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Building a

digital business

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Introduction 2

• Mark Clarke

• 16 years investment bank

• 2 years Hedge Fund

• Share with you

• My mistakes so you can avoid the pain!

• My golden rules for building a digital business

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Black Wednesday 3September 16th 1992

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UK 10 most hated people 4

5 Margaret Thatcher

6 Mark Clarke

7 Francois Mitterand

Source: Mail on Sunday

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Digital first steps 5

• Recovered – just!

• 2000 developed first internet FX trading platform

• Passionate about technology

• Passionate about fitness

• Started Trainsmart 2004

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Golden Rules 6

#1 Be passionate about what you do

#2 If you don’t make mistakes you’re

not trying hard enough

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Business idea 7

• You have the idea

• It’s been validated

• Business plan

• Financials

• Scalable

• Funding

• Implementation & building the product

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Sanity check!

Life’s too short to build something NOBODY wants

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Start-up £100 9

• Incorporate a Limited Company

• £65 + vat

• www.londonlaw.co.uk

• Register domain name

• .com

• .co.uk

• £15 + vat each

• www.eurodns.com

• Register Microsoft BizSpark

• £0 free

• All Microsoft software free (Office, O/S, Servers)

• Free Azure cloud

• Value £5,000+

• www.microsoft.com/bizspark

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Components 10

• Design

• fSpec

• Developers

• Infrastructure

• Delivery mechanism

• eCommerce

______________________________

Minimal costs

Significant costs

$50,000+

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11Design

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Design 12

Draw a line equidistant from a central point

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Design 13

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Design 14

• A picture speaks a thousand words

• UX

• User Xperience

• Wireframes

• B&W

• Functionality

• UI

• Prototype

• Tools

• Adobe Fireworks

• Adobe Photoshop

• Professional designer

• $10k+

• www.dribbble.com

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Design: UX 15

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Design: UI 16

• Invisionapp

• £0 free

• Web

• Tablet

• Mobile

• Clickable

• Swipe/gestures

• www.invisionapp.com

• Trainsmart example

• http://invis.io/SA1QSWO2C

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Design: my experience 17

• Apr 2012

• Pitched Trainsmart to investors

• Ground-breaking concept

• Loved the idea

• Hated the design!

• Too complicated

• Unsexy

• Failed to get funding

• Tore up 5 years work

• Complete re-design $30k UI only

• 3 years rebuilding

• £££ & delay to market

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Design 18

• Design is a critical, early investment

• Bad design is easy - good design is expensive

• Mobile first!!!

Beautiful design hiding a flawed business idea?

OR

Valuable business idea hindered by a flawed design?

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Golden Rules 19

#3 Mobile first!

#5 Do the first 80% yourself (within competence limits)

#4 Design-led development

#6 Professional design is a key, early investment

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fSpec 20

• Functional specification

• How the app/features works

• Think of edge cases

• Initial conditions

• Zero case

• Maximum case

• Exceptions?

• Business logic

• Learn coding basics

• Better spec = quicker & cheaper development

• CEREBRAL HEAVY LIFTING!

• Confluence 10 users/month - $10/month

• https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence

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Golden Rules 21

#7 Do not appoint developers until

the fSpec is ready, unless you have

deep pockets

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22Developers

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Developers 23

• Different types of devs

• Front-end

• Mobile

• Website

• Back-end

• Database

• Web services

• DevOps

• Architecture

• Infrastructure

• SysAdmin

• Security

• Project Management

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Developers 24

• Remote teams

• Global marketplace

• Hourly rate

• Language

• Management issues

• Transparency

• Accountability

• Auto screen shots

• Dispute procedures

• www.odesk.com – 10% developer fee (dev usually pays)

• www.atlassian.com/software/jira 10 users/month - $10/month

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Developers: hiring & using 27

• Filter applications

• Check feedback & reviews

• Give clear directions

• Spec – confluence

• Jira – create issues/tickets

• Track progress

• Listen to your gut instinct

• Be professional and fair

• Zero hours contract (both sides)

• Invest time & effort skilling up on project

• Replacement costly (time & money)

• Lead Dev

• Interview

• Code review

• Good devs are RARE: find one = keep one!

