More on Leadership

KonstantinDr
3 years ago
Early Adopters And the Fifth Reason WHY
Product management wizardry.
Early adopters buy a product even if it hasn't hit the market or has flaws.
Who are the early adopters?
Early adopters try a new technology or product first. Early adopters are interested in trying or buying new technologies and products before others. They're risk-tolerant and can provide initial cash flow and product reviews. They help a company's new product or technology gain social proof.
Early adopters are most common in the technology industry, but they're in every industry. They don't follow the crowd. They seek innovation and report product flaws before mass production. If the product works well, the first users become loyal customers, and colleagues value their opinion.
What to do with early adopters?
They can be used to collect feedback and initial product promotion, first sales, and product value validation.
How to find early followers?
Start with your immediate environment and target audience. Communicate with them to see if they're interested in your value proposition.
1) Innovators (2.5% of the population) are risk-takers seeking novelty. These people are the first to buy new and trendy items and drive social innovation. However, these people are usually elite;
Early adopters (13.5%) are inclined to accept innovations but are more cautious than innovators; they start using novelties when innovators or famous people do;
3) The early majority (34%) is conservative; they start using new products when many people have mastered them. When the early majority accepted the innovation, it became ingrained in people's minds.
4) Attracting 34% of the population later means the novelty has become a mass-market product. Innovators are using newer products;
5) Laggards (16%) are the most conservative, usually elderly people who use the same products.
Stages of new information acceptance
1. The information is strange and rejected by most. Accepted only by innovators;
2. When early adopters join, more people believe it's not so bad; when a critical mass is reached, the novelty becomes fashionable and most people use it.
3. Fascination with a novelty peaks, then declines; the majority and laggards start using it later; novelty becomes obsolete; innovators master something new.
Problems with early implementation
Early adopter sales have disadvantages.
Higher risk of defects
Selling to first-time users increases the risk of defects. Early adopters are often influential, so this can affect the brand's and its products' long-term perception.
Not what was expected
First-time buyers may be disappointed by the product. Marketing messages can mislead consumers, and if the first users believe the company misrepresented the product, this will affect future sales.
Compatibility issues
Some technological advances cause compatibility issues. Consumers may be disappointed if new technology is incompatible with their electronics.
Method 5 WHY
Let's talk about 5 why, a good tool for finding project problems' root causes. This method is also known as the five why rule, method, or questions.
The 5 why technique came from Toyota's lean manufacturing and helps quickly determine a problem's root cause.
On one, two, and three, you simply do this:
We identify and frame the issue for which a solution is sought.
We frequently ponder this question. The first 2-3 responses are frequently very dull, making you want to give up on this pointless exercise. However, after that, things get interesting. And occasionally it's so fascinating that you question whether you really needed to know.
We consider the final response, ponder it, and choose a course of action.
Always do the 5 whys with the customer or team to have a reasonable discussion and better understand what's happening.
And the “five whys” is a wonderful and simplest tool for introspection. With the accumulated practice, it is used almost automatically in any situation like “I can’t force myself to work, the mood is bad in the morning” or “why did I decide that I have no life without this food processor for 20,000 rubles, which will take half of my rather big kitchen.”
An illustration of the five whys
A simple, but real example from my work practice that I think is very indicative, given the participants' low IT skills. Anonymized, of course.
Users spend too long looking for tender documents.
Why? Because they must search through many company tender documents.
Why? Because the system can't filter department-specific bids.
Why? Because our contract management system requirements didn't include a department-tender link. That's it, right? We'll add a filter and be happy. but still…
why? Because we based the system's requirements on regulations for working with paper tender documents (when they still had envelopes and autopsies), not electronic ones, and there was no search mechanism.
Why? We didn't consider how our work would change when switching from paper to electronic tenders when drafting the requirements.
Now I know what to do in the future. We add a filter, enter department data, and teach users to use it. This is tactical, but strategically we review the same forgotten requirements to make all the necessary changes in a package, plus we include it in the checklist for the acceptance of final requirements for the future.
Errors when using 5 why
Five whys seems simple, but it can be misused.
Popular ones:
The accusation of everyone and everything is then introduced. After all, the 5 why method focuses on identifying the underlying causes rather than criticizing others. As a result, at the third step, it is not a good idea to conclude that the system is ineffective because users are stupid and that we can therefore do nothing about it.
to fight with all my might so that the outcome would be exactly 5 reasons, neither more nor less. 5 questions is a typical number (it sounds nice, yes), but there could be 3 or 7 in actuality.
