Growth Times

I will soon have another opportunity to test my beta talk on the Divide between Technologists and Business folks, and why that is the number one root cause of tech venture failures (see my slides – torn apart by Slideshare, here!). Communitech has kindly invited me again to speak, this time at their entrepreneur group in Guelph, where I currently reside. It will take place from 6-8pm at SYNNEX Canada Ltd, 107 Woodlawn Rd W.

As a preamble to this talk, I just came across a very interesting blog post, recommended by Guelph’s very own Brydon of start-up Brainpark, arguing for the need to shift from a product development mindset to a customer development approach. I added some comments there too.

I look forward to seeing many Guelphites and having a good chat about this topic. Bring your war stories!

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As previously announced, I was at Communitech last Friday to talk with their Product Management group about the key challenges to launching blockbuster tech products. I decided  to tackle the divide between Techies and Biz types, as this has consistently been one of the main hurdles I saw at the ventures I work with. I was a little worried as at first I expected possible controversies over some of the points I brought up, but to my surprise this resonated well and strongly with most people in the room. About half the room were techies and the other biz types, so the distribution was spread nicely in the middle. There were no punch exchanges, mud fights or even light food fights (or food light fights for that matter).

I posted my presentation on Slideshare, so you can find it below. I had two hours at Communitech so this is quite a long deck of 40 slides. It’s all there. For those who attended, note I revamped quite a bit of it and there are several slides I didn’t show during our discussion. So you  can take a fresh look at it.

Slideshare did a poor job with the graphics so, for example, the cover page I was so proud of is all scrambled. Time permitting, I am available to deliver this presentation at other forums and welcome invitations. Rest assured I have unscrambled slides to present.

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I was invited by Communitech in Waterloo to give a talk to their Product Management peer-to-peer group. It will take place next week, on June 26th at 10am. I will test a few themes I have been playing around with, on the topic of launching successful market hits. Here is the blurb, feel free to communicate this widely:

Vampires vs. Werewolves, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Techies vs. Marketers (BETA)

A beta discussion on creating market hits, with Greg Boutin, founder of Growthroute Ventures www.growthroute.com

On my left, mad-science Techies: “One really doesn’t need marketing if the product sells itself. Look at Apple etc.”. On my right: snake-oil Marketers. “It’s all about PR and advertising, not building things in the lab”. A rivalry as ancient as Vampires vs. Werewolves or Pirates vs. Ninjas. Let the fight begin (with Product Managers in the middle?)

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