Last night, through the SF Entrepreneurs meetup group, I was able to see Matt speak about his company, Automattic, and his Wordpress software. Matt was an extremely nice (and young) guy who was extremely motivating for all of the entrepreneurs in the room. He discussed how he was able to scale his personal software project into a useful tool for hundreds of thousands of users. Some of the key messages were:

Hiring / Employees:

• “Hire people more talented than you”
• “Hire based on things you can’t teach”

Matt had some great thoughts on who and when to hire. The most insightful comments were how he continued to hire people that were better than him at what they did, and to also not hire on current skills (change in 6 months anyway) but to hire on taste and creativity.

Software Development:

• “It takes 10 years to build great software”

Servers:

• “Don’t sign a lease for servers! Use month to month”

VCs / Funding:

• Spend the time to build a prototype and get traction with a user base. You should not approach a VC without a working product.
• “VCs have a herd mentality”

Matt did mention what he thought about Venture Capitalists. Once you screw up with one, you screw up with all J so make sure you are prepared!

Waterfall:
The waterfall approach is highly regimented and requires some sort of sign-off before proceeding to the next phase. In order to begin design phase, the requirements must be finished. Once design is complete, the coders and testers will each perform their responsibilities to ensure the software is complete and thoroughly designed. New requirements are met after the initial scope of requirements has been launched and the project has reached a reasonable level of stabilization.

Pros:
Plenty documentation to keep everyone on the same page, upfront design will save resources in the long run, disciplined approach to chaotic environment

Cons:
Difficult to work with constantly changing requirements, too much time perfecting each phase, extensive knowledge of product required when designing

Agile:
Instead of defining a set of requirements for the entire project at once, Agile focuses on iterations with the intention of launching usable software (without any bugs) every 1 to 4 weeks. An iteration is a project of its own, containing planning, requirements, design, coding, testing, and documentation. Face to face communication is also more important in agile than detailed documentation. If you are going to practice this method, it is suggested that you have all members of the team in a central area, as well as customers or customer representatives (Product Managers, etc).

Pros:
Constantly able to react to new requirements, problems can be resolved faster, usable software is the goal, increased level of trust for each member is required

Cons:
Conflicts with legacy data system requirements which require longer iterations, lack of structure, only works with senior level developers, scope creep

Depending on your project, one or both of these methods may work for you. It’s important to address how each phases of the project will be managed, so as long as the entire team understands the process, you are probably in good shape.

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=384

Users can also sign up on the site to create a profile page that allows them to save favorites and collect Dining Awards. Every reservation made on the site is worth a certain number of points that the user is able to redeem for cash. Not a bad deal! Opentable.com supplements this service with reservation software inside the restaurant. This allows a seamless communication between reservations made online and directly with the restaurant. This also provides Opentable with leverage to charge per reservation made. ($1 through opentable.com, $.25 directly to the restaurant)

The Opentable website has not seen any drastic change throughout its life. The user experience is very clean and simple for its basic functions, but I believe it can do more for users by providing relative information through recommendations and more interaction. By recommending other similar restaurants by category and location on the reservation page, users can easily select an alternative if their restaurant of choice is not available. To make the website more viral, Opentable could add an ‘invite friends to sign up’ option to easily tell friends about Opentable services. This could potentially be supported by a user referral program for Dining Awards. A newsletter describing the new restaurants in the user’s area could also be sent on a monthly basis integrating the social features of sending/inviting friends.

After searching online for evidence of opentable.com advertising, I was surprised to not see a lot (if any) on the web. Recommendations in this space would include widgets on social networking and cooking/restaurant related blogs that would advertise its reservation service as well as Opentable’s expansive database of establishments. An example for Facebook could look something like a ‘Where I’ve Eaten Map’ or ‘My Favorite Restaurants’ map on users profile pages.

Opentable has a fantastic service for anyone looking to make restaurant reservations and is definitely the current leader with the reputation inside and outside the restaurant. Enhancing this service with recommendations and related info, as well as getting started in social media, could take Opentable’s brand to the next level.

The difference between yelp and others is definitely the quality of content. Yelp is currently striving in the social site space and cultivating very dedicated users. Yelp does a great job in providing users the chance to express themselves through their reviews, but also on their own personal pages. On these pages, users can save bookmarks, see reviews relevant to their location, receive compliments, and easily create lists and reviews.  The site is very easy to use. Simply search for an establishment and read the reviews. Pretty simple eh? If you want to sign up, its just as simple! I would encourage everyone to sign up and write your own reviews! You not only find some great places through the people you meet, but store owners do watch what their users write! So if you want to improve their service, be honest and tell them how you feel. My hair salon (yes, I pay more than $10 for my simple haircut…) has been in the bay area for years and continually watch their reviews to see how they can improve.  

Yelp.com has definitely made it through the social network space over the years, and has improved upon their site many times. I was very excited to see an integrated Google maps displaying relevant businesses near the establishment I was searching for. As I was new to the city, I was interested in finding cool places near some of my other city favs. One improvement I can identify right off the bat is the searching capabilities. While they do provide you many options to filter content and find relevant info, the experience is sometimes lost when you want to search for a business “type”. The google map also only displays the businesses that are on the current page. This requires additional manual work by the user to find their next favorite place. By adding more sorting options to the site (Currently only by number of reviews and highest reviews), they can help improve this experience. Perhaps by location so I don’t have to walk as far if I want a coffee? Would help after a late night… 

They have my vote for finding cool places to hang out and spend your money. I hope they continue to add cities to their coverage. If you spend too much time on yelp and find yourself low on cash, see my post on mint.com!

Mint.com uses 3 main steps to help you get up and saving your hard earned dollars.
Step 1: Add Your Accounts:
This step is by far the simplest of the three. Mint allows you to add any accounts you want and have them update automatically. Personally I’ve loaded 5 accounts and 4 of them are working flawlessly. Given that the site is still pretty new, I am hoping they can continue to improve this part of the process.

Step 2: Update Transaction Categories:
This step requires some manual intervention, but it’s a good way to help you personally identify your weaknesses (and positives) in spending. While it does sometimes require a lot of time, Mint helps you out by allowing you to create rules which apply to future transactions of the same type. For example, if my rent is always $1500, I can specify that all checks that are withdrawn from my savings of $1500 are for rent. This comes in quite handy, and is versatile to cover expenses from the same company even if the charge has different values (electricity and cable bills).

Step 3: Spending Trends:
This is definitely the coolest feature of mint. I can manage my transactions all day long, but I want to see trends in my spending so I can manage more precisely. I can track on a monthly, quarterly, whatever basis how my spending is changing. Mint.com uses many cool looking graphs and pie charts throughout this feature to give you a clear idea where your money is going. As much as I like this feature, I still would like to see more customization and functionality. When you start using this website over 3-6 months, you will likely see how you spend your money. But what will your spending look like in 6 months given the current trend? Can Mint provide you a better insight to what your future cash vs debt based on current spending? I think so.

The final word on Mint.com is that it is a very useful website to help you improve your financial choices and to help saving some dough. I think that if Mint.com continues to provide additional easy to use features that help users see future and more in depth trends, than this site will dominate. Aaron Patzer has done a great job so far, but keeping the site as usable as it is today and providing these additional features is still to be seen.

Scott