Wednesday, May 11, 2011

First San Francisco Start Up Product Shoot Out!

Start Up Product Shoot Out!



Tumblr promo

What’s a Product Shootout?
Its when product people, developers and designers get together and draw their guns to shoot holes in a product, a demo, a biz plan, a user interface, a startup idea.

Sounds violent?

But it may be less painful to get candid feedback from your idealized market, potential competitors, and experienced professionals sooner than later. Better to kill the product/idea/process early on so you can pivot and move on to find your product/market fit, rather than continue blindly walking into a painful dusk…

Only for the courageous who aren’t afraid to ask the tough questions and point out the obvious weaknesses. Bring your SWOT tools! Product people need to develop this muscle to fight against the smug kool aid being passed around San Francisco startups!

May 11, 2011 First Up presenting:
TryMyUI.com
If you’re a product manager who cares about usability and user-centric design, then you should check out TryMyUI.com and OpenHallway.com to help make your life easier.
Part of the same company, TryMyUI.com and …
Trulia
116 New Montgomery
San Francisco, CA
94101

See the full event details



In Today’s Silicon Valley Product Group Newsletter, Marty Cagan says “the single most important thing product owners can do to add value to their team, their product and their company is a user test.” http://bit.ly/l1oHry


MeetUp Report
Trulia.com hosted the event, providing ample pizza, salad and beer on tap. Many Trulia people joined us for the networking and food. They were extremely welcoming, gracious and happy! Which they told us is Trulia's intention - to provide homes for people and therefore provide the venue for events.

We had about 20 people during the course of the evening - with some leaving early and some arriving late - more than double the attendees at our first event.

6:30-7:45 networking, food

7:45-8:00
introductions, Cindy mentioned weekly Global Product Management Talk on twitter, and everyone went around the room to introduce themselves. We mostly sat around a big conference table.

8:00-8:30
Tuyen Ho presented a short video on http://www.trymyui.co... and a demonstration of the product offering followed by intense Q&A from the attendees. One participant had done his research by signing up for the product and gave detailed feedback on the user experience and suggestions.

Questions and feedback ranged from target audience, current customers, demographics of video feedback, price points, competitive space, business case, customer personas, to suggestions for partner offerings, white labeling, consultant programs, navigation, marketing plans.

She offered a limited time promo to attendees (ending May 18): http://www.trymyui.co...

Tuyen and TryMyUI did a great job and withstood the battery of questions with no blood shed.

However, the audience was thirsty for more and we were fortunate to have another Product ready to be shot at! Tuyen was even gracious enough to lend her laptop to the effort when his Mac wouldn't connect to the projector.

Carlos Polo, an entrepreneur from Spain, demoed http://www.doocuments.com





(Plan:
issue challenge to SF StartUps to participate in ShootOuts and Duels.
Identify startups in same space to duel)