Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.

By Jennifer Cabala

Kicking off your career as a startupper at Mint.com is not a bad way to start.  You build a cool product, work for a great company, and then begin your own startup when Mint is acquired by Intuit for about 170 million dollars
 
Poornima VijayashankerThat’s exactly what happened to engineer Poornima Vijayashanker.  She learned a lot about creating a solid development team and building a successful product as Mint’s third employee.  She’s now taking that knowledge to help build BizeeBee, a web service that helps small businesses bill and sell.  She also blogs at femgineer.com
 
She will be sharing her experience on getting products off the ground at Deploy 2010 in a talk called “The 3 S’s to a Successful Launch”. 
 
Tickets to see Poornima and all of our speakers are available now.   But before her talk on June 24th we talked to her about product myths, getting your product out the door and the importance of impressing first time customers (and why you don’t need big features to do it.)  
 

Why did you become an engineer?

I love building things: products, teams, and companies.   Being an engineer has given me the opportunity to do all three.  My passion is to create products that save people time and money.

What was your first start-up and why did you decide to go the startup route?

Mint.com was my first startup.  I knew that a startup would give me the opportunity to become a better engineer because I would learn about the entire development cycle, and be involved with prototyping, launching, and then scaling it.  I also wanted to learn how companies were created, organized, and evolved, which is an experience I would only get at a startup.

What do you believe it takes to get a successful product to market?

Focus and resourcefulness.  You first need to understand the market you are targeting, and be aware of all the major problems in the space.  Pick one of the problems and start there.  To get at the right solution you need to be resourceful and persistent about trying various approaches one at a time.

What has been the biggest surprise?

That despite operating in a fragmented market (the small business space) people do talk to each other and pass on good and bad reviews.  I was also happily surprised at how people who have used products for years are willing to test mine out because of their growing frustration with existing ones.

 

Is there a myth about building a product you want to blow up right now?

Just because someone has solved a problem before doesn’t mean their solution is perfect or applies to the current market conditions.  Be open to improving on existing products and services.  And if there is a space that no one has been able to tackle, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.

 

What are some of your challenges and how are you overcoming them?

Since BizeeBee is focused specifically on offline small businesses, customer acquisition and distribution are our biggest challenges.  I’m trying to overcome them by starting with the lowest hanging fruit, as in how can we  create a viral product through technology before spending a lot of time doing leg work.

 

What are some of your biggest successes?

With BizeeBee the success is yet to be experienced :)  But I do think I have a pretty stellar team of people who are just as passionate about building a product that saves people time and money as me.

 

Who inspires you?

A lot of my good friends are entrepreneurs.  They inspire me and motivate me to do better.  I also love reading about entrepreneurs who came before me and their adversities.  I’m currently reading “Creative Capital”. It’s about Georges Doriot and how he was the father of venture capital.

 

How do you stay motivated day after day?

I’ve been driven since I was a kid and made things happen.  While I’ve had numerous setbacks, I know that I’ve overcome them with time, which keeps me from giving up.

Also knowing that I have the freedom in my life to create something of value, and that I can do it with support from my friends and family.

 

What are you speaking about at Deploy and why is it important for people to know?

Pre-Launch Prep.  A lot developers and product managers don’t realize how much work goes into a successful launch, having bug-free code isn’t sufficient.  This is the first impression you are making on a user and some can be impatient and judgmental.  You want the system to be robust, but you also want the first user experience to be as seamless as possible, which includes the product but also customer support. 

Its better to have limited but rock solid features.  Its harder to re-enage with a customer that has a bad experience, and easier to build out a richer feature set over time.

 To hear more from Poornima check out her talk at Deploy or read her blog femgineer.com
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