Section 2 - Learning

In almost all scenarios, the winner startup is the one that iterates the fastest:

First to find product market fit and then to keep evolving fast to win over competition.

That’s why in the second part of the call we focus on what determines product development speed.


6. Intellectual curiosity and Thoughtfulness

6.a What perks do your team enjoy?

  • (+0.5p) Technical books library
  • (+0.5p) Library including non-tech books
  • (+0.5p) Conferences
  • (+0.5p) We don't have cash for that
  • (0p) Other

Our opinion: Building a culture of “always be learning” is great.

But we also understand that budget might tight.

6.b What technologies (frameworks/languages) do you use for the front end?

6.c What technologies (frameworks/languages) do you use for the back end?

Our opinion: Hard to judge in a calculator :)

6.d How do you choose the technologies you work with?

  • (-3p) I want to try all new cool stuff
  • (+1p) I prioritize speed
  • (+1p) I prioritize reliability
  • (0p) Other

Our opinion: It's important to see the right balance between ‘cool new stuff’ that speeds up processes and ‘ready for production’ technologies.

6.e Who decides which technology will be used for every job?

  • (-1p) The devs themselves, I hire top people and they know what to do
  • (-5p) I choose it, I know what’s best
  • (0p) We discuss it and agree
  • (+1p) We discuss it, but I prio stability/agility and have the last vote
  • (0p) Other

Our opinion: Devs should be allowed to try, but the CTO should keep control over the Zoo

6.f What would you have to change to accommodate x10, x100, x100000 more users?

  • (-5p) Nothing
  • (-5p) Pay more money for servers, we scale horizontally well
  • (-5p) I don’t know
  • (-2p) I solve problems when they appear
  • (+2p) I’m aware of some bottlenecks and I will work on them due time
  • (0p) Other

Our opinion: Perfect horizontally scaling doesn't exist. Be aware of the problems, solve them slightly in advance if possible :)

6.g Where are you hosted, and why?

  • (0p) IaaS (AWS, google, azure, etc.) whoever is cheaper
  • (+1p) A mix of IaaS; so I’m not locked in
  • (-1p) PaaS (Heroku et al)

Our opinion: Try to be aware of potential vendor lock-ins.

We see often that going into PaaS tends to translate that CTOs "outsource" taking control over scaling issues.

6.h Which 3rd party systems do you use?

Our opinion: No perfect answer, but important to understand the implications

6.i How many of those 3rd party providers have less funding than your company?

  • (-5p) All
  • (-1p) Some
  • (0p) None

Our opinion: 3rd party providers going down is one of the common nightmares in our portfolio. If they are better funded than yourself, at least you should expect they have more resources than you to take care of that feature/service.

6.j What happens if they go down?

  • (-5p) They never go down
  • (-5p) Good question. I don’t know :)
  • (+1p) The system will go down, but the data is protected
  • (+5p) There’s redundancies and the data is protected

Our opinion: Be aware of issues involved with those services and keep your customer's data safe!

6.j Are there any heavy cron jobs/workers in the system?

  • (-2p) Yes
  • (0p) No

6.i Do you have a queueing system between jobs?

  • (+3p) Yes
  • (-3p) No

Our opinion: Cron jobs that take forever to complete and not managing properly the queues is one of the common scaling problems we see. Please, take care of that in the due time :)

7. Processes and Tools

7.a Do you use source/version control?

  • (+2p) YES, cloud hosted (github,bitbucket, …)
  • (+1p) YES, local (git, mercurial, svn…)
  • (-20p) NO

Our opinion: ...

7.b Do you create unit tests?

  • (+5p) Only critical routines
  • (-1p) YES. 100% coverage
  • (-5p) NO
  • (0p) Other

7.c Do you have code reviews?

  • (+5p) Only critical routines
  • (-1p) YES. 100% coverage
  • (-5p) NO
  • (0p) Other

Our opinion: At the early stage, it's important to keep the right balance between speed of processes and reliability/robustness. Please, do review and unit test at least critical paths.

7.d Can you deploy a build to staging or production with one click?

  • (+2p) Yes
  • (-5p) No

Our opinion: If you go into continuous development, you need that; but even if it’s not the case, you should not waste time on this and better have a robust set of tools that won't mess up with your builds/deployment processes.

7.e Do you have a feature flags system in place?

  • (+2p) Yes
  • (-3p) No

7.f Can you show certain features to a limited number of users without hard-coding it?

  • (+2p) Yes
  • (-3p) No

Our opinion: The earlier you start building through feature flags and progressive releases, the easier it gets to get a culture of test and iterate.

8. Organization

8.a Who owns the roadmap?

  • (-5p) CTO
  • (+5p) CPO
  • (+2p) CEO

Our opinion: CPOs or CEOs should own the roadmap.

If the CTO is the product owner, he might not make the best decision for the company because he will be wearing two hats (How hard is it to build that? How much do customers want it?)

8.b How often does the CTO captures customer's feedback?

  • (+5p) At least weekly phone calls with customers
  • (+2p) At least weekly review of support tickets
  • (-5p) CTO doesn't speak with customers

Our opinion: Even if the CTO is not the CPO, she should spend time speaking with customers. First hand customers’ feedback will help a lot to develop the right stuff.

8.c How often does the tech team speak with customers?

  • (-5p) Never
  • (-2p) Only CTO
  • (+2p) Weekly

Our opinion: Even if the CTO is not the CPO, she should spend time speaking with customers. Same can be said about the rest of the tech team.

First hand customers’ feedback will help a lot to develop the right stuff.

8.d Do you have a some power users who always are available to share feedback?

  • (0p) No
  • (+2p) Yes, a handful
  • (0p) Yes, we look at metrics

Our opinion: Please, try to have a handful of customers who are passionate about your vision and product. They will help you build a better product. Treat them well :)

8.e Who can see the product roadmap?

  • (-5p) It’s in my head, only me
  • (-4p) Only me and CPO/CEO
  • (-3p) Tech team
  • (0p) Everybody in the organization
  • (+2p) Everybody including some customers

8.f Who can contribute to it?

  • (-5p) It’s in my head, only me
  • (-4p) Only me and CPO/CEO
  • (-3p) Tech team
  • (0p) Everybody in the organization
  • (+2p) Everybody including some customers

Our opinion: Transparency wins.

That doesn’t mean all feedback is equally important, but at early stages, better if everybody contributes.

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