Product, Market and Team

John Fan, PicCollage

NTU Challenge   

Jan. 21, 2017

What's most important for a startup?

PRODUCT, MARKET or TEAM

WHAT?

WHY YOU? 

WHY NOW?

MARKET

市場

Catch the wave!

 Be in the right place 

at the right time!

 If you're lucky, a strong market can push you to success!

Pioneers 開拓者

Crazy people took a risk to explore the unknown. 

The Gold Rush 淘金潮

Once the opportunity becomes known, everyone rushes in.

Consolidation 市場整合

After the easy gold was gone, only big companies could survive.

Big teams are needed to mine for gold.

Startup "Gold Rush" Periods

Electricity, ~1890

Electronic Appliances, ~1900

Automobiles (Detroit), ~1910

Movies (Hollywood), ~1910

Semiconductors, 1965-1987

Personal Computers, 1975-1989

Internet, 1995-2000

Mercedes Benz, 1885

Cadillac, 1906

Personal Computers

Mobile Apps

Goal:

Join an early market  that will grow.

How?

Understand market trends.

Keep moving to emerging areas.

How to catch the next wave?

LIVE IN THE FUTURE

THE FUTURE IS NOW

PRODUCT

產品

BUILD PRODUCT?

開發產品？

SEARCH FOR PRODUCT!

尋找產品！

PicCollage

Launched in 2011 during 500 Startups accelerator

How to Search for Product?

1. Talk to Users

2. Minimum Viable Product

3. Build. Measure. Learn.

1. Talk to Users

Talking with teens

Tips for User Interviews:

Show product, but don't explain.

Keep quiet, let the user talk.

"What are you thinking?"

"Why did you do that?"

"How do you feel about...?"

"When was the last time...?"

2. Minimum Viable Product

First version of PicCollage 

Daily Active Users

Top app in US, Japan and

many countries

3. Build. Measure. Learn.

If at first you don't succeed,

try, try, try, try, try, try, try again.

Your rate of learning is determined

by your speed around the cycle.

Design is not what you see.

Design is what the user does.

A|B Testing

A|B Testing

Changing the design increased the watermark revenue by 3x

Record User Events

Funnel Analysis

Funnel Analysis

TEAM 

團隊

PicCollage Team

Fun, Creative & International

Design + Product + Technical

Silicon Valley network + Taiwan talent

Startups are like a Sports Team

Lessons from Sports


Keep your eye on the ball.

Be proactive, not reactive.

Communicate frequently.

Enjoy playing the game!

Win as a TEAM

Product Problems

How to communicate?

Which opinions to listen to?  

What features to build?

Principles

1. Communications

2. Users

3. Experiments

1. Communications

 PROCESS and TOOLS

Communication Tools

Slack

Trello

Google Docs

Hackpad

Basecamp

Current Weekly Process:

Team meeting (everyone)

Design sync (PMs, designers)

User Interviews (2+ per week)

Demo time (everyone)

Time periods

Scrum (every day)

Sprint (about 2 weeks)

Stage (about 2-3 months)

2. Users

Interviews, Personas and Feedback

User Interview notes

Persona

Reviews

In-app Feedback (User Voice)

Brainstorming

Paper and pencil!

Wireframes

Interactive prototypes

Gather diverse ideas at the start.

Start with low fidelity prototypes.

Focus on behavior, not visuals.

Product Process:

1. Open, efficient communications

2. Understand users 

3. Be an experimental scientist

Secret:

Our process is broken.

Current Problems:

Product and company goals

are not clear.

Requests and feedback
are given at the wrong time.

Too many people involved in

 making decisions.

Secret:

As a startup grows,

the "process" keeps breaking

and constantly needs to be fixed.

For established products:

Clarify goals and roles

Establish more processes 

Better communication within group (provide more context)

BUT for new ideas...

CATCH THE NEXT BIG WAVE!

piccollage.com/jobs

Multimedia Algorithms & Machine Learning
Developer Interns (iOS, Android, server)

Financial Operations Manager

Product Operations Interns 

Events at PicCollage officeCocoaheads Taipei, Android Taipei, 

UIUX Taipei, Taiwan VR