How UBERization of Technology can raise a quality of providing service

Last two weeks Mike has been traveling to Yerevan, Armenia. 

First of all, Mike would like to share some historical and tech industry related information about Armenia as a brand maker.

For those who have never heard about Armenia (it's AR-ME-NIA, not Romania, not Albania, it's ARMENIA) - it is a mountainous landlocked country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia with own huge cultural and historical heritage. Also, Armenia is a first country in the world who adopted Christianity as a state religion in 301.

As from product/brand creating perspective you probably know a lot of Armenians by origin, but more famously as representatives of other countries, like:

1. Andre Agassi - Tennis player (USA)

2. Garry Kasparov - Chess Player (Russia)

3. Charles Aznavour - Singer (France)

4. Alexis Ohanian - Entrepreneur (USA) 

In a few words it's a really interesting country that's full of discovered and undiscovered (yet) talents and amazing people.

As a part of a tech world (small yet, but still growing) Armenia is involved in tech with startups as well as tech leaders (Cisco, Oracle, VMware, Microsoft)

Mike was amazed by startup guys, who passionately promote their own ideas and beliefs.They try to make positive changes or as someone said about Alexis Ohanian, "Make the world a bit less suck."

There are several very successful startups like: 

Teamable.me - Next Generation recruitment platform, using B2B SaaS model, and

PicsArt.com - Last Year was named as an official partner of Google, during the Google IO 2015

There are more, but Mike will inform you about them next time, so be patient and you will get a cookie :)

A particular startup Mike wants to share about is called ggTaxi, which is an Armenian based startup, that's doing doing pretty much like Uber, but with taking into consideration national, cultural and economical aspects. If Uber is giving a chance to everyone to make extra money by driving their own vehicles, ggTaxi is using service of professional taxi drivers, who want to join the company in order to drive a cab under an umbrella of the company.

And here ggTaxi is solving more important problems than just giving an ability to drive and earn money:
1. ggTaxi is creating a competition among taxi drivers, who are forced to constantly improve the quality of the provided service. (clean cabs, faster services, no noisy music, etc)
And it's not about the price, because ggTaxi has the same prices as any other cab in Yerevan and generally, it's cheap.

2. Second, ggTaxi is against tips, which became an integrated part of our society in USA. It's ridiculous when you see on your bill options to tip 12% 15% or 18%. Why? why? why? Tips should be my natural will for good service, not an obligatory part. Back to ggTaxi driver insisted to give back 300 Armenian drams, which is less than dollar. Still money for Armenian reality but another perception of mindset change.

3. Last, but not least, ggTaxi has direct line of customer support, and they are glad to hear your concerns,  feedback and improvement requests.


In other words startup is a social influencer.

Teamable.me next time...

Good vs. Bad Product Manager

Mike was reading interesting book of Ben Horovitz, called "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" and this article is really remarkable and worth to read.

Good product managers know the market, the product, the product line and the competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of knowledge and confidence.

A good product manager is the CEO of the product. (It's actually enough said to don't read rest of the article, but please DO)

A good product manager takes full responsibility and measures themselves in terms of the success of the product. The are responsible for right product/right time and all that entails. A good product manager knows the context going in (the company, our revenue funding, competition, etc.), and they take responsibility for devising and executing a winning plan (no excuses).


Bad product managers have lots of excuses. Not enough funding, the engineering manager is an idiot, Microsoft has 10 times as many engineers working on it, I'm overworked, I don't get enough direction. Barksdale doesn't make these kinds of excuses and neither should the CEO of a product.


Good product managers don't get all of their time sucked up by the various organizations that must work together to deliver right product right time. They don't take all the product team minutes, they don't project manage the various functions, they are not gophers for engineering. They are not part of the product team; they manage the product team.

Engineering teams don't consider Good Product Managers a "marketing resource." Good product managers are the marketing counterpart of the engineering manager. (This is one of the most misleading things in StartUps)


Good product managers crisply define the target, the "what" (as opposed to the how) and manage the delivery of the "what."

