Akylles Talks

Akylles Talks

By Rami Alame [Akylles]BusinessEntrepreneurshipInvesting
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Akylles Talks episodes

  • Episode 28: Episode 28: Why Startup Kudos?
    Kudos is praising and Compliments. For a very long time, I was praising startups and entrepreneurship without knowing. Later, I was privileged to join the startup world through different ecosystems and I was proud to launch Lexyom [www.lexyom.com ] a legal tech startup that aims to disrupt the way people deal with legal and with a vision of making "Legal the most spoken language worldwide".
    This podcast is based on my book " The Startup kudos " which relates the steps towards building your startup. Chapter 11 is about "relationship 2.0" and chapter 12 is about politics, a topic I love to discuss.
    In this episode, I talk about the importance of verifying what you have learned and checking the things you have done to deliver a better result.
    Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured.
    www.startupkudos.com
    IG: @ramialame
    6 min
  • Episode 27: Episode 27: Build your energy
    Almost nothing great has ever been achieved without passion. Think of Winston Churchill in the darkest days of WWII, Lincoln in the Civil War.
    Great writers and artists have passion. Performers, too, Edith Piaf being an outstanding example. Our most innovative business leaders, people like Steve Jobs, have it.
    But what is it? I looked up the word passion in several dictionaries and nearly all of them focused on romance. Then I came across The Urban Dictionary and there it was:
    “Passion is when you put more energy into something than is required to do it. It is more than just enthusiasm or excitement, passion is an ambition that is materialized into action to put as much heart, mind, body, and soul into something as is possible.”
    Business people with passions can be like magnets, attracting supporters, helpers, enthusiasts, devotees.
    Of course, success requires a lot more than a passion: intelligence, hard work, common sense, leadership, honesty, and courage help immensely. Sadly, a lot of passion can be misguided, especially when people think passion is enough. It is if you want to be a voice crying in the wilderness, otherwise, it isn’t.
    So come on pick up your energy, trust yourself, and Move forward.
    Be organized, Be passionate, Be Structured
    www.startupkudos.com
    IG: @Ramialame
    5 min
  • Episode 26: Episode 26: Negotiation Skills 1
    Stages of Negotiation
    In order to achieve a desirable outcome, it may be useful to follow a structured approach to negotiation. For example, in a work situation, a meeting may need to be arranged in which all parties involved can come together.
    The process of negotiation includes the following stages:
    Preparation
    Discussion
    Clarification of goals
    Negotiate towards a Win-Win outcome
    Agreement
    Implementation of a course of action
    1. Preparation
    Before any negotiation takes place, a decision needs to be taken as to when and where a meeting will take place to discuss the problem and who will attend. Setting a limited time scale can also be helpful to prevent the disagreement from continuing.
    This stage involves ensuring all the pertinent facts of the situation are known in order to clarify your own position. In the working example above, this would include knowing the ‘rules of your organization, to whom help is given when help is not felt appropriate, and the grounds for such refusals.
    Undertaking preparation before discussing the disagreement will help to avoid further conflict and unnecessarily wasting time during the meeting.
    2. Discussion
    During this stage, individuals or members of each side put forward the case as they see it, i.e. their understanding of the situation.
    Key skills during this stage include questioning, listening, and clarifying.
    Sometimes it is helpful to take notes during the discussion stage to record all points put forward in case there is a need for further clarification. It is extremely important to listen, as when disagreement takes place it is easy to make the mistake of saying too much and listening too little. Each side should have an equal opportunity to present their case.
    3. Clarifying Goals
    From the discussion, the goals, interests, and viewpoints of both sides of the disagreement need to be clarified.
    It is helpful to list these factors in order of priority. Through this clarification, it is often possible to identify or establish some common ground. Clarification is an essential part of the negotiation process, without it, misunderstandings are likely to occur which may cause problems and barriers to reaching a beneficial outcome.
    4. Negotiate Towards a Win-Win Outcome
    This stage focuses on what is termed a 'win-win' outcome where both sides feel they have gained something positive through the process of negotiation and both sides feel their point of view has been taken into consideration.
