“We don’t do focus groups,” he (Jonathan Ive) said firmly, explaining that they resulted in bland products designed not to offend anyone.

Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, Apple, BBC News, July 1st, 2009

Yup focus groups suck for product design. Henry Ford knew it. His customers wanted a “faster horse”, they didn’t dream up the automobile. It’s not that they weren’t capable of conceiving the car it’s just his customer base weren’t product designers, they just wanted to get from point A to B quicker. Ignoring the potential of radical animal husbandry for a moment, a “faster horse” described the solution but wasn’t necessarily the actual solution.

I experienced this in spades when founding Covarity. Our first product was a high-falutin’ liquid credit platform. It was designed by a committee of experts: commercial lenders, syndicated lenders and regulatory bodies. The faster horse in this case was to shorten the time from credit requirement to decision. Facts were cited how a good chunk of business default because of inadequate captialization. The lenders around the table felt shortening timeframes and providing thorough and predictive analysis was good for both themselves and their customers.

Proudly we took the product out to trial but time and again I was finding our pilot sites weren’t using the product. Frustrated, I found a credit manager who was willing to let me shadow him for a while. Anxious to see him using the product I kept suggesting we run some accounts through. But time and again he was too busy to fire the app up as he gestured to his overflowing inbox of faxes and mailed in financial statements from his borrowers.

Normally this was my cue to find a coffee or stake out a place for lunch but he told me that it was “margining day” and he’d be a while so I hunkered down with my BlackBerry and started to reply to my own overflowing inbox. Then something happened.

I watched in amazement as the loan officer took financial statement after financial statement and highlighted them with an array of colors while feverishly making notes in the margins. Then he transcribed the statements into Excel. We got to talking about what he was doing, why adjustments were needed and the shocking frequency of analysis. He explained how this process took a huge bite out of his time and prevented him from working with his clients or landing new business.

Yep credit decisions could be sped up but that really wasn’t the field’s problem nor the burning issue. The key to satisfying both lender and borrower’s need appeared to be freeing up time by automating data (gasp) re-entry, called spreading in the biz, and the analysis associated with asset based lending appeared. Further investigation in the value chain proved out and refined the concept and the rest is history.

So talk to your customers, understand their problems and look to them for improvements,  just don’t build any faster horses.

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MoTh #3 was a pretty decent success. There were people with apps shipping in the iPhone App Store, BlackBerry AppWorld and Android Marketplace. Various pros and cons of each platforms were discussed. Ok it was mostly therapy and commiseration.  We even had a hardware person out.

Speaking of therapy and commiseration, a spirited copyright discussion ensued.

But most importantly a connection was made. A software company looking to extend their product line with mobile apps was able to pick the brains of a wide range of developers. Even better, they met a contractor who can help them out with their product strategy and build their app. Our work here is complete.

The next MoTh will be Thursday, October 1st at 4PM. Come on out, good stuff is starting to happen.

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MoTh is an informal monthly get together for the Wireless Community in Waterloo.  Come on out if:
* you’ve built a wireless company (large or small)
* you’re building a wireless startup (large or small)
* you’re thinking about building one
* you’d like to join a wireless startup
* you just want to have a beer on a Thursday afternoon

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The point of MoTh is to build a stronger wireless community in Waterloo. From the original MoFo announcement:

Waterloo has a up swell of wireless companies, I guess that really isn’t a surprise. We’re interested in building a stronger wireless (startup) community here. Sure at some point we may be in competition with each other for talent, space, etc… but I’ve seen firsthand how a tight community can benefit everyone. So if:
* you’ve built a wireless company (large or small)
* you’re building a wireless startup (large or small)
* you’re thinking about building one
* you’d like to join a wireless startup
* you just want to have a beer on a Friday Thursday afternoon

Hope to see you Thursday, August 6th, 4PM at McMullens. Patio if it is nice or inside if it is cold/rainy.

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ParkVu is developing software applications that deliver on the promise of the mobile Internet experience by giving users the freedom to access their data at any time from mobile devices. It is the developer of i2b, the first application to give BlackBerry users remote access to their iTunes library.

Everything we do is dependent on the cloud so you’ll get a lot of exposure working with the Amazon Web Services (EC2, SQS, SDB and S3).

The first position is for a mobile developer. You know your way around at least one platform (e.g. RIM or Androiod) and are open to exploring more. See: http://www.waterlootechjobs.com/jobseeker/jobdetails.aspx?id=2785

The second position is for a solid .NET developer. You’re comfortable with asp.net and WCF. See: http://www.waterlootechjobs.com/jobseeker/jobdetails.aspx?id=2784

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A while back I mentioned building a Wireless Community of Startups, but this time less talking and more doing. So there’s MoMo (Mobile Monday’s), Wireless Wednesdays. MoTh just didn’t have the right feel so MoFo it is.

Waterloo has a up swell of wireless companies, I guess that really isn’t a surprise. We’re interested in building a stronger wireless (startup) community here. Sure at some point we may be in competition with each other for talent, space, etc… but I’ve seen firsthand how a tight community can benefit everyone. So if:
* you’ve built a wireless company (large or small)
* you’re building a wireless startup (large or small)
* you’re thinking about building one
* you’d like to join a wireless startup
* you just want to have a beer on a Friday afternoon

Join us this Friday, May 15th at 4PM at the Heuther. On the patio if it is nice, or upstairs if is raining.

Hope to see you there

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Sadly no opportunities for Anaconda’s but it was the best “Opportunity” picture I could find.So we’re looking for a couple of people to join us at ParkVu.

First role would be for someone with .NET skills to work on a long term consulting project. The project itself is pretty crazy and has the potential to shakeup an industry. No really it does. Ideally we’re looking for someone who also likes the idea of financial modeling, market theory and the travel industry. The project is computationally intensive and runs on ec2 with heavy use of Simple DB. This role also has the potential to work on ParkVu’s core technology.

Next we’re looking for another .NET developer to join us at ParkVu. Again we work exclusively in the cloud, so you’ll get exposed to pretty much the full spectrum of Amazon services. Ideally you’re also open to dabbling in Java with mobile platforms/clients. We’d also definitely consider someone with Java experience who’s willing to dabble in .NET too. C++ is cool with us.

If you’re interested shoot us an email at info@parkvu.com or come out to MoFo

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And since we’re announcing stuff, I can finally say a little bit more about ParkVu. We’re developing software applications that deliver on the promise of the mobile Internet experience by giving users the freedom to access their data at any time from mobile devices.

We’re at the CTIA show in Las Vegas. Ping me if you’re at the show and interested in talking to us.

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Please consider the impact on users and other apps when attempting to send/receive packets. As more and more apps require communication with the cloud, we have a responsibility to prioritize the user’s experience over the need to get info fast.

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