175: What’s next? How to predict what’s around the corner in the fast-paced, ever-changing, tech industry

Michael Lagoni, co-founder and CEO of Stackline, chats to Sarah Hicks on this episode of the Predictable Revenue podcast.  Stackline is a retail technology company founded by a group of Amazon veterans that activates data, automates execution, and optimizes e-commerce marketing performance for thousands of the world’s largest companies. Before founding Stackline, Michael held data analytics roles at Amazon and The Boston Consulting Group where he helped consumer brands turn insights into commercial excellence. Highlights from Michael include: how Stackline was profitable from day one (1:00), the decisions that led to such quick initial success (2:28), the criteria ideas need to meet before you commit to building a new product or new features (3:32), the impact being bootstrapped has had on business (8:06), how to make sure you’re building the right product (10:58), training your eye for external indicators and “tech-tonic” trends to predict the future (13:40), striking a balance between the trends you see coming in the market and the ones that your clients are asking for right now (17:11).   SHOW NOTES:  Another blog post on creating a product in an emerging industry: The Framework For Creating a Product – And a Brand-New Category More on product: The key to getting your first 10 customers isn’t sales – it’s product And product-market fit: 8 Growth Secrets I Learned from Reading Every Interview with Alex Schultz, VP of Growth at Facebook Re-establishing growth: when to scale, and how fast?