I just had an all-too common conversation with the founder of a startup who had spent more than a year working with a software development company who had produced a mess. The mess really comes from a developer who was willing to get started on a product that was not fully thought out. I always take a very different approach in early conversations. If I’m being asked to do startup software development, Some founders are taken aback. They are calling me to go build what they tell me to build.

In this program Eric Ries teaches you the lean startup ideas that saved his business when customers hated his product. Out of frustration that users weren’t installing Eric’s virtual add-on for instant messaging, he brought target users into his office and asked them to try his software. You gotta imagine a seventeen-year-old teenage girl sitting down with us to look at this product. If you’re reading Mixergy, I know you routinely work hours that most people don’t know exist. Imagine if you spent all that time building your business–plus risked your money–and

think the biggest breakthrough for us came in 2003 or 2004 with the understanding that there was an open-source product called OS Commerce that had a large following — but the service providers on the market weren’t really sophisticated, and there weren’t that many of them. So without that client — without that fifty-cent AdWord — we probably would not have launched the product. Roy Rubin was a student trying to make extra money on the side when he founded Varien, the company that went on to launch Magento, an ecommerce platform that enables billions of dollars in online sales.

Just saw a great post by Mark Geller - Developers wanted… in Los Angeles, U.S.A. (you can get to know Mark a bit more in my post Product Manager Entrepreneur Mark Geller ). who would love to talk with you. There’s quite a bit of truth to what Mark is saying about startup software developers, but my guess is that there’s another reason that it seems harder to find developers in this context. First, early in the post, Mark mentions: The idea behind the meetup is to connect technology startups with prospective hires who may be interested to work for “alternative compensation”–e.g.,

He has a really interesting background as a product manager and now an entrepreneur. Tell me a bit about your background. Like many product managers, my background is fairly eclectic. That's where I learned I enjoyed interacting with customers and working with development teams to build and launch products. From there, I became the first non-founder employee at an e-commerce startup called BITSource, which was the first electronic software distributor delivering electronic volume software licenses to corporations. Visible networking is turning into a really great opportunity to get to know people better, get to meet new people, and have some interesting conversations.

Steve Gilison worked as a market researcher and product manager at a startup where my company, TechEmpower , did the software / web development. Of course, I immediately gave him the whole spiel on Visible Networking and Steve was totally game to make our networking visible. Remind me about your background Steve? I have about 11 years in the technology sector including roles doing market research, sales and product development. My focus has been marketing strategy and product development. It was great to hear from a long, lost colleague the other day.

El Segundo-based iRise, a maker of software for prototyping web applications and software, is targeting ecommerce retailers with a new set of templates, the firm said Wednesday. According to iRise, it has made pre-configured, business software visualization templates for the firm's products available to ecommerce retailers. iRise provides software which are used by product managers The templates help online retailers work through visualization and testing of their sites, before actual coding of their web sites. According to iRise, the new templates are

Anaheim-based Tone Software , a developer of network monitoring and management tools for the telecom industry, said today that it has acquired a product and all of the underlying technology for a voice analytics platform from Communicado. According to Tone Software, it acquired Communicado's Streamline IP Voice Analytics Management Platform, including "key" product development and service delivery staff. Financial terms of the buy were not disclosed. The product is used for voice-over-IP network assessment. ...Tags:

Pasadena-based Guidance Software has expanded its line of products this morning to include a new security tool. The firm said today that it has rooled out EnCase Cybersecurity, a new product for detecting malware, detecting sensitive information on corporate networks, and more. The new product augments existing antivirus, firewall, and other cybersecurity tools. Pricing on the new software was not released. Guidance develops digital forensics tools used by law enforcement, the government, and others for computer investigation.

Newbury Park-based iQstor Networks, a developer of storage area networking and data storage hardware, said this week that it has added a new software bundle to its products. iQstor said that it is now including a software bundle which provides features such as storage virtualization, SAN management, snapshots, replication, and other data protection with its iSCSI and Fibre Channel storage arrays. The firm The storage features being bundled into iQstor's storage hardware have typically been sold by software firms for a steep premium on top of existing hardware. READ MOR