Say hello to Katie Unger, our newest intern at Revelation. She is double-majoring in Strategic Communications and Journalism at the University of Wisconsin. The Twin Cities-native also writes for the student dining magazine, “The Dish.”
Author: Brian Lee
Helping minority and female entrepreneurs
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) announced recently that it created a program called UpStart to help aspiring minority and female entrepreneurs gain the skills needed to be successful in business.
Today, I was selected to teach a class on creating websites during the 13-week session. It’s truly an honor for me, especially being a minority entrepreneur myself.
Other class topics include financing, legal issues and customer development.
I’m glad Madison is starting to have more programs to help would-be business owners. Another example is the Latino Chamber of Commerce of Dane County–a client of ours–which is improving business practices by providing training to Latino entrepreneurs.
Test your products before launching them!
I’m stunned by the lack of product testing these days. Companies spend a lot of money and time on R&D, but then they don’t spend anything on seeing if their product is actually functional.
An article on MarketWatch discusses Microsoft’s latest iteration of its Surface tablet, after the first version had disappointing sales:
The software giant — an expert in “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” — recently had to go back to the drawing board to finesse one of its most important software products, the latest generation of Windows, Windows 8, which has been a disappointment since its launch last year. In October, it released Windows 8.1, an improved version addressing consumer complaints, such as the loss of the “Start” button. It then moved on to addressing criticisms of the Surface, such as its lack of an Outlook email option and issues with the tablet’s one kickstand slot.
It seems Microsoft should have done focus groups and other research so that the second version of Surface would have actually been its first. That’s what I would recommend to any company with a product to sell.
(And I’m not just bashing Microsoft. Other companies are guilty, too. Remember when holding the Apple iPhone 4 would block the antenna?)