Building Durable Software in Startups

BUILDING DURABLE

SOFTWARE IN [email protected]

Topics

HIRING

Why hiring=culture≠teams

When to make R&D hires

What to keep in mind when hiring

What to look for in R&D hires

Where to find your Dev wings

DEV BED

Staff with fixed + var cost

Create an elastic dev bed

Use DevOps model, not IT

Pivot on Teams, not Dev+Test

PRODUCT

Who to build For & With

What technologies

What to build With

What platforms to build on

Where to begin building Sw

How much (little) to build

DELIVERY

What to expect in POCs

Top 3 hurdles for CTO/VP

Top 3 hurdles for engineers

2

Dipto Chakravarty, Copyright (c) 2014

Hire=Culture; Hire≠Team

Aptitude to deal with uncertainty

Technology-agnostic point of views

Generalist broad spectrum vs. specialty

Tenacity

Resilience

Persistence

Your first 3 hires sets

the tone for the team

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When to Make Which Hires

Phase 0

1. Hire the Product Owner role in the beginning

2. On board the Designer, i.e UX and UI owner

3. Onboard the Test Architect and the Dev Architect

4. Create a 3-person nucleus first

Phase 1

1. Construct your MVP with a 3-person team

2. Hire developers and testers, keeping <3:1 ratio

3. Hire DevOps to automate the infrastructure

4. Hire in dual time zones

Hire slow in Phase 0.

Hire steady in Phase 1.

Hire fast in Phase 2…n

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What to Keep in Mind When Hiring

Avoid hiring technologists; instead, hire

engineers

Hire for attitude and resilience, then for skills

Create a fixed plus variable cost hiring model

to aid in an elastic team

Hire team mates who are good listeners …

can travel if/when needed

work flexible hours

Attitude trumps Skills

for hiring in lean

startups

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What to Look for in Technical

Hire

“Getting it” vs. “Getting it

done”

Distributed teamwork

experience

Makers vs. Managers

Doers vs. Inspectors

Listeners vs. Talkers

Technology stack agnostic

Generalists vs. specialists

Front-end vs. back-end

Platform vs. Applications

Framework vs. Plug-in

Soft Skills Hard Skills

“It is hard to find soft skills, and simple to find hard skills in software startups”

The soft part is the

hard part in software

technology startups

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Where to Find Your Dev Wings

Referrals vs. Recruiters

Leverage the power of referrals

Use few regional recruiters for skills outside of your network that need to be displaced from competitors

Locations in NVA

User Groups and Networking Events

Iris Lounge (f.k.a eCitie) and places where geeks go to chill

Online Forums Invite prospects over to

visit your startup and

“live” an hour with you

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Where to Setup Your 1st Dev Env

On-premise –

Continuous integration model

Docker-based integrated BuildShipRunDevOps IT dockerizes the dev and test apps

R&D uses dockerized apps cross-platform to develop the product without porting efforts

Off-premise – on Rackspace, Savvis, AWS, etc.

Online for scalable environment

On-demand cloud bursts Plan an elastic dev

environment from Day 1 to

allow you to scale on demand

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Dipto Chakravarty, Copyright (c) 2014 Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docker_(software), S. Hykes, J. Bultmeyer

Who to Build For

To DoFocus exclusively on User’s use and interactions – M2M, B2B

Not on engineers’ use, e.g., frameworks

Tools Pencil – to create sketches and wire frames

Unassumer – to develop customers (end-users)

Personapp – to create informal user personas. Much quicker than Balsamic or MS Word docs.

Unbounce – to create landing pages swiftly so that navigating through the user’s experience is understood

Not To Do Locking into a technology stack till you get the glass right.

There’s a big delta

between user persona

and buyer persona

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What to Build With –Popular Technology

Stacks

AngularJS

HTML/CSS

Java, Scala, Node.js

LAMP (with some FWs)

Python (Django, Pylon)

Ruby on Rails (with its FWs)

APIs (REST), Clojure, RabbitMQ

Fraction of Cloud hosting element

Erlang, Go, Memcache / Redis

NoSQL storage – HBase, MongoDB, Cassandra, Postgres, Raven, MySQL

Front

Middle

Back

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Entrepreneurs

tend to maniacally

focus on product-

specific functions

instead of hard

technology or

scale issues.

What to Build On

To Do

SaaS applications that you “turn on”

Mobile apps (iOS or Android) that you download

Appliance form factor that you “ISO” image and ship

Not To Do

Waste time writing Installers

Coding License Key managers

Rely on CD or patch downloadsHow we acquire

software has changed

since the

Floppy/CD/DVD days

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Built to Last vs. Built to Flip

Tipping Point of every startup …if it makes it

1. Durability

2. Stickiness

3. Sizzle

Interlock on the priority, i.e, how

much energy to put on usability

vs. durability

Stickiness = User’s reliance on your application

Durability = SW uptime / resilience / recovery

Sizzle = Spiffiness (and “eye candy”) of the app

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How Much to Build

Less is More

Seek more feedback while building less software

Begin building from the glass (not the plumbing)

Keep it Simple

Pareto Principle states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the

causes

Suggest we combine the basics of Pareto Principle with the MVP

concept

Think MVP through

Pareto lens. Get one

feature right, before

pushing another!

