Jake Bloom’s Post

One of the most fatal assumptions in startup life is thinking that you must do a full code rewrite or re-platforming to survive the future. This “Do or Die” easily turns into a “Do and Die”. While updating your code is necessary – a total rewrite might not be, and it might not have to happen when you think it. Doing a full rewrite always take more time and focus than anticipated, and delivering immediate customer value becomes a second priority. This puts an enormous pressure on your entire commercial organisation as market and customer expectations continue to rise making it harder to sell and retain customers. Often, customers are not involved properly in these kinds of projects, and it creates a divide between your product organisation and your commercial teams, because they start living in two different worlds with different priorities; commercial is focused on the day to day and living up to rising customer demands while product is focusing on the long-term benefits of a code rewrite. The arguments for rewriting code are typically around survival (productivity, velocity, legacy etc.) in the long run, but often fail to support the more immediate need that a company in the earlier stages has. Focusing all time and energy on developing for the long-term future 12-18 months, is useless, if the runway is 9-12 months given that commercials deliver 3x. The math doesn’t add up. Re-platforming or rewriting code may be the right choice, but companies venturing into it, should consider the many wider consequences for the business. Making a code rewrite should be a company decision, not solely an engineering decision. #startup #startuptips #product #commercial

In my opinion any start-up should take the time to define its core values 🤺 If you don't do it before you obviously need to, it becomes much more difficult. Here's the first of our four core values 👇 Quality and beauty 💅 🔬 There is enough terrible software in the world as it is. Enough untested, half-baked features released to meet arbitrary business deadlines. Enough spaghetti code and quality compromises. For our users, Sustainly should be synonymous with quality, and for us, something to be proud of. Beauty is an overlooked quality in software: Beauty attracts us to products, makes us want to return, increases ease-of-use and removes mental barriers. Also, There is no justification for adding to the world's ugliness, when we can add beauty instead. How we will achieve this: Fail fast with users 🐎 Quality doesn't oppose swift iterations and feedback-driven development; it complements them. As long as users knowingly are using features in beta, we can improve quality based on data and feedback without compromising with the overall quality of the product. Don’t compromise 🛑 The easy option always is to compromise. If there’s a deadline on the roadmap, an important meeting coming up or something else that would compel us to release a feature before it’s ready, we need to check back in with our values. Do one thing exceptionally well, not multiple things ok ⭐ A product excels when it does one thing exceptionally well, not when it does multiple things adequately. That’s why we should always opt for one exceptional feature over a handful of mediocore ones. Image source: https://xkcd.com/ #startups #qualitysoftware #failfast #hashtags

As a budding software engineer, I highly recommend Sam Altman's Playbook! It's a valuable resource for understanding the journey from an idea to a successful company. Reading this through an OpenAI lens really shows how Sam Altman puts his words into practice. Listen or Read below!

🎭Shattering Obstacles with Lowcode: A Concerto of Triumphs🏆 A CEO👨💼, lost in the labyrinth of conventional coding, found a sanctuary in low-code platforms. A swift shift and immediate relief. Bam! Efficiency soared🚀. A CFO👩💼, drowning in financial data, unearthed the power of low-code. The result? A sleek, efficient data management system💼. A CTO👩💻, hindered by the sluggish pace of software development, welcomed low-code. The outcome? A more expedited, effective software production operation⚙️. These aren't just tales📖. They are the affirmations of leaders who ventured to challenge the status quo and who selected the road less travelled: Lowcode. They accepted a revolutionary strategy and harvested the benefits. They faced software obstacles, but instead of capitulating, they determined to triumph. Lowcode isn't just an instrument; it's a rebellion🔥. A revolution that enables leaders to overcome software challenges and steer through the intricate universe of coding with simplicity. Are you prepared to welcome this insurgency?👊 Every triumphant tale has an origin. Let yours be the next. Immerse yourself in the world of low-code. The journey to success begins with one step. Embark on yours today with EZOFIS, your partner for low-code revolution🚀. #lowcode #digitaltransformation #innovation #CFO #CTO #CEO #startups

VIEW DECISIONS AS EXPERIMENTS 🧪🔬 Considering becoming a software developer, or starting a new business? Try treating it like a 12-month experiment. - How will you know if it's what you want without trying? - How will you gauge its success? - How can you understand the market without selling to it? Contemplate the next step, but true understanding comes from trying. Think of it as a 12-month test—it's less intimidating. Let the experiment unfold, then decide based on results. If it shows promise, continue and adjust as needed. If it doesn't work out, you can return to what you did before. You can usually always go back. ✌🏻 #management #business #startup #experiment #decisions #foodforthought

