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product

A collection of 14 issues

Has AI removed the appeal of vertical SaaS?

Let's put aside for a moment the question of 'is AI bad for humanity' and accept that it is a thing that exists in the world. Particularly in the world of 'tool that writes code'. Right now, for circa $200 a month you can

Playing around with Google Stitch

This week I spent some time using Google Stitch, an AI chat interface for product mock ups. There are a lot of these kind of products, Figma has one, so does Canva. Stitch is the first one I've used that is filling a real need for me. That

Spinning up SaaS in an service business : Lessons Learned

Over the last twelve or so months I’ve been working to spin up a new line of revenue at Explorate. The company has, for most of its history, been focused around growing a freight forwarding services business. Rather than use off the shelf software, we developed our own. Fit

Things I've Done: Maxwell Plus

It’s taken a long time to write this. Not because it was a secret but it has taken me about that long to decide what I wanted to say. The short version is that Maxwell Plus was an AI startup in health that we ran for six years, ending

Manage risks, not methods.

The hardest part of transitioning into management is becoming comfortable with people doing things differently from you. Your job shifts from what you can output to how much output you can generate in others. Many first-time managers make the mistake of thinking their job is to ensure their reports do

Thoughts on service and tech startups

Some definitions. The rest of this post will only make sense if we’re on the same page about what a technology and service business is. The scenarios I am describing combine human-delivered specialty service and a technology platform enabling that service delivery. In the long term, these companies tend

Let your users start over

I wish that more products had an option to reset to factory settings. Whether I haven’t used a product in a long time or have found a new way to set things up, there are plenty of reasons to return to square one. In a world where more and

Lessons from one too many model spreadsheets

Few things can be as helpful and potentially time-wasting as modelling your business with a spreadsheet and setting metrics. A clear model of how you make money is a great tool to help identify bottlenecks or risks. On the other hand, it is very easy for models and the team

Talk to your users

Once, a long time ago, I was at an event where a local 'business leader' came to talk. Their talk was the story of their business, how they grew it and what made it successful. By some metrics their business was a success. It wasn't a

Avoiding antipatterns in product discovery

Product discovery works best when you have no favourite ideas. Spending time with real users validating problems and potential solutions is a critical part of good product discovery. Often ideas that sound great around the office white board fall flat when tested with real users. An important part of maturing