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MVP

PRODUCT

80% MACRO

PROBLEMS

20% MICRO

PROBLEMS

20% MAIN

CAUSES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_product

How Little to Build

MVP Myths

Anyone not building an

MVP (minimum viable

product) these days?!

Who decides what’s a

good-enough MVP?

How many MVPs are

actually usable?

MVP is the smallest

unit you can build that

delivers value

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Dipto Chakravarty, Copyright (c) 2014 Source: The Lean Startup, Eric Ries

MVP Anti-Patterns

Cost drives Substitution

Technology

Complementarity

Competitive advantage GAP Term used to interpret revenue as a gauge of the

competitive separation in the market.

Competitive advantage

period – CAP Term used to estimate the time a company can

maintain a position that creates competitive

separation

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Substitution vs.

Complementarity CAP vs. GAP Advantage

SUBSTITUTION COMPLEMENTARITY

Cost Technology

GA

PCAP Area

Sources: Geoffrey Moore & Peter Thiel

What Process to Use to Build

Scrum

Kanban

Waterfall

Which process you pick is less important than

the process you’ve picked be consistent

Key is to empower the

team and let them build

a rhythm for progress

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How to Handle Your 1st

Customer

Managing vs. delighting your 1st customer Plan to exceed expectations with relevancy of your sw

Keep interactions brief but frequent (and steady)

User feedback mechanisms Interactive (interviews), plus pervasive

(instrumentation)

Survey Monkey like forms designed with the right Q&A

Mgmt feedback criticisms Deal with it, but focus on the customer

Groupthink feedback channels Portals, anonymous inbox, informal pings are okay

Avoid formal Betas. Try 1:1 exclusive calls instead

Relevanc

e leads to

Referenc

e, which

in turn

leads to

Revenue

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What to Expect in POCs

Prototype vs. Proof of Concept The POC is often more important than your Product when it

has funding hinging on it.

Manage expectations of your team before the customer/investor’s

Do’s Create ReleaseNotes cheat sheet that documents the

gotchas in the code before the event occurs

Communicate outside the POC prep meetings

Don’t Become defensive even if you know you’re right

Assume the POC will go smoothly. There will be issues

Spring surprises in your scheduled meetings. POC is seldom about the

product. Its about the

“idea” that’ll be a game

changer

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What are CTO’s Key Hurdles


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Coping with constant change / contradictions

Wrestling with build vs. buy/oem decisions

Balancing between CAP/GAP with GTM

Deciding what code to write vs. (re)use

Planning how to build more with less

Maximizing the value of IP created

Temper your GTM

pressures with build/buy

decisions to create

durable value

What are Engineers’ Key

Hurdles


20

Managing expectations of CXO/skip-level

Not making the Death March milestones

Thinking as a unified team

1. Dev + Test Scrum model

2. R&D + IT DevOps model

Planning is easy. Doing is hard.

Startups ship “on time” by

cutting scope, not adding

resources

What are PM’s Key Hurdles


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Deciding what you’re not going to do

Manage the requirements death spiral via prioritization

The Two-week rule

Get your hands dirty

Get out of the office!

The MVP of a

Hamburger served.

Say NO to individual requests,

and say YES to key market

needs.

Summary

HIRING

Why hiring=culture≠teams

When to make R&D hires

What to keep in mind when hiring

What to look for in R&D hires

Where to find your Dev wings

DEV BED

Staff with fixed + var cost

Create an elastic dev bed

Use DevOps model, not IT

Pivot on Teams, not Dev+Test

PRODUCT

Who to build For & With

What technologies

What to build With

What platforms to build on

Where to begin building Sw

How much (little) to build

What dev processes to follow

DELIVERY

What to expect in POCs

Top 3 hurdles for CTO/VP

Top 3 hurdles for engineers

Top 3 hurdles for Prod Mgrs

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What’s Next …


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User is the

IT

Rise of the

Machines

Internet of

Things

Old

problems by

new names

Go, live your dream … build the MVP

Wearable Computing in 2014 Apple Watch, Fitness Trackers, etc.

abound

Crowd-shift from mobile to wearable apps

Blue Ocean vs. Red Ocean strategy Hearable Computing – hearing

aids/BT/NFC

Nearable Computing – miniature beacons

Sensors and accelerometers on stickers, not

phones

SDKs available now

Thank You! 24

On Tw: dipto

On G+, Y!: diptoc

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/diptochakravarty/

Email: [email protected]