
10x Client Productivity Start-Up - adammichaelc
I've got an idea for a software startup and wanted to get some feedback. I'm talking to a potential partner -- bouncing ideas back and forth.<p>We know what the problem is. Startups and even more established companies don't have the tools they need to create systems that work so that they can maximize productivity. Think "Franchising the startup and small business world."<p>In other words, there's no software that is designed to increase productivity -- to put powerful systems in place that stop negative inertia and establish a "creative and chaotic order," if you will.<p>Sure, there's google app's and there's Basecamp and Attask. But are these programs really about productivity? Think about it. What is productivity? How is it defined? How is it measured? Do these programs increase it?<p>As far as I can tell, no company in America is focusing on the heart of the productivity problem. And the software tools that are supposedly about "productivity" are really about "collaboration and goal-setting."<p>Collaboration and goal setting may be a part of productivity, but only a small part.<p>What we have so far for our overarching company purpose is that we want to 10x client productivity. We see productivity as a product of at least three things.<p>1. Happiness. You've got to love what you're doing to be productive. In other words you've got to be working within your values, within a frame of reference that inspires the heck out of you. We call this the iBeam effect. (If you haven't heard the iBeam story, it's awesome! I can't take up the space to write it here, but believe me -- it's really cool)<p>2. Theory of Constraints. A book was written all about this theory. The book's called The Goal by Eli Goldratte. My friend had the perfect explanation for the book, "Raw energy." I agree. It is written by a physicist that comes at business productivity from a scientist's perspective. It's written as a novel about a plant manger that is forced to either increase productivity or lose his job. It's very informative. Every founder should read it.<p>3. Finally, the software. Once we know exactly how to solve the problem, we will map out exactly what our software will do. It may have some of the features that project management software currently has, it may not. But the key aim of the whole endeavor -- 10x client productivity.<p>Measuring productivity. Although productivity encompasses the three points mentioned above, we are going to need something more concrete to measure it. So we decided to measure it in terms of either money or products delivered.<p>In other words, if a client  puts into practice the education and tools we give them, they should 10x either A. The money they make in terms of net income or B. The number of products they're able to ship / produce. We haven't decided which would be the better of the two to go with.<p>The two revenue streams we'll have are: 
A. Recurring revenue from software subscriptions and 
B. Sales of the educational tools we'll offer (interactive educational video presentations covering key concepts).<p>We want to give away some (or all) of it away for free to startups and have our paying customers be the more established small businesses.<p>Books that are inspiring us:
Art of the Start - Guy Kowasaki
The e-Myth Revisited - Michael Gerber
The Goal - Eli Goldratte
The Innovator's Dilemma - ?<p>We're still working out all the details, and this post isn't even the half of what we have discussed.<p>What do you think? Any comments? Suggestions?
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m0nty
"""In other words, there's no software that is designed to increase
productivity -- to put powerful systems in place that stop negative inertia
and establish a "creative and chaotic order," if you will."""

All other considerations aside, what you seem to be asking is for companies to
alter their whole way of working (plus adopt new software tools) on the
promise of "10x productivity". That's going to be a very tough sell,
particularly if you're just starting out and have no management experience.
Just as techies are suspicious of "noobs" with ambitious ideas but no code, so
managers are going to ask you about your track record right from the start.

It's almost like you're saying "I want to write a program which can create
love, then educate people about being in love" when really you should focus on
a specific tool for a particular problem, like creating a dating website or
something. Changing the insides of people's heads is the hardest thing you'll
ever try to do, so something smaller would be a more achievable goal.

It's good to be ambitious, but equally you need targets you can hit
immediately. Reduce the thing to its bare essentials then see where you can go
with it.

~~~
adammichaelc
"All other considerations aside, what you seem to be asking is for companies
to alter their whole way of working (plus adopt new software tools) on the
promise of "10x productivity".That's going to be a very tough sell,
particularly if you're just starting out and have no management experience."

I agree. Good point. My potential partner has about 15 years of experience in
consulting, software engineering, and business development for his clients.

A good way to help people see the value in our product/service would be to
illustrate with case studies from his past clients.

On your other point about asking clients to change too much, what I'm thinking
is that people will buy our product because of the quality of our marketing.
This will not require anything except a credit card and excitement from our
marketing (you can sell almost anything with good marketing; in our case
people will actually receive A LOT of value too, not just be sold on good
value).

Most people won't actually do what we suggest, but those who do will see the
results of what we've taught them. (Maybe 5% of people who buy our educational
tools will actually use them)

This may not sound like very many people, but if that 5% of people really do
have 10x their income as a result of the education we've provided, I will feel
great! And all of their business type friends will want to know, "Hey, what do
you attribute your success to?"

Then they'll say "XYZ company gave us the education and tools we needed to
become successful."

Not only will that be good for marketing and goodwill purposes, but will give
us new client testimonials that can be used for future marketing.

"It's good to be ambitious, but equally you need targets you can hit
immediately. Reduce the thing to its bare essentials then see where you can go
with it."

This is very good to keep in mind. I'll have to define a clear goal that we
can hit in the next couple months.

Thanks for the feedback m0nty!

~~~
skmurphy
What is the status quo that you are using to make the 10X promise? This will
change in different companies and goes to the hear of your promise? What is
the base for the 10X comparison?

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skmurphy
Some quick random thoughts. What are the last N tools that collectively
created a 10X productivity bonus for the type of work/products you are focused
on? What's the status quo set you are going to measure yourself against?

I think the non-engineering tasks are actually evolving more slowly and might
be the ones to target.

~~~
adammichaelc
Good questions. I'll have to think about those....

I'll go brainstorm and come back later with answers.

What do you mean by "non-engineering tasks are ... evolving more slowly"?

~~~
skmurphy
take a company of 25, 50, or 100 people. What fraction is not involved in
engineering/development. How has the content of their jobs changed in the last
10-20 years compared to software development. As a firm grows less of the
total headcount is in engineering, attacking these functions might yield more
productivity improvement. You have yet to answer my status quo question: what
is the baseline for your 10X comparison?

~~~
adammichaelc
I haven't been able to find an answer to the status quo question.

~~~
skmurphy
Without a baseline or status quo your 10X promise doesn't have a basis for
substantiation. Any new offering you are contemplating has to compete against
the status quo that your prospect is currently enjoying/using. You can pick
the status quo and say if you doing X (e.g. faxing documents for signature,
using Notepad and FTP to manage your website, flying 500 miles for a one hour
meeting) then Y may save you time, money, errors, ... But you can't just
promise a blanket 10X because what people will hear instead is you telling
them that they are really stupid.

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anamax
> Once we know exactly how to solve the problem, we will map out exactly what
> our software will do.

You usually don't know exactly how to solve the problem until fairly late.
Heck, you often don't even know exactly what the problem is until fairly late.

In other words, you're speeding up the small part of the problem.

