

Good way to find a passionate early stage startup looking for innovation help? - SVPMguy

The last few years I&#x27;ve been working for a major Silicon Valley software company, but have become frustrated by the relatively slow pace of innovation and lack of passion among co-workers. I&#x27;m itching to get back in at the ground floor at a startup (I&#x27;ve had previous success), but not sure where to start as most of the &quot;small&quot; company opportunities that come my way are pre-IPO companies that are already hundreds of employees deep. Due to previous career success, I am in a position where immediate compensation is not as important to me as finding an opportunity I am passionate about. I want to be given a mandate to help shape innovation strategy at a very early stage.<p>What I have to offer is three-fold:<p>1. Nearly fifteen years of technology Product Management experience, including the perspective and lessons that come from helping build a successful startup in the past, as well as managing successful enterprise products and most recently a $2 billion dollar Consumer software business.<p>2. I&#x27;m really interested in innovation as a discipline and would like to put into practice a framework for discovering the hidden underlying needs that can catapult an &#x27;ok&#x27; technology into a world-class success. Net-net, if given the mandate, I believe that I can save a startup from going through years of costly &#x27;fail-fast&#x27; pivots.<p>3. Because of previous startup success, I&#x27;m in a position that I can accept some ownership in lieu of initial salary, if the situation is right: i.e. focus on innovation is a major priority and I believe in the cause.<p>How might I find early stage startups in the Bay Area who&#x27;d be interested in exploring a potential relationship?
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shawnreilly
I commend you for being passionate about innovation. I share the same passion;
I firmly believe that innovation drives the future. I think there are a few
different ways you can approach this, but it depends on what you want to
accomplish. I find the idea of 'Innovation as a Discipline' to be interesting,
and perhaps something that might help a large range of Startups spanning
multiple industries. Making a comparison to fail-fast pivots alludes to the
possibility that 'Innovation as a Discipline' may represent a new approach or
methodology towards Product Development. If this is the case, you may find
yourself in a position to help a large number of Startups. However, if you are
looking to work with a few specific Startups and develop Products (not
methodologies), then my recommendation is to get involved with the Local
Startup Ecosystem. Specifically, events like Hackathon's or Startup Weekend
types of Events. Those are the types of Events where you will find a large
number of Groups/Teams working on Ideas and Products at the Ground Floor. I
imagine you could easily find a few different Groups/Teams working with Ideas
and products that you find interesting.

I recently decided to try an IdeaLab approach (or something close). My new
approach is to conceptually design new and innovative products, validate the
conceptual products with potential customers, and then build teams to execute
the conceptual products. So it's kind of backwords, you are working on the
product before you build the team. But then you build the team and work on the
product. I'm interested to see how this turns out!

~~~
SVPMguy
I have what I believe to be an excellent innovation methodology, but it's
tailored to more established organizations with significant means.

The methodology involves talking to potential customers before you hire a team
of developers and even before you brainstorm ideas or design anything. I
haven't tried to apply it at a startup, but there should be no reason why the
core concepts can't be leveraged by startups. I suspect there may be certain
nuances and limitations specific to applying it at early-stage startups that
need to be worked out. So what I'd like to do is help develop a few early-
stage product successes to act as a proof-of-concept to iron out these
details. I just sort of need a willing participant or two to experiment on. Of
course, in return, I think they'll benefit immensely.

So, how do I find out about hackathons or startup events?

~~~
shawnreilly
The best way to get involved with Local Hackathons and Startup Events is to
get involved with the Local Startup Ecosystem. The last time I was in The
Valley, I found Meetup.Com to be an awesome source of Startup Related Events
and Functions. That might be a good place to start (filter by technology or
language). You'll also find that some of the more popular Hackathons or Non-
Profits have their own Website, such as the TechCrunch Hackathon
([http://techcrunch.com/events/](http://techcrunch.com/events/)), the Launch
Hackathon ([http://hackathon.launch.co/](http://hackathon.launch.co/)), or
Startup Weekend
([http://www.startupweekend.org](http://www.startupweekend.org)). These are
just a few examples, I'm sure there are many more across the World that I
don't even know about.