    A win-win outcome is usually the best result. Although this may not always be possible, through negotiation, it should be the ultimate goal.
    Suggestions of alternative strategies and compromises need to be considered at this point. Compromises are often positive alternatives that can often achieve greater benefit for all concerned compared to holding to the original positions.
    5. Agreement
    The agreement can be achieved once an understanding of both sides’ viewpoints and interests have been considered.
    It is essential for everybody involved to keep an open mind in order to achieve an acceptable solution. Any agreement needs to be made perfectly clear so that both sides know what has been decided.
    6. Implementing a Course of Action
    From the agreement, a course of action has to be implemented to carry through the decision.
    www.startupkudos.com
    IG: @ramialame
    6 min
  • Episode 25: Episode 25: UX / UI
    1. Involve Your Users
    Users naturally gravitate to websites they like. To best determine what people want in a website, just ask them. When you involve your users in the design process, you organically create a better UX. Though intuition is often a useful tool in a design project, what is intuitive to a site designer might not be intuitive to your customer base. Reaching out to users will give you design ideas that you can count on.
    How you choose to communicate depends on your customer demographic. Create a Twitter survey, start a Facebook quiz, initiate a survey after purchase, or ask Snapchat users for a snap of what they like/dislike. Not only will this help you develop insight into your users, but it could also boost your business’s social media presence. Find them where they are, get their advice, and offer an incentive for their help. A 10% coupon or first access to sales may be just the reward a guest needs to spend a few minutes explaining how you can improve your UX.
    2. Consider the Cognitive Load
    The UX will be poor if someone has a difficult time interpreting what you are asking them to do, so consider what is happening in your customer’s mind when you design UX. One way of approaching this is through science. Consider cognitive load, which is a psychological term that describes the amount of thought a particular task requires of its doer. One of the most significant types of cognitive load is intrinsic cognitive load, which refers to the difficulty with which a user completes a prompted step or instruction on a website or application. Knowing what to do next should come naturally. If users struggle to understand how to take the next step, you have lost them. Keep the instructions short and easy to interpret, but most of all, make sure they are intuitive.
    Another type of cognitive load is Germane cognitive load, which focuses on processing information and constructing schemas. On websites and applications, there are often discernible design patterns that a user can recognize. The UX will be better if the user can recognize the schema of your website or application, as they will understand it faster than if you use an entirely new design pattern.
    3. Keep Things Simple
    No one wants to feel dumb when he or she approaches a site. If your users do, they will bounce. People tend to have little patience for situations they cannot understand, but that can be doubly true for technology – where their fuse may already be short. When designing for streamlined UX, it is essential to keep things simple. Overly complicated wording or overwhelming decorative touches will not do your site any favors.
    People tend to make choices online fast, so give them the space to do that by offering clear options. Omit excess attributes and focus on the most crucial part of your website or application so they can make a quick and easy decision. Confusing UX can make users feel like they are the problem. When a consumer feels like the design is too smart for them to navigate, they will find a site where they feel more comfortable.
    4. Be Consistent
    Being consistent is one of the most important rules of designing an effective UX for your website. First, it will make your website clearer. If a user can get a feel for your style and not have to adjust their thinking, it will be easier for them to navigate. If they can quickly navigate your site, they are less likely to bounce. More than increasing UX, developing a clear style will strengthen your brand and make it easier for people to recognize and remember your organization.
    5. Design Intentionally
    Though UX should feel familiar and intuitive, it should not seem dull. Insert some unique or creative elements into your website or application design to attract users and make them want to spend time on your site. Be intentional with your creativity; too many unique moments may make the site feel inconsistent and frustrating. Break with convention just enough to make your website memorable.
    Additionally, be intentional with your site’s overall design style. There is an endless number of design conventions, but they are not all interchangeable. If you choose the wrong style, your website or application could be less appealing to users. Having a strong UX for your digital service relies partially on your overall style fitting your brand and pleasing users.
    6. Focus on Function Over Aesthetics
    Though it is essential to make your website or application visually appealing, it is more important that it functions well. Before investing large amounts of time making your website or application appealing to the eye, ensure that it functions quickly and easily across interfaces.
