Mads Gerber’s Post

Feed back Is Important !! 💡 One thing I've learned on this startup journey about feedback is that it’s a powerful tool for growth and innovation. Initially, I viewed feedback as a critique, but over time, I've come to see it as a valuable opportunity to redefine our approach and enhance our services . This mindset has not only improved our services but has also strengthened our team’s collaboration and innovation. 

Feedback is the backbone of everything from sports to startups. So why is it so hard to give and receive feedback properly? Because it's usually terrible. Good feedback: - Builds trust - Creates momentum - Unlocks solutions - Drives growth Bad feedback does the opposite. Nowadays, people think giving feedback = telling someone they did things wrong. But, it's truly about helping others achieve their goals. Next time you give feedback, consider these tips: 1️⃣ Ask if they want it. 2️⃣ Be specific, concrete, and based on observations. 3️⃣ Focus on behavior, not the person. 4️⃣ Deliver it respectfully and with care. 5️⃣ Give actionable steps to change. Once you see feedback as a tool, not a hammer, everything changes.

In tech startups, there is a lot of idolizing and lionizing of technical "hero" founders. Investors as well as casual observers tend to be drawn toward the CEO who is also the best coder or technical genius unlocking new breakthroughs 🦾 What's often missing from that characterization are not just the business and entrepreneurial skills required to thrive (e.g. understanding customers, integrating complex value chains, managing people and capital, etc.) but also an under-appreciated aspect of building: design. 🎨 Design is often semantically confused with "art" and therefore considered qualitative and not technical. But in reality, design -- for products, for experience, for the overall venture -- is crucial to building a great company. 🧠 Design does not focus on how to achieve outcomes; rather it defines the optimal outcomes and what conditions must be satisfied. This allows others -- product manager, engineers -- to conceive of solutions which can achieve the design. 📁 In management consulting, this is analogous to output steering vs input steering. Great managers often output steer -- they create a clear picture of what success looks like, then empower their teams to go achieve it. On the other hand Input steering often devolves into micro-managing, failing to introduce new concepts and viewpoints, and reaching a limit on growth potential. If you're someone who isn't trained up the latest greatest technologies, fear not! Design thinking is equally valuable when it comes to building great products and great experiences. #venturebuilding

In this post, I’ll share 7 strategies for helping tech startup founders gain visibility into their product development and ensure they meet their launch deadlines. Delays in product development are very common and can impact the success of the most promising startups. By following these strategies, you can gain control, reduce stress, and build transparency within your team, ultimately leading to successful, on-time launches. Now, let's dive in. 1. Use Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to break large items into smaller ones. Breaking the overall project into smaller, manageable tasks makes the workload less daunting and allows for more accurate time estimation. When you have clear, actionable steps, the path to completion becomes clear, and the team can work more efficiently. 2. Build an End-to-End Roadmap A comprehensive roadmap covering all phases of development, from initial concept to post-launch activities, acts as a GPS. Without an end-to-end roadmap, a startup can easily lose direction, leading to confusion and wasted effort. 3. Regular Check-ins and Updates Daily check-ins keep everyone aligned and aware of potential roadblocks, allowing for timely adjustments. It helps to catch and resolve issues early, make adjustments and keep the project on track. 4. Prioritize Tasks Prioritizing tasks and development items based on their impact ensures that the most critical work gets done first. Defining an MVP and prioritizing items directly related to MVP will pave the way for a successful launch. 5. Risk Management Identifying potential risks early and developing mitigation strategies can save time and resources. Don’t ignore potential risks until they become crises. This reactive approach leads to chaos and delays. 6. Transparent Communication Open communication creates an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing updates and concerns. Critical information is often missed in a startup with poor communication, leading to misunderstandings and mistakes. 7. Flexible Planning While having a plan is important, being prepared to adapt as new information and challenges arise is crucial, too. Flexible planning allows for quick adjustments, keeping the project moving forward despite unforeseen obstacles. I hope these strategies will help you gain visibility and control over your product development process, leading to successful and timely launches. Implementing these approaches will reduce stress, build trust within your team, and confidently navigate the path to launch.

