I’ve wanted to do this for a while…
This is my 10th year in the mobile industry and I’ve been fortunate enough to see this space go from ringtones and video, to being included in some of the everyday things we do; like, unlocking a door or ordering a cab. I have always wanted to share what I have learned during this time, but never knew if people were interested. So, a few days ago I decided to take an opportunity and find out. I was invited to Ottawa to speak on June 6th 2014 at AccelerateOTT. I was asked to talk about mobile, product development and my career in general. I have never been shy, but I was nervous about how the 350 people in the room would react, most of them in their mid forties. Would I make a fool of myself? Do people even care about minimum viable products and my experience? I got myself a little worked up, I didn’t even want to do a practice run with my co-workers and peers.
I was at dinner the night before with some speakers and I got some time to chat with Luc Levesque. For those of you who don’t know, Luc is a entrepreneur and VP of SEO at Trip Advisor. After having dinner and a great conversation about product and SEO with him and a few others, I got some confidence. Still, I didn’t sleep all that well.
I woke up groggy and nervous and made my way to the convention center. Right before I went on I was introduced by Brandon Waselnuk. He’s the CEO of a great startup that I advise, TattooHero. I stood up and did my thing. Like a flash, the 45 min talk was over and a bit of a blur. After it was done, I left the stage and a lot of people were asking for tips. “How to get their product out of the door?” “How do I hire good team members?” “How do I create a good company culture?” I answered as many questions as I could, but I was asked numerous times if I had a blog. There’s plenty of blogs about product development, but people seemed to like my laid back, simplified approach. So, that lead me here. I’m going to use my time here to share tidbits of knowledge about mobile, team management, product development, my time as Director of Mobile for Pornhub and Youporn as well as my current role of VP Mobile at Breather.
Check back soon!
Brandon Reti
brandon reti 