Agile Racecar: Software, Magic, and Life

The Agile entrepreneur has a choice all too common these days. Implement it yourself. Or hire smart people for equity only- easier to do in the Silicon Valley than anywhere else (it's amazing what a single ad in Craigslist can do). Or pay young, super-smart programmers in India for a fraction of your monthly salary- you may not be able to afford it for a whole year, but we're talking about 3 weeks (i.e. iterations) here at a time. Regardless of the approach, practically every software entrepreneur in the US now has the ability to incrementally implement the features defined by the customer(s) , one iteration at a time. And get valuable feedback. And sooner or later, you'll have a paying customer as long as you stay true to the principles of Agile- "The Customer Is Always Right At The Beginning Of Each Iteration" (apologies to Sam Walton and Kent Beck:). Alternately, the customer(s) might realize soon enough and declare that the product doesn't have as mu...

Too often wannabe entrepreneurs fade out because they do not have the resources to put their ideas to the test. They may be able to talk to a customer or two, but there they often reach a dead end when the customer asks for a prototype or demo. It costs money - and takes time - to build one. And most aspiring entrepreneurs don't have a lot of money- or not enough - at least that's what they think. If you're an aspiring software entrepreneur, without an infinite capacity for risk, your prayers have just been answered. Imagine this scenario. The entrepreneur uses an online (web-based) agile project management tool to define the requirements. He then meets with potential customers, gets their feedback and refines the requirements, and prioritizes the features. Next the entrepreneur defines a short Release that contains the bare minimum functionality needed to "validate the business model". In plain English, this means that there's a customer out there who...

Mark my words, it is going to start happening within a year. I can see it in my Crystal Ball :) And remember, you read about it here first- Friday, Jan 27, 2006! Agile methodology, XP, and Hosted Agile Project Management tools (like Rally) are poised to take software entpreneurship and offshore outsourcing to the next level. India is finally going to shake off it's mentality of servitude and take major steps towards fostering Silicon Valley style innovation. How? Agile/XP approach of rapid, iterative development with customer feedback at its core is screaming from rooftops with a megaphone for very very v... early stage startups and budding software entrepreneurs to notice it. It's a marriage made in heaven! I can't think of a more natural fit of a solution to a problem. Agile development is for software entrepreneurs what lithium is for bipolar disorder (ok, so I guess the analogy proves that I can actually think of a more natural fit). ... contd. in "Ag...