Solving Customer Problems

Episode 915: Solving Customer Problems, with Dr. Mik Kersten

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Solving customer problems creates value for your agency. Join Dr. Mik Kersten on how you can identify and start solving customer problems.

Dr. Mik Kersten spent a decade creating open-source developer tools for solving customer problems before realizing that programming was not the bottleneck of large-scale software delivery. Since that time, he has been working on creating a model and tools for connecting the end-to-end software value stream.

He has been named a JavaOne Rock Star speaker and one of the IBM developerWorks Java top 10 writers of the decade. He was selected as one of the 2012 Business in Vancouver 40 under 40 and has been a World Technology Awards finalist in the IT Software category. Kersten is the editor of the new IEEE Software Department on DevOps.

Prior to founding Tasktop, Mik created the Eclipse Mylyn open source project as part of his Ph.D. in Computer Science, pioneering the integration of development tools with the delivery pipeline.

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What you will learn from this episode about solving customer problems:

How Mik recognized that the way business software is designed often doesn’t meet the real needs of its users, and why he founded Tasktop to help in solving customer problems
How Mik’s background as a developer gives him an informed foundation to understand customer pain points and problems and insights into how software can address them
Why maintaining a focus on solving the problems found in business software and customer needs helped Mik pivot Tasktop more effectively
Why Mik was inspired to move into the realm of thought leadership and write his book Project to Product
How listening to his customers and understanding their stories was a transformative experience that helped shape Mik’s thought leadership and reframe his beliefs
How thought leadership has helped to elevate Mik’s message and helped him better align with his customers’ needs and future proof his business against economic recession
Why the overwhelmingly positive reception to Project to Product was in direct response to Mik’s effort to serve and help his readers
Mik shares key points and information from Project to Product about his Flow Framework methods and how businesses and software can be better aligned with each other
How key lessons learned from his mentor helped Mik learn to focus on both long term success in solving customer problems and near term profitability

Resources:

Website: http://projecttoproduct.org/
Twitter: @mik_kersten
Project to Product by Mik Kersten: https://amzn.to/2XKSAEx
Need more help from Dr. Mik on solving customer problems? Register for the webinar here!

Additional Resources:

Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
Listen to a related podcast on solving customer problems from our guest, Ari Meisel

Solving Customer Problems: Full Episode Transcript

Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

Good morning. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation, where I interview today’s top business owners so we can learn their recipe for success, how they built, and how they scaled their business. In fact, my team at Predictive ROI, you know, we’re constantly going through rebuilding and adding free resources to our resources section on PredictiveROI.com.

So now you can download free and practical guides for everything from search engine optimization, how to use LinkedIn to generate leads, how to leverage content slice and dice, how to use a Trojan horse, a sales strategy, and other strategies that we’ve compiled from the brilliant insights shared by our very generous guest. So if you just go to PredictiveROI.com/Resources, whatever you request, we’ll send it right to your inbox.

Solving Customer Problems: Dr. Mik Kersten’s Introduction

Before we welcome today’s special guest, Dr. Mik Kersten.

Let me share some additional context around why. Again, I was so excited that Mik said yes. So functionally, Mik is the CEO of Top Technologies and he is also the inventor of the test focused interface. He’s been named a Java one Rockstar speaker and as we’ll talk about during this conversation, you’ll see that the on stage opportunities and being able to speak in front of audiences and being able to share that thought leadership has really exploded to put a fine point on it, because of how he’s gotten so clear on being helpful to his audience and in how they’re being helpful.

He’s walking audiences through, you know, how they should be thinking or how business owners, how executives, how business leaders should be thinking about digital transformation as opposed to the wrong way to think about digital transformation. So he’s really illuminating. So many possibilities. And then specifically how they can thrive and how you two Onward Nation can thrive during this age, this time of disruption.

So it is accelerated to the point now where every other week or weekly, he’s got a keynote opportunity to be able to share this thought leadership from stage. So we’re going to talk about how thought leadership then how that’s an opportunity to not only be helpful to your audience, but then also the business side of it, how that elevates the conversation for his company task top technologies, and elevates it to the point where, wow, this team can maybe they can solve my problem in this age of disruption.