Do not capture in-between responses. It is difficult to overestimate the power of the written or printed word, so the result is so-so when the focus is lost. That's it, I suppose. Simple, quick, and brilliant, like other project management tools.
Conclusion
Today we analyzed important study elements:
Early adopters and 5 WHY We've analyzed cases and live examples of how these methods help with product research and growth point identification. Next, consider the HADI cycle.

Sammy Abdullah
3 years ago
Payouts to founders at IPO
How much do startup founders make after an IPO? We looked at 2018's major tech IPOs. Paydays aren't what founders took home at the IPO (shares are normally locked up for 6 months), but what they were worth at the IPO price on the day the firm went public. It's not cash, but it's nice. Here's the data.
Several points are noteworthy.
Huge payoffs. Median and average pay were $399m and $918m. Average and median homeownership were 9% and 12%.
Coinbase, Uber, UI Path. Uber, Zoom, Spotify, UI Path, and Coinbase founders raised billions. Zoom's founder owned 19% and Spotify's 28% and 13%. Brian Armstrong controlled 20% of Coinbase at IPO and was worth $15bn. Preserving as much equity as possible by staying cash-efficient or raising at high valuations also helps.
The smallest was Ping. Ping's compensation was the smallest. Andre Duand owned 2% but was worth $20m at IPO. That's less than some billion-dollar paydays, but still good.
IPOs can be lucrative, as you can see. Preserving equity could be the difference between a $20mm and $15bln payday (Coinbase).

Bart Krawczyk
2 years ago
Understanding several Value Proposition kinds will help you create better goods.
Fixing problems isn't enough.
Numerous articles and how-to guides on value propositions focus on fixing consumer concerns.
Contrary to popular opinion, addressing customer pain rarely suffices. Win your market category too.
Core Value Statement
Value proposition usually means a product's main value.
Its how your product solves client problems. The product's core.
Answering these questions creates a relevant core value proposition:
What tasks is your customer trying to complete? (Jobs for clients)
How much discomfort do they feel while they perform this? (pains)
What would they like to see improved or changed? (gains)
After that, you create products and services that alleviate those pains and give value to clients.
Value Proposition by Category
Your product belongs to a market category and must follow its regulations, regardless of its value proposition.
Creating a new market category is challenging. Fitting into customers' product perceptions is usually better than trying to change them.
New product users simplify market categories. Products are labeled.
Your product will likely be associated with a collection of products people already use.
Example: IT experts will use your communication and management app.
If your target clients think it's an advanced mail software, they'll compare it to others and expect things like:
comprehensive calendar
spam detectors
adequate storage space
list of contacts
etc.
If your target users view your product as a task management app, things change. You can survive without a contact list, but not status management.
Find out what your customers compare your product to and if it fits your value offer. If so, adapt your product plan to dominate this market. If not, try different value propositions and messaging to put the product in the right context.
Finished Value Proposition
A comprehensive value proposition is when your solution addresses user problems and wins its market category.
Addressing simply the primary value proposition may produce a valuable and original product, but it may struggle to cross the chasm into the mainstream market. Meeting expectations is easier than changing views.
Without a unique value proposition, you will drown in the red sea of competition.
To conclude:
Find out who your target consumer is and what their demands and problems are.
To meet these needs, develop and test a primary value proposition.
Speak with your most devoted customers. Recognize the alternatives they use to compare you against and the market segment they place you in.
Recognize the requirements and expectations of the market category.
To meet or surpass category standards, modify your goods.
Great products solve client problems and win their category.
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Farhad Malik
3 years ago
How This Python Script Makes Me Money Every Day
Starting a passive income stream with data science and programming
My website is fresh. But how do I monetize it?
Creating a passive-income website is difficult. Advertise first. But what useful are ads without traffic?
Let’s Generate Traffic And Put Our Programming Skills To Use
SEO boosts traffic (Search Engine Optimisation). Traffic generation is complex. Keywords matter more than text, URL, photos, etc.
My Python skills helped here. I wanted to find relevant, Google-trending keywords (tags) for my topic.