    7. Know Where You Are in the Design Process
    UX design is an extensive and complicated process. It often takes a long time to achieve the stellar UX that everyone strives for. Because the process is long and complicated, it is easy to get caught up in each small step and forget to look at the overall project.
    If you are looking for feedback from users, it is especially important to have an idea of your overall position in the process. Feedback will be far less useful if you have extensive details about one small portion of the project and only a vague description of the overall goal. It also helps you determine which questions to ask when trying to get user feedback. Instead of asking questions about each step individually, ask questions that analyze the overall effectiveness of the design. Because each step is working to get your website to the end goal, information about how the design as a whole is functioning is the most important thing to get from users.
    8. Personalize the Experience
    People are exponentially more likely to connect to a website or application design if they can get a sense of the person behind the screen. Developing a connection with users strengthens their experience with your platform and leads them to build loyalty to your brand.
    If your website or application looks like every other one online, it is likely that it will be quickly forgotten. Lifeless, impersonal designs do not appeal to potential clients or customers. If you can design your website so that the user imagines a group of people behind the site instead of a machine, you will attract more users and improve the UX on your website or application.
    9. Leave Room for User Error
    Design your digital experience so that it still functions when someone makes a mistake. Consider how some search engines autocorrect for spelling; if they did not, many people would not get far in their online searches. Designing empathetically may help you circumvent problems your user will make, but you cannot foresee all errors. When a box pops up telling the user there was an error, be sure to include instructions. Instead of merely saying “an internal error occurred”, say that an error occurred and provide directions for the user about how to fix it. If your website or application becomes unusable after a user error, you will end up turning away many people.
    The FITTS LAW = Time to acquire a Target = Distance to the target + Size of the Target
    Check the guides on www.startupkudos.com
    IG: @ramialame
    6 min
  • Episode 24: Episode 24: Believing in your idea
    Why is a Positive Attitude Important for Entrepreneurs?
    A positive attitude and outlook are a must for successful entrepreneurs. The mindset of the head of the company sets the tone for the rest of the company and influences corporate culture.
    Negative thoughts undermine forward motion and the progress of the company, not to mention the management’s ability to lead staff and motivate employees. Part of what gives entrepreneurs the fortitude to weather business downturns is positivity.
    Cultivating a positive attitude is not about sticking your head in the sand and ignoring things that could go wrong, but about learning how to mentally reframe your response. There is no point in wallowing in mistakes.
    One way to change your outlook is to look at a negative pain point and ask “How can I actively correct this?” By exploring your reaction and response to a perceived problem, you’ll soon learn to cultivate a positive approach to change. Positive people look to challenges as a way to improve and learn, so you should try to focus on this skill.
    Why is positivity important for the overall work environment? When you’re the boss, a positive attitude influences others in a similarly positive way. Research indicates that happy employees are better overall workers. Psychological research has made a correlation between higher productivity and positive work environments. Moreover, positive work environments have been linked to higher business profits, fewer sick days, and higher staff retention rates.
    Part of relinquishing negativity is realizing that your own negative thoughts as a company leader waste energy, time, and money.
    Being positive is something that, like all life skills, can be learned. Becoming an entrepreneur is not for the faint-hearted. The long hours and erratic demands of heading up your own company can negatively impact both your personal life and mental outlook.
    One of the easiest ways to cultivate a positive attitude is to focus on the things you can control. You can control your diet, amount of sleep, and ability to exercise. Each of these factors will help you stay focused, healthy, and positive.
    One of the most important keys to success in entrepreneurship is to never give up. Perseverance will get you through the tough times. Be tenacious about working toward your dreams. With determination and grit, you’ll achieve them; it just may not be overnight!
    www.startupkudos.com
    IG: @ramialame
    7 min
  • Episode 23: Episode 23: Grasping Failures
    Ways to Manage Failure
    1. Recognise and accept your emotions
    Failure hurts, at least in the first instance, and you need to accept that. Trying to minimize your feelings or distract yourself can be counter-productive in the longer term. Just recognize your feelings for what they are and allow yourself time to hurt a bit.
    Don’t, however, dwell on it for too long. That, too, is counter-productive, especially if you blame yourself.