So we’re going to talk about all of that Onward Nation. And I think you’re going to find that message really, really helpful. So without further ado, welcome to Onward Nation, Mik.

Solving Customer Problems: Dr. Mik’s Path and Journey

Thank you Stephen. Well, thank you very much for saying yes. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to be able to have this conversation. And so obviously, I’ve shared a few highlights about you, about your recent book and how that thought leadership is giving you opportunities.

But this is just a portion of your story. So, take us behind the curtain and tell us more about you. Tell us more about your path, your journey. And then we’ll dive in, sir. And my journey really started as being, you know, trying to build great technology. And I think for a lot of people who are now sort of growing through the ranks, whether within companies or becoming entrepreneurs, you know, you’ll take more of the business path.

You might take more that technology path. For me, I started as a developer and I spent a decade building open source code and really learning that craft and getting really deep into, in the end, understanding what’s wrong with the way software is built today, while at the same time realizing how critical software is to what was happening in the world economy.

Right. I kind of got to from working in Silicon Valley, got to watch the dotcom bubble happen, and then got to watch what happened after, and realizing that there was this really much bigger movement afoot in terms of a very profound transition, for the entire economy. And everyone, of course, was making a big deal out of it at first that it kind of came down, but then it realized there was something much more permanent happening and that, established ways of looking at businesses, both small and large businesses.

Right. So the world’s largest enterprises were changing and this disruption was happening, and that some of the ideas that I had about what was wrong with the way we built software were actually the way that all these established businesses were thinking about it, thinking about technology, or as this new breed of companies, like the tech giants, like some of the startups that were forming, had a completely different way of doing things.

So I basically dedicated myself first to doing my research, my PhD on this problem and just getting very interested in the problem and realizing I want to know more about this than anyone on the planet because there was something so profound here. It’s so interesting to me, learning about that, taking time to learn to learn enough about it and do enough research and have enough discussions with very smart people about it.

Solving Customer Problems: How The Company Started

I started the company 12 years ago, to really bring solutions around this problem to market. And that’s really the end. I was, I think, fairly early on in this new wave of disruptions, and that’s now culminated in this, you know, book that, called project, a product that really is intended to guide conception.

You’re not just through the company, not just through the products that we offer, but really, you know, provide a new way of thinking about how businesses need to operate in the context of technology and of the age of software and digital. And really yet I’ve been just completely dedicated to that, first as a programmer, then as an entrepreneur.

And now as someone who’s also, in addition, trying to just inspire business leaders out there to shift to this new way of thinking before the company gets disrupted. I think you’ve given us, well, several great lessons there, the will that we’ll explore a little bit deeper here in just a second. But the first thing I want to say is this really overarching big lesson that you just gave Onward Nation business owners is illustrating the depth of this well of expertise, like it is an inch wide and a mile deep for you.

It’s not like you’ve well, I’m going to do this and then I’m going to do that and I’m going to switch industries and all of that. You were committed back from and you knitted it together so precisely back from being a developer to where you are today, that work in the trenches as a developer still pays dividends to you today, right?

When you’re talking with audiences, so forth, because you’ve got the development experience, right? That’s right. Yeah. And actually on Sunday I had my wife’s cousin’s son ask me on a chairlift. We were skiing. You know, how do I start a tech company? I really want to have a startup like I C214, by the way, this is just so exciting.

Like, what Uber’s doing and how quickly, you know, like, how do I do that? And my answer to him was actually pretty similar to your question. Us now. Does this go really deep in some topic and understanding something? You know, he’s so young right now. Right. Like we’re talking high school but you know, get the foundations right.

Some people get these deep foundations through business. Some people get that through experience. Some people get them through just this understanding of customer problems. He’s really interested in programming and software already. So I said get those foundations in programming right now. And when you do, you’ll start seeing all these interesting problems.

Because I think one thing that something that’s really interesting in my own experience reflecting on it, is that while I was going really deep into the technology and becoming, you know, just writing a ton of software and really understanding that the modern software stack, what was actually happening as we were introducing that through the startup and through the kind of entrepreneurial side is what I was actually going really deep into is understanding the customer problem.

Solving Customer Problems: Making Transitions in The Business

Yes. So the company has stopped. We’ve actually pivoted a couple times. But for me, it never, you know, we went from being an open source services company then to being a developer product that we were selling then to being this infrastructure and what we are now, which is a value stream management product.

