#Startup #Entrepreneur #DanielHindi https://cogentstep.com Welcome to the breakdown. Where we analyze your startup ideas so you’re better prepared for the road ahead. This is Daniel Hindi and today we are going to breakdown a Digital Voting System What we will go over Topics Technical Challenges Go to Market Challenges Monetization etc Here is why this system is unique Pull upon experience E-Voting vs I-Voting, Estonia I-Voting System You are dealing with to systems, a rational machine and an irrational human. Now yes most software interacts with humans. There is a whole industry dedicated to UI User Interface. But these systems have checks and balances to ensure the validity of its data. Example banks. You know what you spent the bank has transactional records and you can then check. Through a thorough ledger system Requirements Voting systems traditionally require Anonymous voting Accurate tally Trust in the system Understand the system The problem is 2 fold “Anonymous voting” And “Trust in the system” 2- Technical Problems ACID Imagine you had a bucket that holds a number of votes for each candidate [red],[blue],[green] And each vote was a +1 Problem with ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) What if two took a copy at the same time? Also what stops me from just hijacking the number? 2- Technical Problems Manipulation Create a ledger Linear process to sum But what stops me from manipulating the ledger? Checksum 2+ ways to solve the equations chunks: create manageable chunks that should add up to the same number Harder but still breakable because It's anonymous I still need to trust the system 2- Technical Problems Blockchain / Redundancy So to secure ledgers there systems like blockchain that can help. I’m oversimplifying but its a distributed ledger system that requires a chain of keys to decrypt. SUPER SLOW What about Proxy voting? You can create multiple independent voting systems Independent system that issues a dynamic personalized key that changes every minute or so. Or this can remain manual with ID verification Then you place your vote that sits in that system until the last possible moment. And it allows you to change it. Just in case you were pressured. At least you can pressure at scale 2- Technical Problems Blockchain / Redundancy 4. Then you send the vote to the 3 different blockchain voting systems. three different machines in a secure location 5. Allow voters to use their anonymous key to check each system directly to see if their vote remained unchanged and counted Voting options can be shuffled 6. Fraud is always there but can fraud scale? Voter fraud, dead people voting, non-authorized votes 2- Human Problems Bad players What if one of the systems deliberately corrupts its data to cast doubt on the election results? Then Just create 5 systems Anyone seeing the scale of the solution getting ridiculous by now? What if someone bribes? You could now but thats why you want it as anonymous as possible What if the system goes down? Which one? And dont we have recounts already 2- Conclusion Bad players Do you really think we don't have these problems today? Do you think that the requirements set are still valid? Anonymous Understand the system Small scale voting is much simpler especially that when the outcome isn’t that critical What is the problem you are solving? Speed? Accuracy? Cost savings? Voter Accessibility? 2- Conclusion Bad players Most of you have probably made up your mind about digital voting systems before watching this video. On one side, there will always be a hypothetical way to corrupt voting data. On the other, the world's finances are all electronic and we’ve been surviving. EXCEPT for the few times the government misplaced trillions of $$ Is there a Hybrid model? 2- Conclusion Bad players Does the benefits outway the risk? I’ll leave that up to you 3- Go To Market Strategy Talk about point Easy, once a decision is made voting systems are mandated and enforced. But don't forget the requirement we had with TRUST You would need to spend time educating voters on how to use the system and how it works to gain their trust. In a way that the average voter can understand. All without exposing any vulnerabilities. Before we continue Subscribe Don’t forget to like and subscribe to this channel to keep up to date on our latest episodes 4- Monetization Talk about point Well at a national level. The good old taxpayer will flip the bill Sell a product Sell Saas

#StartupIdea #Startup #Business #DanielHindi #CogentStep #TikTok Video Breakdown Video Software Development, App Development https://cogentstep.cpom "I want to build a Social Video Sharing App. Similar to TikTok. Could you break that down?" - Cogent Step App User Welcome to the breakdown. Where we analyze your startup idea so you’re better prepared for the road ahead. This is Daniel Hindi and today we are going to breakdown a Social Video Sharing App What we will go over Technical Challenges Go to Market Challenges Monetization I built a system like this Pull upon experience I can't tell you how many times we've had customers come to my company https://BuildFire.com and ask us to build something like this. I'm going to give you a warning it's not as easy as you think it is. But since when do we tackle easy problems here? Let's do it 1- DFD Users - Videos - Comments - Followers - Feed 2- Technical Problems Follow vs Friend You have to major styles of social networking there is the friend model where two people mutually consent to share information. And then there is the follow model where it's open for anyone to follow the activity of another without reciprocating the follow Request: Can I be your friend? If yes, then both are friends. Vs I’m going to follow you! Feeds How long is the activity relevant? What about new users should we suggest new content? Videos When you upload Size, bandwidth, infrastructure For performance, you have multiple copies in multiple resolutions. Making your infrastructure even bigger! CDN Caching and buffering 3- Go To Market 4- Monetization

