slide 1: Your Path to Product
How to build a sustainable business
by productizing what you know
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 2: This is me.
I don’t have
a boss
anymore.
I’m a
consultant.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 3: Products have eluded me for a long time.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
I get startups. I get entrepreneurship.
But products
slide 4: So I started a journey to explore how
products are born where they come from
how I can learn to develop my own.
You’re invited
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
Share on T witter
Follow me on a journey to
understand how products are born
and how to develop your own
http://fbbr.co/prd via matteoc
slide 5: As a consultant I wonder:
what is the best way to extract value from
my time how should I transform my ideas
and skills into work
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 6: Is it by selling the highest amount of billable hours
and filling my agenda with clients
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 7: With every client you begin
a unique adventure.
And usually its lots of fun
But not all adventures have a
happy end.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 8: So youre back to writing proposals.
You work on many proposals before
getting approved.
And aer you have done your job
youre not needed anymore.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 9: There must
be a better
WAY
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 10: A super smart
CEO like Mike
McDerment of
Freshbooks
would
suggest to
stop selling
time.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 11: How
By evaluating how much
value your work is
generating in the clients
business over - lets say -
one year and pricing
your service at - maybe -
10 of that li.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 12: This is excellent advice.
But doesnt solve the core
problem: you still need more
clients more proposals and so on.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 13: A super smart
CEO like Mike
McDermen of
Freshbooks
would suggest
to stop selling
time.
Lets head to San
Francisco to meet
Tim Ferriss.
When it comes to
product hes the
man. Hes the one
that is suggesting
since many years to
build a product
startup and live off of
that.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 14: Tim’s Product
Tim’s Ideas
And the best way to share ideas
in the internet era is still...
to write a book.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 15: The
4-hour
SERIES
In return for sharing his
ideas his books have put
him in an ideal position:
he invests in startups and
advises them at the same
time maximising his
chances of returns.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 16: How does sharing your ideas in books generate
business
Let’s see an example from a few years back.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
In his case writing a book makes sense.
slide 17: David Allen is the
best selling author of
Getting Things Done.
Instead of keeping his
productivity workshop
secret he decided to
give it to the world in
the form of a book.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 18: In this way he has
grown his consulting
business incredibly. So
he teaches us that as
a consultant if you
share your techniques
you get a lot in return.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 19: But this is not the only way.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 20: Alex Osterwalder is
also a consultant
he also shared his
most important
insight in a book.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 21: In the meantime The Internet happened.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
Same as David Allen. But with one big difference:
slide 22: Not only does he
share his “Business
Model Canvas” in a
book.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
He’s also developing websites apps
soware services that go together with
his methods.
slide 23: Like a subscription soware-as-a-service
platform centered around the business model
canvas.
www.lafabbricadellarealta.com matteoc
slide 24: Why
Because its more
sustainable to sell
cheaply priced soware
solutions to many than
to consult at stellar
rates for few
customers.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 25: So should we all get into soware then
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 26: Lets go to Berlin
and meet André
Pankratz.
He’s a soware
developer
entrepreneur.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 27: In a few years and a few clients later
Vidibus - a soware as a service hosted
video platform - was born.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
Aer years of selling one offs he has
started to design an open source
solution tailored to his clients.
slide 28: What happens when you sell great soware
Well. You need to consult your clients in
order to help them make the most of it.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 29: Soware is a great way to make your ideas
available.
But sometimes not even that is enough.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 30: Lets go to Chicago
to meet Jason Fried
co-founder of
37signals the
successful soware
firm responsible
among many other
things for open
sourcing Ruby on
Rails.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 31: 37signals relies on the revenue
stream of hosted subscription based
soware-as-a-service products like
Basecamp and Campfire.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 32: But that was not
enough there is so
much culture inside the
company that it had to
find a way out not only
in the form of products
but also as a New York
Times bestseller.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 33: Important connections emerge.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 34: matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
Share on T witter
Ideas books software and
consulting are all connected on the
path to product http://fbbr.co/prd
via matteoc
slide 35: A pattern emerges.
Three key values contribute to productization.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 36: Service
Openness Design
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
Share on T witter
Openness Design are key to
value generation Service is a driver
to sustainability http://fbbr.co/prd
via matteoc
slide 37: Openness
Openness is a key to
value generation:
by being open
accessible by sharing
your ideas you can
increase the value of
what you do. To multiply
your value you can
choose the way of books
free seminars and talks or
open source soware.
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 38: Service
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
Service is a driver to
sustainability:
begin of service being
more useful today than
yesterday generating
your value month by
month increasing your
value as your soware
and your ideas are
being shared more.
slide 39: Design
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
Design is a key to
product:
Design is about making
something complex
easier to grasp. Being
a designer is a way of
thinking about the
world without taking
anything for granted
and is a key to value
creation.
slide 40: This is just a small part of the discourse...
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 41: matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
Click here to find more examples more
testimonials and to read the full story of
my personal path to product.
Click here to get in touch and share your
own path to product.
Share this presentation
with a tweet.
Share on T witter
Y our path to product: how to build
a sustainable business by
productizing what you know http://
fbbr.co/prd via matteoc
slide 42: Go to my blog
to read the full
POST
matteoc www.lafabbricadellarealta.com
slide 43: Matteo Cassese
La Fabbrica della Realtà
matteocmatteoc.com
on twitter: matteoc
lafabbricadellarealta.com
Presentation credits:
David Allen photo by Robert Scoble - Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:David_Allen.jpg
Jason Fried photo by Randy Stewart - Source: http://
blog.stewtopia.com
Alex Osterwalder photo by Heisenberg Media - Source: http://
www.flickr.com/photos/heisenbergmedia/8190821158
Icons from The Noun Project.
Berlin September 2013
Share on T witter
Y our path to product: how to build
a sustainable business by
productizing what you know http://
fbbr.co/prd via matteoc