A startup with no office, hipster tools and open source products

Part Icontext

a very young startup

First significant lines of code june 2012Officially created in september 20127 membersAverage age: 26 years old 

limited resources

Funding: around 100k euros Unemployment benefit for co-foundersNo office

Constraints/facts

Members in diffferent locations (Grenoble, Lyon, Paris, Reims)Respect of the user must be part of the productTechnical team (4 ½ dev, 1 sys admin)

Part IIOrganization

light agile

Daily meeting at 14h (skype)Short sprints: 1 week (trello) Short pair programming (mikogo)Demo every 2 weeks (mikogo)

direct communication

IM (skype)IRC #cozycloudPhone (emergency)Good old emails

collaboration

Internal wiki (doku wiki)Public wikis (github)Ticket system private and public (github)Forum (vanilla)

team building

Sport weekendsPhysical meetings every 2 weeksShort formations with experts

open source

Public repositoriesGithubDocumented applicationsProject website separated from company website (coming soon...)

commits (git and github)

Depending of the criticity of the modified code: - Commit via a pull request- Commit via a branch- Commit directly to masterPeople can commit since day 1

admin system

Homemade tools (Python)Deployment (Fabtools)Monitoring (Monit)Backup (DB Replication, Archives)Virtualization (OpenVz)

communication

Micro-blogging (Twitter)Blog posts (Jekyll)Newsletters (Mailchimp)Veille (Wiki)Alerts (Mention)

Part IIIprosand cons

telework

No transport timeSelf organization (good for late nighters ;) )Less interruptionsFits well with code writingTend to share more

but...

less friendly, less «human»   It's harder to know when someone needs help

open source

External contributionsTransparency for customers and usersEasier to hireIncentive to document and code well

Studies say that creative people works better when they feel self directed and

when they improve their skills or master something.

open source fits well with these idea:

Collaboration with people from the same fieldRecorded track of the stuff doneSomething will persist even if the startup closesInvolved in technical choices 

but...

It requires more communication workA little bit harder to packageEveryone can see your mistakes

Part IVtips / results

tips (1 of 2)

Use trello-like to agree on a week todo-listWhen someone does good, say it! When it's bad, be direct and explainTry to achieve at least one goal a week by person

tips (2 of 2)

Ask others what they think of your solutionsExperimentHave funAlways make it exciting

some results (1 of 2)

Last month:   150 commits / developerNew members ready in two daysHighly motivated people

some results (2 of 2)

Lots of documentationGetting feedback on all the product aspectUsers like us

Appendix AHow Node.js helps us

open-source oriented community

Lots of tools to solve common problemsVery active maintainers (fast corrections)Node is trendy: easier to hire 

npm

Very easy to deploy app dependenciesClean manifestStart coding with 2 commands : - git clone *myproject.git- npm installSome of our tools are in the npm registry

one language for the full stack

appendix B

Thx LyonJSFree Beers and Pizzas !!  !

If you like the way we do things why don't you join us? 

contact@cozycloud.cc#cozycloud on freenode.nethttps://forum.cozycloud.cc

contact@cozycloud.cchttps://blog.cozycloud.cchttps://twitter.com/mycozycloud

Crédits photos Flickr: benoit simple escargot, orcmid, Castaway, ccarlstead, ReservasdeCoches

License Creative Commons by-3.0

a talk by...