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#Startup #StartupIdea #Business #BusinessIdea #DanielHindi https://cogentstep.com Cogent Step, The Breakdown - Daniel Hindi I have a startup Idea for a marketplace similar to Craigslist, Offer up, Letgo But slightly different. Welcome to the breakdown. Where I analyze your startup ideas so you’re better equipped when the road ahead. This is Daniel Hindi and today we are going to breakdown a marketplace app Topics: Technical Challenges Go to Market Challenges Monetization etc So this is a digital marketplace which means you don't buy or sell anything this is really just a place where others can come and sell products and services or purchased them. 1- DFD Data Flow Diagram Users Products and Services Categories / Subcategories / products + services Purchase Order / Bids? 2- Technical Problems Radius of travel client to vendor or vendor Two clients Search and filter criteria based on what category? Reviewing products doesn’t make sense but reviewing services does Five-star rating rolling average stale data listings that are no longer good. For products not services What if they sell something illegal? Who is policing the site? Do you have them self govern? What about liability? 3- Go To Market Strategy Chicken or the egg Why are you unique why should I go to you and not someone else Market analysis there’s a market need what you’re creating Think of all the competitors that exist today why are you any different. Don't be ME TOO Now think of online auctions like a giant eBay and then all the micro auction sites that came out that challenge the way eBay works 4- Monetization Merchant on file What is your projected profits? Are you dependable? Referred to a funding video that you’re going to release

#DanielHindi #Startup #Tech #Entrepreneur #Business https://cogentstep.com Daniel Hindi's Second Tech Startup I tell these stories to encourage and empower you to know. You can do it as well. This is for those of you who watch my Breakdown video and asked about my third startup Flywheel. This is the prequel I sold my previous startup SchemaPlus GitHub Graveyard (Before GitHub) We Nominate My best friend Chris Sweis who we grew up together We came from a humble start. Blessed to be in the middle class but not trust fund babies 1- The Idea Create a credit card for Taxi drivers Driver had bad credit lots of cash moving around I was with a company then called iPayment which was a merchant services company so I knew what CC processing was like They wanted to cut out VISA and MASTERCARD. I know everyone likes the David and Goliath story but that was more like a mouse against a wooly mammoth 2- The Challenge So I began explaining the challenges that it would take to complete and replace visa. But we knew the industry need to be distributed. So we started investigating and found out you can't order a cab online 3- The Build So we created a company called web cabbie and obviously from the name you can tell this was pre-smartphone. So my partners and I took the little that we had and put it together between my engineering skills his father's domain knowledge and Chris’s sales and industry knowledge and created a company. 4- Growth Now this point I was working hard on building a platform and my partners were working hard on spreading the word. Penetrated 13 cities up and down the West Coast. Going after specifically dispatchers and not cabdrivers which was a harder sell but the second you made that so you know how to access to hundreds of drivers as opposed to selling every single driver one by one 5- Serendipity Talk about point So one day a gentleman by the name of John Wolpert walked into my partner's office and try to sell him a new technology to his cab company. His company was called Cabulous. These are the serendipitous moments that are very undervalued about being in a tech city, a cluster of companies, networking groups of like-minded individuals that bring the Serendipitous moments where the door of opportunity opens up 5b- Serendipity Talk about point Mind you my partners kept our day jobs I kept my day job while we were building this company which means we weren't just in a cave hacking away at the system and building it but we were out and about dealing with people through our jobs do you like people through with our network and keeping ourselves open for opportunity. 6- The Exit Talk about point Finally, We said why are we just doing this together we have the money you have or know how you've penetrates the markets why don't we just buy you out? So we agreed but here's the catch. I took my shares and let it roll in the new company and I say all this until now I haven't mentioned my company flywheel that's where my next order comes in. Summarize points There was nothing special about us we just were absolutely average guys dealing with a problem that needed to be solved and we had to work ethic to do it. And if we can do it you can do it too. software development, business ideas

#StartupIdea #Startup #Tech #GoToMarket #DanielHindi #AppDevelopment https://cogentstep.com Welcome to the breakdown. The show that takes your startup ideas and breaks them into their building blocks. This is Daniel Hindi and today we are going to breakdown On-Demand Taxi Hailing system. You have a system where you have passengers wanting to go from point A to point B and a bunch of moving vehicles that you want to be able to hail on demand for transportation 1- Data Flow Diagram Passenger Taxi/Cab Vehicle Driver Hail Order 2- Technical Problems Lets say you have a map See map Serial Hail vs Parallel First accept or best fit? Shortest Distance vs route Stale data and moving targets Time Zones and daylight savings Local laws and airport 3- Go To Market Strategy Chicken and the Egg Problem Passengers want Taxi’s Taxi’s want passengers Tack on to existing resources Bots Region penetration Coming Soon Message Data to know which city to hit next 4- Monetization Talk about point Merchant on file 1099 Clawbacks Authorizing a CC cogent step