But to me, because I was so fixated on this, this one customer problem, which had to really do with the fact that you’re building software the wrong way, right? At a business level, at a technical level, you’re just thinking about software the wrong way. Going a mile deep into that, it actually made these, you know, Eric Lee’s lean startup type pivots easier to manage because throughout each of those steps, we were trying to solve this problem.

Right. And the vision of the company, the people around me, that we all understood. So it’s not, you know, and it’s not like we were changing markets completely. But, you know, right now we played the market in the software market, right, in the market of software development tools. And just this much bigger world of the I.T management tools as well.

But it was really going deep, you know, both on the technology side and really on the customer problem side, I think has been absolutely key to me in this being the guiding light for everything I’ve done. I think it was really smart here. Here again, another lesson, right? That you have this core belief or this is the core problem that we’re looking to solve.

Now, there are some pivots along the way. Is it this way that we’re going to solve it? No, we’re going to pivot. Is it this way? We’re going to solve it. No. You know what? We need a pivot. How about this? No. Now, you’ve been on to, you know, several different pivots.

Solving Customer Problems: Creating Technology Based on Customer Problems

And now you’ve obviously gained traction in that area. But how smart we are, to make strategic changes but never lose sight of why we’re doing it right. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And I think you’ve I think this really interesting thing is when you look over the years or if you’re looking ahead on your own careers, what’s going to fuel that?

Why? And for me, it’s being out building and listening to the customer problem because in the end, you know, that’s what you create the business around. That’s what you create technology around whatever your solution is, whether it’s technology based or not. That’s, it’s listening to that customer problem. And in the end, I’ve actually kind of seen the technology in the product line as a way of getting into those conversations to hear from people making decisions in their organizations, whether they’re buying decisions that are strategic decisions on what the key problems are and why.

And then there’s just this fascinating creative exercise of aligning what you offer to your customers around what their most painful problems are, because it’s easy to find the easy problems, but find the really painful problems that people will pay for. That people will allow you to scale your business around, you know, that is, you know, it’s a much longer discovery process.

We’ll be here again, another great lesson that you just shared with us. So it’s every product rollout or service rollout or every iteration or every interaction with the customer that’s an opportunity to listen and then be helpful by. And then is that something that we can scale our business around? Nope. Yes, maybe whatever. But it’s all about listening while you’re in the trenches doing the hard work because that’s an excellent opportunity, right, to either find the next pivot or find the next way to be helpful and scale from there, right?

Yeah, exactly. And then with that listening, it’s just interesting because you do see that I’m that’s almost a cultural thing right. Whether within your company or within yourself. You’re basically a covey habit right. Seeking first to understand or to be understood. Because when you’re pitching something, when you’re selling, you’re trying to have how you know, all the passion and greatness that you’ve put into this, the solution be understood.

But if you’re using that same thing as a vehicle to listen and to see how people misunderstand what you’re showing them, or how people are looking for something similar, but not quite what you’ve done. You’re actually then learning how to evolve your offering to be something more and more, strategic and valuable to the customer.

Solving Customer Problems: Scaling The Business

So I think it’s exactly that, using that opportunity of every launch, you know, every customer meeting, just to always be listening and learning on the gap between what you’ve got, and where the market wants you to be. So that proactive listening, and I love the fact that you just knitted that back to seven happened to such highly effective people.

One of my favorite books of all time. Just love, love the wisdom in that book. So the listening and then identifying gaps. And so everything that you learn through that process in the listening is that was the genesis then for the book that. Yes, we’re addressing this on the server side. Yes, we’re addressing this and being helpful in the trenches with customers.

But maybe there’s an opportunity here to take this even deeper and really put some thought leadership behind it too, in the form of a book. Was that kind of the genesis of it? Actually, yes. Oh, okay. Awesome. So I’ll give you a quick summary, but I’ve always taken some inspiration and I really like that this cover is incredible.

But, in terms of learning how to listen organizationally and learning how to learn as a company, I found the work of Steve Blank invaluable. And the book that inspired me was Four Steps the epiphany. Now he’s got the startup owner’s manual, and it’s all about customer discovery, which in the end is again listening to the mark.

