The Challenges of Custom Software

Bryan Weinert (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanweinert) is our special guest on today's episode of Traffic and Leads Podcast. Bryan works for Incipient Corp (http://www.incipientcorp.com/), a company that creates and produces custom software and applications for business. They work with clients to make sure products are usable and functional, and stick with them all the way through beta testing.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

Who Bryan is, and what his company can do for you. He explains that he works with clients through product development life style, starting at the beginning with conceptualization—and helping them define a product—to validate their assumptions before going to market so the execution is successful. He also explains that they full custom software development for both web based apps and mobile apps.

Bryan explains the process of how he works with customers step by step, starting from the beginning. He explains that the first step involves helping the client identify what the problem is that they’re solving—is it a niche problem or is it a core problem?—and from there, they ask “is that problem being solved by anyone else, and if so, how are they solving it, and what will you do in your approach to differentiate from them?” This helps people become focused on the product they’re fostering.

He also explains the importance of having a business goal, and using your foundation to implement technology into the equation. According to Bryan, a lot of people miss this alignment, and that’s how time and money gets lost! You want to research how other companies are managing consumer behavior to drive conversions, and how you can ensure your system does the same.

Bryan says they definitely care about getting customers, and that they’re process falls to ensuring that they’re validating the personas they’re assuming (much like marketing personas). They do the same with the product, and create a beta group (research and development group). From there, you can leverage that community to do AB testing to determine the usability of what you’re marketing.

Bryan tells us how to balance user interface and user experience, explaining the importance of what it looks like to sign up, defining a successful sign up, and building up prototype suited for testing. He also explains how smoothly (and quickly!) things can run, and how to leverage those users to get feedback.

Bryan stresses the importance of having an e-mail and newsletter that goes out to all the users that thanks them for the feedback, showing them all the points you covered that came in from them, and including the community in the process of evolving your product. Letting them know they made a difference is important!

Finally, Bryan leaves us with three things you need to know, and need to have, for your journey into technology: 1) you’ve validated a tremendous amount of your assumptions, 2) you understand technology at a high level, and 3) you understand the difference between open source and closed source technologies. Once you’ve got those down, you’re ready to rumble with the rest of them.