I had to learn and unlearn a constellation of habits transitioning from a large tech company to working every day with founders. Here are candid lessons from a rollercoaster of wins and missteps. 👇 1. 🗺️ Resist the Urge to Pattern Match: Success in one environment doesn't automatically translate to another. It's vital to assess each scenario independently, crafting strategies that meet the unique demands of a startup, instead of defaulting to “well...this worked at Google”. 2. ❓Embrace Ambiguity Over Certainty: Large organizations tend to focus on mitigating risks and predicting outcomes. Mistakes have massive downsides since scale cuts both ways. However, being overly cautious can be disastrous for startups. Your goal is to iterate and learn as quickly as possible, not to avoid mistakes. 3. 🛟 No Bail Outs: In the absence of a specialized support team, you'll find yourself venturing far beyond your comfort zone. You signed up for this because you wanted to wear many hats. Your job isn’t in your title, it’s to make things happen, regardless of the challenge. With that said, some key habits still feel universal: 1. 📚Documenting Learnings: The habit of cataloging lessons learned, customer insights, and strategies is invaluable, ensuring knowledge is preserved and accessible as the company scales. 2. 🤔 Intellectual Honesty: No amount of data, proven process, or popular framework is immune to the consequences of poor decision-making. A culture where teams can effectively discern what you know is true vs. what you hope is true is critical regardless of the organization's size. 3. 📡 The Power of Clear Communication: The ability to distill complex ideas into clear, actionable insights is equally important in startups and big tech. While you won't have to convince 10 different departments to do something, it’s still critical that the language you use resonates with everyone from team members to customers to investors. Engaging with founders on their challenges is incredibly rewarding, constantly refining my approach and perspective. I’m keen to connect with others who've embarked on this journey. What insights have you gathered? And for startup founders, how do you view collaboration with individuals who were previously working in a more structured corporate setting?

Ever made a decision too fast and later thought, “Why did we do that?” That was me a few years back (still make the same mistake occasionally), before we had a product-market fit. We launched a new feature, thinking it was essential. Guess what happened? Nothing. Nothing. Customers didn’t touch it. But it wasn’t a problem at the time —it was accounted for. We were a team with a healthy balance of working off of our instincts, evidence and data. It got me thinking: Were we discovering what customers really needed? As it turned out, we weren’t. See, I didn’t know at the time, but I started doing product discovery (never heard of the term before) and it seemed like a complicated thing to fold into our product process. Now, I realise it’s straightforward. You start with feedback—grab it from wherever you can (be scrappy, you’re a startup). Then, turn that feedback into insights. With your team, work through the opportunities (maybe have different buckets: what can be fixed, created, or improved). Assess your best opportunities—those that align with your business goals. Then, go do some DISCOVERING (stay scrappy): targeted interviews, surveys, open Q&A, product analytics, and even experiments like fake door tests. Whatever gets you the confidence you need on that opportunity. This will change everything. You go from “What should we build next?” to “What do they want next?” Product discovery isn’t about perfect processes or frameworks—or the next shiny feature. It’s about getting it right by listening, somewhat talking and understanding. Do that, and you’re halfway to winning. 👊 Startup founders: Products get built because people talk—so listen, god damn it! :) The world needs you. #startups #product #discovery

Are you unintentionally hurting your development team(s)? In the tech ecosystem, developers often resemble frogs – bulging eyes from too much screen time, hopping around between files and code editors, and going unnoticed by those outside engineering. Leaders, driven by their best intentions, try to help their developers, like splashing water on frogs during a hot summer. Unfortunately, tap water contains chemicals that are harmful to frogs. And developers, like frogs, act as bioindicators. This means their behaviour and health reveal the vitality and dynamism of their ecosystem. Leaders without the necessary knowledge unintentionally expose their technical teams to toxic elements in name of support and growth. We need to create and nurture a safe environment for developers to not only be healthy, but to contribute the health and growth of the organisational ecosystem. Consider the common problem of burnout under pressure. Unlike frogs, developers can talk – an easy way to check their health and happiness is to simply ask them! A small improvement such as a no-meeting day gives them uninterrupted time to focus and can remove the pressure of context switching. Just as frogs thrive in a balanced ecosystem, developers thrive in a supportive culture than values their safety and nurtures their growth. As an experienced technical leader, I partner with organisations to remove toxic elements and transform stagnant cultures into thriving ecosystems full of creativity and innovation. How did you make your environment safe and nurturing? Let me know in the comments 👇 Do you need help to do this? Get in touch to learn how. 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🔹 🚀 Ready to accelerate your B2B tech growth? 💬 Contact me now for a 𝗙𝗥𝗘𝗘 session to explore together! ℹ️ Learn about my work here: https://lnkd.in/ersyQ7Cf   #fractionalcto #management #leadership #technology #entrepreneurship #startups #softwareengineering

