Startup Methods A curated collection of best practices in product, design and development to help you build software more efficiently by Faris Zacina

Open What is startup methods

What is "Startup Methods"

The purpose of software engineering is not writing (or generating) code, but actually building software that works for end users/customers, which makes the effort of building a software product a hard and multi-disciplined problem spanning across different areas like product strategy, product management, design, programming, marketing etc.

"Startup methods" is a collection of methods, techniques and best practices across different areas that can help you on your startup building journey. It is curated by a team that designed and developed 100+ startups.

Building startups is harder than it looks like and very few people had the chance to observe more than a few different companies being built from scratch.

As we were lucky to work on so many products we felt it was our obligation and responsibility to share what we have learned, hoping it will help founders build better companies with happier teams, users and customers.

We decided to write this book only because

Open About Ministry of Programming

What we do

Ministry of programming is a team of passionate product managers, designers, and developers that built 100+ startups and new products with amazing founders across the world for 10+ years. We made dozens of millions of dollars in revenue building new products.

We can help founders assemble their product development teams, consult and advice on how to build their products in the best way possible.

We run branding, product design, and discovery workshop, but we can also be a permanent software engineering team that will build an MVP, product or grow to the next stage.

Being product builders we love to have skin in the game and invest in a few startups every year.

Products we have built for our clients

Beatport - World-class products and services that inspire and connect the landscape of creators, DJs, and fans. Constantly serving the unique needs of their DJ community, they are a recognized industry leader with a global footprint of over 36M unique

Open 5 Product Building Principles

5 Product Building Principles

While this book is about specific startup techniques and methods, there are some general principles that you should follow when building new products.

These principles are often more important than specific methods. Even if you ignore and decide to not apply any method and technique from this book these principles will prove invaluable in your product building journey.

1. Build/Launch in hours, days, and weeks, not months

The most important constraint on a product-building journey is the time constraint. Set clear deadlines/timelines to launch quickly. When in doubt focus on doing over learning and don't aim for perfection.

You will recognize great entrepreneurs by their crazy timelines and the attempt to build very fast. Just think about Elon or Zuckerberg - moving fast is in their DNA.

If you observe average founders they do the exact opposite and they tend to delay launching and overcomplicate products. This creates a slow feedback cycle, spending

Open FAQ and Disclaimers

FAQ and Disclaimers

Just to get it out of the way, here are our responses to some complaints we hear every now and then.

"These techniques won't work for me."

Yes. Many of the methods, techniques and examples will not work for you or your company. That is fine.

The idea behind this book is to share a wide set of well-established techniques, but then you choose what actually makes sense in your context. As we like to say in software enginering "it depends".

"This is too complicated"

Many people will feel it's too complicated to use the methods and techniques described as they imagine a much simpler product-building process.

We encourage you to read about these techniques anyway and then you can decide to ingore them and proceed with your simplified approach. However, it's important to know about possible techniques you can adopt in the future.

"You didn't invent that idea." 

We're not claiming to have invented any of these techniques. Most of them have been aro

Open Smart Goals / North Stars / OKRs - Keep your team focused and aligned on results

Smart Goals / OKRs - Keep your team focused and aligned on results

From the beginning, Google adopted OKRs as its goal-setting framework, which was introduced to them by venture capitalist John Doerr in 1999. Google's OKRs are ambitious by design, and the company aims to hit around 70% of its OKRs each quarter. This approach encourages teams to stretch themselves and take risks, fostering a culture of innovation and pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Google's OKRs are also transparent across the company, so anyone can see what other teams are working on. This fosters collaboration and ensures everyone is working towards the same goals. Look, we get it. Goal-setting frameworks can feel like bureaucratic busywork that gets in the way of actual work. But here's the thing - having a simple, clear way to set and track goals is crucial for keeping your team aligned and moving in the same direction. Remember that goals aren't just checkboxes to tick off during quarterly reviews. They're your team's

Open Jobs to be Done and Value proposition Canvas

Jobs to be Done and Value proposition Canvas - Map your customer problems

Look, we've all been there - spending weeks crafting what we think is the perfect product, only to launch and hear crickets.

