The Software Startup CEO: The Prototyper in Chief

I’ve worked with a good number of very passionate entrepreneurs wanting to build a great new software company. As the new business-oriented CEO, he or she will almost always shy away from getting into the gritty details of software development.

The normal thinking goes like this: “I’ll work up some software specifications and find a really good, but cheap software development group to do the work and then off to beta sites it goes.”

This approach hardly ever works because:

1. The business CEO just doesn’t have the depth of background to sufficiently communicate what needs to be built.
2. The CEO is almost always driven by his/her vision of the software instead of what the target market requires.
3. The outside development group will inevitably be late, off the mark, and over budget.

As the entrepreneurial CEO, why not jump in personally and take charge of software development, or at least software prototyping? There are a plethora of simple prototyping tools out there today to quickly create what looks like actual working software that can be put in front of real users. There is no better way to obtain high-value feedback on what they like and don’t like.

You don’t need to be a technical genius, but you must be willing to jump in and get your hands dirty. And when you get dirty, you will become amazingly comfortable with what your users actually want.

In helping clients, I’ve looked into several easy to use prototyping tools that any good CEO can quickly get their arms around. For example, for around $100 with Keynotopia, you can quickly create user interface designs for a range of mobile platforms including iPhone, iPad, and Android.

I’ve tinkered around with what Keynotopia calls their PowerPoint bundle for the iPad. It essentially provides a good looking set of mobile device user interface objects to work with. To simulate what the real software would do when one touches an element in the iPad application, you create PowerPoint hyperlinks to jump to the next appropriate screen/slide. With a little playing around, you can produce a professional-looking interactive prototype to put in front of potential users.

We’re not talking about a final, finished piece of software here. Rather, the focus should be to simulate your minimum viable product so you can put it in front of actual potential end-users. They will quickly let you know what they like and don’t like…especially because what they are looking at is not quite done yet. Furthermore, this will prove to be invaluable input as you refine your value proposition during your business planning process.

Go get that feedback from potential end-users, make changes, and go back and do it again. The real value here is that you, as the startup CEO, can finally feel in your gut just what end users really value and need.

During the critical early stages of getting a learning management system or other software startup company off and running in the right direction, the more involved the CEO is in software development the better. Once the functionality and look and feel are nailed down, then it’s time to hand over production software development to the right CTO.

The business success of a software company is 90% a function of whether the solution truly addresses an unmet end-user need. Tip the odds in your favor. Put yourself in the best possible position to know the guts of your software and your target users by becoming the Prototyper in Chief.