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Developers: my team 28

• Front end

• Sergey – Lead Dev (Russia)

• Evgeniy – Dev (Russia)

• Alfredo – Dev (Uruguay)

• Back end

• Mikhail – Lead Dev (Russia)

• Alexey – Dev (Ukraine)

• DevOps

• Stephen – Lead Dev (UK)

• Website

• Quentin – Dev (France)

• Design

• Patrick – UX (Canada)

• Marc – UI (Australia)

• Project Management

• Me (UK)

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Developers: how we work 29

• Agile

• Quick, respond to business needs

• Requires detailed, complete designs & spec

• Sprints

• 1-2 weeks

• Agree amount of work possible to complete

• Daily burn-down charts

• Transparency

• Meetings

• Skype team room

• Daily stand ups

• What working on, progress, problems

• Max 5 min each

• Sprint retrospective

• What did we do well, poorly, can improve?

• Sprint planning

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Golden Rules 30

#8 Have a well-defined hiring process

#9 Recruit highest quality you can afford

#10 Transparent & accountable working practices

#11 Regular/daily contact & communication

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Infrastructure 31

• Cloud

• Flexible, only pay for what you use

• Numerous Cloud providers

• AWS

• Microsoft Azure

• Google Cloud

• Highly skilled specialists needed

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32Delivery mechanism

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Delivery mechanism 33

• Mobile first!

• Platform-specific

• Mobile

• iOS

• Android

• Windows, Blackberry

• X-platform

• PhoneGap

• Appcelerator

• Tablet

• Sencha

• Web

• HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript

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34eCommerce

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eCommerce 35

• Define pricing model

• Free

• Freemium

• Premium/subscription

• Keep pricing structure simple

• Everyone loves a deal

• Attract clients

• Launch offers

• Reduce churn & retain clients!

• Loyalty discounts

• Special offers

• Make it easy for people to spend money

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36Production

Now that you’ve started your digital business,

what are you going to build?

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37Production Dilemma

FASTGOOD CHEAP- -

You can only pick 2

GOOD & CHEAP won’t be FAST

GOOD & FAST won’t be CHEAP

CHEAP & FAST won’t be GOOD

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MVP vs. MLP 38

“MVP is the version of a new product which

brings the maximum amount of validated learning

about customers with the least amount of effort”

MVP should be considered as a free beta version

“Using MVP is like visiting someone in intensive care.

They’re alive but not much fun to be with”

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39MVP Cake

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Golden Rules 40

#12 Define MVP spec early and deliver ASAP

#13 Listen to your customers. THEY will TELL you what

they want, not what YOU THINK they want

#14 Respond quickly and adapt

#15 Validate your business model

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MLP 41

“MLP is the version of a new product which

brings the maximum amount of love

from customers with the least amount of effort”

MLP should be considered as the first production version

“If you make customers unhappy in the real world, they might each

tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy in the digital world,

they can each tell 6,000 people”

Jeff Bezos, Amazon

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42MLP Cake

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1. Be passionate about what you do

2. If you don’t make mistakes you’re not trying hard

enough

3. Mobile first

4. Design-led development

5. Do the first 80% yourself

6. Professional design is a key, early investment

7. Do not appoint developers until the fSpec is ready

8. Have a well-defined hiring process

9. Recruit high quality

10.Transparent & accountable working practices

11.Regular/daily contact & communication

12.Define MVP spec early & deliver ASAP

13.Listen to your customers. They will tell you what they

want, not what you think they want

14.Respond quickly & adapt

15.Validate your business model

Summary

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Summary 44

Building an app is not cheap!

The Golden Rules will help you BUILD a digital product and

push it into production, given budget constraints and in the

shortest amount of time

Once in production, your business requirements will change.

Seek the best advice available and recruit the best people

GOOD LUCK!

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www

Contact details

@trainsmartUK

mark.clarke@trainsmart.com

www.trainsmart.com