Pitted Knowledge of the Almighty Olive: Coursera Notes: Stanford 'Start-up Engineering' (Lectures 5-8)

These are just some of my notes from Coursera's 'Start-up Engineering' course, taught by Balaji Srinivasan from Stanford.

This is a continuation of my existing series of notes.

Market Research, Wire-framing and Design

Idea $\ne$ Mock-up
Mock-up $\ne$ Prototype
Prototype $\ne$ Program
Program $\ne$ Product
Product $\ne$ Business
Business $\ne$ Profit
Execution! It is not the idea, but the execution that matters. Sales rather than technology is what builds a business.
Market! Market will draw a product from a team, whether or not it is quality or the team is good.
An idea exists within a maze. A simple sentence is not enough to describe an idea; an idea is defined by the regulations, markets, and competition.
Execution mindset. This is essentially writing a to-do list and regularly checking off items. Rinse and repeat.
Market Research:

News coverage and research papers. Google Books, SEC filings and Wikipedia.
Back-of-envelope estimate of market size. Look for relevant statistics.
Validate. Google keyword planner and Facebook advertiser tools help determine if there is actually a market need.
Do a basic launch page with basic SEO. Use wireframes.
Ad-word to discover the market. The launch page will then gauge market interest.

Exhibit economies of scale. Cost of production per unit decreases as more units are built (but revenue stays the same). We can then determine a break-even point and therefore the minimal capital required.
Attack/Pursue large markets. Different pricing will attract different markets, but low price points require automation and industrial efficiency to make profits (because customer service is expensive). It may be better to charge higher initially to counter risks. Market sizing calculations should be done early and often.

Once a market and broad perspective has been set, versions and features need to be prioritized. Remember, it is execution and sales that matter!
Rough guide to prioritizing versions and features:

How much are they willing to pay for certain features or versions?
Which features are required in each version? What features make sense to bundle together?
Estimate the time and cost to build each feature. Is it feasible to implement the feature now, or wait for more funding?
Find the most popular features.
Calculate the market size for each feature.

Home-page message must allow a customer to immediately figure out what the product is. This is a priority if this is going to be a major source of potential customers.
Work backwards from the press release (write the release then build the product). This allows you to figure out which features are making the news and which are not.
Find your competitors and explain why they are terrible options. Use this insight when explaining the benefits of your product.
Simple, factual and concise statements.
Call to action. Allow the customer to do something once they visit your website.

Vector graphics are better to work with.
In design remember Alignment, Repetition, Contrast and Proximity.
Start with a font heavy design (it is easier to do and images can always come later)

Assumption behind the mobile phenomenon is that everything is going to be on the internet. The internet is going from a novelty to a utility.
Build for HTML5 and then move to native apps. HTML5 ensure your application works on all devices (and Android will soon utilise HTML5 and Javascript instead of native applications).
Internet of Things is the idea that every device will have it's own IP address. This offers a huge potential market.
Quantified self is the measuring of human beings and our actions. This is the collection of metrics that may revolutionize diagnosis and medicine.
One way to build mobile-aware applications is user-agent sniffing. This approach has the problems that a client can fake their own user-agent, and that the user-agent is inherently unreliable.
CSS media queries and Responsive web design allows the application of conditional styles depending on screen size. This is much more reliable, but does not have ubiquitous support (yet).
Some constraints with mobile include:

Unreliable networks (the fallacies of distributed computing)
Debugging requires logging (and bug reporting)
Minimization of user input (difficult problem to solve; how to collect everything you need without overwhelming the user)
Minimize the time to result (if you take too long the user will go elsewhere)

HTML is the skeleton of a web application. It provides the structure of a page and the semantics. It is a set of finite elements with attributes.
CSS is the look and layout of a web application. It edits the element and attributes for styling and formatting.
Javascript is the dynamics and behavior of a web application. It allows you to provide client-side validation, pulling in content, playing games and much more.
Some useful tools include jsfiddle.net and Chrome Developer Tools.

Your code production environments should be along the lines of Development -> Staging -> Production
Separating environments bring the following benefits:

DNS (Domain Name System) converts IP address into human readable hostnames. The system first looks locally in a program, then the OS, then the ISP and then finally a trusted internet DNS server.