As each company grows, it faces different challenges. Some of these hurdles follow known patterns related to where the company is in its evolution. For example, early-stage companies founded by a strong entrepreneur often get to a point where the founder becomes overwhelmed with too many competing demands. Companies that have experienced rapid growth can suddenly stall out. Very mature companies face a different challenge where it never feels like anything gets accomplished. And companies like Radio Shack eventually slide into obsolescence when they can’t re-evolve into something new. Read more on What Challenge Will Your Company Face Next? Check the Predictable Success Framework…
Author: Jeff Williams
Have a Big Software Idea? Start Small, then Make it Better
I admire the pursuit of perfection. Think of athletes, artists, and musicians who dedicate their lives to continual self-improvement—to becoming experts.
One thing every expert knows is that striving for perfection is a process. You have to be willing to fall short, learn, and try again.
You wouldn’t refuse to run in a race until you could win the Boston Marathon. And you wouldn’t refuse to play a concert until you were good enough to fill Carnegie Hall.
So why would you wait to launch a new software product until it has every single feature you might need? Read more on Have a Big Software Idea? Start Small, then Make it Better…
Why it’s Time to Retire the Software MVP
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) term has outlived its usefulness. Since “MVP” was first popularized by Eric Reis’s book The Lean Startup in 2011, it’s become a catch-all term that means both far more and far less than it once did. Read more on Why it’s Time to Retire the Software MVP…
Atomic’s Radiator as a Digital Dashboard
In yesterday’s post, I shared the value of having a scorecard for your business. A scorecard follows the idea that you can improve what you measure. Conversely, if you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Read more on Atomic’s Radiator as a Digital Dashboard…
Setting Up KPIs and a Dashboard at Your Software Consultancy
Your secret weapon is data. You have lots of it. It lives in different systems and with different people in your company. But data itself does no good if you can’t turn it into information–information that is aligned to your business strategy and on which you can act to reach your goals. Read more on Setting Up KPIs and a Dashboard at Your Software Consultancy…
Six Software Startup Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
At Atomic, we are often approached by entrepreneurs who want to start a new business. Their ideas involve technology, are creative, and cover everything you can imagine—like building a service business on top of Uber, or starting a niche e-commerce website focused on a specific group of people. Some are copies of existing successful companies with a slight tweak. Others are trying to use new technology to corner a marketplace. Read more on Six Software Startup Mistakes & How to Avoid Them…
Selling with Your Head and Your Heart – The New ABCs of Sales
When I first entered the world of software consulting, I was a project manager at another firm. My job was to ensure that we delivered on the promises we made to our clients to make great software. In those early days, I felt project success required certainty in the scope, budget, and time frame. If the client’s expectations were clear and the budget adequate, we would deliver. Read more on Selling with Your Head and Your Heart – The New ABCs of Sales…
Choosing the Right Mobile Technology – Native, Cross-Platform, or Responsive Web
Choosing the right mobile technology approach for your project is extremely important. Should you go with native iOS or Android? A new cross-platform technology? A responsive web app? You don’t want to lose half of the potential audience by only building for one platform, but you have a limited budget. And you don’t want to invest in a technology that could disappear, or limits what your app can do, or, worse yet, has a very small pool of skilled developers who can help you. Read more on Choosing the Right Mobile Technology – Native, Cross-Platform, or Responsive Web…
Facing Knowledge Asymmetry & Finding a Software Consultant
When looking for software consulting services, people unfamiliar with development often suffer from knowledge asymmetry—the situation where one party knows far more about the topic at hand than the other.
This situation causes feelings of uncertainty and fear of associated with caveat emptor (buyer beware). And the result can be a painful relationship that often has one side or the other feeling like they’re on the defensive.
Read more on Facing Knowledge Asymmetry & Finding a Software Consultant…
Four Keys to Developing an IoT Mindset at Your Company
At Atomic, we’ve noticed an increase in the number of companies asking us for help with creating “connected” products (physical objects that are linked to the Internet and can send and/or receive data). It’s the new thing, and everyone’s feeling pressure to add their product to the list of 8.4 billion connected things already on the market. Read more on Four Keys to Developing an IoT Mindset at Your Company…