Why? Because we were too busy falling in love with our solution instead of truly understanding the problem.

As Uri Levine, founder of Waze, famous quote says - "Fall In Love With The Problem, Not The Solution"

Enter Jobs to be Done (JTBD) and the Value Proposition Canvas - two powerful frameworks that help you stop guessing and start understanding what your customers actually need.

What makes JTBD and Value Prop Canvas special?

These frameworks force you to step into your customers' shoes and see the world through their eyes. Instead of asking "What features should we build?", you'll start asking "What job is our customer trying to get done?"

Think about it: People don't buy products - they hire them to do a job. Nobody wants a quarter-inch drill bit. They want a quarter-inch hole

Open Red-Blue Ocean Canvas - Map your differentiation

Red-Blue Ocean Canvas - Map your differentiation

Nobody likes complex strategy frameworks that gather dust in PowerPoint presentations, but there's one tool that's genuinely worth your time: the Red-Blue Ocean Canvas.

A Red-Blue Ocean Canvas helps teams think clearly about where they stand in the market and, more importantly, where they could go. It's like having a GPS for your business strategy, showing you both the crowded highways (red oceans) and the unexplored backroads (blue oceans).

Remember that visualizing your competitive landscape is way better than keeping all those market insights floating around in your head. We're all guilty of thinking we know our market inside and out, but putting it on paper often reveals surprising blind spots.

A good canvas should map out your current market position, identify opportunities for differentiation, and help you spot uncontested market spaces. It's your team's shared reference point for making strategic decisions about product features, pricing,

Open Lean Canvas - a one page business model

Lean Canvas - A One-Page Business Model

Nobody likes spending weeks crafting a 50-page business plan that'll gather dust on a shelf. Enter the Lean Canvas – your one-page business plan on steroids. A Lean Canvas allows entrepreneurs and teams to think systematically about their business idea and address crucial questions without getting lost in the weeds. Remember, sometimes less is more. By boiling down your business concept to its essence, you're forced to focus on what really matters.

A good Lean Canvas should contain your value proposition, customer segments, revenue streams, and other key elements. It's the "source of truth" for founders, investors, and team members to quickly grasp the core of your business idea. This tool will increase understanding, alignment, and maybe even spark some "aha!" moments across your team. It's also a natural place where people can collaborate, challenge assumptions, and refine the business model.

Lean Canvases and thinking about your business in a stru

Open PRD - Product Requirements Document

PRD - Write down and visualize your solution

While it's not smart to delay too much actual design and building, there is one document that is important to have, and that is the Product Requirement Document (PRD).

A PRD allows founders/teams to think systematically about the product and to address very important questions.

Remember that writing and visualization are just better ways to think through any problem, as we have very limited memory and cognitive skills to keep everything in our heads.

A good PRD should contain the scope, visualizations of the products (e.g. link to figma prototypes), release plans and answers to other key questions. It is the "source of truth" for product, design, engineering and management at large to answer very common questions about the scope of the product being built, release plans and other questions.

This document will increase understanding, alignment and trust across the team. It is also a natural place where people can collaborate, ask questions

Open User Interviews - Don't start with an MVP

User Interviews - Don't start with an MVP

There's a critical step that should precede creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP): talking to your customers to understand their needs.

This can be done by conducting problem-solution interviews.

This technique was championed by Ash Maurya, enable founders and teams to think systematically about the problem they're aiming to solve and address crucial questions before investing precious time and resources into building a product that might miss the mark.

Remember, conversations with potential users and meticulous documentation of insights are superior methods for understanding a problem compared to relying on assumptions. Our ability to accurately predict user needs and behaviors without direct input is more limited than we often realize.

Effective problem-solution interviews uncover genuine pain points of users, reveal their current solutions, and gauge their willingness to adopt new ones. This information is key for product, design, engineering