Underserved Job Titles https://cogentstep.com This is Daniel Hindi and today we are going to talk about Titles and if they matter 1- Do they Matter? If no, then you may know really know the mean and definition Bigger companies get to be a little silly The closer they get to your title the more they should be taking from your plate If you do nothing for me then I’m paying you nothing. Well then if I pay you more then you should be doing more. However working more will only take you so far before you need to take on new responsibilities 2- Will they grow into the title? You aren't doing them a favor. They don't know they don't deserve the title But I’ll tell you want? They will want the salary for that title Its like when words are overused. It loses its meaning I’ve never known anyone that changed their work ethic due to money or a title. If they did it fizzled quickly At that point want are you going to do? Demote? What if you really need to hire someone above them, no you need to overpay or make the same mistake and over title 3- Reverse Strategy Some companies don't change title but increase pay. So you’re the highest-paid PM in your county but not highest paid Sr. PM This works only for some time before ambition kicks in You can make more specialized titles when you company grows horizontally But even that will only get you so far before you need to grow your company vertically 4- So when should you give a title It's extremely important the your team feels like they have a career path ahead of them at your company You need to be proactive because being reactive won't work. Its either too late or you’re dealing with counter offers Ask your employee what they want in the future to see where their mindset is. Make a clear path on what it will take to get them there 5- Is it too late to fix? Well its never to late to set expectations. If you set SMART Objective and measure them consistently. If an adjustment needs to be made its much easier You can change a role to be more specialized or segmented startup

#HumanCapital #Hiring #Startup #BusinessGrowth #DanielHindi #CogentStep https://cogentstep.com So here's a question for you if you could turn back the hands of time would you rehire every single one of your employees? And if the answer is NO to some of them. Then the question is, why are they still here?! Restate the Problem Restate the problem Let's face it we've all hired people we've regretted hiring. If you haven't welcome to business give it a couple days. Now as much as the outside world would like to paint us as cold-hearted sometimes we hold on to staff members that we should really let go. Question So I've already made videos on how to hire and how to upgrade your team to the A-Team you've always wanted but today I want to talk about really taking a step back and analyzing do you currently have a team that is going to take your business to the next level. The U.S. Department of Labor says the cost of a bad hire can reach up to 30 percent of the employee’s first-year earnings. The Undercover Recruiter reports bad hires can cost $240,000 in expenses. Those are broken down into costs related to hiring, pay and retention. CareerBuilder says 74 percent of companies who made a poor hire lost an average of $15k per bad hire. Like I said before I've been guilty of hiring the wrong people. And if I'm honest I do look at every higher as a person and not a "resource”. If I asked someone to quit their job and come join my team and then later on regret it. I do feel guilt and hold on to them longer than I probably should have. That's probably my biggest motivation I'm getting better at hiring and coaching my team. 1- Would You Re-Hire Talk about point Here's the question again if you could turn back the hands of time would you rehire every single one of your employees? My guess is no. some you’d keep and some you wouldn't rehire. So then the question the back and itself is what went wrong in the hiring process? 2- What went wrong in the hiring process? If there even is a process So one do you even have a hiring process is it consistent are you disciplined to constantly and scientifically measure every candidate before you hire? If not step one is to get your hiring process established and in tune with your business goals 3- Who Takes more than they give Obvious but important When analyzing your staff you need to ask yourself who takes more then they give? Now if you're dealing with a salesman that's pretty straightforward if they're not generating more revenue than they are consuming then that's a bad hire. Get some positions it's hard to be so clear on the return on your human resource investment. You need to ask yourself who takes more of your time than need be? Who is an activator who superchargers the team around him? 4- Who has Questions and who has Answers When you review an individual do they come to you with more questions or answers are the problem creators or problem solvers 5- Part of the problem or part of the solution And on that same note do they come to you with solutions or problems? What do I mean by that do they generally complain more or do they try to find solutions for existing problems? Are they naysayers or problem solvers? startup, hiring, human capital,

#DanielHindi #NewBusiness #SoftwareDevelopment #SoftwareCost #Startup https://cogentstep.com Are you starting a new project and getting quotes all over the board? Are you worried that the expensive quote is highway robbery? Or are you worried that the cheap quote won’t deliver? In this episode, learn how to best price out your project when shopping around for developers.

