Services

Philosophy

I’m the guy who cares. A lot. I care about customer needs. I care about details. I care about communication. I care about timelines. I care about budgets. I care about getting features right…the first time. I care about launching awesome online and mobile products.

My job as a product strategist is to care about awesomeness and make the offerings of my clients be awesome. My consultancy helps organizations, businesses, VCs, and technology developers maximize their Internet and mobile investments. Formally, I’ve been building websites, products, and working with startups for the last six years — but I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. I’ve exercised my entrepreneurial tendencies by working with startups. Interestingly enough, I’ve done so as an independent self-employed consultant, as a member of a full-service web agency (which focused on startups), and more recently at a startup itself. Working with startups matches my desire to solve problems as an entrepreneur with my knowledge and expertise as a “product guy.” My specific expertise comes both from more than a decade of hands-on technology experience, as well as academia, where my focus was on entrepreneurship, technology management, and more generally, the Web and Internet.

I’ve been writing here since 2005 with a focus on startups, product strategy, interactive marketing, and more generally, digital technology’s impact on business, life, and culture. There’s plenty in the archives to allow you to learn more about my thinking. I’m currently helping clients with product strategy, mobile development, web (re)designs, and interactive marketing. If you need help in any of these areas, check out the info provided or just get in touch.

Product Strategy

The best way to understand my perspective on product strategy is to review the materials below. My guiding philosophy on building products is to innovate and then iterate.

Relevant Articles

• The Best Advice to Entrepreneurs – Don’t Build a Dumb Idea
• The Role of Users and “Power Users” in Product Development
• Making Web Apps Better
• Starting Your Startup – Assessing Options

Sample Offerings

• Product / Concept Articulation – Defining who the product serves and what the product is, using hard and soft data points. Sample deliverables include user surveys, product brief, wireframes, and prioritized product feature list.
• Research / Idea Evaluation – Early stage analysis, vetting, and refining of technology-focused business plans, startup concepts, etc. Sample deliverables include competitive research, strategy sessions, and proof-of-concepts.
• Project Planning – Planning, development, and management of web and mobile products. Sample deliverables include requirements documentation, timelines / roadmaps, and cost estimates.
• Analytics – Analysis, selection, implementation, and training of analytics platforms. Sample deliverables include analytics platform evaluation, custom analytics implementations, and ongoing reporting.

Mobile Development

I’ve been working in the mobile space for about a year and have helped launched half a dozen iPhone apps, including several of my own. Apple’s App Store, in particular, is a moving target. Best practices change every week, as do measures of success. Developing mobile applications is much different than other digital work (especially Web). It’s much more like desktop software development. Check out some of my articles on mobile development below.

Relevant Articles

• How to Build a non-$0.99 iPhone App
• The Five-Minute Guide to iPhone App Market Sizing, Pricing Experiments, and User Trends
• Tweetie 2 – A Case Study in Making iPhone Apps Leaner
• Ramp Champ – Combining iPhone Play with In App Purchases and Virtual Goods

Sample Offerings

• Market Sizing – Assessing financial potential for mobile apps. Sample deliverables include mobile market trends, evaluating user bases, and back of the envelope revenue projections.
• Product Strategy – See “Product Strategy” description.
• Design/Development – Full lifecycle development of mobile application from concept to launch. Trusted partners are leveraged based on client needs, budgets, timeframes, and preferences.
• Analytics – Analysis, selection, implementation, and training of mobile analytics platforms. Sample deliverables include analytics platform evaluation, custom analytics implementations, and ongoing reporting.

Web

I’ve been developing websites (like this one!) since the late 1990′s. Running successful web projects and launching aesthetic, easy to use, and highly optimized websites and web products are second nature to me. I largerly work with open source technology (LAMP stack). For more traditional websites, I put most clients on WordPress or comparable platforms, depending on needs. I can both manage web (re)designs, as well as take a web project / product from concept to launch using my network of trusted partners.

(re)Design
Phases are dependent on budget requirements

• Initial Consultation – Focus on understanding goals, pain points, timing, budget, etc.
• Kick-off Meeting – Review executed proposal, process, and milestones.
• Mood Boards – Showcase colors, imagery, and fonts to provide initial design direction.
• Wireframes/Design Comps – Non-functional versions of a website / product that are used to present alternative views of home and secondary pages.
• Build/Launch – Develop and test functional version of website /product. Includes training on technology platform.

Interactive Marketing

• Search Engine Optimization – Analyzing and defining organic search strategies. Sample deliverables include SEO audits, SEO benchmarking, and SEO recommendations.
• Pay Per Click – Analyzing and defining paid search strategies. Sample deliverables include pay per click audits, campaign builds, and conversion tracking.
• Landing Pages / Optimization – Creating and optimizing highly converting landing pages. Sample deliverables include landing page audits, landing page builds, and landing page optimization.
• Social Media – Defining audience and engagement strategy through social media channels. Sample deliverables include social media training, social media campaign definition, and social media analytics.

Credentials

My specific expertise comes from more than a decade of personal, academic, and professional development.

• Personal – On the Web before Google; high-speed Internet while most people were learning about AOL; used Firefox when it was called Phoenix; had a blog before there were “blogs.”
• Academic – Degrees from Boston College (Computer Science) and the University of Pennsylvania (focus – entrepreneurship, technology management, and Web/Internet).
• Professional – Served as Internet strategist at leading D.C. web agencies including Viget Labs; Director of Search Technology at online advertising pioneer Clickable; consultancy in existence for four years; blog has over 1,000+ subscribers.
• Certifications – Google AdWords certified; previously achieved highly selected Google Analytics Authorized Consultant status (1 of 13 in North America at that time); fully versed in Google suite.
• Other – Read my about page; view my LinkedIn profile.

In Their Words

Michael Ingson, VP of Engineering at Clickable

“Ken maintains a goal of creating the simplest, most beautiful market leading product possible…[his] greatest contribution to Clickable is his ability to bridge both business and technical concepts…and leveraging this wide view of the marketplace into our organization and to customers.”

Brian Williams, CEO at Viget Labs

“Ken has a great combination of work ethic, ambition, confidence, and talent. He jumped in and made major contributions to Viget’s growth in a fairly short period…I’d recommend Ken for anything he’s passionate about and ready to set his mind to — it’s a safe bet he’ll be successful.”

Jonathan Betz, Senior Director of Engineering at Clickable

“I’ve worked with Ken for close to eighteen months at Clickable. In that time, Ken has stood out from his peers by virtue of his extremely deep knowledge of SEM and his immense passion for technology. I have seen Ken guide the development of several key portions of our product line, always driving the team to create the simplest solution that uses the best available technology. I would definitely work with Ken again in the future.”

Amy Marchiando, Marketing at Infinitive

“Ken worked quickly to deadlines, provided us with design options, solicited feedback and was extremely organized. We are very happy with the design and development work Ken provided.”

See my LinkedIn profile for additional recommendations.