Modern Agility

Agile Funding for Agile Development

Posted by Kenny Johnston on 06/26/2012

Raising funding for a new web or mobile application can be a great challenge. The chances are you plan to follow an Agile development methodology, but how do you continuously acquire funds to support an iterative process?

As a developer who frequently works with startups, I have been witness to a myriad of fundraising strategies. I have seen investor pitch approaches relying on everything from Keynote presentations to design mockups and wireframes to working interfaces with no underlying functionality to early products with pilot users.  The costs for producing these items can be significant and they can all fall short of two critical measures larger investment audiences will consider as part of the proof of your concept:

Attracting large investment is going to be extremely difficult without these demonstrable performance measures. But is large investment required now, or is only some investment required now? What will it take to start proving the concept and have something to take to the next investment audience?

The product development process that needs to take place is best described by the Build, Measure, Learn philosophy from The Lean Startup. This process values the tireless efforts of founders and early users to create an amazing product that is continually improved over a product that is overbuilt before proper knowledge about the product and the customer have been created.

Similar to the development process, the fundraising strategy I’ve seen be most successful is an iterative one.  This begins with accumulating seed funding for the development and marketing of an early product with a scope that is less than the whole vision, but will serve to prove the model and be agile enough to mold to the responses of early adopters.  If the outcome begins proving its performance it makes for the beginnings of a viable product that will warrant larger investments to reach new milestones.  

Raising seed funding can be challenging in and of itself, but it is much more easily accomplished when the presentation materials are still at the stage of communicating the vision rather than demonstrating measurable results of a living and breathing product.

I believe a large part of Agile is being real with yourself and the others involved. First, recognize that you will need to return to investors and seek new investor audiences going forward just as your product will solve larger problems and become a more viable offering over time. Then, iteratively work toward appropriate milestones that lead to a great product and share this success when seeking larger investment.

Tags: business, investment, strategy, product-development

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Configuring Google Apps E-mail on Your iPhone/iPad

Posted by Kenny Johnston on 05/23/2011

I know that many guides exist for setting up Google Apps e-mail accounts on your iPhone/iPad, but they tend to be long winded and miss some of the finer points such as where draft, sent and trashed messages should be directed to maintain consistency with your Gmail account and other devices. I hope you’ll find that this guide gets straight to the point without skipping the important settings.


Step 1


Step 2


Step 3

Tags: google, iphone, ipad, email

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Choosing Verizon MiFi over iPhone 4 tethering and iPad data plans

Posted by Kenny Johnston on 06/11/2010

I’ve been using my Verizon MiFi 2200 for several months now and continue to be very impressed with it. It acts as a wireless router (or hotspot), providing Internet connectivity to up to 5 devices (laptops, phones, tablets, etc…) anywhere you can get Verizon service (so pretty much anywhere).

The MiFi device is capable of 3G speeds and tends to achieve them pretty consistently. Sprint recently introduced their competitor to this device, the Sprint Overdrive, which is capable of 4G speeds – but good luck finding 4G service/speeds. Actually, I’ve seen it mentioned in several places now and Lee Rosen did a great video explaining that the MiFi outperforms the Overdrive given the actual speeds offered by Sprint’s network, so in my book the MiFi still reigns supreme in terms of mobile broadband access.

Being that I’m an Apple enthusiast, you’d figure that I’d opt for the iPad data plan and the iPhone 4 tethering feature… but I’m not going to, not just yet at least. If I opt out of my grandfathered-in unlimited data plan status I could then add the iPhone 4 tethering feature – which would work pretty well for me since I’m usually in 3G-covered areas and know how to use Internet Connection Sharing to share the connection with my family and colleagues when the need arises. Although this isn’t quite flexible enough for me.

Since carrying around a separate device that needs to keep a battery charge, such as a MiFi, is more work than just carrying around my iPad by itself, you’d figure that I’d opt for an iPad data plan, but I’m not going to do that either, not just yet at least. My wife and I often travel to the various wine regions of California and tend to really enjoy the coverage that Verizon provides in areas where AT&T will leave you hanging. The MiFi allows us to Internet-equip the iPad we use for navigating the back roads and reading winery reviews as we traverse areas that only Verizon covers. We can also use the MiFi to provide our iPhones with connectivity so we can check our e-mail and tend to our Twitter accounts and so forth.

Adding data/tethering plans to each of your devices is a great way to individually enable each of them to access the Internet anywhere they can get service, but it’s a bit pricey and rather limiting at the same time. iPhone 4 tethering limits you to only providing one computer with an Internet connection and you have to use a USB cable to connect the phone to your computer. Sure you can use Internet Connection Sharing from there to provide other surrounding devices with a connection, but that’s a bit of a hack and comes with its own problems.

In making these decisions you have to think about how many devices you need Internet connections for and weigh your acceptance of AT&T’s network coverage and the bandwidth limits imposed on the various plans you’re looking at. Since the MiFi provides access to 5 devices and gets coverage in more areas than AT&T it is a much more versatile solution than individual data/tethering plans on AT&T’s network. Also, the MiFi data plan includes 5GB of transfer whereas the iPhone 4 tethering plan’s threshold is 2GB.

Sure the MiFi could run you a little extra ($60 per month), but the versatility should easily offset that if you’re talking about Internet-equipping multiple devices and mixing in the occasional road trip, camping trip or coffee shop or airport with unreliable or expensive Internet access. It’s also quite nice to fallback on when your Cable/DSL provider decides to take a nap as well.

While the cell networks work on rolling out 4G, I think that hanging with the best 3G mobile broadband/hotspot device (the Verizon MiFi 2200) is looking like the best strategy for the time being. When 4G is widely available I’ll re-evaluate, perhaps at that point individual data/tethering plans will make more sense.

Tags: apple, innovation, ipad, iphone, technology

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