#Hiring #TechnicalInterview #Business #Startup #DanielHindi https://cogentstep.com So you're not technical, but you're interviewing technical people. You have the candidates lined up and you have no idea what to ask! Welcome message This is Daniel Hindi and today we are going to talk about how to fake a technical interview and get results in my last video, we spoke about how to conduct a technical interview when you're not technical in this video we're going to talk about specific techniques and tactics and questions that you can ask the interviewee during your technical interview 1- Ask about you know already- Your pain! Ask yourself this why are you hiring this person you obviously have pain in your business that you need somebody to solve. You've probably heard somebody in the past who was a terrible hire and now you're looking for somebody who can help you with your problems. Do you know you're looking for somebody who is: Reliable and dependable Can communicate well, are they solution-oriented Technically competent To ensure can they solve your problems 2- Listen to what is not being said Before I tell you what questions to ask I need you to understand when you ask a question you need to listen to the answer given and the answer not giving and how it's delivered all three are extremely important they give you some hidden information that will give you the answers you really need 3- How to figure out if they are reliable Questions to ask Questions: What defines a good “Developer”? What is the part you like least about your job? Tell me about a time you were given a tough deadline. (probe) Tell me about your worst and best manager you’ve worked for. Tell me a time where you think you were right but still had to follow instructions. What is the most important thing about the work environment? 4- Can they communicate well? Questions Hopefully, you’re already gotten a sense of their verbal communication. Now ask yourself this if you heard this person he's obviously going to be working on parts of the business that you don't fully understand and it's his job to explain it to you so you put that to the test. Explain to me what it would take to build a small website, app ...etc What are the components? How long will it take? Let's say I had to deliver a week earlier what would you shave off? And why those parts? Can communicate well Keep pushing obstacles until they break and see their reasons Take notes of what is being said. Are they being articulated well? Does it make sense to you? 5- Are they Technically competent? Questions Now you've already asked them to break down a project for you and push them to the limit to see how they respond. Ask for their portfolio Create a technical challenge to get done in an hour then ask To get as much of it done in an hour. If they get it done then you know it's possible if they don't ask them why they couldn't finish it. If they get done super quickly ask them why did they spend more time making it better and if they did what would they do If you take note of the answers given, you can ask the next candidate “Given this answer, what is missing?” If in a previous interview a term or concept was given to you that you didn't fully understand as the next candidate to explain it to you. In a form of a interview question. So you are learning along the way and you're also using candidates to validate Other candidates answers. More options You could always ask a technical friend to come and help you with these interviews at least the final interview. You could also pay a company to have a technical assessment of the candidate coding interview tech interview Interview Tips, When you’re not technical

#Business #Startup #Leadership #Hiring #DanielHindi #CogentStep https://cogentstep.com How to Fire and get a thank you? You have a team that you're on the fence about? is there a particular person that just isn't cutting it? Considering letting them go or give them one more chance? Hi I’m Daniel Hindi Welcome message This is Daniel Hindi and today we are going to talk about How to Fire and get a thank you So you made some Mediocre hires or maybe you and I inherited a team. And you’re reaching the end of your patients. You want things to work out but it doesn't look like it will Define What is an A Player Define roles and responsibilities 5 Pillars of success (Measurable Objective) Ask them for what they need What are their goals Feedback scorecard (trends) Coaching Ownership Teach them how to fish (wait what?) Ask them If you were given more time what would you do better? Why didnt you? Help them define the bar Acknowledgment Performance plans What is an A Player? Talk about point First off if you want A players you need to define what an A player is I don't use I'll know one when I see one technique really put down ink on paper a well defined list of characteristics you are looking for what are the soft skills what are the hard skills What is an A Player? Talk about point Define roles and responsibilities 5 Pillars of success (Measurable Objective) Ask them for what they need What are their goals Feedback scorecard (trends) Coaching Ownership Have them own something they can be proud of Have a portion of your business, product, system whatever that they own they own end to end Have them be a part of the roadmap discussions have them come up with solutions to friction points Suggest enhancements Prioritize Let them have a better understanding the business logic Have them report on success Ownership Have them own something they can be proud of You may ask this isnt part of the job description. Well, ask yourself what is frustrainting with your B and C Player. Do you utter the phrase “They just dont get it”? Well thats why. Its not a wait for their time. Whatever time they are putting in is gained back in the long run because you are iterating less to get it right It gives you your time back. Which I am guess is worth more, no? Meaning Why do we exist Its extremely important they your team understands the meaning of their work and why they matter Moving boxes ??? vs feeding hungry Understanding customer stories And even customer support Teach them how to fish Talk about point (wait what?) When they come to you with questions. Don’t give them Answers. Now this doesn't mean don't have answers Guide them to the answer so they are less depended on you Have them make a decision Allow them to Fail But let them own it. Blame vs Responsibility Define the bar Could you do better? Ask them If you were given more time what would you do better? Why didnt you? Help them define the bar Why didnt you? Now that you know properties and ownership Acknowledgment (prize vs praise) Thank you goes a long way Performance Plan Now that you've defined their responsibilities and breaking it down into measurable KPI's you've coached him on why their job is important you have given them autonomy and ownership of a product and you've acknowledged them. And you're holding periodic coaching sessions where you are scoring their KPI's and the data still indicates that they are not doing well then it's time to put them into a performance plan where they have 30 days 60 days 90 days to perform otherwise they are going to: Lose their job vs get fired. There is a difference I want you to keep your job I'm doing everything in my power for you to keep your job but you are losing it. I'm into your office they know what's going to happen and they know why and they know you've done everything in your power to make it work human resource management cogent step termination of employment how to fire someone

#hiring #interview #technical #DanielHindi #business #TechnicalInterview https://cogentstep.com Problem Question? So you need to hire a developer but you don’t know where to start and you don't know how to check if they’re any good This is Daniel Hindi and today I’m going to give you some handy tips to hire a dev when you’re not technical Do you have a project and you're ready to hire your first developer the problem is you're not technical so you don't even know where to begin and if you found developers you have no idea if they're any good. And if you do hire a developer how do I know if their work is any good or not I have 5 techniques Give solution points Define The work you want done Define the person you’d like to work with Gather Candidates https://cogentstep.com topgrading startup hiring talent acquisition cogent step project management

