Startup Tip: Simplify Software Features and Iterate More Often

My experience with crowdSPRING over the past several years has proven to me that with few exceptions, startups must keep their feature-sets simple and release software more often so that they can iterate and leverage feedback from users. Time and time again, we’ve made the mistake of over-thinking a feature only to learn that we didn’t do a good job planning and took far too long to release that feature.

Over the past three months, we’ve done a better job – simplifying our scope and iterating more often. It’s clear to me that what we’re doing now – simple, focused features followed by iteration – is the best way for startups to operate. I explain why in the following video.

Do you agree that startups should simplify features and iterate more often?

Apply Agile Thinking To Everything You Do

Some of you have heard the term “agile software development”, which refers to a process of software development based on frequent, iterative development. crowdSPRING has been applying the principles of agile development to our own software development efforts for the past year.

We were bogged down throughout much of 2009 launching new products in part because our thinking was too grand. As a result, we ran into too many roadblocks that require further discussion, research, debate, and planning. This caused us to be less effective – and delayed product launches and improvements.

About six months ago, we looked at our non-software development processes (business, strategy, finance, etc.) and wondered why we also couldn’t apply many of the same principles (of agility) to those processes.If you read the Principles behind the Agile Manifesto, you quickly realize that the same principles can apply to many things outside of software development.

About 6 months ago, we started applying principles of agility to everything we do. This has helped us immensely to streamline our processes, to reach quicker decisions, and to iterate our policies and practices much quicker than we had done in the past. We see clear advantages to this approach – I discuss some of these advantages in the following video.