5 hours of video in 53 lessons
37 document templates
4 hours 1:1 advisory sessions
6 month membership to the Software Startup Founders Academy (expert/founder community & group coaching)
The S5 Methodology course guides you through all the research and analysis you need to do into your potential market and competitors, helps you make the big decisions you need to make such as your partnership and funding strategies and enables you to get your business up and running.
The course guides you step by step from creating the documents you need, to finding the right development team or partner through to managing the whole design, build, test and launch process.
The S5 Methodology program comes with 4 hours of 1:1 advisory where I help you to accelerate your progress towards you successful startup.
Whats more, you get a full 6 months of access to the Software Startup Founders Academy which is a community of founders and group coaching that is designed to help you move forward and succeed as a founder, giving you the knowledge and confidence you need to launch and grow your startup.
Stuart has over 30 years of experience creating and exiting software startups and helping other founders create their own startups.
This is exactly what will be covered in this course
Topic 1: Current employment
What you can, cannot, should and must do if you are currently employed.
Topic 2: Market research
How to research the market you are planning to enter so you are better placed to start your market fit.
Topic 3: Competitive analysis
How to find out about your potential competitors to help make business and product decisions.
Topic 4: SWOT analysis
Succinct instructions and a worksheet for identifying and using your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Topic 5: Partners
Should you go it alone or work with one or more partners? This topic discusses this important decision in depth
Topic 6: Investment
Do you need investment (or other form of funding)? This topic helps you decide and shows you how to get started with this.
Topic 7: Elevator pitch
An elevator pitch is so important to get right yet so many don't. This topic shows you the formula for creating a great pitch.
Topic 8: Business basics
There's a lot to do setting up your business. This topic takes you through the main steps, showing you what, why and how.
Topic 9: Getting legal advice
You will most likely need legal advice for various things. This topic explains this and how to prepare for getting that advice.
Topic 10: Plan of action
Creating a plan of action is so important yet rarely done. Use the template to create yours so you can stay on top of everything you need to do.
Topic 1: Brain dump
Have fun creating a brain dump of all your thoughts, ideas and questions. Then use this to start structuring your business and software documentation.
Topic 2: Document register
You will create many documents which maximise your chances of success - as well as keeping costs down. Keep track of these with a document register.
Topic 3: Question register
There will be a lot of unanswered questions and unmade decisions initially. That's OK - especially if you track them properly with a question register.
Topic 4: Solution overview
Although easy to write, this is a very important document, used for many purposes to communicate your idea with investors, customers, partners, developers and more.
Topic 5: Users & organisations
Your software will almost certainly have users and may have the concept of organisations. Lay firm foundations by defining these properly.
Topic 6: Concepts document
Not often written, this document gives you a glossary and explains all the concepts of your product, saving on miscommunications and inefficiencies that will arise without it.
Topic 7: User stories
A really easy way of defining what your software needs to do. This topic shows you how to do this properly so your software contains everything you need.
Topic 8: Milestones
There will be more than one version of your software as it evolves. Keep track of these and communicate properly with all stakeholders.
Topic 9: Platforms
Web-only? Mobile-only? Both? It is critical to decide where you will start and the details of this. This important topic shows you how.
Topic 10: Notifications
Learn how to specify exactly what notifications you want in your software. Get this often missed step right from the start.
Topic 11: Requirements
This is the culmination of all the work done up to now to create your comprehensive functional requirements document using the extensive templates provided.
Topic 12: Wireframes
Learn how to create your own draft wireframes and convert these into a draft prototype. No design skills needed.
Topic 13: User specifications
Learn how to describe the behaviour of your wireframes. From the information shown to the page flow and handing events, doing this will mean you end up with the behaviour you want.
Topic 1: In-house, outsource or hybrid?
Decide on the best development team strategy for you by understanding what's involved and the pros and cons of each option.
Topic 2: Development provider criteria
Understand your criteria to ensure that you end up with the best development provider for you.
Topic 3: Making a shortlist
Learn how to find development providers and filter the list down to the ones that are right for you.
Topic 4: Initial contact
This is a delicate operation as you are starting a relationship. You will need to ask lots of questions and may need to negotiate.
Topic 5: Check development provider documents
There are lots of things to check for so it's critical that you get this right.
Topic 6: Interview development providers
You will have lots of questions to be answered and requirements to be met. This topic covers everything you need to consider in this difficult task.
Topic 7: Final decision & engagement
This topic ensures that you get this exciting stage of your startup right without leaving anything out.
Topic 8: In-house team
If you decide to build an in-house team, this topic takes you through the process step by step.
Topic 1: UI/UX
Manage the user interface and user experience design process starting with your wireframes and user specifications and ending up with complete designs.
Topic 2: Technical specification
Once your development team creates the technical specification document, learn how to check that this meets all your requirements before proceeding with development.
Topic 3: Preparing for development
Before development can begin properly, there are some setup steps that need to take place. Learn about these and how to manage them.
Topic 4: Software development
The process of developing your software is underway and you need to know how to keep track of progress and be informed of issues.
Topic 5: Testing
Make sure that your software is tested properly and that you see the results of these tests as they progress.
Topic 6: User acceptance testing
This is the critical step where you need to check that the complated software matches your expectations before signing off.
Topic 7: Handover
When everything is complete, you need to ensure that you receive all intellectual property, including source code, assets and documentation. You will also be taken through each process so you can see them working and have a record of them.
Topic 1: Product readiness
Create and document the process and checklist to ensure your product is ready for launch both the first time and subsequently.
Topic 2: Business readiness
Make sure that your business is ready for go-live, creating a repeatable process and checklist.
Topic 3: Operational readiness
You need to be operationally ready. This topic covers the preparation for the monitoring of your software and handling any issues.
Topic 4: Launch plan
Create a launch plan. This will ensure that your launch goes seamlessly every time.
Topic 5: Go live
Finally, you are ready to go live. Follow your launch plan and your software is ready for use.
Introduction to User Experience Design
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Introduction to User Experience Design
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Introduction to User Experience Design
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Introduction to User Experience Design
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Introduction to User Experience Design
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Introduction to User Experience Design
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The S5 Methodology course and program will help you get your software startup launched. If you just have an idea or you've started already, it will ensure you take all necessary steps helping you move towards launch and success quickly, potentially saving you tens of thousands of dollars in mis-steps and wrong turns.
Anyone with an idea who wants to create a startup
No prior experience creating startups is required
You just need the desire to succeed!
Here's what people are saying
Founder
InstaDoc
“I'm a non-technical founder and the S5 Methodology encapsulates Stuart’s 30 years of technical knowledge. I love how it takes you through step-by-step covering everything that's needed. It’s incredibly useful and made me feel like I'm in control - I could see the roadmap ahead of me. It enabled me to work in an organised fashion, making sure nothing was missed out. If I hadn't done this, I wouldn't be where I am today with my startup. I could've had lots of problems on the way and I think this has saved me a lot of money. I would definitely recommend it! My advice: think about what you are planning to create and use the S5 Methodology.
Co-founder
Formation Games
“We utterly relied on the S5 Methodology to convert our ideas into requirements documentation and a fully functioning platform. We were nervous about project delay and product documentation. The efficiency of the S5 process delighted us - producing high quality documentation. This allowed us to pivot to a second product with both investor, customer and team confidence. Building platforms from scratch is hard. Fun comes from seeing ideas manifest quickly and consistently. I recommended the process without exception.