How much simpler can managing releases via an excel spreadsheet be? Take a look below.

How It Works

• Each release bucket is represented as a column and features are represented as rows. 
• Columns are designated with a release date and an overall status at the top: Planning, Development, Released, etc… If a feature does not look like it will make the release, it moves to the right into the next column i.e. next  release. 
• Based on the readiness of the feature it moves up or down the colum. To get above the bold black line the feature has to be defined somehow in the form of a PRD, spec, wiki page to the point where engineering knows what is being built. To move above the thick gray bar, QA must sign off on having tested the feature.

The magic of this method: everything that goes on the spreasheet must fit on an 8.5 x 11 in. piece of paper. It doesn’t matter how small the font is and you can’t roll over to a second page. What does this accomplish? It forces the organization to make tradeoffs with features/resources/time and it gives a very simple format for marketing, engineering and QA on which to base that discussion. It is very easy to over-commit on features and delay releases, especially in start-up world.

Updating the Calendar

Every week we would have a Product Calendar meeting with the product managers and engineering and QA managers. Everyone is expected to come prepared on the status of how the features are doing, if the feature is ready for QA, completed testing, etc… The features would move up/down or right/left In reality not everyone came on time, but that changed over time as peer pressure kicked in.

In Summary

Here are a few reasons on why I found this to be such a helpful tool. 

1. It is basically a very well organized excel sheet. Most people are allergic to overly complex project management tools but everyone knows how to use excel.

2. Everything fits on one page making it easy to get a complete picture of the product details going out 6-9 months.

3. It forces great discussions on resources, priorities and product strategies.

Finally, I was introduced to the Product Calendar and this process by Dr. Russell while we worked together at GigaFin. It takes a little time to get everyone use to the process, but then it becomes second nature.

I was going to write a blog entry earlier this week about the importance of having cash on hand, regardless if you are an individual or a start-up, due to the current economic crisis. Then out of the blue I run across this post and powerpoint about Sequoia Capital telling their portfolio companies to batten down the hatches and extend the runway as far as possible. This is a great lead into what I originally wanted to write about…

One can argue that an experienced financial manager is becoming increasing important to have at a start-up. In some ways it may even provide a strong competitive advantage by knowing when to conserve cash, open the coffers for strategic opportunities and go for funding. Running a business is no easy task, and having to deal with the cash flow makes it even more difficult in today’s economy.

So how does one ensure the doors are open, money to fund growth is available and still keep morale up?

Here are is what I would as CEO of a start-up company that was barely cash flow positive or losing money and have 3-6 months cash on hand.

1. Re-evaluate business priorities and revenue outlook. Assume worst case in the pipeline and prioritize products, segments, markets you are going after. You get nothing for free and at times like this, staying focussed and saying no to distractions will be the difference between surviving and having your company name sitting on an Internet tombstone someplace.
2. Cut staff and expenses to get an additional 3-6 months runway. The standard way to do this is have each dept. rank employees and then have the exec team review company priorities against headcount and start listing people that do or don’t make the cut. Make the cuts quick and ensure you only have to do it once. The worst scenario is to drag out the inevitable resulting in unnecessary rumors and multiple cuts which would destroy morale.
3. Win back the confidence of your employees by reinforcing that the changes you made are to grow the company in these difficult times and that they will be rewarded. The worst ting that can happen is making cuts to keep the most valuable people and then have them leave for another job. Make sure that you make it financially rewarding for people to stick out the bad times. There are too many outside forces going into everyone’s decision making that you cannot risk losing valuable members of your team. Promising upside on sales growth, positive cash flow or specific company metrics is a good place to start. Cutting back on high risk sales/product projects that are distractions from the company’s core focus help reinforce to the staff that the exec team understands the need to batten down the hatches. Deliver a story to the employees that gets them all moving 100% in the same direction.

Is there a full proof way to stay afloat over the next 12-18 months? Of course not. But making that journey with a group of people who all trust in one another and trust in the management team’s ability makes that journey all the more enjoyable.

Cash is King
Extending cash and keeping a low burn rate is a pretty simple concept in principle but difficult in practice. Beg, borrow and steal to get your product to market and start building a customer base. The most important thing you can do with your seed or angel money is to build your prototype, identify market demand, demonstrate your team’s ability to execute and get customers that will vouch for the problem you are solving. Do odd jobs to get extra income, pool money from family, friends and relatives to help with cash flow. The extent to which you can keep funding your business on your own without the need for VC funding, the better off you will be in the long term.

