I read a great post by Jeff Bussgang (an entrepreneur turned VC) where he talked about “Mother in law market research”. He shared a quote by his MBA classmate: “I think [this consumer product] will be a hit because I can see my mother-in-law buying it.” I don’t have to … Read More
There are many templates for positioning statements, and different ones exist for brand, product and services. Being a product person, I must admit that I really only care about functional positioning statements for products or services. I am partial to the product version below (courtesy of GrowthConnection): Product Position Statement … Read More
This is the eighth post in my Customer Research series. What is a beta program? The Wikipedia has the following definition: “Beta” is a nickname for software which has passed the alpha testing stage of development and has been released to users for software testing before its official release. It … Read More
When is a startup no longer a startup? Is a company looking to scale its business a small business operating at a loss, or a startup in search of growth? It seems that there is no commonly accepted definition of the term “startup”, as evidenced by this FAQ from answers.onstartups.com. … Read More
Here are some smart phone articles I read last week. Enjoy! General Top 5 hot topics at Mobile World Congress 2010 Eight observations on MWC 2010 Verizon to allow Skype calls on its 3G network iPhone / iPad iPad App Development Explodes, says Flurry report Apple iPad preorders to start … Read More
Analysts in the mobile space have been putting out copious updates with Q4 2009 data. Here is a quick roundup. Since I newly became an iPhone fan I poked a bit deeper for iPhone statistics. Global Mobile Phone Shipments Rise 11.3% in Q4 2009 IDC: Worldwide Converged Mobile Device Market … Read More
After years of denial, I finally caved and switched to an iPhone after going through the following devices in the past 5 years: A Palm Treo 650 (2005-2007) A Samsung Blackjack II (2007-2009) A BlackBerry Curve 8900 (2009-2010) Being a cheapskate, I ebayed my iPhone 3G 8GB used. So where … Read More
This is the seventh post in my Customer Research series. Usability research can be very costly. There are companies that specialize in doing it the right way, with high end audio/video equipment and multi-stream video editing and compositing integrated into the program. The deliverable is typically an incredibly insightful presentation … Read More
This is the sixth post in my Customer Research series. When I do qualitative research, invariably someone would say: “oh, so you are doing focus groups!” which usually makes me cringe. The reality is that 99% of the time I am not doing focus groups. I may be doing detailed … Read More