Yeah -designers. I’ve been in the IT world for …9 years now. And I’ve been project managing web projects off-and-on since 2003 (ah, wifidog). I’ve found designers before, and I’ve worked on branding and logo’s for Ile sans fil and a few other projects. But this is the first time that I feel like I’m really learning the right way to do things. Not that I wasn’t doing them properly before, but it’s at a whole different level now than where I was at.
For our product, since it is a SaaS (Software as a Service) we need different design skills for 1) the logo, 2) the landing page + website, 3) the actual application and probably in our case, 4) another graphic designer / web designer to add some polish to the application design. That doesn’t include some help on testing / usability which doesn’t involve *doing* any actual design, just making corrections and suggestions to improve usability and flow. Each of these designer roles requires differing expertise. Branding vs. Photoshop mastery vs. UI / UX (and data visualization being a sub-expertise (arguably) of UX). I’ve compared the different online contract/competition sites for logos, checked out the outsourcers, prepared design briefs, and this is still the beginning.
Same thing with going after money from funders. I’ve worked on many grants before and I’ve had different meetings with funders. But I’m starting to spend that extra time and energy to hone in on what the funder really wants and needs to know (what they want to hear). We had to “pitch” to qualify for some government assistance for entrepreneurs yesterday. It wasn’t that hard a pitch in that a large percentage of applicants probably end up qualifying, but we did have to work to fit in the 10 minute time and still have it be strong. It helps to be sharing an office with a VC. I won’t be working on that skill a lot right now, because we’re bootstrapping but I’m sure I’ll use it more in the future.
The other area where I’ve been able to polish my skills has been in software project management. Everyone in the office knows more than me about the process of software development and the different ways of managing development. We’re very happy with the software we’re using to PM. It’s called PivotalTracker, it’s free (surprisingly) and it’s great. I’m having a lot of fun doing the product development side of PM as well as being responsible for some of the regular management side of it (velocity + budget). I’ve always liked working with developers, though.
In the near future, I’m really excited to learn the the proper processes and tools for the sales side of a business. Connecting information from the client database (CRM), the analytics from our website, and directly soliciting customer feedback in order to 1) find the right subset of our market that will be the best match for our product (to drive early sales) and 2) to gather the appropriate information in order to improve on the features that our users are most excited about. We’ve still got a bit of time before that, but it’s going to be fun. Speaking of which, Dave McClure is coming to Montreal soon (Startup Metrics for Pirates).
I just re-read this. I’m officially turning into a startup-nerd. I suspected as much when I was talking about sales funnels over drinks last night (sigh).