A couple of weeks ago I gave a "lightning talk" about Kill the HiPPO, the book I'm working on.

A lightning talk?

My talk was titled "How do bootstrapped teams
really choose what feature
to build next?". I started with a quick summary of the concept of the book, then sped through 5 unique approaches I've discovered so far in the interviews Siew Ann (my co-writer) and I have done.

I presented the lightning talk at the annual Business of Software Europe conference, in Cambridge, England.

Much of the audience is the target audience for this book.

Even better, some people in the audience were ideal candidates to be interviewed and featured in the book.

And even better still, there were a couple of world-leading experts in the field of product management, which is the wider category that Kill the HiPPO falls into.

It's a cliche to say "this was a great opportunity". But in this case, it was, without exaggerating, a perfect opportunity to present my ongoing work in public.

The lightning talk format was 7.5 minutes, 15 slides auto-forwarding, 30 seconds per slide.

The 5 unique approaches I shared in my talk were:

• Does it spark WOW? from our story about James Kennedy @ ProcurementExpress.com
• Building for “Simon from Canada“ - from Bridget Harris @ YouCanBookMe
• A Season for Everything - from the team in Balsamiq
• Cupholders or CarPlay? - from Tyler King @ Less Annoying CRM
• Adopt and adapt - from Anthony Eden @ DNSimple

Something happened to make this talk particularly interesting for the audience: Bridget Harris of the "Building for Simon from Canada" section spoke at the same event shortly after my talk.

Extra benefit 1: I now have a profile as a public speaker

The talk was recorded, and will soon be published online. At the time I'm writing, it isn't ready, but I believe it will be available soon at this link: https://businessofsoftware.org/talks/speakers/steve-mcleod/​

A challenge I've set for myself this year is to get comfortable with speaking in public. Apparently one of the most important parts of getting comfortable with public speaking is to actually do it and as often as possible.

Hence I'm jumping on any chance to speak in public, particularly about the Kill the HiPPO project. The lightning talk at Business of Software was part of that chance-taking.

Business of Software is a high profile event with a deserved reputation for high quality talks. Taking part in it has given me a great example I can show when applying to talk elsewhere.

Extra benefit 2: more interviewees

I ended my talk with a request: to take part in the research for Kill the HiPPO as an interviewee.

I described the type of companies we are featuring in the book: bootstrapped, profitable, stable, mature, well-run, with about 20-50 employees. I asked for people with that profile to get in touch.

And a couple of founders did. Siew Ann and I are soon to interview them so that we can write up their story of how they choose what feature to build next in their product.

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