#Hiring #Outsource #RemoteTeams #startup #DanielHindi - "Daniel Hindi" https://cogentstep.com Hiring? How to source your candidates? How to assess their skills? Should I use Recruiters? Where do I find Candidates? Should I outsource? Hiring is the worst. Its only second to firing. Understaffed then, Rushed to hire? There is a lot to go over so we will be creating a Multi-part episode How to source talent, And how not to settle Should I use Recruiters? Bad recruiters vs Good You’ll be paying 18 and 35% Example profiles on linkedin have them Screening Ask your devs Have a tech exam Ask for portfolio Try it yourself, Linkedin, Indeed, Dice Point #2 Always be hiring Whether there is a position or not You may find hidden talent Helps you gauge your current team Have your devs help with the process Point #3 Score your interviews TOPGRADING BOOK! Screen Soft skills Technical Skills Confidence levels Listen to feedback but hear the hidden message Point #4 Outsourcing There are skill ranges that cross borders Dont compare highest in the US to lowest overseas Make sure there is nothing lost in translation. There is something to be gained being in the office Golden ration. Point #4 B - Partners Talk about point If you need a burst of help If software development isnt your core offering like IoT. The hidden costs of managing a team Outsourcing can be with local partners Example BuildFire Point #5 Should I hire specialists Talk about point Early general Latter specialist https://cogentstep.com startup, software development, project management how to hire good employees hiring process hiring tips cogent step

#Growth #Business #Startup #DanielHindi Have a team that is, meh. Good Enough? Want a team full of A-Player Superstars? https://cogentstep.com This is Daniel Hindi and today we are going to talk about how to upgrade your team from a bunch of "B" players to "A" Players So you made some Mediocre hires or maybe you and I inherited a team. And while you don't think you want to get rid of them all and start over you wish you had a stronger team if they were just shape up. More passion more zeal Summary: - Define What is an A Player - Define roles and responsibilities - 5 Pillars of success (Measurable Objective) - Ask them for what they need - What are their goals - Feedback scorecard (trends) - Coaching - Ownership - Teach them how to fish (wait what?) - Allow them to Fail - Ask them If you were given more time what would you do better? Why didn't you? - Help them define the bar - Acknowledgment (prize vs praise) - Teach them Leadership - Performance plans While you're taught your craft through school and experience no one really teaches you management and if they do it's usually through bad example. So it's up to you to really dig through and see what management style works best for you and for your employees. I was in the same boat and so I began really digging into many books that are out there some giving more effective advice than others and then put it into practice to see what worked for me. And while this topic was vast a big portion of it is tied to how you hire and the expectations you set for your employee that should carry-on after their probation. What is an A-Player? Talk about point First off if you want A players you need to define what an A player is I don't use I'll know one when I see one technique really put down ink on paper a well-defined list of characteristics you are looking for what are the soft skills what are the hard skills Talk about point Define roles and responsibilities 5 Pillars of success (Measurable Objective) Ask them for what they need What are their goals Feedback scorecard (trends) Coaching Ownership Have them own something they can be proud of Have a portion of your business, product, system whatever that they own end to end Have them be a part of the roadmap discussions have them come up with solutions to friction points Suggest enhancements Prioritize Let them have a better understanding the business logic Have them report on success Ownership Have them own something they can be proud of You may ask this isn't part of the job description. Well, ask yourself what is frustrating with your B and C Player. Do you utter the phrase “They just don't get it”? Well, that's why. Its not a waist for their time. Whatever time they are putting in is gained back in the long run because you are iterating less to get it right It gives you your time back. Which I am guessing, is worth more, no? Meaning Why do we exist Its extremely important that your team understands the meaning of their work and why they matter Moving boxes ??? vs feeding hungry Understanding customer stories And even customer support Teach them how to fish Talk about point (wait what?) When they come to you with questions. Don’t give them Answers. Now this doesn't mean don't have answers Guide them to the answer so they are less depended on you Have them make a decision Allow them to Fail But let them own it. Blame vs Responsibility Define the bar Could you do better? Ask them If you were given more time what would you do better? Why didn't you? Help them define the bar Why didn't you? Now that you know properties and ownership Acknowledgment (prize vs praise) Thank you goes a long way Some bonuses work Some prizes work for busywork Performance Plan (prize vs praise) Now that you've defined their responsibilities and breaking it down into measurable KPI's you've coached him on why their job is important you give them autonomy and ownership of a product and you've acknowledged them. And you're holding periodic coaching sessions where you are scoring their KPI's and the data still indicates that they are not doing well then it's time to put them into a performance plan where they have 30 days 60 days 90 days to perform otherwise they are going to: Lose their job vs get fired. There is a difference I want you to keep your job I'm doing everything in my power for you to keep your job but you are losing it. I'm into your office they know what's going to happen and they know why and they know you've done everything in your power to make it work entrepreneurship software development project management cogent step how to hire good employees performance management how to hire the right people how to hire people for your business

