Well, not entirely. But we built this web app that makes it easy to identify interactions between drugs and supplements you are taking. It's pretty cool. This is one of many small companies with good ideas we've worked with over the past few years.

Yesterday, someone asked me why we enjoy working with small companies and startups like this. “They have no money” he said. “Big brands have cash - why don't you work with them?”

Of course, we do work with big brands. They are nice. Sometimes. The problem is that they seldom dare to innovate. You bring them ideas. They have meetings. You bring them more ideas. More meetings. Eventually, they decide that they want to water-down the best idea - making it a shitty one. Not very innovative. Just playing it safe.

If you work in interactive, web, or mobile and you want to do something cool and innovative - you have to work with startups. The only way to get better is to break old models apart, innovate, and lead. Who does that better than startups?

Working with entrepreneurs before they launch their first product is often exciting and challenging. For many, the most difficult part of building the first product is launching. Pushing the button. Saying “OK, this is it, now we'll put this in front of people today.” It's hard because your vision of what the product should be and what you've built in that first version will be far far apart.

You fear that the product won't work. That no one will use it. You fear that people will talk about you and your product in some negative way. You believe you won't get a second chance. That no one will care.

Of course, on some of these points, you are right. Few people will care. Most of those who see your product will maybe use it once and never again. Some people might even tell other people that your product suck (although few will remember to do so since they are too busy to be going around complaining to friends about this Alpha product they tried once.)

The fear of launching to “the market” seems reasonable enough. However, we've seen this fear of launching even with closed Alphas. For instance, we've seen weeks of tinkering with the first version of a product before pushing it in front of just 30 users. Yes, even at that stage, people are afraid of what users will think. They choose to hold off on user testing until the product is “in better shape.” We've seen products be in 100% stealth for six months. Most of the product works fine and we have 3 tests we could run with users right now, but because the design or experience is not “good enough” the product/user testing never begins.

This is human nature. Many entrepreneurs, especially successful ones, are perfectionists. They want the product to be really strong before they show it. They want to be proud of it. They want the design to be smooth, the experience to flow seamlessly, and they want optimized technical performance.

Lean Is Better But Not Everyone Gets It

The Lean Methodology was partly designed to tackle such issues, but it has been met with some resistance. For instance, in the past few months, we heard from one seasoned Internet/Mobile entrepreneur that this lean methodology is just hype. They don't buy it. They think “it works with some products, but not with ours.”  Some believe that you have to build most of the product before you put users in. Some have even mentioned Steve Jobs as proof that the way to go is to have a vision and then build exactly what you want - not what users say they want.

This is bullshit. First of, Steve Jobs was entirely in tune with the customer. He listened to users all the time. He was the user. He was also more in tune with design, product, and marketing then anyone else alive. He knew exactly what was needed to bring about success, but remember the first version of many of “his” products? Even he had to go through a lot of trial and error. It won't be any different for you.

So if you build 80% of your product before you bring users in, you are in deep deep trouble. The point of lean is not to build a poor product fast and launch it. The point is to figure out which of your core assumptions are right and wrong. The point is to learn - fast and early - what to build and how to build it, where to focus your resources, and what not to build.

To minimize waste and get answers from users - you must launch early. You have to get one version of your product in front of one group of users so that you can get to testing. Something magical happens when you talk to people who are using your product for the first time. You'll discover that they won't behave the way you intended. You'll find that people will do things that you didn't even think of. They will ask for features that you don't have on your product roadmap.

The fear of launching is irrational. Once you launch, you'll realize that most people won't care. They won't care because you didn't get the product right. There is only one way to get the product right: Launch early, test, measure, and iterate. Repeat. It takes time, but it's the only way.

If you care about the environment, check out GoodGuide. It's an excellent guide to healthy products. Here's what I like about it:

They stick to the basics. Design is clean with enough white-space to let the eye rest.

The “Quick Product Picks” section is really useful. I imagine they did a study on what 90%+ of their audience look for most often - then they designed the “get recommendations” engine. I used it right away.

Immediately under “Search” they mention that they have “61,041 products.” It makes sense to do that. I would make sure that number is updated frequently (ticker-style) to ensure that people are reminded that the product selection is growing. That's an easy thing to do.

Good people at GoodGuide: Cool product!

We get a lot of questions about this, so we thought we should just do a quick summary of what we’ve done and what we’re interested in doing for you entrepreneurs out there.
First, we’re just really passionate about start-ups because we enjoy the process and we love to see new underdogs challenge the big boys. Some of the people on our teams have done their own start-ups in the past including the fun task of raising capital from investors. Some would say we’ve learned the hard way. You can take advantage of all that learning so you don’t make the same mistakes we made. (Good right?)