Elevate your startup game by embracing regular High-Quality CODE initiatives! 🚀 In the world of IT services, top-notch quality is dream expertise, as slashing maintenance costs by a whopping 80% is a big business and employee risk. 📉 If you as a startup founder find yourself grappling with the strain of low-quality setbacks <endless bugs, regressions, team attrition, politics, blame, confusion, etc..>, why not embark on a journey of excellence for a few weeks or months to revamp and simplify the existing complexities? Your startup's product success story begins with a commitment to high quality! 💡. Founders - Escape the perpetual stress of poor quality and set your product on the path to success. In scaling your product's ROI, let engineering play its pivotal role, steering away from endless sweat work. 🚀 Don't let stress be the narrative; let strategic engineering be the game-changer! 💡 #StartupSuccess #QualityMatters #InnovationJourney #regular #uplifts #cleancode #techdebt #micro-fixed-bids #flexi-bids #Unblock

Dive into the future with our latest blog post: "Top Software Product Ideas for Startups and Enterprises in 2024"! Discover game-changing innovations that will redefine the tech landscape. 💻✨ #StartupIdeas #EnterpriseSoftware #TechInnovation #SoftwareDevelopment #TechStartups #HiddenBrains

Beyond Software Development: Cashapona Empowers Your Startup Journey Cashapona is your one-stop shop for launching your dream startup/idea. We go beyond just writing code. Our team of expert Business Analysts collaborates closely with you to understand your vision and translate it into a winning strategy. How We Help You Thrive: Business Requirements Ideation: We brainstorm with you to identify your core needs and goals. Mind Mapping Magic: We create clear, visual roadmaps using mind maps to structure your ideas and ensure everyone's on the same page. Compelling Pitch Deck Development: Craft a captivating pitch deck that secures funding and ignites investor interest. Expert Business Requirement Documents (BRD): Please read the article showcasing our BRD creation process at https://lnkd.in/gE3yaWZr Ravi PACHIPALA Chandra Shekara Manohar Suresh Vemulapalli Dhanvamsh varma Hardik Vasrani Fabiana Sobers

Having seen this a number of times myself I can totally see where this author is coming from. It took me the better part of decade of being in tech to land on what I think a good early stage company's tech team looks like. And so how can you expect a CEO with a non-tech background to choose the right guy from the start? More often than not... he's gonna choose the technical guy who looks decent on paper and is smart enough to be able to speak his language. But often lacks in many areas. The biggest area my experience shows that they lack is in their tendency to do 'empire building'... ie. give them some budget and they'll hire you a whole load of engineers And for awhile the CEO thinks.. "Oh yeahh this is great. We built our team so fast and they're solid." But then reality sets in. As he starts to get excuse after excuse on why shit is late or buggy, etc A few of my past clients were exactly this type of situation and when I came in what i saw was a complete mess.. Things that were obviously set up by someone who had little clue in how to set up structure and actually get processes to run cleanly and smoothly. And well run tech teams are ALL ABOUT good structure and process. I've seen probably close to 20 at this point... ...the good ones had process & transparency down pat. The bad ones were a chaotic mess with tons of time spent on things like roadmapping and project update meetings. These days I think what we are seeing is more and more early stage tech startups building on no/low code and not needing a CTO at all early on. Because it's all about rapidly iterating during these early days.. and iterating on something like Bubble is in the vicinity of 5-10x faster than on code. Sure you may need to rebuild in code a couple years later.. but to this point after almost 10 years I have not met a single tech company that did not either rebuild their stack or wants to rebuild the stack that they originally started on. Times are a changing... and I think the whole role & leverage of the "CTO" is gonna be in decline in the coming decade as AI and low code/no code platforms make their inroads. Let's see.

So, how do I verify the product-market fit? I want to create a great product and serve it to my customers. Since I was young, I have been attracted to business, and awesome ideas have become reality. Like everybody else, I have to start somewhere. So, where do I start? I have a few ideas to explore but not so many resources. I decided to begin with education about basic market research and idea validation—an agile approach for the whole company, not only software delivery. How to verify the assumption and spend the least amount of money possible? If you know any resources that could help, feel free to share them in the comments. #startup #agilemindset #product #productdiscovery #