Introduction and request for feedback/advice

[Justin Yoon]

Hi everyone,

I've been a member of this group for the past month and have
(shamefully) been slow to send through my introduction. However I have
already greatly enjoyed reading through the discussion posts and look
forward to attending one of the meet ups shortly.

As a short introduction, I am a manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers who
is on a career break to pursue the highs and lows of a bootstrapped
startup. My company CLB7 (www.clb7.com) has been developing a web
based software, claRelease, to help make the process of changing data
simpler. From my previous experiences in audit, I have seen how
difficult it is for organisations to implement changes in a controlled
manner, while maintaining clear view of what changes have been made,
under who's approval, and what the results were. Typical solutions
involved the employment of additional staff or the internal
development of a change release application. I'm hoping that
claRelease can serve as a simple and affordable solution to this
problem.

The core product has been developed, extensively tested, and is ready
for trial. However it isn't 100% complete as we're still finishing off
the backend management side (i.e. user management). Therefore, I would
love to draw on some of your experiences to help me plan my way
forward.

1. Do any of you have experience in finding organisations willing to
trial a product that has core functionality in place, but is not yet
fully completed?

2. What recommendations to you have to increase exposure of my product
to my target market of database administrators, IT managers, IT risk
managers and system owners? To date I have been relying on my personal
network, but I am at the stage of needing to cast the net further.

3. Would any of you be willing to meet with me to provide advice/
support at the early stage of my business? I would also at the same
time love to provide advice and contacts in return if you too are a
business owner.

Many thanks in advance,

Justin

[Niki Scevak]

Justin, there is one book you absolutely must read:
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/0976470705

Steve also has a blog. Start here: http://steveblank.com/2009/02/ and
start working your way forward through the archives.

Another excellent blog is from Eric Ries: http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/

[Justin Yoon]

Thanks for that Niki. Finishing off the "Founders at Work" book and
will get onto the Four Steps of Epiphany right away.

[Yuval Ararat]

Look here if you want to see Steve Blank and Guy Kawasaki talk

Also there are some nice reads attached with one of them is 3 chapters of Four Steps.

y.

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[Jeromy Evans]

On Feb 2, 7:46 am, Niki Scevak <niki.sce...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Justin, there is one book you absolutely must read:http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/0976470705

To elaborate, Steve's book describes a methodology for software start-
ups where you DON'T build a core product and then look for a way to
sell it. Justin, as you do have a core product prepared, it provides a
methodology to get it in front of some real potential customers and
prepare to change course. It's a heavy-read but it's great (yet
depressing if you realise how much software you've developed that you
don't need).