    Take a few days for the pain to lessen, and then start to move on.
    2. Don’t make it personal
    One reason why some people find failure devastating is that their identity is tied up in succeeding. In other words, when they fail, they see themselves as a failure, rather than perceiving that they have experienced a setback. Try not to see failure or success as personal: instead, it is something that you experience. It does not change the real ‘you.
    This comes back to Kipling’s point: Success and failure are not intrinsic parts of you. No part of your identity should be ‘I am a success’ or ‘I am a failure.
    3. Don’t worry what anyone else will think
    Sometimes our views about success and failure are tied up in what other people will think about us, or about how we think they will judge us. You cannot ever control what other people think. Nor should you ever do something simply because it will please other people.
    It is easier to accept both success and failure if you define them in your own terms, and do things because you want to achieve, not because you think other people will be pleased.
    4. Take the right amount of responsibility
    We have all met people who are always ready to blame others or events for their lack of success.
    “The referee was biased!”
    “The teacher doesn’t like me, that’s why my mark was so low.”
    “If only I hadn’t been ill last summer, I wouldn’t have missed several weeks of training.”
    It is important to recognize when other, external factors have affected your success. You don’t need—and should not try—to blame yourself for everything, particularly if it is outside your control.
    It is, however, also important to recognize what you yourself could have done to improve matters. For example, could you have trained or worked harder? Was your revision really all that it could have been? Did you really prepare for that interview in the best possible way?
    Take responsibility for the factors over which you have control, and don’t be tempted to hide behind excuses.
    5. Use failure as a way to improve
    Don’t think of failure as failure. Instead, think of it as life’s way of showing you that you need to improve, and how to do so.
    In particular, ask yourself what you could have done differently to achieve a better result. Then consider how you could put that into practice to help you to improve for next time.
    www.startupkudos.com
    IG: @ramialame
    5 min
  • Episode 22: Episode 22: The Sleeping Myth
    Balachandran from MD Andersen suggests ways to get better sleep.
    1. Set a consistent sleep schedule. Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time.
    2. Create regular bedtime rituals. Do the same thing every night before bedtime, like take a warm bath, read or listen to music. Your pre-sleep activity should be relaxing so your body knows when it’s time to go to sleep.
    3. Get regular exercise. Make sure you exercise at least two hours before bedtime though, or it may be difficult to fall asleep.
    4. Keep a healthy diet. Meals just before bedtime may make it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. But, a small snack just before bedtime tends to promote sleep.
    5. Limit caffeine and avoid nicotine. Caffeine and nicotine are stimulants that interfere with sleep. Regular users also may experience withdrawal symptoms at night, leading to restless sleep. Limit caffeine intake to less than two servings per day, and don’t drink afternoon. Tobacco users who break the habit usually are able to fall asleep faster and sleep better once withdrawal symptoms subside.
    6. Avoid alcohol. Alcohol is a sedative that slows brain activity. While it may induce sleep, it interferes with sleep during the night, causing you to wake up frequently and have nightmares. It’s best to not drink alcohol four to six hours before bedtime.
    Keep naps short. During the day, you build up a “sleep debt” that helps you fall asleep at night. Naps during the day pay off that debt, interfering with your night sleep. If you need to nap, limit it to less than 30 minutes.
    7. Use your bedroom for sleep only. Don’t eat or watch TV in bed. Don’t use electronics – laptops, cellphones, or tablets – in bed. Make sure your bedroom is dark, quiet, and cool. If you use it only for sleep, you’ll associate your bedroom with sleeping rather than activity or stress.
    www.startupkudos.com
    Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured
    IG: @ramialame
    5 min
  • Episode 21: Episode 21: Startup stories
    The most successful startups never had it good when they actually started. In fact, for most of them, the product looked completely different, served a different need and market!
    Now, if you’re looking at building your app with a custom software development company, check out the software requirements document template to request proposals.
    These are the 10 most successful startups today. They all began with a simple idea and look where they are.
    #1 Airbnb
    This is a story of 3 guys and how they went from renting mattresses to a $10 billion company. In 2007, designers Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, couldn’t afford the rent on their San Francisco apartment.