And he makes a point that you can only learn when you’re outside of the building. So I’ve what was it 4 or 5 years ago? I read that book and I kind of took it to heart again, even though I thought I was pretty good at that. But it really made me think about this. And we’ve been around for several years at this point.

We pivoted to our new infrastructure product, which we sell B2B. So we’re selling it to large enterprise customers, and it’s getting interesting. It actually is scaling, but it made me realize that I really, you know, I want to help keep driving the business, and be out there in front of customers. But things were getting interesting enough in terms of what we were hearing from customers that I just basically doubled down on being out.

I probably more than doubled down on being outside the building. And over the course of 18 months, we actually counted this in my calendar. I did over 250 customer meetings. Holy bananas. Yeah. And it was. Which meant I was, you know, flying an insane amount because I’m based in Vancouver and a lot of these are on the East Coast or in Europe.

But it really completely changed my perspective. And even though I thought I had already changed my perspective, by the way. And that was actually what led to the book. Like there’s a bunch of empirical data that we gathered from our customers and understanding how their IT environments and software evolve and alignments work like what the ground truth of their tools that they use are.

So that was a key point in the book, but it was actually those just ongoing and constant customer conversations that, again, changed the way I think and that I was able to reflect those stories and those problems and those things I learned from today’s IT leaders. And it was mostly, you know, fortune 500 leaders, almost entirely in terms of what’s really going wrong today.

So, yeah, it was just both invaluable lessons from, you know, for me, for the company and that I was able to capture into this artifact, this, that the project, the product book, in order to help elevate this message and really the things that I was hearing. Okay. So I find that fascinating, like really profound when you say that it completely changed your perspective.

Solving Customer Problems: The Most Transformative Experience

So let me give that back to you. Make sure I’m tracking with you here. It sounds like it changed your perspective because you went into those 250 interactions with, you know, a set of beliefs. This is what I know and so forth. Then in the trenches 250 times, getting some pushback, listening, paying attention to that, maybe changing some of the things that you might be working on and then doing some research.

And so, like all of those opportunities being outside the building to learn like that, like all of that body of work around those 250 different iterations, that’s what changed your perspective, because it took things that you knew deeper and maybe gave you completely new experiences to being able to hang out with super smart people like yourself. Would that be fair?

Yes. And just to be blunt, that whole thing started with me going out there to sell software. Right? Interesting. And this is back to my point. When I first went, but of course I had ringing in my head, you know, that the combination of those two great thinkers let’s, you know, Covey on the first thing under I think first to understand and then Steve Blank on getting out of the building.

And I very quickly realized that while I was out there selling software, what I was learning was, back to one of our earlier questions, was just as valuable or even more valuable. And it was really, you know, taking that back and really taking that listening. That was the most transformative experience for me and just learning the stories as well.

Right? Both learning, both changing my perspective. So having my own perspective reframed, because when you’re out there selling, especially when you’re selling bigger ticket items, in the end you’re trying to reframe the customer’s perspective, saying, look, you’ve been thinking about this wrong. Do you think, you know, you think your internal teams can do this, or you think but you actually won’t succeed in your transformation unless you understand the root of this problem, right?

Solving Customer Problems: Customer Development

So you’re kind of trying to reframe the customer and just fast thing when you realize, you know, you yourself have your perspective reframed, which is what happened to me. So the and I think the really interesting thing about it is that a lot of it happens through stories, right? You start understanding people’s stories, you start understanding.

You talk to an executive who was fired from a bank, and you really start empathizing with this person because now there are two rungs down in their new job. But the story that they tell you of why they were fired and how wrong that is really sticks with you. And a number of those stories stuck with me, and it made me realize again that learning process, that there was a very big world problem here that we needed to address.

But I think there’s, you know, for everyone else out there, you know, even if you’re like a three person company, that learning still applies, right? Because in the end, as a business, you’re trying to solve, you’re going through what’s called customer development. You’re trying to discover the most profound problem that you can solve with your resources.

You’ve got to know them, and, you know, if we get into times of economic contraction, it’s only the most profound problems. The businesses that solve the most strategic problems are the most profound ones that stick around anyway. Right. So I think it’s a critical time to be making those discoveries. Well, and such a great point there too.

