May Wrap: Startup Session: xLabs – What are your users actually paying attention to?

Posted on June 2, 2015 by liz blink

For our 2nd startup product management session, local Melbourne company, xLabs, shared their MVP story as two of the co-founders, Joe Hanna and Steve Roberts, took us from idea to paying customers.

What is xLabs?

With a unique technical ability, xLabs, provides valuable UX data via continuous real time tracking of eye & head movements using only a webcam instead of complex technical equipment.

The head tracking component does not require calibration so it’s easy for the end user involved in the testing and while the eye tracking does require calibration – having good lighting is the hardest part.

Getting to MVP

The technology behind xLabs was built by 2 additional co-founders – the scientists – Alan Zhang and David Rawlinson – who thought it would only take 3 months to build the algorithm. In reality, it was 18 months until they had a working prototype and were ready to launch an MVP.

Research & Choosing a Market

There are many applications for the technology including the ability for people without the use of their hands to control a computer using their eyes & head. Of course, Joe & Steve needed to choose which market to go after.

In conducting user research, they realised the technology could be really useful for UX research and began down the road of SaaS eye tracking heatmaps.

The research also held two important findings – privacy concerns & ease of use.

It was important that they were ‘privacy by design’ and the end user explicitly turning on the camera. They are very careful to store only the output of the analysis (not the camera data). Everything is either discarded or left on the local machine.

They also found users hated downloading the software to their desktop and so they very quickly switched to a Chrome extension with a much lower barrier to use.

How to go to market?

In a ‘build it & they will come’ moment, they thought users would flock to them once they launched the SDK – but nothing happened.

It turned out they needed to be able to show people how the software worked instead of just describe it. This is when they began working with a proof of concept model.

They built enough tools to show the features & functionality & then partnered with organisations like Loop11 who could benefit from the technology learnings.

It was during this time they found out that their key persona – the UX person – was not an adopter because external UX studies were seen as a more ‘formal research event’ conducted post ideation by which time ownership had passed to the business. There was also resistance to change based on a perception of, ‘what can I learn here that I don’t get from mouse/click tracking’ that Joe & Steve need to explain.

This is when Joe and Steve got more heavily involved in the next evolution of the product and the design to pivot on this first approach.

.@product_anon startup sessions with xlabs @xero pic.twitter.com/EARm7Taoud

— Laura Cardinal (@LauraCardinalAu) May 21, 2015

In tackling these two aspects Joe and Steve used some early adopters to reveal both the advantages of eye-tracking over click-tracking and remove the biases of previous design methods.

Eye-tracking technology reveals there is much to learn about how users engage with their computer screen without relying on their mouse any more. Changes to our behaviour driven both by touch technology and the increased density of information applied to websites has moved us away from pairing our hands/mouse with our consumption of the page.

#ux heat mapping product bespoke to @XlabUSA at @product_anon and @Xero event on #startup #prodmgmt. pic.twitter.com/suv6UjxTP9

— Elizabeth Ebeli (@ElizabethEbeli) May 21, 2015

We finished up the evening with questions & a chance for everyone to try the software themselves. For those of you who couln’t make it please check out what xLabs are all about via their Chrome extension or Developer SDK.

Thanks so much to Xero who hosted this month!

And a copy of the slides and videos can be found here:

xLabs Start-up session: What are your users really paying attention to? from Product Anonymous

Startup Session: xLabs – What are your users actually paying attention to?

Posted on April 19, 2015 by liz blink

Product Management at a Startup – Startup Sessions

This month we invite local startup xLabs to share their MVP story.

After considerable time in the R&D stage & working with 1st adopter customers – the co-founders Joe Hanna and Steve Roberts – are looking to get their product into the market & continue working with an MVP mindset. xLabs are keen to share their experience, curious about how to keep focused on the launch & interested in hearing feedback from the product management & UX community.

With a unique technical ability, xLabs, provides valuable UX data via continuous real time tracking of eye & head movements using only a webcam instead of complex technical equipment. You can check out what xLabs are all about before the event via their Chrome extension or Developer SDK

The is the 2nd in a series of sharing stories across the start-up space and the seasoned product manager perspective. Startups usually don’t have a product manager as the founders take on that responsibility – although eventually they’ll need a product manager.

Join us for this session, and if you’re a start-up & interested in having your company featured, please get in touch with Liz & Jen. We plan to get a 3rd product management at startups session in this year.

Xero will be our fabulous hosts for the evening so RSVP now!

RSVP

December wrap: Product Management at Startups with Rich Mironov

Posted on December 9, 2014 by liz blink

We had a special guest, Rich Mironov, come to town in December – so Product Anonymous were very pleased to add an event into our 2014 calendar!

Rich gave a fabulous and funny talk about ‘Why you’ll (eventually) Need a Product Manager at your Start-up‘.

Within the talk Rich drew on his experiences as PM, consultant & start-up CEO regarding the value of product management for start-ups – one of which is about scaling your start-up for growth.

Rich has a ton of resources on his blog and especially referenced this area of the blog for more on the topic of organising teams. To keep up to date with more updates from Rich follow him on Twitter.

Thanks again to our hosts for the evening for such a fabulous location – Sportsbet – who also put on drinks and food for the event. And thanks everyone who came along on the evening.

See you in 2015!

December event: Product Management at Startups with Rich Mironov

Posted on November 13, 2014 by jen leibhart

Normally we have a end of year party in late November & then take a break til the new year due to how busy everyone is in December. This year we had to change our plans because we couldn’t pass up having a session with Rich Mironov.