Regarding product methodologies, what you describe sounds somewhat similar to
Eric Ries' Lean Startup. I hope it's not offensive to make a comparison, but I
think it's good food for thought. The concept of involving customer feedback
into the product development process (or any process) is extremely powerful.
But I wouldn't doubt that there are different ways to apply that Approach. The
Lean Startup is based on a Build, Measure, Learn methodology. What you
describe sounds somewhat like a variation; maybe closer to Measure, Learn,
Build. Expanding on that, other variations could relate to the number of
cycles you consider and the possibility that they can be in different orders
to achieve different results. For example; Build, Measure Learn might be a
great process for an existing Team to develop a Product based on an existing
idea. Another example; Measure, Learn, Build (cycle 1) and then Build,
Measure, Learn (cycle 2) might be a good 2 cycle process for an existing Team
to develop a Product that does not initially have an idea or direction. And
yet another example; Build, Measure Learn, (cycle 1) and then Build, Measure,
Learn again might be a good 2 cycle process for Building a Team to develop a
Product based on a validated idea. These are all hypothetical of course, but
it's interesting to consider. I'm sure there are many different possibilities
based on how you apply the concepts. In any event, I wish you well in
validating your methodology!

~~~
SVPMguy
Thanks for the leads. I've read up a bunch on hackathons. I'm not sure what my
role would be at one to be honest... I don't have a team, I'm not an Engineer
and it seems like there are two groups who benefit: coders hoping to win a
beauty contest in front of investors and investors who see it as a cheap way
to find creative labor. Am I wrong? What would I do if I just showed up at one
of these? The Launch Festival looks quite interesting though... It's not till
Feb, but I'll buy a ticket for sure.

The Lean Startup is a good book -- I read it last night to re-familiarize
myself with the ideas. MVP, "getting outside the building", innovation
accounting and Measure-Learn-Build are extremely useful concepts. As you
suggested, some of my thoughts revolve around the ideal order of the steps.
But beyond that, I believe there's more accurately a crucial missing step up
front. I have no doubt that he wants you to measure stuff, refine and then re-
measure to see if there's better alignment, until you've developed a solid
'customer archetype'. But it seems that you're sort of tainting the initial
conversation with prospects by forcing it down the path of discussing what's
right and wrong with your MVP. How likely are you to throw it all out and
start from scratch if your MVP just isn't cutting it? You have to have serious
fortitude to do that, especially if your MVP took many weeks or months to
develop. And aren't most prospects just going to think 'inside the box' once
you've placed a potential solution in front of them?

So I suspect that what often happens when employing the Build-Measure-Learn
paradigm is that either you end up with incremental improvements to existing
solutions or eventual success ends up depending on how good you were at really
nailing that initial MVP... and that could require Steve Jobs-like intuition
or plain luck.

What if you could put a reliable methodology around those crucial, very early
conversations with prospects that would lead you to build an MVP that meets
their basic needs up front without any kind of super-human foresight or luck
and without having to pivot over and over (which I contend is mentally a very
hard thing for most people to do)?

To go with the Lean Startup nomenclature, my idea could sort of be summed up
as Discover-Build-Measure-Learn, at which point you'd cycle through Build-
Measure-Learn after the first iteration.

------
benologist
You have:

\- no particular financial pressure

\- deep technical skills

\- loads of experience

\- confidence you can succeed

Why waste all of that on a 'relationship' with someone else's startup vs.
doing something yourself? It sounds like you should be building something and
then looking for people to fill in _your_ gaps not a startup that needs
technological-saving (which is unlikely vs. needing users/a valid business
model/revenue etc much more than 'perfect code').

~~~
SVPMguy
Appreciate the reply and attempted kick in the pants! I'm certainly not
interested in helping anyone 'perfect code' and frankly I'm not the person
you'd want to technologically save you anyway, trust me on that!

I have several of my own ideas, but none that I feel are good enough that I'd
want to stick my neck out and seed myself at the moment. I'd rather get on
board with someone who already has a vision to change the world and then help
make it a success. I'm just not sure where to find early stage start-ups. It
seems all my connections point to companies where the strategy is already
figured out and they just want executors.