We are mostly focused on consumer web start-ups because that’s what we know. For instance, right now, we’re working with three consumer web start-ups in BETA. Through our agency business, we’ve learned how to work with big brands and we understand how small start-ups can become valuable to potential acquirers or partners – such as big media or publishing.
Our Product Group has years of experience developing actual web products and this experience has made our team a perfect partner for two different scenarios:

1. The entrepreneur is technical, but needs help with product, user experience, and design
2. The entrepreneur lacks the product or technical team to build the BETA version of her dream

In most cases, we come in to build the Alpha – or first release (BETA) version of a web or mobile product. Fabric’s Product Group adds what is needed to the mix and usually delivers a complete product. During our process, we work with the Entrepreneur from the initial concept stage, through experience design and development and into Alpha or BETA. Once the first release is out, we often help entrepreneurs get to their first 1,000 or 10,000 users.

Next, we’ll go through our process in more detail and we’ll tell you what we look for when we consider new projects:

Start-up Series (Part II): BETA Build Process

Start-up Series (Part III): Where is your business plan?

It's really fantastic to see that people are pouring energy into the LA startup scene. Several new incubators have popped up and some, such as LaunchPad LA, are offering serious cash for young startup entrepreneurs. Thanks to people like Mark Suster, who has become a top five VC blogger over the past few years, the energy in LA is real and it seems as if the city might just explode with tech startups.

Working with entrepreneurs in the early stages (pre-seed) is very exciting. We're super lucky to have the chance to work on some interesting products with some amazing people. Watch this space for the next few months. I think you'll see a few strong companies unveiled. Thanks!

Brands and startups tend to compare Fabric to other development shops. Some of this is fair. Often, we add engineering resources or act as an extension of existing in-house teams. Much of our work is in user experience, design, and almost always front and back end development. This is what we do, but it is not the core of the value we bring.

Let's talk about startups. While Brad Feld, Fred Wilson and other VC's are right when they say you should have your core product team, your engineers, your experience designers, and your designers in-house, the truth is that most pre-Seed stage startups cannot find quality talent in all these positions. From the pool of startups we've worked with, most are somewhat inexperienced entrepreneurs and often lack deep product development experience. Often, startups that do have technical co-founders often lack customer development experience or user experience design knowledge.

Most importantly, it is very difficult for startups to hire and develop strong teams fast and to adopt a solid grasp on the chosen development methodology instantly. When founders are young, as they often are, many product development mistakes are often made. This “learning on the job” can be very expensive.

These are some of the reasons Fabric is a good collaboration partner for many pre-seed stage startups. Unlike most development shops, we contribute experience and talent in several areas:

We Add Complete Product Focused Teams With Experience Working Together

Everyone on our teams have worked together for at least one year. That means they have strong communication and faster execution paths than a new team. They are strong collaborators producing more output per Sprint than a new team who just met or have never completed a project together before.

Proven Methodology = Successful Products

You don't have to buy into everything we preach. We're still wrong about stuff all the time. That said, we have spent years optimizing our Product Development process and, if you follow along, you're guaranteed to learn more faster with less waste. We've also seen what happens when you don't have a solid process. Very expensive.

We've probably made more mistakes than you - we'll help you avoid all those

We can spot mistakes early. We've seen success and we've seen failure. We have been “in” failure and we've been “in” success. Our teams have made 100's of mistakes and learned from it. You will also make mistakes, but with us, you will not make the mistakes we made. This can save you 500 hours of programming time or 100 hours of design time. Fewer mistakes also is less expensive.

Development shops build what you want them to build not always what you should build

We ask hard questions. We challenge your assumptions and push hard on the edges of your idea. Will it stand up or fall down? What are the major assumptions that have not yet been tested? How many customers have you talked to? Throw away your feature list. Throw away your spec. Now, let's start over: what is the minimal product we can build to test the #1 assumption?

One question we always ask is: How can we do that for LESS? It seems counter-intuitive right? Shouldn't we just build and bill? No. That is what most development shops do. That is what agencies do. That will not help you raise money, which for most of you, is what you need to do. To raise money, or get to profitability for some of you lucky bastards, you need product/market fit and traction. To get that, you need to spend the minimum amount possible on things that don't matter. What are those things? (Polish your design… probably. Feature #13? Definitely.)

Venture Development and Startup Experience

We have raised capital and pitched VC's. We've run our own businesses and we've started several companies between us. We've been through the hard times, we've run out of money, and we've been in “partner fights.” We have created business plans, 100+ pitch decks, financial plans, and jockeyed CAP tables. When you work with us, you tap all this experience. You can get it from others too. Incubators, accelerators, and entrepreneurs all add this value. You won't get it from most development shops. It's not in their “wheel-house.”