For those who don’t follow him on Twitter or his blog, Rich is the author of ‘The Art of Product Management’, he’s been a product manager, a coach, a consultant, a CEO, worked in agile environments, been at start-ups & otherwise – and I’m probably missing a bunch of achievements. 😉

When Rich started talking about a trip to Australia and a workshop for Brainmates, obviously he had to come to Melbourne for Product Anonymous 🙂 BTW, check out Rich’s roadmapping workshop … Sydney only.

Thus, why you should RSVP now for Thursday Dec 4th when Rich will be talking about product management at start-ups and specifically ‘Why your start-up will (eventually) need a product manager’. More on Meetup RSVP page…
RSVP

July Wrap – Defining your Product (& the Benefit of Not Having Much Money)

Posted on August 4, 2014 by liz blink

Our session in July focused on start-up product management – specifically when the start-up is small enough that the founders are the product managers. Morgan Ranieri & Francisco Trindade, co-founders of Melbourne based YourGrocer, shared their experience of defining their product which is working on making local shopping convenient.

Morgan & Francisco shaped their story around 4 areas:

Pragmatism
Nothing is going to work
Customers, customers, customers,
Focus

Morgan opened with the vision of YourGrocer, which is to level the playing field between local shops and supermarkets. The guys assumed people wanted to buy locally and needed it to be convenient.

They are growing 10% a week since promoting the business in December last year yet are still buckling down each week to see how they are doing against their metrics, whether they are prioritising the right items for their customers and still finding time to dream big.

1. Pragmatism

Morgan & Francisco have needed to stay open to what they are learning and respond to it – as well as understand their vision and know why they are here building this business.

Morgan talked about validating their MVP as getting people to order & to have the deliveries made. He got a friend to set-up their website and hired a van to do the deliveries. He found he could order fruit, vegetables, meat & bakery items so they could start testing their MVP.

But when he told his friends about the idea – only 2 out of 40 people said they would use it and the 2 never ordered again. Morgan discovered early he had gotten his customer type wrong!

With minimal upfront investment, he ticked all the other boxes but needed to check with a new customer group. When his friends’ mums started ordering – and reordering – he was ready to embrace the true customer. This is how YourGrocer got started – with 8 deliveries a day for 2 days a week.

A key thing to remember is the difference between what you hypothesise compared to what you learn when you hit the ground. Instead of spending a lot of money up front, Morgan & Francisco try to keep development to 2-3 hours so if something doesn’t work out, it’s not a massive loss. They want to get the most learning in the least amount of time to put something out there.

The great part about this stage of their business and growth is that they have a good relationship with customers and can ask them directly or test things via email. If they click on a button, it let’s them know that an action was taken and then they follow through to find out what was expected by ringing them.

2. Nothing is going to work

This is a mantra the guys have adopted to help them keep a happy mindset (not a negative one as the title might first imply!).

Sometimes they have tried things, were worried it might succeed really well and they wouldn’t be able to cope with all the orders that would roll in! This mindset helps the team keep perspective and assists with bouncing back to try the next thing and not to worry that they won’t come up with another idea or solution.

They measure success with a small amount of key metrics, using a weekly/monthly review to decide which of the following they need to focus on:

more customers
customers buying more
customers buying more frequently
expanding suppliers

3. Customers, customers, customers

The guys would love to interview their customers all the time but it takes quite a bit of time! Earlier this year they dedicated time to interviews and they do so whenever they feel they need a check in. When they felt their ideas started to be too much like ‘people like Morgan’, they interviewed customers again to make sure they were thinking about them first & foremost.

Morgan and Francisco used the JTBD technique for the interviews. They struggle with the fact that they have a million ideas but just cannot get to them so eventually they got rid of the backlog as they ran out of wall space.

One of our audience, Lisa, called out with a suggestion to create an ideation space instead of a backlog. She described the backlog as a “wall of pain” which received some nods from the Product Anonymous audience. Morgan and Francisco appreciated the suggestion as a way to help them continue to foster their big plans.

4. Focus

Perhaps another word for prioritisation but definitely super important when time is so essential and there are so many things one could do. The metrics are key to review each week and assess against their monthly goals. This way they can see what is not working and what they need to focus on next.

Questions from the audience included:

Ways to gain additional knowledge of customers – like inviting them to dinner
Customer Acquistion- They discussed their referral incentive program where both referrer and referee receive free milk. This has been a success but they need to figure out if the cost of acquistion is too much
Lean principles – practice is difficult! 150 active customers, 500 people on mailing list, so sometimes the data just isn’t meaningful.
Expanding their customer base – to organisations like schools and daycare
Having customers champion the product for you

We formally wrapped the session but everyone’s curiosity could not be contained and more questions flowed after that. Thanks to Morgan and Francisco for coming along to tell their story and face the crowd:-) (If you’re looking for the evening’s full info: see our post last month)

Our next session – Communicating the value of mobile – is on the 21st of August so RSVP now.

Defining your Product & the Benefit of Not Having Much Money

Posted on June 22, 2014 by liz blink

Join us on Thursday evening July 24th for ‘Defining your Product and the Benefit of Not having Much Money’ or start-up product management.

Working on a product at a start-up is a lot different to working on one at an established company. Limited resourcing means you wear a lot of hats, things change quickly, spending a day working on the wrong thing makes a real difference and the budget (if there’s one at all) is probably smaller.

Co-founders Morgan Ranieri & Francisco Trindade will share their experience of YourGrocer – a Melbourne based start-up working on making local shopping convenient. They’ll discuss examples & learnings from the past year including successes and failures. And they welcome your feedback.

Morgan & Francisco will discuss:

How they make product decisions
Defining the value proposition as you build
How they get user feedback & what they do with it
Feature definition
How they use MVP – & that the concept is usually trickier in practice than it sounds

Please join us and RSVP now for this event.

6pm for a 6:30pm start at Royal Melbourne Hotel on Bourke St