#RemoteTeams #ProjectManagement #Business #Start #DanielHindi https://cogentstep.com Being able to manage remote work and remote teams is more important than ever. Unfortunate Current Events Globalization Outsourcing International teams Daniel Hindi explains HOW TO MASTER REMOTE TEAMS So why are remote teams not our go-to strategy when hiring a workforce? I've been dealing with at least a mix of local and remote workforce my entire career so I can tell you the advantages and disadvantages of what I found. Performance / Focus Transparency Availability Misaligned Vision The problem is your process The truth of the matter is these are all signs of a vulnerable process that relies too heavily on environment to self-correct. “Is John working?” All I have to do is look over to his desk What is John working on? All I have to do is look over John shoulder However we all know just because you're at your desk and have a spreadsheet up on this case code doesn't mean you're actually working or at least not working effectively I know this problem. I live this problem. I've solved this problem. Through experimentation research and reading a ton of books I figured out what works best for me and guess what it probably works best for you to I get asked all the time how do you manage so many developers that are thousands of miles away many of which you've never met personally and still get results? And if you see my other videos you know I always talk about the golden ratio of local resources versus remote resources and to be clear I do encourage a mixture of both however we don't always have that luxury. So where do we begin addressing this issue? 1-It Starts with you Yes you Good thing is that you’re already watching this video Own this initiative Discipline for your team starts with you You need to start being Punctual. Start and End meetings on time. Hold up the process 2- Communication Slack, Skype, whatever Remember the part where I mentioned we rely on our environment? Why do we have open office concepts? Its for the Serendipitous information that happens by being on close proximity to others Others are people, not “Resources” All hands meetings Alignment on mission and vision Inter-Department communication Visibility to your efforts end to end 3- Process Do you need a process that encourages productivity transparency and accountability Agile Daily Standups Standardize, Ritualize, Optimize Don’t reward hard work with more hard work Autonomy Accountability Clear and measurable results (SMART) Retrospectives Team Spirit: Win together and lose together 4- Coaching It's so easy to forget to nurture your team and coach them individually when you don't see them face-to-face every day One one One coaching What did you do well What can you improve Pillars of success Challenge them Acknowledgment

#GOALS #SMART #Business #Startup #DanielHindi #SetGoals SMART Objectives https://cogentstep.com We all can set goals but are we all achieving them? too many of us set goals for ourselves and our businesses yet too few actually achieve them. And it's not always from a lack of effort. Hello I’m Daniel Hindi Welcome message This is Daniel Hindi and today we are going to talk about How to actually achieve our elusive goals The problem isn't the goal Its a lake of objectives While finding the right goals are important they're usually not the reason why we're not achieving them. Most skip or confuse the next step which is defining your objectives that help you achieve your goal and if they do to find their objectives they're not smart objectives Early on in my career, I used to suffer from the same problem until I finally figured out how to start achieving my goals years later when I really started digging into the wealth of knowledge is available at our fingertips through the Internet and books at large that a man called Peter Drucker Created a system called smart objectives I could've save me years of struggling to figure it out on my own. Hey I'm going to explain this system to you and how to implement it 1- Goals vs Objectives Aren’t they the same? no. Before SMART objectives, Define your goal Goals are outcomes Objectives are how to achieve those outcomes Bad Goals: Make more money Good Goals: I want to be the #1 choice for my customers If you are struggling with this point please do watch “Start with WHY” - Simon Sinek Objectives are how we get there. Example: if our goal was “be the #1 choice for my customers in my category” then objectives would be: Increase trust in my Brand Provide 24/7 support Cut bug log in half 2- What are S.M.A.R.T. Objectives Acronym Specific – outline a clear statement the defines what is required. Measurable – A clear unit of measurement (preferably numerical) that can identify progress and completion of the objective. Achievable – objectives must be challenging, yet achievable. Where you are happy with the outcome and your team is willing to commit to it. Realistic - Managers focus on outcomes let the team focus on initiatives that achieving them Timely - A date of achievement must agree on and meet. 3- KPI’s Key Performance Indicators If you're going to concern yourself with outcomes, and your team with initiatives to achieve those outcomes You need to identify key performance indicators that are easily measured to see if you're on track for each initiative or not. This will help you with your overall measurements. The M in SMART So if one of our objectives was to Reduce bug by half then your KPI would be very easy to measure weekly and even daily If your objective was to increase trust in the brand then you need to break that into a smart objective which is something like getting three customer testimonials and host them on our website You can see how one is subjective while the other is objective 4- Autonomy Own your part If we delegating how do achieve our outcomes to our team we have to give them the autonomy to be able to achieve those outcomes in the way they best see fit sometimes if we Micromanage we get in the way of our team achieving your objectives. We also give them an excuse to blame us even though they would never do it to our face if they don't achieve their objective 5- Accountability You have to hold your team responsible After we read the find our goal set smart objectives clear KPI's and how to measure the initiatives taken to achieve our objectives then giving our team the autonomy to work on their initiatives it's time for us to place accountability on our team it starts with putting a meeting on your calendar at the end of the allocated time whether that was a month or a quarter to review everyone's objectives. The idea is not to have everybody on the chopping block, As your neck maybe one of them. The idea is to make sure we hold each other responsible for our portions of the business Recap Summarize points Define your goal Have SMART Objectives KPI’s for initiatives Autonomy for your team Accountability software development startup cogent step tech project management

