This era of cloud computing has created immense opportunity for building products to expand into new markets. Capital investment is very low and a much smaller team is needed to manage operations. At the same time, the opportunity to scale on demand is right at your fingertips. Every enterprise large and small must find ways to evolve their business. This session will show how you can bootstrap new business ideas in the cloud with little risk, and gather useful feedback from prospective customers to validate the concept. We'll discuss how you get from idea to code, how to manage deployment and operations efficiently, how to gather metrics and input from target customers as the product evolves. You'll learn how many free SaaS offerings can help with this process, and how PaaS features of the Windows Azure Platform can help you quickly move from test cycles with customers to a full blown, affordable and manageable deployment.

1. DEVintersection
Session AZ06
Reducing Business Risk in the Cloud
Michele Leroux Bustamante
michelebusta@solliance.net

2. Michele Leroux Bustamante
Managing Partner
Solliance (solliance.net)
CEO and Cofounder
Snapboard (snapboard.com)
Microsoft Regional Director
Microsoft MVP
Author, Speaker
Pluralsight courses on the way!
Blog: michelebusta.com
michelebusta@solliance.net
@michelebusta
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3. Adobe
Omniture Dell
IPO X IPO EBIX 100+ Quest X
F500 SMB
X X Start Ups
F100 X
ImageWare Motiva WebSideStory ConfirmNet Consulting BiTKOO ? Snapboard
Years
1992 2000 10+ yrs 2012
COTS $$$ ASPs $$$$$ Cloud $
Classic VC $$$$$ Lean Startup / Bootstrap $

4. The New Product Dream
What features
should you
lead with? Go fast, Monitor status, Watch for
maintain traction conversion
quality… numbers rates

5. Most
New Products
Fail

6. Lean Philosophy
 Test your idea early
 Learn about your customer segments
 Write as little code as possible
 Gather extensive feedback
 Listen
 Pivot as needed
 Repeat
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7. FAIL FASTER

8. LISTEN!

9. Customer + Problem = Solution
Don’t start here!
Alline Watkins
http://www.userdrivendev.com/

10. It has never been easier to
bootstrap a new product or
business.

11. Early Feedback MVP Product Roadmap
• Core Features
• Arms length demos
• No login
• No polish
GOAL
• Validate product
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12. Design Polls
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13. Vote Results
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14. Vote Demographics
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16. Creating a Poll

17. AB Testing
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19. Create an AB Test
19

20. Heat Maps
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21. Heat Maps
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22. Click Maps
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23. Setup Heat and Click Maps

24. Early Feedback MVP Product Roadmap
• No login • Core product features
• No polish • Continue validating
• Core Features product
• Arms length demos
“If you aren’t embarrassed, you
GOAL waited too long”
• Validate product
GOAL
• Engage customers
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25. What is MVP?

26. Early Feedback MVP Product Roadmap
• No login • Core product features • Feature rollout
• No polish • Continue validating • Focus on $$$
• Core Features product
• Arms length demos
“If you aren’t embarrassed, you
GOAL waited too long”
GOAL
• Validate product • Building the business
GOAL economically
• Engage customers
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27. How Does Azure Help?
Early Feedback MVP Product Roadmap
• Web sites for fast, • Cost Containment • IT operations
easy, free • BizSpark • VS deployment
deployments • Free web sites • Swap / rollback
• Host many iterations • Free email svcs • Monitoring ease
• Host different features • Built-in features • External tools
• Do a/b testing • Ready MySQL DB • Live counters
• Mobile Services • Advanced features
• Social Login baked in
• Easy Deployment • Distributed cache
• VS integration • Queues
• Swap or rollback • Diagnostics
• Ability to scale out,
customer trust
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28. Azure Feature Tour

29. References
 Conference resources:
 http://michelebusta.com
 See my snapboards:
 Currently at the alpha site:
http://snapboardalpha.cloudapp.net/michelebusta
 Will move these to snapboard.com/michelebusta when we go live on the
main site (SOON watch my blog for announcement)
 Contact me:
 michelebusta@solliance.net
 @michelebusta
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30. Summary
 Customer feedback is critical
 Get out there early
 Talk to your customers
 Learn
 Iteration is critical
 Respond to feedback
 Try things
 Keep costs low
 The cloud is your friend
 Many SaaS and PaaS features to help you on your way
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31. Questions?
Don’t forget to enter your evaluation
of this session using EventBoard!
Thank you!