Deep Brand, Media, and Agency Relationships

Most other development shops are deep on the engineering side. That's great. However, they have limited or no relationships with brands, media, and agencies. We've spent 10 years working with some of the biggest brands in the world: IKEA, Toyota, Redbull, and Hachette. We understand selling to these brands and agencies. For all our startups in our family, we've been able to make direct introductions to C-Level contacts sometimes enabling the startups to win major contracts - a major value add for any early stage startup.

We're different. To find out how different? You should call us now.

We got a ton of questions on how we work with start-ups so let's just break it down into some highlights:

• We do work from FFF/seed-stage and have done Alpha builds for as little as $50,000.
• We typically put three high-level people on one project for a few weeks, so having a real budget can be quite useful.
• Everyone in our Product Group will focus on end-user experience. The product should solve a real problem for a specific set of users.
• We don't over strategize. We get stuff done. We start moving as quickly as we can and we move forward. That does not mean we do not think. We just value forward motion over planning and diddling with assumptions.
• We push to get to market - fast. Together, we focus on getting your v1 out to figure out how much BS you have in your business plan. Most assumptions are wrong. Financial models are just models. We want to get to real data - fast.
• We are not in the magic business. The first iteration of your product will not work. That's why we don't blow your budget on one build. So, if you do any planning at all, plan to get more money after v1. You'll need it.

When we meet you for the first time… this is what we care about:

• Your team
• Passion and personality
• Your understanding of your customer, market, and industry
• Sales experience
• How much you have done already

We don't care about

• Your 50 page business plan (if you have one like that, just don't tell us)
• Financial models
• Your “first mover advantage” (again, don't tell us)

We don't hold on to you. We want to let you go. We just want to give you wings. Then go. If you get to that stage, we're happy! Now, call us today. Free advice guaranteed.

Relax. We would never ask that question. Why? We just don’t believe in writing business plans – especially not web or mobile products of any kind. The reasons are simple:

• Your plan will be full of assumptions. Most of which will be wrong.
• Any time you spend writing a plan is time that could be better spent working on your product or customer development.
• Even when you try to raise money, the plan doesn’t really make a difference to investors.
• Planning is not doing. That’s not good when you have limited time to spare (we all do).

A few other things we don't care about:

• A great logo doesn’t matter and neither does amazing visual design.
• Feature lists are – usually – boring. They don’t tell us much about how you think about what’s really important… and that is: who is the customer? Why does she really need your product? How are you planning to deliver a BETTER product?

So, what kind of documentation can be useful when you come see us? We like to see wireframes or concept drawings focused on the core user experience. So, if you are a “mobile coupon start-up” – we’d really love to see how you think about the core user experience. How does an actual customer move through the application? What are the exact steps you lead them through? How does your product clearly solve the problem? Those things are important to us.

It’s also nice to see the core business model – in visual format. All that stuff about how you will make money and some ideas on how you will convert customers.

Passionate entrepreneurs: Send us your napkin ideas. Let’s get to work!

For the past year, we've spent most of our time focusing on a new path - a new strategy - for Fabric.

Today, we announce (officially!) that we are 100% committed to helping entrepreneurs, brands, and media build new digital products and drive key usage metrics for those products.

So why would a Startup or brand work with Fabric and not just hire it's own team?

It's fairly simple. Most startups or brands that come to have two key challenges:

• They have limited cash ($60k-$250k) and need to bring a new product to market (for testing or raising Seed capital)
• They need an experienced product/technical team with a proven process for Alpha/BETA builds

What we offer is a faster and less costly route to market for those who do not have their full teams in place. We are focused on the first 6 months of the product cycle - taking a product from zero to 100,000 users. Fabric's teams and process is focused on driving key usage metrics from fast learning and rapid product iteration.

At the product development level, we bring:

• Product focused design and engineering teams (2)
• Rapid Product Iteration Process (Lean Startup)
• Advice from experienced entrepreneurs and product designers
• Experience of success and failure
• Large existing code base and tools to speed up development

We know that the most challenging aspect of bringing a new product to market is to get initial traction and drive usage. Therefore, in addition to our Rapid Iterative Product Development Process we also offer go-to-market services for new products and Startups:

• Initial user-acquisition support
• Marketing and social media programs and teams
• Advice and support on core metrics and processes for measuring what matters
• Access to deep network of potential launch partners in most verticals

If you have a new web/mobile product, with a budget in the $60-$250k range, we want to talk to you. Right now, the product we build sits within social, mobile, geo-location, and SaaS, but we're open to any project that is utility based and/or is attempting to solve a real problem. Call us!