Itai Damti

Founder Institute, Hong Kong

13/06/2016

About Leverate & our story

VP Producthood (2011-2014)

Question #1: should you really listen to experienced PM’s?

Question #2: why do startups die?

Question #3: what is the real product of a startup?

A world leader in technology for FX brokers

1 bestselling suite, 14 products

160 employees in 6 offices

~180 clients

100b USD trading volume processed monthly

Post 240k + 6.25m in funding (2008, 2011)

Years of aggressive scale-up

A million mistakes (1st time founder)

Built products: market data, RM, liquidity, CRM, BI, mobile/web/tablet/desktop, trading back-ends, API’s

Killed products

Had fun with The Kano Model and The Lean Startup

Key challenges: Planning releases & roadmaps, Speccing, UX / UI, Action & coordination around releases, Collecting feedback, Prioritizing, Knowledge sharing, 3rd party management, Syncing teams, Functional vs. nonfunctional requests, Measuring the effect

Problem/Solution fit

Product/Market fit

Scale up Operate at scale

No money? Poor team?Poor

product?Bad timing?

No customers?

Competition?Lack of focus?

Lack of passion?

Bad location?Not

profitable?Burnout? Legal issues?

- JUSTIN KAN

Complete

Short &

sweet

Portable

Thought

provoking

(Buffer)

NOW RAISE, SCALE AND TAKE ADVICE FROM EXPERIENCED PM’S.

1. Listen

2. Problem: fail in love with the problem. Your solution doesn’t matter

3. Revenue streams: charge early

4. Customer segment: relationship with customers is golden

5. You don’t have to build to test (Buffer)

6. Funding is not de-risking

7. But if you have it, are you really aligned with your investors?

8. PR doesn’t matter (TechCrunch or TR)

Lesson #1: don’t be too serious about advice from experienced PM’s

Lesson #2: startups fail because their founders (you!) didn’t de-risk fast enough

Lesson #3: your product is not your code. Your product is a green lean canvas

Method:

Document your plan A

Identify the riskiest parts

Systematically de-risk

A call to feel the urgency of de-risking + 8 tips

Twitter: itaidamti

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/itaidamti

Blog: www.imaginedorder.com