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Monthly Archive for: ‘July, 2011’

Agile for Medical Software: Faster Launch in FDA Regulated Environments

By: Bernhard Kappe|No Comments

The FDA regulates software for medical devices, and may in future regulate mobile medical software as well. Can you speed up time to market with Agile development in an FDA regulated medical environment?

We shared our experience developing software using lean ux and agile software development best practices for medical devices and mobile medical software at a recent joint Health 2.0 and Product Management Association meeting.

Pathfinder at Tech Week: Innovation at Big Companies and Creating a Startup from Scratch

By: Bernhard Kappe|No Comments

TechWeek is a week-long festival, conference & expo celebrating the technology, web and interactive communities in Chicago, and is shaping up to be the biggest tech event in Chicago’s history. Names like Aneesh Chopra, CTO of the United States, Dave McClure, of 500 Startups and pirate metrics for startups fame, Jason Fried, Founder and CEO of 37 Signals, Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twillio, Matt Maloney and Mike Evans from Grubhub, Seth Sternberg, Co-Founder Meebo, Craig Newmark, Founder of Craigslist, and Brian Fitzpatrick, Head Engineer at Google make for quite a lineup.

As a proud supporter of the Chicago tech community, we’re contributing a few things to the mix:

  • We’re hosting Kissmetrics Founder Hiten Shah at the Chicago Lean Startup Circle (now at almost 1300 members) on Sunday the 24th. You can sign up here: http://www.chicagoleanstartup.com/events/18471361/

  • As part of TechWeek, Pathfinder has organized a panel of “intrapreneurs” – entrepreneurs within larger companies who are charged with innovation and creating new products and services. In this case, the companies are all quite large, ranging from $1 billion to $31 billion in revenues. Our panel includes:
    • Stanley Crane, Chief Innovation Officer at Allscripts
    • Matt Manzella, Driector of Strategy and Innovation at Allstate
    • Brian Chau, Director, Product Innovation at Wheels, Inc.
    • David Galante, Alcatel-Lucent Ventures

  • I’m a judge at the Health 2.0 Startup Pitch Event on Monday the 25th, along with folks like Dan Philips (Director of Healthbox) and Anu Jayaraman from Hyde Park Angels. http://www.meetup.com/chicagohealthtech/events/20517191/

  • As part of the Spark Chicago startup competition, we’re rolling up our sleeves with one of the three finalists to help accelerate their company towards success.

It should be a great time – we hope to see you there.

Creating Three New Companies from Scratch with Spark Chicago

By: Bernhard Kappe|No Comments

Spark Chicago is one of the most exciting event in TechWeek, the powerhouse tech conference/festival in Chicago that kicks off this Friday. Pathfinder Software is one of the sponsoring companies, and we’re looking forward to helping accelerate the talented finalists that emerge.

It’s a six day incubation contest from July 22nd through 27th, starting with StartWeekend Chicago, an intensive three day weekend in which 12 to 15 teams start building their business and pitch to a panel of judges made up of some of Chicago’s most prominent VC and angel firms.

Unlike other startup weekend events, there will be three finalists, who will then have three more days to build their companies and compete for the final prize.

That’s where we come in. For three days, one of the finalists will be working at our office, where we’ll roll up our sleeves and work with them as one team on customer development and building out their product.

On Wednesday evening, they’ll do a final pitch to another team of judges, including John Hoesly from Silicon Valley Bank, Adam Koopersmith from New World Ventures, Steve Miller from Origin Ventures, Kevin Willer from the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center and Mitch Lowe, CEO of RedBox. The winner receives more than $100,000 in donated services and a sizeable cash grant.

Good luck to all the participants, and we’ll see one lucky group next Monday.

If you want to see the round one or final round judging, sign up at Spark Chicago (it’s free!)

Talking Innovation with Allscripts, Allstate, Alcatel-Lucent and Wheels, Inc.

By: Bernhard Kappe|1 Comment

One of the exciting things about the Lean Startup approach is that it’s applicable not just to startups, but to innovation within large companies.

As part of TechWeek, Pathfinder has organized a panel of “intrapreneurs” – entrepreneurs within larger companies who are charged with innovation and creating new products and services. In this case, the companies are all quite large, ranging from $1 billion to $31 billion in revenues.

Our panel includes:

  • Stanley Crane, Chief Innovation Officer at Allscripts
  • Matt Manzella, Driector of Strategy and Innovation at Allstate
  • Brian Chau, Director, Product Innovation at Wheels, Inc.
  • David Galante, Alcatel-Lucent Ventures

I’ll be moderating the panel, and we’ll discuss how these companies generate new ideas, how they validate them and how they bring them to market. (One hint: Some of them are definitely applying the lean startup approach to their innovation efforts)

The panel will be held on July 25th at 11 AM as part of Techweek, Chicago’s largest tech conference.

Lean User Experience: UX at Startup Speed

By: Bernhard Kappe|5 Comments

Bob Moll, Pathfinder Software’s Lead User Experience Designer, and I gave a talk on Lean User Experience at the Chicago Lean Startup Circle on June 30th. User Experience is critical to the success of a software product: Well designed apps get used and recommended, poorly designed ones get discarded. But traditional user experience is slow and expensive and doesn’t get high quality products to market faster. This is death to any new product development effort. How can you get user experience at startup speed?

Enter Lean UX …

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