First The Code
I wrote the script below here.
import re
from string import punctuation
import nltk
from nltk import TreebankWordTokenizer, sent_tokenize
from nltk.corpus import stopwords
class KeywordsGenerator:
def __init__(self, pytrends):
self._pytrends = pytrends
def generate_tags(self, file_path, top_words=30):
file_text = self._get_file_contents(file_path)
clean_text = self._remove_noise(file_text)
top_words = self._get_top_words(clean_text, top_words)
suggestions = []
for top_word in top_words:
suggestions.extend(self.get_suggestions(top_word))
suggestions.extend(top_words)
tags = self._clean_tokens(suggestions)
return ",".join(list(set(tags)))
def _remove_noise(self, text):
#1. Convert Text To Lowercase and remove numbers
lower_case_text = str.lower(text)
just_text = re.sub(r'\d+', '', lower_case_text)
#2. Tokenise Paragraphs To words
list = sent_tokenize(just_text)
tokenizer = TreebankWordTokenizer()
tokens = tokenizer.tokenize(just_text)
#3. Clean text
clean = self._clean_tokens(tokens)
return clean
def _clean_tokens(self, tokens):
clean_words = [w for w in tokens if w not in punctuation]
stopwords_to_remove = stopwords.words('english')
clean = [w for w in clean_words if w not in stopwords_to_remove and not w.isnumeric()]
return clean
def get_suggestions(self, keyword):
print(f'Searching pytrends for {keyword}')
result = []
self._pytrends.build_payload([keyword], cat=0, timeframe='today 12-m')
data = self._pytrends.related_queries()[keyword]['top']
if data is None or data.values is None:
return result
result.extend([x[0] for x in data.values.tolist()][:2])
return result
def _get_file_contents(self, file_path):
return open(file_path, "r", encoding='utf-8',errors='ignore').read()
def _get_top_words(self, words, top):
counts = dict()
for word in words:
if word in counts:
counts[word] += 1
else:
counts[word] = 1
return list({k: v for k, v in sorted(counts.items(), key=lambda item: item[1])}.keys())[:top]
if __name__ == "1__main__":
from pytrends.request import TrendReq
nltk.download('punkt')
nltk.download('stopwords')
pytrends = TrendReq(hl='en-GB', tz=360)
tags = KeywordsGenerator(pytrends)\
.generate_tags('text_file.txt')
print(tags)Then The Dependencies
This script requires:
nltk==3.7
pytrends==4.8.0Analysis of the Script
I copy and paste my article into text file.txt, and the code returns the keywords as a comma-separated string.
To achieve this:
A class I made is called KeywordsGenerator.
This class has a function:
generate_tagsThe function
generate_tagsperforms the following tasks:
retrieves text file contents
uses NLP to clean the text by tokenizing sentences into words, removing punctuation, and other elements.
identifies the most frequent words that are relevant.
The
pytrendsAPI is then used to retrieve related phrases that are trending for each word from Google.finally adds a comma to the end of the word list.
4. I then use the keywords and paste them into the SEO area of my website.
These terms are trending on Google and relevant to my topic. My site's rankings and traffic have improved since I added new keywords. This little script puts our knowledge to work. I shared the script in case anyone faces similar issues.
I hope it helps readers sell their work.

Jenn Leach
3 years ago
This clever Instagram marketing technique increased my sales to $30,000 per month.
No Paid Ads Required
I had an online store. After a year of running the company alongside my 9-to-5, I made enough to resign.
That day was amazing.
This Instagram marketing plan helped the store succeed.
How did I increase my sales to five figures a month without using any paid advertising?
I used customer event marketing.
I'm not sure this term exists. I invented it to describe what I was doing.
Instagram word-of-mouth, fan engagement, and interaction drove sales.
If a customer liked or disliked a product, the buzz would drive attention to the store.
I used customer-based events to increase engagement and store sales.
Success!
Here are the weekly Instagram customer events I coordinated while running my business:
Be the Buyer Days
Flash sales
Mystery boxes
Be the Buyer Days: How do they work?
Be the Buyer Days are exactly that.
You choose a day to share stock selections with social media followers.
This is an easy approach to engaging customers and getting fans enthusiastic about new releases.
First, pick a handful of items you’re considering ordering. I’d usually pick around 3 for Be the Buyer Day.
Then I'd poll the crowd on Instagram to vote on their favorites.
This was before Instagram stories, polls, and all the other cool features Instagram offers today. I think using these tools now would make this event even better.
I'd ask customers their favorite back then.
The growing comments excited customers.
Then I'd declare the winner, acquire the products, and start selling it.
How do flash sales work?
I mostly ran flash sales.
You choose a limited number of itemsdd for a few-hour sale.
We wanted most sales to result in sold-out items.
When an item sells out, it contributes to the sensation of scarcity and can inspire customers to visit your store to buy a comparable product, join your email list, become a fan, etc.
We hoped they'd act quickly.
I'd hold flash deals twice a week, which generated scarcity and boosted sales.
The store had a few thousand Instagram followers when I started flash deals.
