People and trends are changing and this drives also business and tech along with them. But what happens when business meets tech? As each side requires a different set of skills and a different approach, their convergence is slightly hard, but the results are directly proportional.
At Techsylvania, we have had many occasions of observing these two through the eyes of entrepreneurs who have already enough experiences in this field. One of our primary conclusions is that at this intersection lie the product people.
Let’s find out more about them:
Ted Persson believes that the role of a Product Manager is to discover a product that is valuable, usable and feasible. Because they have direct encounters with the technologic side of a business, they tend to be judged through an “engineer filter”, but they actually have a completely different set of skills. Product team members are the ones with conceptual thinking, but who also don’t mind to get their hands dirty, as Ted likes to put it.
Also, when thinking of a great team in this industry, we should have in mind that diversity grows better teams. This talk revealed us also a mathematical equation of the perfect team-balance:
“Let the product and design work one sprint ahead of developers.”
Tariq Krim took us down on memory lane and showed us the more human side of technology, and how business sometimes stands in the way of it.
At the beginning of technology, people felt more empowered when using it and had more control over it. Today, algorithms tend to reduce our choices, instead of building more of them, today we tend to have more online subscriptions than physical pieces like vinyl and films, and our collection ends with our subscription, and, most importantly, today we are listened all the time, even though intimacy is our most valuable principle.
“Google and Facebook organize your life from the moment you wake up to the moment you sleep and even when you sleep, they’re computing the next day.”
Tariq is trying to give control back to people through his company and truly believes that technology should help us to connect better, not to get more disconnected.
“Relationships take a long time to grow and if you go early on, the process will be easier.”
Elies Campo gave valuable pieces of advice for the ones who find themselves at the intersection of business and tech. He finds the most promising starting point of a business in tech — the magic its product does, and not the pitch-perfect, the traction or the number of users. Once you have an MVP that works, start experimenting and looking for the right people to get your business going.
When business meets tech, the world gets more connected and innovation moves one step forward.