Building Elegantly Simple Solutions to Solve Complex Problems - Mike Zisman / CEO of Golf Genius (052)
Passion, persistence and patience. With over 40 years of entrepreneurial experience and a Ph.D. in Decision Sciences, these are the "3 Ps" Michael Zisman tells aspiring entrepreneurs are crucial for sustained success. This episode we talk to the Founder and CEO of Golf Genius Software to learn the secret sauce that has enabled him to build several successful technology companies from the ground up.
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Show Notes
Mike Zisman founded Golf Genius after a long career in information technology, starting with the creation of Soft-Switch in 1979, which was one of the very first companies to participate in the electronic mail industry. On this episode of The ModGolf Podcast we learn how Mike combines his love of golf with his passion for IT to help revolutionize the golf industry.
The number of entrepreneurial insights Mike crammed into this episode is truly phenomenal. Here's our Top 10 list of what we're calling "Mike's Nuggets of Wisdom":
- “There’s a difference between building software and building software products. Software products rely on customer self-sufficiency if they want to scale and make money”.
- “What I love about the cloud is the elasticity, the scalability".
- “You have to listen very carefully to your customer because they usually have excellent ideas”.
- “When you look in the code and there is ‘if the customer equals ‘x’ do this, that is the death of you. You end up with this mish mash of spaghetti code”.
- “Great leaders always simplify” (actually a General Colin Powell quote!)
- “We are constantly working on the user experience by reducing complexity”.
- “Elegance is a simple solution to a complex problem. Not a complex solution to a complex problem.”
- “You will never be as smart as all your customers put together”.
- “We’re totally virtual, we live on Zoom and Skype for collaboration and sit on top of all these other software products. If we had to do this all this stuff alone it wouldn’t be very productive. Today you don’t have to do any of that. You can focus 100% of your energy on the business problem you are trying to solve.”
- “Someone will always come up your tailpipe” referencing Clayton Christiansen’s The Innovators Dilemma of how competitors solve a simpler problem for a smaller market that you’re not interested in.
Michael referenced The Trough of Disillusionment" as one of five stages on Gartner Group's "Hype Cycle", which is a graphical representation of the stages a technology goes through from conception to maturity and widespread adoption. You can find out more about the technology Hype Cycle here.
To learn more about Golf Genius, check our their website and YouTube Channel.
Special Guest: Mike Zisman - CEO, Golf Genius Software.