How to Become an Innovation High Striker with Greg Guidotti

Ferrara Creative Carnival Innovation Event

Episode Summary A few weeks back an email out of the blue came our way. Would we would be a part of Ferrara Candy Company’s internal innovation event? By now you know we love talking about innovation, so the answer was YES! Today you’ll hear Josh interview Greg Guidotti, the General Manager at Ferrara, about […]

What Is A Workshop? And Why Do I Need One?

What is a Workshop?

What is a Workshop Episode Summary I’m thinking Spring today, I don’t know about you guys. It’s sunny and all the snow is melting and I’m here for it. I’m also here for this next episode of AAI which is all about workshops. What is a workshop? How can they help us deduce the product […]

How to Build an App the Right Way

Episode Summary Getting ready to build an app can be a lengthy and expensive experience. So how do you do it the right way? Last week we talked about the Product Validation Funnel. Testing, validating, and understanding your target market are essential before building anything. How do you know when you’re ready? When you’ve done […]

What is the Product Validation Funnel?

Product Validation Funnel Episode

Episode Summary On the podcast today, Josh and I discuss the Product Validation Funnel, a term we coined here at CIL. It is a method of building software, a way to discover where clients are in their process and help them to the next part of the funnel. Product validation is inherent to how we […]

Books to Read in 2021 for Professional Growth

books to read in 2021

Happy 2021 Everyone! We took a long [much needed] break from social and this blog to focus on the business and some projects we were working on. We were extremely lucky to be busy in this uncertain season. But, as we roll out of 2020 (let’s breathe a collective sigh of relief) – time for […]

What is the True Cost of Software Development?

Cost of Software Development Podcast

Episode Summary We build software. Great, so what is the actual cost of software development? There are plenty of reasons you may want to build custom software, but you probably have some questions about how much money you’re going to have to throw in to get exactly what you want. We go through how we […]

What does Digital Transformation Look Like Right Now?

How are we using digital transformation right now?

Episode Summary After COVID-19 hit, we ran a webinar about how companies could accelerate digital transformation. Now we’ve seen a ton of companies do just that. From small retailers hopping online to everyone moving to the cloud – digital is here to stay and here to reign. How can your business stay abreast of these […]

5 Ways Lean Startup Should Be Applied to Every Business

Lean Startup for Business

Earlier this year, I’d say mid-pandemic (are we going to start measuring time like this?), we started a Book Club here at City Innovation Labs. (Here’s my 2020 book list). Most of us are avid readers anyway and we’re all inherently curious. What was our first book? Lean Startup by Eric Reis. I’m not here […]

Why is Agile Software Development More Effective?

Agile Development Feature Image

Agile Software Development Agile Software Development is a quick and compelling way to respond to change. It is incremental and iterative and allows for a fast turnaround. Solutions come from collaboration and allow the development process to be customer-centric and proactive to the ever-changing environment. At City Innovation Labs – we use agile software development […]

What is the Importance of Lean Software Development?

CIL uses Lean Software Development to build the right products

What is Lean Software Development? What does lean mean and why would we use it in our software development process? Lean Startup is important to us here at CIL because it is a core belief in how businesses should be run and software should be built. Lean means we follow a build, measure, learn cycle […]