Bad product managers feel best about themselves when they figure out "how". Good product managers communicate crisply to engineering in writing as well as verbally.

Good product managers don't give direction informally. Good product managers gather information informally. (Another rule to note down)


Good product managers create leveragable collateral, FAQs, presentations, white papers. Bad product managers complain that they spend all day answering questions for the sales force and are swamped. Good product managers anticipate the serious product flaws and build real solutions. Bad product managers put out fires all day. Good product managers take written positions on important issues (competitive silver bullets, tough architectural choices, tough product decisions, markets to attack or yield).

Bad product managers voice their opinion verbally and lament that the "powers that be" won't let it happen. Once bad product managers fail, they point out that they predicted they would fail. Good product managers focus the team on revenue and customers. Bad product managers focus team on how many features Microsoft is building.


Good product managers define good products that can be executed with a strong effort. Bad product managers define good products that can't be executed or let engineering build whatever they want (i.e. solve the hardest problem). Good product managers think in terms of delivering superior value to the market place during inbound planning and achieving market share and revenue goals during outbound. Bad product managers get very confused about the differences amongst delivering value, matching competitive features, pricing, and ubiquity. Good product managers decompose problems.

Bad product managers combine all problems into one. Good product managers think about the story they want written by the press. Bad product managers think about covering every feature and being really technically accurate with the press.

Good product managers ask the press questions. Bad product managers answer any press question. Good product managers assume press and analyst people are really smart. Bad product managers assume that press and analysts are dumb because they don't understand the difference between "push" and "simulated push." Good product managers err on the side of clarity vs. explaining the obvious.

Bad product managers never explain the obvious. Good product managers define their job and their success. Bad product managers constantly want to be told what to do. Good product managers send their status reports in on time every week, because they are disciplined. Bad product managers forget to send in their status reports on time, because they don't value discipline. (Soooo True)

Startup suggestions from Mike

Yesterday Mike thought about a few things: What are the main mistakes done by startups and how to prevent them?

1. Right amount of co-founders

One founder can't really handle everything. It's better to have 2 more fellas who will help you with all ideas and will definitely be the first guys who will criticize your crazy ideas in order to place them to the right pace. Here is some examples for you: Facebook - 5 founders, Google - 2 founders, WhatsApp - 2 founders, Reddit - 2 founders, Microsoft - 2 founders, Apple - 2 founders.

From another perspective too many founders can have different visions/opinions about "how it should work" or "who is the boss". Usually, startups with such problems die fast.

2. Startup is not a hobby

You should have 200% commitment if you want to be a startup. Mike was watching Shark Tank and he continuously noticed that entrepreneurs are failing to understand that you can't get investment if you are not committed to things you do or believe. Most likely Kevin O'Leary and Mark Cuban will ask you how much time you spend on your business, and if you tell them 2 hours every morning YOU ARE OUT, because it's your hobby, not your life...

3. Raise RIGHT amount of money

Raising less than you need –You might run out of money fast without being able to push to the market to the best of your potential.

Raising more than you need – is risky because it might make you feel like a star, so you might forget to deliver everything you should. Plus, you might have couple of more rounds to raise, so the more money you raised in the beginning – the more you would need to raise later. For some companies it is lethal. Last but not least to mention is the more money you raised the more dependencies and pressure from investors you will have.

4. Listen to your customers

This is a key factor for your success. Don't listen to your investors, I mean, take their opinion into consideration, but never take it as a 100% path to success. They financed your idea and vision, not vice versa.

HOWEVER, do listen to your customers. Listen and hear them (See Mike's Blog Here). Do A/B testing, ask for surveys, and organize target group discussions (even if you need to spend time and money). Starbucks gift cards are always handy here. :)

5. Team, Team, Team

Right team is like a unicorn-almost difficult to achieve. Please, spend time and hire right people-teamable work and spirit are vital factors of your young company.

It's easy to give suggestions (you are probably thinking) but Mike had all these flaws during his career in 5 different startups... He is learning with you, so no judgement, and just a few suggestions from a friend.