation.

Are you not advocating a approach that can be repeated?

Alternatively, wouldn't you agree that there are repeatable patterns for startup failure?

But overall great job and thanks for sharing.

Re: Data-Driven Startups

David Cancel — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:53:18 -0000

The fact that you have to update it manually is why I recommend Excel. It's
ok that it is painful at first, this is the GPS for your business, w/o it
you don't know if you wandering in circles. Startups are full of PAIN, get
used to it, brush it off and keep on smiling.

If your team finds this painful and gives up what are they going to do when
things really get hard?? Startups are rollercoasters, great highs and
crushing lows, updating Excel is a mild annoyance in the grand scheme of it
all. Hopefully you'll solve a real problem and make enough money to warrant
investing in automation.

;dc

Re: Data-Driven Startups

Aymeric — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 03:10:02 -0000

The problem of having a excel spreadsheet as a dashboard is that you have to update the data manually. So each time you want to check your dashboard, you need to update it first. It creates friction and you end up forgetting about your dashboard.

Re: Data-Driven Startups

rahulvohra — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:22:05 -0000

Great presentation!

You suggest a checklist in this order: operating dashboard, conversion funnel analysis, cohort analysis.

I'd say the checklist order is: operating dashboard, cohort analysis, and then the conversion funnel analysis.

It's what we're doing: we have a whole bunch of users, so we aren't interested right now in optimising our acquisition funnels, but we are instead most interested in engaging and retaining the users we already have.

Rahul/Rapportive

btw, we printed out and stuck up the Strategic Plan poster — love it :)

Re: Data-Driven Startups

jonathanmendez — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:44:38 -0000

that deck is kick ass amigo

Re: Data-Driven Startups

bonder — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:42:47 -0000

Great deck - I like that I got your points without hearing the audio. Most decks on slideshare can't say the same!

Re: Data-Driven Startups

giffc — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:47:26 -0000

You crack me up by saying reading is worthless, now go read these two books, but the root point is a good one :D Nice hard-hitting deck.

Re: Data-Driven Startups

Brian Breslin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:47:01 -0000

David do you have any links to sample dashboard spreadsheets? (slide 42)