Have you seen this equation?

Hello.

My name is Philip Mikal. I am COO at ChargeSmart.

My passion is using technical and marketing skills to create profitable Internet companies.

I’ve seen a lot of enterprises rise and fall. Over the years, I’ve assembled a recipe for the best odds of success.

Mr. T Ate My Startup*

What worked ten years ago no longer produces results. Back then, we lived by build it and they’ll come. Chase eyeballs. Hire a bunch of newly minted MBAs, throw in 20 million and BAM, Internet riches.

That and a lot of coffee saw a few big deals, but nothing like what investors expected. Billions went down the drain. (You probably read about it).

These days, it’s more like, remove a vowel from your domain name and build a viral widget that leverages the social network of dog lovers. Sound familiar? Certainly there’s a better way to build a mass-market Internet business.

But how?

Coffee goes great with cake.

That’s not science. Making the cake is.

Science informs success when we predict the future based on past performance.

What works for cakes works for companies.

Tested recipe=successful formula

I’ve been around long enough to notice what’s gone right, and what’s fallen flat. I’ve tasted the prizes and the outtakes. I’ve taken lots of notes.

And now, here on mikal.org, I’m ready to share my recipe with… you?

My Two Secret Ingredients:

1) Customer Development
An iterative process. We perfect the path to paying customers.
Method: Begin with the end in mind, and stay focused throughout.

2) Product Development
A vision made real. We leverage a decade and a half of experience developing web-based applications for the world’s leading companies.
Method: Build customer-focused, scalable, open-source architectures on time and under budget.