    There was a design conference coming to San Francisco and the city’s hotels were fully booked, so they came up with the idea of renting out three airbeds on their living-room floor and cooking their guests breakfast.
    They set up a simple blog and got three renters (two guys, one girl) for $80 each.
    After a small success and product-market fit, they enlisted a former flatmate and a computer science graduate, Nathan Blecharczyk, to develop the website and join the venture.
    #2 Instagram
    This is a story of two guys who made an app in flat 8 weeks. Kevin Systrom, a Stanford graduate who worked on Google’s Gmail and corporate development, spent his weekends building an app that allowed location-aware photo and note-sharing, dubbing it Burbn.
    That’s how Kevin met Mike Krieger, an early Burbn user, and Instagram’s co-founder. Later, Burbn was reduced to photos only and dubbed named Instagram.
    #3 Pinterest
    Raised by doctor parents, Ben Silbermann assumed he would follow the same path. He attended Yale University starting in 1999 and soon realized that he didn’t want to be a doctor. After a consulting gig in Washington DC, working for Google, and a failed app, he came up with another idea.
    In 2009, Ben and a college friend, Paul Sciarra, along with Evan Sharp, started working on a site on which people could show collections of things they were interested in, on an interactive pin-board format.
    Ben personally wrote to the site’s first 7,000 users offering his personal phone number and even meeting with some of its users. Over Thanksgiving dinner, Ben’s girlfriend thought of a name for it: Pinterest.
    #4 Angry Birds
    Just how many times the founders of Angry Birds tried to build a successful one. Moral of the story is that even if you fail 51 times, you only need to succeed once!
    #5 Linkedin
    In late 2002, Reid Hoffman recruited a team of old colleagues from SocialNet and PayPal to work on a new idea. By May 2003, Reid launched LinkedIn out of his living room, inviting 350 of his contacts to join his network and create their own profiles.
    The business started with slow growth at first—as few as 20 signups on some days—but, by the fall, it showed enough promise to attract investment from Sequoia Capital.
    #6 Uber
    After a conference in Paris, Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp were complaining about the many crappy things we all have to deal with in life, including finding a cab. The next thing you know, the two were already brainstorming, thinking about ways to find cars at the right place, at the right time.
    #7 Snapchat
    Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown, and Bobby Murphy, three friends from college were testing out their entrepreneurial skills. During a casual chat, Reggie said, “I wish these photos I am sending this girl would disappear.”
    Soon after, Evan referred to it as a ‘million dollar idea.’ They worked on the app and launched in the name of Picaboo. But later after a clash between with Reggie, Evan and Bobby asked him to leave and changed the name to Snapchat.
    #8 WhatsApp
    Jan Koum and Brian Acton, two friends and colleagues from Yahoo were frustrated with the idea of having so many advertisements on any page. In 2007, both left Yahoo and took a year to decompress. Both applied, and failed, to work at Facebook.
    After a lot of ups and downs, they launched WhatsApp in 2009, with a clear purpose that their service would definitely not carry any advertising and would maintain a relentless focus on delivering a gimmick, reliable, friction-free user experience.
    #9 Twitter
    Twitter’s origins lie in a day-long brainstorming session held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo.
    Jack Dorsey, then an undergraduate student at New York University, introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group.
    #10 Facebook
    A 19-year-old lad and a second-year Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg launched an internal social networking site for Harvard students.
    Soon after the site got popular among students, it expanded its reach to other universities. In 2004, the site moved its operations base to Palo Alto, California, and received its first investment from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
    Check the guides on www.startupkudos.com
    Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Strutured,
    www.ramialame.com
    IG: @ramialame
    10 min
  • Episode 20: Episode 20: Product Development Cycle
    The primary artifact in Scrum development is, of course, the product itself. The Scrum model expects the team to bring the product or system to a potentially shippable state at the end of each Scrum sprint.
    The product backlog is another artifact of Scrum. This is the complete list of the functionality that remains to be added to the product. The product owner prioritizes the backlog, so the team always works on the most valuable features first.
    The most popular and successful way to create a product backlog using Scrum methodology is to populate it with user stories, which are short descriptions of the functionality described from a user or customer's perspective.