Each flash sale item would make $400 to $600.
$400 x 3= $1,200
That's $1,200 on social media!
Twice a week, you'll make roughly $10K a month from Instagram.
$1,200/day x 8 events/month=$9,600
Flash sales did great.
We held weekly flash deals and sent social media and email reminders. That’s about it!
How are mystery boxes put together?
All you do is package a box of store products and sell it as a mystery box on TikTok or retail websites.
A $100 mystery box would cost $30.
You're discounting high-value boxes.
This is a clever approach to get rid of excess inventory and makes customers happy.
It worked!
Be the Buyer Days, flash deals, and mystery boxes helped build my company without paid advertisements.
All companies can use customer event marketing. Involving customers and providing an engaging environment can boost sales.
Try it!
Evgenii Nelepko
3 years ago
My 3 biggest errors as a co-founder and CEO
Reflections on the closed company Hola! Dating app
I'll discuss my fuckups as an entrepreneur and CEO. All of them refer to the dating app Hola!, which I co-founded and starred in.
Spring 2021 was when we started. Two techies and two non-techies created a dating app. Pokemon Go and Tinder were combined.
Online dating is a business, and it takes two weeks from a like to a date. We questioned online dating app users if they met anyone offline last year.
75% replied yes, 50% sometimes, 25% usually.
Offline dating is popular, yet people have concerns.
Men are reluctant to make mistakes in front of others.
Women are curious about the background of everyone who approaches them.
We designed unique mechanics that let people date after a match. No endless chitchat. Women would be safe while men felt like cowboys.
I wish to emphasize three faults that lead to founders' estrangement.
This detachment ultimately led to us shutting down the company.
The wrong technology stack
Situation
Instead of generating a faster MVP and designing an app in a universal stack for iOS and Android, I argued we should pilot the app separately for iOS and Android. Technical founders' expertise made this possible.
Self-reflection
Mistaken strategy. We lost time and resources developing two apps at once. We chose iOS since it's more profitable. Apple took us out after the release, citing Guideline 4.3 Spam. After 4 months, we had nothing. We had a long way to go to get the app on Android and the Store.
I suggested creating a uniform platform for the company's growth. This makes parallel product development easier. The strategist's lack of experience and knowledge made it a piece of crap.
What would I have changed if I could?
We should have designed an Android universal stack. I expected Apple to have issues with a dating app.
Our approach should have been to launch something and subsequently improve it, but prejudice won.
The lesson
Discuss the IT stack with your CTO. It saves time and money. Choose the easiest MVP method.
2. A tardy search for investments
Situation
Though the universe and other founders encouraged me to locate investors first, I started pitching when we almost had an app.
When angels arrived, it was time to close. The app was banned, war broke out, I left the country, and the other co-founders stayed. We had no savings.
Self-reflection
I loved interviewing users. I'm proud of having done 1,000 interviews. I wanted to understand people's pain points and improve the product.
Interview results no longer affected the product. I was terrified to start pitching. I filled out accelerator applications and redid my presentation. You must go through that so you won't be terrified later.
What would I have changed if I could?
Get an external or internal mentor to help me with my first pitch as soon as possible. I'd be supported if criticized. He'd cheer with me if there was enthusiasm.
In 99% of cases, I'm comfortable jumping into the unknown, but there are exceptions. The mentor's encouragement would have prompted me to act sooner.
The lesson
Begin fundraising immediately. Months may pass. Show investors your pre-MVP project. Draw inferences from feedback.
3. Role ambiguity
Situation
My technical co-founders were also part-time lead developers, which produced communication issues. As co-founders, we communicated well and recognized the problems. Stakes, vesting, target markets, and approach were agreed upon.
We were behind schedule. Technical debt and strategic gap grew.
Bi-daily and weekly reviews didn't help. Each time, there were explanations. Inside, I was freaking out.
Self-reflection
I am a fairly easy person to talk to. I always try to stick to agreements; otherwise, my head gets stuffed with unnecessary information, interpretations, and emotions.
Sit down -> talk -> decide -> do -> evaluate the results. Repeat it.
If I don't get detailed comments, I start ruining everyone's mood. If there's a systematic violation of agreements without a good justification, I won't join the project or I'll end the collaboration.
What would I have done otherwise?
This is where it’s scariest to draw conclusions. Probably the most logical thing would have been not to start the project as we started it. But that was already a completely different project. So I would not have done anything differently and would have failed again.
But I drew conclusions for the future.
The lesson
First-time founders should find an adviser or team coach for a strategic session. It helps split the roles and responsibilities.