#Business #Startup #Funding #DanielHindi #CogentStep https://cogentstep.com How to develop your Idea - Daniel Hindi Do you have an idea burning in your brain and you've always wanted to create a business around it? Do you have a difficult time articulating the idea? Do your friends and family get it? Are you not sure or feel something is missing? There is the Stanford NABC method (Need, Approach, Benefit, Competition ) 1- Problem and opportunity What is the market need Is there demand? Can you generate demand? Think Smartphones Is it your need? Must have or like to have What is your niche 2- Competitive Advantage How are you different? Are there Existing competitors? How will you beat them? You can't be just a me-too How will you gain market share if you’re late to the game 3- Is it Defendable Make it hard to replicate If you have a new idea Is it defensible? Do you have IP Relationships Strategy 4- Go to market strategy How to launch Timing FB, Flywheel vs others Chicken and the egg problem Brick and mortar or virtual Digital Marketing vs Gorilla or boh Freemium or not Undercut price may be cheaper than marketing **** Challenge ******* A town with two successful Italian restaurants Do you A) open another B) open something different? 5- Financials How to make money Is the problem worth solving Good ideas don't always make money. At least not in the beginning Think Twitter and Linkedin If you think you’re going to be the next Amazon or Uber good luck Red, black, green 6- Can it Scale If you’re the secret, you don't scale Is it dependent on humans (you) Do your costs increase, decrease or Plateau What new challenges do you face Can it cross markets and demographics 7- Is it versatile and resilient Think blockbuster, Barns & Noble Think Car alarms, obsolete Think iPhone accessories dependent on the connector tech, software development, cogent step, business ideas, online business ideas, small business

#DanielHindi #AppBuilder #MobileApps #AppDevelopment #CogentStep https://cogentstep.com Daniel Hindi explains the 5 ways to build a Mobile App. Mobile app development is not easy even compare to web development the challenges facing you are much greater. That being said it can be done and needs to be done in this ever-competitive market. I'm going to tell you the five ways you can build a mobile app When I first started building mobile apps they were only two ways to do so and one was for iOS and the other was for android. Today you have many more options available to you. Before we begin I want to explain the landscape: The 4 quadrants As you can see in this diagram there are two major ask is that we are going to write our different techniques to build mobile apps from being extremely technical to savvy, from very customizable to Rigid Type 1: Low-Level Code Swift and Java Difficulty: High Flexibility: High This is low-level code you need to be highly technical the benefit is it's extremely customizable but also extremely expensive to develop Type 2: Hybrid Apps Appcelerator, Cordova, Ionic, React Native Difficulty: Medium-High Flexibility: Medium- High These apps are built usually using JavaScript-based technology that allows you to build your app using a single code base and deploy it to both iOS and android Type 3: RAD Out Systems, Koney, Kenvy Difficulty: Medium Flexibility: Medium Rapid app development frameworks allow you to build mobile applications using a graphical user interface that allows you to drag and drop existing functionality to build custom maps Type 4: Cookie Cutters Good Barber, Bizapps Difficulty: Low Flexibility: Low These are highly user-friendly builders that allow you to use the existing functionality to build mobile apps you basically take what exists and just customize it for yourself the problem there is that if you need something that doesn't exist, you're sort of SOL Type 5: BuildFire Full Disclosure I’m the CTO I don't want this to sound like a shameful plug however the fact that the fourth quadrant was empty for the longest time is why I and my partners built a build fire platform it has all the flexibility of hybrid apps As well as the ease-of-use of prebuilt functionality that you can put together with an intuitive user interface. It really is the best of all options. However, in the spirit of being unbiased bill far is probably not the right platform for you if you're building an app for augmented reality or the next first-person shooter game https://cogentstep.com

#DanielHindi #AppDevelopment #Startup #Business #CogentStep Daniel Hindi points out 5 decision points you want to consider BEFORE building your next app. * Leave a comment for me below on which platform you chose to use to develop your app and give me a sentence or two on why. https://cogentstep.com Developing an app used to be very difficult and you only had a few ways to do it nowadays there’s a lot more tools templates components and options so it’s best to understand the mall to see what’s right for you 1. Platforms Understand the landscape there is iOS and android and now you want to consider a PWA 2. Team You need an iOS developer an android developer and a web developer PWA or other services 3. Infrastructure Hosting your data, authentication and business logic 4. Services There are many services that you can tap into from AWS cloud hosting, analytics, push notifications, CDN's, etc 5. Tools You can buy seems components and frameworks to help speed up your development. You could also use technologies like hybrid apps and when those are best used. You can also use rapid development tools like BuildFire App Development, mobile apps, software development, tech startup, business

#Startup #Business #DanielHindi #CogentStep Daniel Hindi shares his story about his first startup. The humble journey is meant to encourage you in your journey to get out there and try. https://cogentstep.com

