Category: innovation

Tech Stack for Launch

Post author By Aleks Kudic
Post date 15 August 2019

So you are ready to launch an MVP or ‘open-to-all’ service? Scary, right? Preparing for launch it’s never easy. Bear in mind that no one has many users to start. However, if you have keen investors or an active board, the pressure is on. A good start tech stack is depicted in the diagram. The big difference is analytics and tools the business needs to make a success out of the launch. So a lot of new tools are added to facilitate timely and accurate product usage tracking. Finally, marketing and support tools will make or break the business so overinvest in figuring what works for you. Challenge arguments based on people’s previous experiences. (We used MailChimp at X). Also, remember to constantly review your technology stack to continuously remove legacy.

design innovation

What’s technology

Post author By Aleks Kudic
Post date 16 April 2017

Technology is something you need to explain to your parents.

For millennials internet is not a technology but AI is.

For the generation X, internet is a technology but the TV is not.

Technology is always invented in your lifetime.

design innovation startup

Complexity in banks

Post author By Aleks Kudic
Post date 27 March 2017

Banks cannot do what they want to do – innovate.
And banks do what they don’t what to do – manage legacy operations, processes and old systems.
As a result Banks are building new next to old. Fintech partnering with banks can create value at scale.

innovation startup

Framing startup philosophy 2

Post author By Aleks Kudic
Post date 27 November 2016

View technology as a means to improve things rather than an explicit replacement for X, although it definitely could be a replacement in the future. Don’t build a disruptive business. Disruption attracts attention. Build a business which can live happily in a competitive market and be seen as offering complementary service.

innovation startup

Framing startup philosophy

Post author By Aleks Kudic
Post date 27 November 2016

Technology allows you to be a lot more exhaustive, consistent and unbiased. Every new business needs to think of itself as primarily a tech business.

future innovation other startup Uber

Uber of X

Post author By Aleks Kudic
Post date 13 May 2016

Now every idea seems to be around Uber of X or Stripe of Y. Not long ago it was all about Facebook of Z. What’s next?

cloud future innovation other

Virtual Reality HoloLens

Post author By Aleks Kudic
Post date 14 November 2015

At London’s Future Decoded, Nadella frequently referred to HoloLens, the augmented-reality headset the company is deploying in early 2016. “If you change the way you see the world, you change the world that you see,’ he said on stage, pointing to the ‘augmented’ aspect of the headset. It’s clear to see that HoloLens will be a big part of Microsoft’s future offerings to businesses.

Other soundbites included:
– Mobile-first, cloud-first
– Data from exhaust to fuel
– Lagging indicators like revenue, profit vs leading indicators like usage

innovation other process

New market entry

When entering a new market makes sense to think like a hedge fund: come early, faster, sweet tooth the market and take longer bets.

Your platform needs to be market agnostic to a practical level (limited generic functionality, low complexity) while your processes could be market specific.

innovation other

Fintech Awards

Post author By Aleks Kudic
Post date 18 March 2015

#TheFTAs Sir Clive Woodward: ‘Who wins in IT, wins’.

behaviour decisions innovation other

Loser’s Game Programming

Post author By Aleks Kudic
Post date 12 March 2015

Tennis pros win based on the positive actions they take: unreturnable shots down the baseline, passing shots, service aces, and so on. We (beginners) try to emulate our heroes and fail… We hit our deep shots just beyond the baseline, our passing shots just wide of the sideline, and our killer serves into the net. It turns out that mediocre players win based on the errors they don’t make. They keep the ball in play, and eventually their opponents make a mistake and lose the point.

Tennis pros are playing a Winner’s Game, and average players are playing a Loser’s Game. These are fundamentally different games, which reward different mindsets and different strategies.

The smart novice programers play a Loser’s Game, where the greatest reward comes to those who make the fewest and smallest mistakes. That’s not very exciting but works.

What is the best way to succeed? As in all Loser’s Games, the key is to make fewer mistakes: follow examples closely, pay careful attention to syntactic details, and otherwise not stray too far from what you are reading about and using in class. Another path to success is to make the mistakes smaller and less intimidating: take small steps, test the code frequently, and grow solutions rather than write them all at once. It is no accident that the latter sounds like XP and other agile methods; they help to guard us from the Loser’s Game and enable us to make better moves. Search Eugene Wallingford for more info.