Good talk from Jason Fried of 37signals
on building products with a small team. Jason is a good speaker. Main
points:
- “Say no by default” – avoid adding features before you really
need to. One good reason less features are better – people will figure
out creative ways to use the system, rather than having all processes
dictated to them. - Design the interface first, and use it as your functional spec
- Do a quick 1.1 release soon after 1.0
- Iterate in the wild – enable beta features for existing customers
to get feedback - Scaling – can handle increasing number of users in several ways;
for example, raise prices to increase profits while keeping number of
users from growing beyond what system can handle. - Double duty – use a single interface for admins and regular users
- Hype features other people want to talk about – build features
that enthusiastic communities will latch onto.