#SoftwareDevelopment #startup #ProjectManagement #DanielHindi #AppDevelopment cogent step Daniel Hindi breaks down 10 steps you need to take to build any mobile app successfully. Site: https://cogentstep.com 1- Clear goals This will serve as your functional spec When building any software it’s easy to get lost in the weeds make sure that you set aside clear goals that you want to achieve these can be problems statements that serve as your Northstar anything you’re doing, especially in the early stages that aren’t solving these core problems should be considered a later phase. 2- Wireframes Talk about point Think of it as if you’re building a house before you start construction don’t you want to make sure that you have blueprints User journey 3- High fidelity mockups Just like a house now you want to see a 3-D rendering of what it would look like so that you can hold your contractors to that image and you leave no room for interpretation 4- Tech spec This isn’t the most glamorous back but it’s very important. Think of this as your civil engineering side. This is extremely important to measure twice and cut once because reflecting your code later is expensive. 5- Build versus Buy If it’s already out there no need to build it You can have carpenters build all your doors and kitchen cabinets or you could just buy them Now that you have your technical challenges all written down in a spec consider purchasing any templates components frameworks or services that may speed up your development and reduce your technical debt 6- Start Dev with a process Consider learning an agile development methodology so that you can help manage your developers Do you want to make sure that you put a system with measurable and achievable milestones that are small and frequent to give you agility as well as transparency so you can measure progress 7- QA If you have QA let them test things out It’s extremely important to realize that developers are horrible quality assurance resources. In a perfect world, developers will develop with no flaws in their code however that’s not going to happen so you need a quality assurance owner they can make sure everything is tested before it’s released 8- Deploy Iterations Don’t fall into the trap of trying to have every bell and whistle complete before you deploy to production make sure you have the mission-critical path complete and then deploy often and frequently so that you can get real-time feedback from the ones who matter the most, your customers 9- Measure success Make sure that you have clear and measurable metrics to claim success on every lunch and then actually follow up one of these metrics have been hit or not so that you are measuring how effective your efforts are 10- Gather Feedback Don’t be afraid to reach out to see customers to make sure that you are keeping a close year on what your customers need Don’t be afraid of polarizing your customers you need people to either love you or hate you being lukewarm doesn’t help anyone

#DanielHindi #SoftwareDevelopment #Startup https://cogentstep.com Daniel Hindi Explains 5 hidden expenses you need to consider before you build your next software.

#DanielHindi #Business #SoftwareDevelopment #SoftwareEngineering #tech https://cogentstep.com Daniel Hindi will teach you what it takes to build custom software and why software engineering and the costs behind it. Software Developers, QA Quality Assurance, Designers and Project managers all add up. Link to the sheet used in the video https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LqaofDJsoaEzQGpNaxV8WllCWM064cWmjQIYdwGfhKE/edit?usp=sharing Article: https://www.cogentstep.com/post/why-is-software-development-so-expensive project management, software development, new technology 2020, cogent step,

#DanielHindi #Business #CogentStep https://cogentstep.com Learn what you need to consider before developing your next software. Especially as a Startup, you need to ask yourself should I Build vs Buy. Software Development has many hidden costs that need to be anticipated. Daniel Hindi walks you through 3 questions you need to ask yourself when making your decision. - Is it business - Just because I can, should I? - Is there a hybrid solution? https://buildfire.com entrepreneurship cogent step

#DanielHindi #COVID19 #Business Is your business at a complete stop? Are you ready to weather the storm for 3, 6, 18 months? Next time this happens will you be ready? Learn how at https://cogentstep.com Daniel Hind and his team of experts can help you weather the storm and get through these tough times stronger than ever.

#DanielHindi #Agile #SCRUM #projectmanegment #remoteteams Daily scrum meetings can be mundane as a scrum master when dealing with software development and project management in new tech. Daniel Hindi explains 3 simple steps to maximize your daily standups when managing your development team. https://cogentstep.com cogent step agile software development

Daniel Hindi answers 5 common questions about things that can go wrong when managing your developers using Agile SCRUM. https://cpgentstep.com 5 Common project management problems and how to solve them: - Estimates are off - Developers are lazy - Priorities keep changing - Prod support is too big - Lopsided resources #DanielHindi #Agile #SCRUM

https://cogentstep.com Daniel Hindi explains how to run your projects smoothly using a daily scrum meeting for predictably and with agility. Project management is crucial for any project's success. As a scrum master, you need to master this skill when managing software development or any other project for that matter. 5 techniques - Scrum backlog - Steering - Build a sprint - Standups - Retrospective - Scrum Curveballs #DanielHindi #SCRUM #Agile #CogentStep agile vs waterfall methodology cogent step

Learn how to break up your projects into manageable components and chip away at it to achieve your goals. Get motivated for your next software development project and learn project management with Daniel Hindi Site: https://cogentstep.com #DanielHindi #startup #business

Cogent Step is a coaching tool made by an industry veteran Daniel Hindi meant to take you through clear and logical steps to manage your Tech projects, teams, product, and business. Explained in plain English. If you're managing developers or a developer yourself, we have something for you. #DanielHindi #LeanStartup #BusinessGrowth project management software development grow your business