How to make the speed of your software innovation cycle your team's competitive advantage to establish yourself as the dominant market leader.
Dear Software Builder,
The pressure to build great software is higher than ever.
AI has helped strong competitors move even faster...
User expectations for usability, performance and quality continue to rise...
Disruptive competitors are being born in basements...
The cloud has removed significant barriers to entry to your market...
And enabled competitors to scale rapidly.
The threat of a competitor sneaking up on you is real.
It's a wonder you are even able to sleep at night.
The graveyard for companies that cannot keep up with fast paced technological innovations and shifts in user preferences is enormous.
And growing by the day.
From groundbreaking companies like Netscape.
AOL.
Blackberry.
MySpace.
To lesser known companies like Altavista.
Friendster.
Flickr.
How do you help ensure you are the Netflix rather than the Blockbuster?
Put down your business fire extinguisher for a minute.
Walk with me...
For software businesses today, your biggest competitive advantage should be the speed of your software innovation cycle.
What the heck is the "software innovation cycle"?
It is the cycle in which you get feedback from stakeholders, prioritize this feedback on your product roadmap and deliver new software with this feedback to your market.
Why is this a competitive advantage?
Two words - "compounding returns".
The speed of your software innovation cycle delivers compounding, exponential returns.
Let's use an example to illustrate.
Your typical competitor has a software innovation cycle speed that helps them get 0.5% better each week.
Your team manages to double that software innovation cycle speed to get an improvement rate of 1% each week.
The difference is dramatic.
In just 5 years, your team could be 13x better than your typical competitor with compounding software innovation cycle returns.
The speed of this cycle can ultimately determine the winners and losers in your market.
Which are you going to be?