Another lesson that you just taught us is that it. Well, so maybe in kind of framing that. So when you said that about, you know, downturn economic times, maybe that’s recession. What that said to me is, okay, he has smartly, proactively, future proofed or recession proved his business. Now, there’s no such thing as a truly recession proof business.

But, you know, because you’re leading with thought leadership, you’re leading with listening, you’re leading with being helpful. You’re out of the office and you’re learning and shaping and in changing perspectives, as well as changing perspectives of clients and prospects. And so forth, and elevating those conversations. If and when a recession does happen and resources become a little bit more scarce, your top of mind and you have this incredibly, deep well of thought leadership that that you’re at the top of the list.

I think that’s really smart. The way you’ve done that. Thanks, Steve. And I think that’s what actually reflects how I think about it. So in the sense that, you know, you look at a downturn, you look at a recession, and it’s not that and you look at your customers today. And it’s not that they’ll stop buying anything, it’s just that they would have bought 8 or 12 solutions and at the time in good economic times, and they’ll buy 2 or 3 in a downturn.

And it’s exactly what you said is how do you make your business be one of those 2 or 3 that they buy through that downturn so that you you basically make it through and make it to the good times. And then of course, the companies that are able to do that then do really well in the good times.

Solving Customer Problems: The Whole Point of a Leadership

So I think, you know, absolutely. One I think leadership is this tool that you can use to really elevate your message and to align yourselves to the bigger customer problem, which then whatever that means for your business, it might mean that you get better relationships within the customer. That in the end you’re somehow more closely related.

And I think this is the whole point of leadership you’re showing to the customer, to the market. You understand the most strategic problems for the part of the market that you care about, that you’re trying to address, and that you have a solution to those problems that you have a better way. So I think this works at big scales and it works at small scales.

But I think the key thing is that, you know, it’s one of the tools that you can use, as you’re pointing out, to get through a downturn and really to rise above the noise as the budget gets frozen or cut. So let’s go. You know, one of the things that you shared with me in the green room before we started recording, and I thought it was a really powerful word, and I hope you don’t mind me sharing it here.

But when we were talking about the book and I was asking you about some of the new things and so forth that are there going on to the business you mentioned, you know, what the book, it has exploded. It has surpassed all of our expectations. It has certainly seen more copies. And we thought that it would. And we’re certainly grateful for that.

You know, it’s awesome to see that traction. But I thought it was such a great word when you use the word exploded because one, I was super happy for you to hear that. But it also, in my opinion, speaks to that how helpful the book is that it’s not a self-aggrandizing, that it’s not thumping your chest is about being helpful, is taking this culmination of everything you’ve learned and listened to, and then sharing that back and being helpful to the audience.

Solving Customer Problems: The Flow Framework in The Book

So take us inside the book and how that’s been received and how that has, you know, felt as a thought leader to have received like that. And then we’ll talk about some of the opportunities that it’s open for you to serve. So I think again, that’s what does hit on the key point, because I think that the book, in the end, it’s an I think any sort of effort of the store.

Right. Because I was trying to do this through presentations or some blogs I was doing before. The book just happens to be a very different vehicle, and I’ve learned more than I care to know about how different it is in the past year. But it’s, you know, in the end, what you’re doing. It’s kind of what you’re doing as a business, right?

You’re trying to show your customers to the market that you understand the problem that you’ve got, that you need perspective on it and that you can help. And I think it’s that, you know, that attitude of servitude that’s so key in terms of thought leadership. Because in the end, what you’re trying to communicate is that, again, you know, the customer’s perspective and you know that there’s been something flawed with it and that, you know that you can help.

And in the case of the book is able to help with ideas. So I realized, okay, well, how can we capture that? And the thing I did is put a new framework into the book that anyone can use for their ideas, and it’s called the Flow Framework. And that’s a new way of aligning the business side with the technology side.

So I thought, okay, let’s help with that by putting that out there. And then of course on the commercial side of that, by making sure that our product offerings fulfill the promise and the vision of that flow framework. But in the end, and this is kind of a lesson I learned through open source, right?

