Don Dodge writes about a recent panel he participated in with Ajit Nazare of Kleiner Perkins. Nazare outlined his 7 rules for startups:
KP’s 7 rules for start-ups
- Instant Value to customers – solve a problem or create value with the first use
- Viral adoption – Pull, not push. No direct sales force required
- Minimum IT footprint, preferably none. Hosted SaaS is best.
- Simple, intuitive user experience – no training required.
- Personalized user experience – customizable
- Easy configuration based on application or usage templates
- Context aware – adjust to location, groups, preferences, devices, etc.
I find the context awareness point very intriguing. Wish that I’d been there to hear the panel. Naturally, I believe that context awareness is a critical element of producing truly useful software, and true context awareness is difficult to achieve in all cases. Take presence, for instance. Most implementations require you to set a specific presence status. Some can anticipate some kinds of presence (“oh… there’s been no typing for a while… you’re probably away from the PC”). None can automatically set all presence settings based on context. Perhaps that’s too much to ask, as well. Who knows?
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