Why is this so important?
Once you open your company to outside board members, especially institutions, you have accelerated your expected time to revenue and some type of liquidation event. Most VC firms are not in the business to just build companies that last with year over year returns, they are in it to get a high return on their investment. Going back to the marriage analogy, taking VC money is like adding a father-in-law and mother-in-law and daily reminders about grandchildren. If that is along the same timeline as you and your spouse, then you should not have a problem with it.

For some, venture capital is a required next step. If so, here is a post on Rick Segal’s blog with an overview of the funding process.

Company Culture
Going back to the point about team personality. It cannot be stated enough how important teamwork and company culture are critical to a group of people achieving their goals. Beyond just serving lunch, there are other areas to look at that help to form company culture. For example, does everyone work on the same office schedule, is the layout of the building conducive to working together and is the reporting structure flat or a hierarchy. All of these are important aspects but I’ll start with the first question this time and talk about the others another time.

Does everyone work on the same office schedule?
If your sales, marketing, engineering and exec team all work different hours with limited overlap, then you will run into problems. I am a firm believer that in a start-up you should work the same hours as your customers and your engineers. Thus if your customers start calling at 8am and your engineers are at work until 10pm, then the other parts of your organization should model themselves around these hours. That may mean being accessible on email early in the morning or late a night, but it is critical to be within a Skype session or phone call away. This becomes much more difficult when you are servicing different regions, but that just means it is a test of your companies commitment to success in these foreign regions. If you are a 9 to 5 type of person and don’t check e-mail or IM at home, then please spare your start-up co-workers and join a grocery store or bank.

Why a blog on lunches?
Company culture is one of the most difficult aspects of start-ups to establish since it is essentially determined by the relationships between individuals and their sense of responsibility to the group. There are no magic tricks to build a perfect company, but you can start by building around the right people. And when it comes to lunch, your employees might already have their favorite lunch places or afternoon coffee hang outs. It may be a good idea to facilitate those ‘out-of-office’ meetings as much as reasonably possible.

I am in a similar stage after spending the last four years works at a start-up and having recently left at probably one of the most invigorating times during those four years. The recovery process has already begun. I spent part of the morning with a few co-workers reminiscing and thinking up ideas for new stuff to build and potential business opportunities. The challenge now becomes taking enough time to decompress while not losing that killer instinct to build something new and exciting.

I ran across a job site called www.startupers.com which seems to be a good overview of new opportunities. Some interesting stuff, especially outside of the industries I am more familiar with.

1. People. I don’t think you can underestimate enough the need for a quality team of people that can work as one and who are dedicated to the success of the company over any individual achievement. If you don’t have the ability to check your ego at the door, then you probably shouldn’t work for a start-up if not for your own sanity, then for the sanity of others around you.

Now some notes on how to get the right people.

1.1. Hiring. For hiring managers at start-ups, start by getting your employees to invite their friends to join the company before going the headhunter route. These are people that you or your co-workers have gone to battle with at previous companies, know their strengths, weaknesses, and have seen them in action at the top of the their game. Even more important is having seen them work in difficult business conditions, under the most stressful of circumstances and deadlines and you would still work them again in a heartbeat.

1.2. Interns. The second best way to increase your talent pool and still maintain the chemistry within the team is to go to the nearest college or university, put up a job opening and bring on highly motivated individuals. The best that can happen is you uncover a valuable addition to the team and by bringing them on early within a start-up they learn about personal sacrifice first hand. The worst thing that can happen is you uncover an unmotivated individual, you let them go after a few months and probably have a few good stories to tell about their exploits.

1.3. Skill set. Skill set does not trump everything in the hiring process. I have spent the last 10 years in the security and networking space and have seen a lot of evolution in how products are built. I believe that any problem can be solved by the highest end intel processor, a base of open source code and a few really innovative engineers*. Look for people that think outside the box, are not afraid of tough problems, and have a genuine interesting in solving real problems rather than showing off their coding skills. There is the rare case when you are developing something that is so unique and requires a rare type of skill set that can only be had for a high price AND you don’t have a direct referral for a person to fill the need. In those cases you have not many choices, but their is a greater risk of lack of chemistry.

*Once you have a proto-type and a business plan you are set to get some funding. If your business plan depends on building a chip to hit aggressive price points or incredible performance levels that you can’t get from Intel or any number of multi-core processors in the next 5 year horizon, then rethink the problem you are trying to solve and talk to your potential customers again. Chances are the problem can be solved a different way.