Solving Customer Problems: The Benefits of Open-Source Business Models

If you look at open source business models, you’re putting a lot out there for free. Yes. But what you’re putting out there is helping, what gets used for free is making an impact, a broader impact and providing broad benefit to the market. And then you’re trying to take some of that where you can really accelerate how you help by the subset of the market who’s willing to to pay you dollars to accelerate it rather than trying to, you know, reinvented or boil the ocean themselves.

And then you get a thriving business, right? That’s how you get a say, a red hat, which is one of the open source potential, as you were saying, that I was. I was absolutely thinking of Red hat being open source and a perfect example of what you’re saying. Yeah, exactly. And I realized, okay, I’m going to take the same approach with this book because I know open source and how to do that.

So I think let’s make it helpful as an artifact in itself. But embed that helpful thing, into the books that people just can just run. And so let’s both show that I understand their problem and give them at least a conceptual solution. And then for the ones who need more help, let’s give them the commercial solution to support it.

I think it’s really important that the book, you know, stands on its own, and it’s bigger the bigger that it has stopped. And it provides help in terms of a new way of thinking about these things. And I think that’s the part that’s work is n’t just, you know, trying to sell a particular product or some of these books to a particular methodology or, you know, set of consulting services.

It wasn’t trying to, just identify the problem and then leave you hanging with, what the hell do I do? As so many good books do, I’ve read them. But to put something out there, they put a new, very prescriptive idea out there of how you think about this differently. So on point. Oh okay.

Solving Customer Problems: Highlights of the Flow Framework

So take that piece and let’s go into something you mentioned just a minute ago. And maybe you can spend a few minutes here just walking us through. I found it intriguing, the flow framework. So can you give us a few of the highlights of the flow framework? Because I think that’s going to be helpful for Onward business owners, too.

Yes, absolutely. And so this boils. So now we’re going to I guess go jump a bit from how to approach things sort of in my career and with a book. And then in terms of, you know, the actual problem that the book and in the end the company tries to solve. So with the project, the key realization that I want to put out there is that the way especially larger businesses this happens at small businesses too.

But the way that larger businesses are thinking about software and digital is completely wrong. And it relates things. The book relates things back to these five different ages that we’ve seen. So these five different technological revolutions, you know, the two most recent ones previously are the age of Stone, heavy engineering, independence, mass production, and today we’re in the age of software and digital.

Each of those ages is brought with it. First of all, at the start of it, the last about 50 years, sometimes longer with this one, this frenzy of start ups and new businesses that master the new means of production. Right. So this is, you know, think back to in the early 1900s, 300 car startups, right?

Everyone’s trying to get a piece of manufacturing and how you do production lines and, then these waves go into these consolidations, these turning points, which are often aligned with recessions. And then the rest of the economy learns how to master the new means of production.

So we’re now in the middle of the age of software, actually, the turning point, according to, you know, all the research I’ve done, the work of Doctor Carla Perez that I base it on, from her book Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital and the turning point is where there’s all this creative destruction happening and post that the companies who master the means of production, which is now software, thrive.

The ones who don’t, tend to decline or disappear. Right. You’re seeing this play itself out in retail already. But you’ll see it play out across segment after segment, industry segment after industry segment. So the real question becomes how as a business, how do you make your company thrive in that deployment period? After the turning point, how do you become one of the companies that thrives in the age of software and digital?

And this matters? I think whether you’re a large company, the book is more focused on large companies where this problem is so severe, or if you’re a small company trying to function in some ecosystem as well, right? You could be a beauty consultancy if you’re not speaking the language of a digital organization, well, chances are you’re not going to have as good an easy time making it through this turning point.

Solving Customer Problems: Creating Your Value Stream Network

So what the book says is the problem that we have is that at a managerial level, the way that people run businesses is not aligned with innovation and software. It’s perfectly aligned with Amazon or Microsoft, but it’s not aligned in a traditional company, where we have a management methodology, the book basically throws project management under the bus. And says the project manager for software innovation is great for many things.

It’s great for building buildings. It was, you know, a master when the Hoover Dam was built and charts were basically created for that. But it’s not how you manage your business as an innovator. It’s not even how car companies manage their businesses. Delivering value through software and through digital offerings is all about, you know, flowing new features, new experiences to the customer.

