Carbon Five was recently brought in to build a new product with a planned budget of 6 months. As the first step, we conducted a few rounds of customer development to try and validate the concept. After a month of experiments by a product manager and designer, we ultimately recommended that the company not pursue the idea. Our client spent a few weeks of consulting fees but saved more than 90% of their budget by not building anything.

The client for this project provides software to a niche set of businesses. As more and more competition started popping up, they believed they saw an opportunity to create a digital marketplace in their niche. Before Carbon Five started building software, the client wanted us to confirm demand for the marketplace.

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As a digital product development consultancy that delivers more than 30 projects a year, we get to work with a lot of founders: technical and non-technical alike. Over the last 17 some-odd years, there are a few traits we see time and again in successful non-technical founders. And really, these six traits benefit anyone trying to create a successful new product.

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As a consulting firm that’s been around for 17 years, Carbon Five has a unique perspective on trends in digital product development. In this post we look back on 2016 and reflect on what we’ve seen in the industry, and where we think it’s headed. Here are the the top five trends we saw in 2016.

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Another month, another talk night in Santa Monica! This month’s talks on October 19th cover the softer skills of a professional’s life such participating in conferences and running processes before they run into the ground.

First, we are happy to have engineer and advocate Carina Zona! She’s in town to speak at the SCNA conference on Oct 21st at USC, but if you can’t make it there we’re hosting her at the westside. As the founder of CallbackWoman, expanding diversity of all underrepresented genders as speakers at conferences, she’ll be speaking “On Proposing Your First Conference Talk”:

Giving conference talks is a game changer. Speaking can propel a career forward, expand your network considerably, and lead to wonderfully surprising opportunities. Come learn about how to get started, and get some practical skills for doing your first proposal how to find relevant opportunities, dissecting Calls For Proposals, evaluating their for fit with you, questions it’s cool to ask organizers, the darned fair expectations to hold, brainstorming a topic, and writing abstracts!

Then Carbon Five’s Ryan Finley will be shining a light on the cold heart truth; some projects ARE doomed from the start. Ryan explains why and how to tackle the causes in “Ch-Ch-Changes: Setting the Foundation for Successful Process Change”:

Key decisions made, or not made, before the outset of an initiative can either give your team the opportunity to succeed or set them on a path to failure. We will discuss the things that can be done prior to kicking off a change initiative to give it the best shot at success, and some strategies to deal with the issues that may arise when this upfront work hasn’t been done.

Doors open at 6pm. Talks begin at 7pm and includes Q&A. The rest of the evening, until we shut down at 9pm, is free time. We also have an accompanying Slack to discuss during and around the event; contact a group admin to get an invite.

So sign up on Meetup and we will provide pizza and drinks (beer and non-alcoholic drinks), wi-fi, cool vibes and killer talks.

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we introduced the engineering team at SuperStartupCorp. They had built a reputation for delivering quality software, fostering a culture of trust, and developing healthy learning practices. Read up on the first two parts, then join us to discover the final secrets to their success.

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In Part 1 of this series, we introduced a high-performing engineering team at SuperStartupCorp that had automated repetitive tasks, codified its engineering practices, and adopted a learning mindset, resulting in happy engineers and happy stakeholders. Read on to learn more traits and practices that make this team so successful, and how they keep their bus factor high. (If you’re feeling extra adventurous, you can head on over to Part 3).

Behold the engineering team at SuperStartupCorp: their steady delivery of features, humble reception of feedback and crafting of well-architected software systems earn them praise up and down the company. The team greatly enjoys working together, and consistently leaves the office feeling accomplished, empowered, and happy.

How is this team able to consistently deliver features for the business, while maintaining morale in a changing sea of fluctuating product requirements, leadership changes, and unplanned site emergencies? It wasn’t always this way.

Read on to learn the first three steps to this team’s journey towards engineering happiness. And don’t forget to read on to Part 2 and Part 3 of this series.

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As a full-stack software consultancy, we at Carbon Five get lots of questions from clients past, present, and future. We’re passionate about sharing our industry knowledge, so we sat down with our leadership team and got some advice for aspiring founders and product leaders as part of an ongoing 6-part series. You can see all the interviews here.

Here, we sat down with Courtney Hemphill, partner and technical lead, to give us some insight into keeping your startup lean and functioning smoothly.

How can I find great developers to hire?

There are a couple things that I’m seeing right now that I feel like are smart plays to finding great developers. I think great developers are not people that are created in 12 weeks at a Bootcamp, I think they’re people who are really interested in solving problems, and they’ve just found that their modus operandi for solving problems happens to be in code. The equivalent holds true for design. They’re just solving problems through a visual experience versus code. Finding those people is what you want to do. That doesn’t really answer the question though so I would say that code languages are something that people get really interested in. Meaning that new languages are coming out and each of those languages can solve specific problems.

I think great developers are not people that are created in 12 weeks at a Bootcamp, I think they’re people who are really interested in solving problems, and they’ve just found that their modus operandi for solving problems happens to be in code. The equivalent holds true for design. They’re just solving problems through a visual experience versus code.

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Have you ever worked on a team that went off the rails? Product teams need lots of support to run efficiently. You need to move fast, but you also need to be aligned in order to build successful products. Here are a few activities we use to keep our teams moving. We often facilitate them in Stickies.io, a product we built for collaboration, but any of these activities could also be done using analog sticky notes.

When you need to generate ideas

Rapid Rounds

We like to structure brainstorming sessions to help get the entire team working together towards a unified goal. We set a timer for 3-5 minutes to challenge ourselves to think fast and broad. Then, we review the ideas and do another rapid round, with 2-4 minutes this time. Finally, we give all team members 3 votes and prioritize our ideas based on votes. The sequence looks like this:

• Introduce the goal of the brainstorming session
• Run rapid rounds.You can run as many as needed. We typically reduce the time set as we go and build off of each other’s ideas.
  • Set the timer for 3-5 minutes
  • Individually ideate on post-its until the timer goes off
  • Let everyone describe their top 3 ideas
• Give everyone 3 dots and ask them to vote on three ideas to explore further
• Arrange ideas by votes

In person, we use post-its, sharpies and sticker dots:

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It’s a common scenario for tech companies: Your hiring pipeline is dry and you can’t seem to attract new talent. You notice companies touting long lists of superficial benefits. Instead of improving your internal team, you find yourself worrying about getting a pro-grade ping pong table for the break room.

You don’t need helicopter rides or Massage Mondays to bring people into the fold. Instead, focus your energy on making lasting changes to your company’s DNA. It won’t be easy, but the results will keep your existing team happy, which translates to positive conversation about your organization. Here are a few strategies to get you moving in the right direction.

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