As a founder, you need to understand that getting feedback from your market and customers isn't just helpful—it's essential for survival. The faster and more frequently you get that feedback, the better your company will perform. Think of it this way: feedback is like a lifeline, guiding your business in the right direction. Without it, you're navigating in the dark, and that can be dangerous. In fact, a lack of feedback can slowly kill a company. Many people might say, "No news is good news," but for a startup, that's not necessarily true. Actually, the reverse is more accurate. If you're not hearing from your customers, it's easy to assume that everything is fine, but silence can be misleading. It could mean that your customers are disengaged, or worse, that they're quietly moving on to a competitor. So instead of waiting for feedback to come to you, you need to be proactive about it. Go out and seek it. When you're constantly in touch with your market, you can quickly spot what's working and what isn't. This allows you to make adjustments on the fly, improving your product or service in real-time. It's this ability to adapt and evolve that sets successful startups apart from those that fizzle out. And remember, feedback isn’t just about fixing problems—it's also about finding opportunities for growth. Your customers might have ideas or needs you haven't even considered yet, and their input can help you innovate in ways you never imagined. On the flip side, if you're not getting any feedback, you're missing out on all these insights. You could be pouring resources into something that isn’t resonating with your audience, simply because you’re not aware of their true needs or feelings. This is why feedback is so crucial—it keeps you aligned with your market and helps ensure that you're meeting their expectations. So, look forward to receiving feedback, even if it’s critical. It’s better to know where you stand than to operate under false assumptions. And remember, silence is not always golden.

Every start-up founder struggles with the question: do I have product-market fit? I hate to burst your bubble 🛁 but it’s an art, not a science… and that’s OK. For 3+ years I tried to "science" the hell out of product-market fit. Alan, Carina, and I even created a product-market fit score (pictured). It was a complex algorithm that made sense but also made no sense. We spent a few months doing all the analytics for it and then ditched it. I’ve heard from other founders that “you’ll know when you get there,” while others have told me, “PMF is bullshit, you just need to build a big business.” Now 5 years into my journey I've come around on these two main tenants to "science" your product-market fit: 1. Market Fit: If someone isn’t willing to put a credit card down, you don’t have it. ↳ here you're trying to solve a present need or problem that people will pay for 2. Product Fit: If X of out 100 people aren't willing to make it a default part of their workflow, you don't have it. ↳ here you're trying to solve a future need or problem that people didn't know that they had / will have and marry that with what they do today The latter is much more difficult to know if you've got it. It requires a lot of time with a lot of customers. You can't think you know it with something small like 10 data points. Especially if you don't have a multiple years experience in the space that you're founding, asking 10 people won't cut it. You probably need 100 data points to know whether or not you’re directionally correct. I coach Pre-PMF startup founders who aren't ready yet to use MRR as their Main KPI, to instead set themselves a benchmark of 25 user interviews / week. If you get to that level, you should be able to get 100 data points in 5 weeks, and that’s a pretty fast iteration cycle. What happens after you get those data points? You have to decide if "X" is large enough for your business. This depends on TAM, LTVC, etc. You have to decide what "a default part of their workflow" means for your business. This depends on usage patterns, seniority/role of the user, etc. That's where the art comes in. If you think you can get to PMF, rip it and don't look big. If you can't, go back to square 1 and be proud that you learned a new set of skills with this iteration to shorten your next iteration cycle Worst case flip a coin. #productmarketfit #saas

If you want to build something that lasts, democratize ideation and decentralize execution. Here’s why. Too many businesses fail because they rely on a single mind or a small group at the top to generate all the ideas. The speed of the game has changed. While ideas are the currency of the future, you can’t afford to limit where those ideas come from. Democratizing ideation is about creating a culture where everyone on the team is empowered and encouraged to ideate. From the intern to the executive, ideas should be free to flow from anywhere. Think of it like this: the best ideas usually come from the ground floor—those who are closest to the problem often have the most insight into the solution. Everyone should feel like their ideas matter, because they do. It’s more about unlocking the collective genius in the room, not waiting for one individual to have a breakthrough. When you democratize ideation, you create an unstoppable idea engine—because the more ideas that flow, the greater the chance for innovation. Addressing decentralizing execution. This is where most founders fail—they hoard decision-making. But if you’re serious about scale, you have to learn to let go. If you try to execute everything from the top, you slow the system down. Truth is, speed comes from trust—trusting your people to make decisions and act on the ideas that emerge. It’s about pushing authority to the edges, where your team is closest to the action. This not only accelerates execution, but it also breeds a culture of conscious ownership. The best companies of the future will not be led by single, dictatorial visionaries. Instead, they will be built by distributed teams, aligned by purpose, but liberated to execute on ideas as they emerge. That’s how you scale a movement. Founders who understand this will win because they realize that power doesn’t come from control—it comes from empowerment. The real trick is letting go of the need to be the only source of vision, while being strategic enough to guide the energy in the right direction. As a founder, You are a curator, a filter, and not the sole creator. Stay ahead. Everyday is a new reality! #anyalewechiprecious #drubix #founder #everydayisanewreality