It’s not about projects and timeframes and budgets. It’s about innovating through what the book calls these product value streams and creating your value stream network. Mixed results stream network fits into your customer’s value stream network if you’re working with bigger customers and partners. So the whole goal flow framework is to provide a new managerial model for people who haven’t grown up as developers.

As interestingly, each of the CEOs of the tech giants have, so they kind of get the stuff anyway, and they’ve had no trouble thriving. But for today’s business leaders to really understand what it takes to drive business value to customers through software and through digital offerings. And, that’s that’s really what the flow Framework’s about is to basically say what you’re doing right now.

And this is especially true at large companies, is wrong. This idea of project management and managing leads to call centers won’t ever turn you into an innovator. Here’s the reasons why it’s caused several companies to fail. And here’s a new way of looking at it, which is how business value flows from your strategic initiatives to a customer.

Through this value stream network. Here’s how you create a value stream network, here’s how you measure it, here’s how you optimize it. I think that’s great. And I can see also, though, how that creates some discomfort for some companies that are so invested in maybe it’s physical infrastructure or systems or and they’re not that nimble.

And so then looking at I was like, oh geez, if we were to do that, then we’d be giving up this, that or the other thing. And then they’re almost shackled. They’re almost like handcuffed. And then unfortunately though, when that disruption continues and or hits their industry or we’re just, you know, whatever word you want to use, they’re the ones that are going to be left behind or maybe out of business.

Right, exactly. And so I think I was wondering how much resistance there would be, to just how strong a stance I took on this in the book. But what’s been ignored now, having had this next round, because now I’m doing multiple customer meetings a week in addition to those presentations as a result of this. And it resonated with senior executives.

Solving Customer Problems: When Change In a Business is Inevitable

Right. So I’m a regular speaking to CIOs and chief digital officers and chief transformation officers. They’re the resistance to the resistance to change. I thought it would be a lot higher. And it’s not that these people are, you know, poor. Your last point, like getting out there and meeting with really smart people, tends to be really smart people who really care about the success of their business.

Right. And it’s really just been having sort of the wrong tools and the wrong operating model. And culture gets blaming companies on these other things, but just having the wrong approach. So there is, of course, inertia, right? It’s to transform, a brick and mortar business to something digital, like you’ve got a lot of inertia and it’s hard, but it’s I’ve been surprised that how little resistance to change I’ve seen and how much frustration I’ve seen from these kinds of leaders of how slowly their businesses are transforming, whereas they actually do realize that they need to move much more quickly or risk the farm.

Well, good on them for being that smart and that proactive. But that also, I think shows how well-positioned you are because you’re a solution through that process too. Yeah. So let’s turn our attention away from, you know, thought leadership for a moment from the flow framework for a moment. And let’s put the spotlight back on you, sort of.

And what I mean by that sort of is let’s think about mentorship. Let’s think about a person who may have been who you might consider to be your most influential mentor. So tell us about the most influential tool lesson Mik that you ever learned from one of your mentors. And then and then how that lesson is still paying dividends today, how that lesson has helped you become the person, the leader that you are today.

Solving Customer Problems: Most Influential Lesson from a Mentor

Okay, I will tell you one of the ones that comes to mind. But now you’re making me think of all these kinds of different phases of my career and the very different sort of lessons I’ve learned. But I’ll tell you one. Okay. That I got from my mentor at the time, stems Brian, he was one of the two key people who created a really interesting technology company called Object Technologies International that IBM later bought.

And this was when my PhD supervisor and I were just starting the business, like, this was this was, you know, a couple months before incorporating, and he was just giving us, you know, advice on starting because he knew we had this really big vision and he had no lack of confidence in our great big vision. And I think he probably, now that I think of it, was realizing how far out that vision was.

Right? Like, we’re 12 years on from this conversation right now. And he said, you know, so, you know, never lose sight of that clear vision. But don’t forget to pick up the bags of money along the way, which I thought was kind of an interesting statement, but but it rang so true, which is that, you know, in the end, you’re paving the path to your vision by making something customers want to buy today, right?

Right. If you’re paving all with futures, if you’re, you know, playing too big for where your market’s at, if you’re, you know, spending into a business that’s not yet proven scale and so on, all those things can become very risky. And I think one of the reasons we’ve been able to do something through this is because we’ve been both focused on the near term and the long term.

