Guest lecture given by Rahul Sharma at Stanford Technology Ventures Program (MSEE 273). This lecture gives an overview of product development in a new technology startup venture. The areas covered include--product, go-to-market and product market fit, process and execution, people and culture.

1. Product Development in a
Startup Venture
Rahul Sharma
rahuls@cal.berkeley.edu @rashrtwit

2. Creating and Building a Product
Product
and Technology
Go-to-market &
Business model
Users/
Customers
Process and
Execution
People and
Culture

3. Stages in a Startup
Pre-seed Seed Funding Series A Series B
Theoretical business model Initial customer
traction
Proven go-to-market
model
Planning,
Idea validation
Product
development
Product market fit,
Customer traction
Scale revenue and
customers
Idea on paper or
prototype
Initial product Commercially
launched product
Revenue scaling
product
Founders with
passion and
conviction + no
resources
Founders,
2-3 engineers
Founders,
Engineering team,
Product mgmt,
Initial Sales and go-to-
market team
Scale on sales,
marketing and
engineering teams
Reference: http://workingwiththn.blogspot.com/
Business
model
Focus
areas
Product
Team

4. What to Build?
Vision and idea
Voice of Customers/users
New Unique and differentiated
Table stakes
**Resource and time constraints
Be agile and iterative-incremental on product

5. Talk to customers all the time.
Listen and iterate.
Critically assess what makes product
different
Align the product with business goals
and sales, GTM model

6. Focus on MOST COMPELLING product
for customers and users
Not just on building a
Minimal Viable Product (MVP)
Customers First

7. What not to build is an even more
important decision
Avoid the trap of Fields of Dreams

8. Getting to Product Market Fit
Target compelling use cases
Track measurable business metrics
Drive usage from users
Get paying and referenceable customers
Get tangible validation of repeatable
business model

9. Process: How to build?
Choose what applies best to your product and
people
Prioritize—talk to customers
Be pragmatic and agile
There is no one process to fit all cases

10. Options on Process
Agile with epics and stories, sprints and scrums
Themes, use cases, customer scenarios, releases
Iterative and incremental
MVP with build->measure->learn cycle
Pivot and persevere
and yes… even Waterfall

11. The Team
Core team is the most critical
Build the team with the best from your own network
Scalability of team a must but over-hiring
is not a solution: Optimize team size
Define and plan team structure, growth, roles
and responsibilities

12. Offshoring and Out-sourcing
Ensure critical mass for the team
Identify functional areas that can
be outsourced: testing, product
support
Contract manufacturing
Trade-off between cost benefit and
product execution

13. Build product the Right Way
Architecture and design principles
Foundational tenets
System architecture and design
Use cases and requirements
Choices on platform, infrastructure,
frameworks and programming languages
Build for Quality and system –ilities

14. Execution
Startups cannot afford long multi-year product
development cycles
Agility on execution a must
Release cadence: fast incremental and iterative
product cycles
Product early and often to customers and
users

15. Financial Plan and Resources
Plan, budget and track:
– Headcount
– Development tools and services
– Hardware equipment
– OPEX: cloud services
– Licensing of 3rd party software
components integrated into product
– Open source components

16. Innovation and Differentiation
Innovator’s dilemma
Patents and intellectual property are MUST
New-unique-and-differentiated in product
Competition—emerging and existing

17. Culture
You have to develop the culture; it doesn’t happen
by itself
Work hard and have fun
Celebrate each and every success

18. Remember to…
Talk to customers all the time.
Listen and iterate.
Build along an architecture
Figure out sales model early. If you can’t figure
out sales model, you don’t have a business, you
just have a product.
Have fun and do great things