    In Scrum project management, on the first day of a sprint and during the planning meeting, team members create the sprint backlog. The sprint backlog can be thought of as the team's to-do list for the sprint, whereas a product backlog is a list of features to be built (written in the form of user stories).
    The sprint backlog is the list of tasks the team needs to perform to deliver the functionality it committed to deliver during the sprint.
    Additional artifacts resulting from the Scrum agile methodology are the sprint burndown chart and release burndown chart. Burndown charts show the amount of work remaining either in a sprint or a release and are an effective tool in Scrum software development to determine whether a sprint or release is scheduled to have all planned work finished by the desired date.
    Even if you are new to Scrum, you may have heard of a role called the ScrumMaster. The ScrumMaster is the team's coach and helps Scrum practitioners achieve their highest level of performance.
    In the Scrum process, a ScrumMaster differs from a traditional project manager in many ways, including that it does not provide day-to-day direction to the team and does not assign tasks to individuals.
    A good ScrumMaster shelters the team from outside distractions, allowing team members to focus maniacally during the sprint on their selected goal.
    While ScrumMaster focuses on helping the team be the best possible, the product owner works to direct the team to the right goal. The product owner does this by creating a compelling vision of the product and then conveying that vision to the team through the product backlog.
    The product owner is responsible for prioritizing the backlog during Scrum development to ensure it’s up to par as more is learned about the system being built, its users, the team, and so on.
    The third and final role in Scrum project management is the Scrum team itself. Although individuals may join the team with various job titles, in Scrum, those titles are insignificant. Scrum methodology states that each person contributes in whatever way they can to complete each sprint's work.
    This does not mean that a tester will be expected to re-architect the system; individuals will spend most (and sometimes all) of their time working in whatever discipline they worked in before adopting the agile Scrum model. But with Scrum, individuals are expected to work beyond their preferred disciplines whenever doing so would be for the team's good.
    One way to think of the interlocking nature of these three roles in this agile methodology is as a racecar.
    The Scrum team is the car itself, ready to speed along in whatever direction it is pointed. The product owner is the driver, ensuring that the car is always going in the right direction. And the ScrumMaster is the chief mechanic, keeping the car well-tuned and performing at its best.
    Make sure to check the guides on www.startupkudos.com
    Check the courses on www.akylles.com
    Be Organized, Be Passionate, Be Structured
    IG: @ramialame
    www.ramialame.com
    5 min
  • Episode 19: Episode 19: Product Market Fit
    Product/Market Fit is a common concept in the startup world. While widely applied in conversations around new high-growth companies, it doesn’t seem to have caught on in the rest of the business world yet.
    It deserves to be more widely understood because it’s a useful Mental Model for the interplay between a business, its products, and its customers. Learning about Product/Market Fit will help you see the world differently, and inspire new ways to create value for your customers and growth for your business.
    Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.
    You can always feel when product/market fit isn’t happening. The customers aren’t quite getting value out of the product, word of mouth isn’t spreading, usage isn’t growing that fast, press reviews are kind of “blah”, the sales cycle takes too long, and lots of deals never close.
    And you can always feel product/market fit when it’s happening. The customers are buying the product just as fast as you can make it — or usage is growing just as fast as you can add more servers. Money from customers is piling up in your company checking account. You’re hiring sales and customer support staff as fast as you can. Reporters are calling because they’ve heard about your hot new thing and they want to talk to you about it.
    Myth #1: Product market fit is always a discrete, big bang event
    Myth #2: It’s patently obvious when you have product-market fit
    Myth #3: Once you achieve product-market fit, you can’t lose it
    Myth #4: Once you have product-market fit, you don’t have to sweat the competition
    In a Nutshell, This is a product-market fit.
    Make sure to check the guides on www.startupkudos.com
    If you need any workshop or lecture on startup-related matters, go to www.akylles.com
    Be Organized, Be Passionate, be Structured
    IG: @ramialame
    www.ramialame.com
    7 min

About Akylles Talks

From the publisher's feed

The Startup Kudos is originally a book that tells the story of Akylles an entrepreneur, ex-lawyer who begins an entrepreneurship journey that takes him through difficulties, complications, obstacles,…