Right. I’m looking for those opportunities to deliver value to the customers now and help fund them, pave that next, next big thing that we were thinking of doing. So I really like that. Right, is just to have that kind of dual focus on the long term vision. I love that. Well, I think it’s from Paul Saffo is, never mistake a clear vision for a short distance, I guess for us in the short distance.

Right. So I do repeat that to myself now and then. But to really focus on picking up the bags of money through, you know, selling great things to customers at each step of the way. Well, a very, fiscally prudent strategy and it, you know, not not every company is sitting on, you know, tens of millions of dollars in VC money or PE money.

Right? And with huge burn rates and in going through cash. And so that is such a prudent lesson of, you know, sell something today, make money today, continue to iterate for the longer term. Fine. But you gotta keep the lights on today, right? Yeah, exactly. And you can have other businesses, right. You can have come out of Y Combinator and have those.

Solving Customer Problems: Spend Money to Deliver Value to Customers

Great. So, you know, an ad based monetization model where all you’re focused on for a few years is just active users and delighted users. Right. But that’s not where we came from. We came from seven years of bootstrapping to 70 people, so paying our way up to 70 people. And then we took two rounds of VC financing after that.

So I’ve kind of seen a bit of both sides of it. And I, you know, certainly had colleagues who have been in the hyper growth phase. But, you know, if you’re in there, absolutely. You’re the, you know, hypergrowth area, you can double down. But there are a lot of great businesses and ideas out there who will actually, you know, grow much more incrementally.

And I think that’s great too. And I think some really unique things have been created that way. Well, and I will say this and obviously I’m making an observation from the outside looking in, but my guess is that you and your team were much more diligent and responsible in how you invested those later rounds of financing than you would have been had you not had a team of 70 and bootstrapped it for seven years.

Oh, absolutely. And then the other actual thing that stuck in my mind from that mentor back then from Brian Barry was, you know, spend the money like it’s your own. Right. And that’s never, that’s always been. But less is more as one of our core values is as a result of this. But, that’s never really, I left the company.

I think that’s really critical. And so it’s important to reinforce, right, that every dollar you want to spend, you want a dollar to deliver a customer value. So it’s been such a great conversation. Again, I’m grateful that you said yes to come onto the show, to be our guide, to be our mentor. There’s just been so much fun and so many lessons.

I know we covered a lot. But before we go, before we close out and say goodbye. Nick, is there any final advice? Maybe, that you want to share? Perhaps something that we might have missed. And then please do tell Onward Nation business owners the best way to connect with you, sir.

Solving Customer Problems: Final Advice from Dr. Mik

So I think I guess the common thread for me is and you know, we talked about going a mile deep.

I think, you know, to really do that and to be happy doing it, given the amount of effort that usually takes, is just to make sure that, you know, find the thing that you’re really passionate about, right? And that can be a customer problem, technology can be a business model. And, and really just to continue while you’re seeking, going through this customer development process, while you’re seeking, to grow a business, trying to create a successful company.

Just don’t forget to make sure that you’re in the same process, you’re growing your passion as well, because that’s what will fuel your energy. And I think these things and these things can have a very sort of, virtuous cycle. And I think that’s been the key thing. So, you know, make sure that in the areas that you’re going, you’re going deep, you’re learning the markets that you’re getting into and so on.

Those are the things that you’re passionate about. Because I think that’s what can keep you on my list, keeps me happy and energized on what’s a very long journey and will continue to be a very long journey.

[H3] Solving Customer Problems: How to Connect with Dr. Mik

And then, yeah, to reach me, you know, check out ProjectTheProduct.org, or just, you know, Google for Project The Product.

And then, you know, Twitter is @mik_kersten. So we love to hear from you. Okay. Onward Nation, no matter how many notes you took or how often you go back and relisten to mix words of wisdom, which I sure hope that you do. The key is to take all of these lessons, everything he so generously shared with you.

Take those, apply them into your business right away, and accelerate your results and make us all have the same 86,400 seconds of today. And again, I’m grateful that you said yes to come on to the show, to be our mentor and guide, to help us all move our businesses onward to that next level. Thank you so much, Mik.

Thank you so much, Stephen. Great questions and a great chat. Thank you. This episode is complete. So head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

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