ten lessons i painfully learnt while moving from software developerto entrepreneur/ceo role
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@wseliga#DevoxxPL
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Ten lessons I painfully learnt while moving from software developer
to entrepreneur/CEO role
Wojciech Seliga
Spartez co-founder & co-CEO, @wseliga
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About me
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Why I am here
Audycja zawiera lokowanie produktu :)
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Don’t bring me problems.Bring me solutions.
#0
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Negative thinking destroys your brain
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“But” vs “And”
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Negative thinking destroys people around you
“Shit, shit … everywhere” “Flowers, flowers … everywhere”
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The entrepreneur's dilemma#1
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The entrepreneur's dilemma
# Maintaining friendships. # Building a great company. # Spending time with family. # Staying fit. # Getting sleep.
Pick 3 https://twitter.com/randizuckerberg/status/145030699966136320
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Dealing with the entrepreneur's dilemma
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2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Maintaining friendships Building a great company Spending time with familyStaying fit Getting sleep
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The focus means NOT doing things
#2
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Focus
• Atlassian does not negotiate prices, does not do customisations, does not implement their products on a customer site.
• IKEA does not manufacture custom stuff, does not offer transport, does not provide assembly service (just via partner companies)
• Twitter does not support tweets longer than 140 characters*
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Time - the most limited and valuable resource
• Founders’ time is super precious - treat it as it would cost 1000 USD per hour. Then think if it’s worth spending on what you spend it.
• Everything you do, own, think about or care for introduces a tax. This tax sooner or later will kill you, unless you start limiting what you do, own, think about or care for.
Meeting Room
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If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old
P E T E R F. D R U C K E R
“
Photo by AP Photo/Claremont Graduate University
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(De)Focus - our case• Services for Atlassian - interesting for engineers & quite profitable,
limited short and mid-term risk, no diversification • Consulting & custom development - very exciting, access to field
market, source of ideas and real requirements, good money, not scalable, could be risky and tiresome (e.g. migrations scheduled for Easter)
• Training services - great money vs time spent, not scalable, no risk • Own products - risky, potential highest ROI, most emotionally rewarding,
scalable.
Another company
One company
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Focus vs. Pivot
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An idea alone is worth nothing, the execution is worth everything
#3
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NDA protecting ideas…
Photo by Marc Levin - CC BY 2.0
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Stupid ideas, great ideasIt really does not matter…
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Even God himself created the world in 6 iterations!
Iterative Execution
Photo by wackystuff - CC BY-NC 2.0
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Iterate, You Fools!
Learn and Adjust!
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Failure Permitted Zone
Photos courtesy of SpaceX - public domain!
Cost of failure is
close to zero
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Automation introduced too early is a waste
#4
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Our story - waste at Spartez
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Problems with automation
• Once automation is introduced it removes us from better understanding of given process (unless we keep paying close attention to it). If it’s too early…
• Automating of a bad process does not make it any good.
• Usually given process won’t survive the initial contact with the battlefield, automating it too early is then a pure waste.
“There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.”, Peter Drucker
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Too much order means seeking your comfort zone
#5
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If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough
M A R I O A N D R E T T I
“
Photo by Legends of Motorsports - CC BY-SA 2.0
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Engineers seek Order
• By default engineers want to see or establish an Order around them
• Software engineers want it even more, as the software is infinitely flexible - refactoring, renaming, code style, process improvement & automation, “Clean Code”, …
• This is all good, but … it’s also seeking your comfort zone - something where everything is under your control, everything is predictable, everything is safe Photo by Rich Renomeron - CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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Maintaining full Control and eradicating all Chaosis a very tough battle.
Your competitors may be not be playing this game…
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The way how one ends, not begins,defines true professionalism
#6
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Prawdziwego mężczyznę poznaje się nie po tym, jak zaczyna, ale jak kończy.
L E S Z E K M I L L E R
“
Photo by Adrian Grycuk - CC BY-SA 3.0
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The beginning vs the end in practice• brownfield projects • deployment • documentation • effective & timely support • bug-fixing • security fixes • performance improvements • handling incidents • roll-backs and roll-forwards • migrations, upgrades • user training & onboarding
• greenfield project • proof of concept • evaluation of new technologies • initial design • planning • “inception” (a la RUP) • prototyping • alpha versions • rewriting • redesigning • rearchitecting
While there is value in the items on the left, users & customers value the items on the right more.
VS
The
begi
nnin
g
The
end
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The most important skill for engineersis communication
#7
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Software Engineering is about Humans
• Engineering is about working with humans for humans (solving their problems) • We are taught so little about how to work with humans - how to communicate • Software development nowadays is a team sport
teach
explainconvince
listen
understand
warn
surprise
feel
sympathise
advise
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Technical Skills
Communication Skills
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They all suck for 1:1 communication
in comparison to old plain conversation
Photo by Francois Bester - CC BY-ND 2.0
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Half-products are worth far less than half.
#8
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“Sure, it’s possible”
• Developers have tendency to treat half-baked products as “done”. • Half-baked means: those which still require installation, customisation, reading
documentation (because they are unintuitive), configuration or even scripting/programming. • “Sure, it’s possible” - is the mantra we love to use, but our customers hate. • A lot is “possible”. It’s even possible that you will be Polish president one day. • “Possible” does not mean anything in software. It has to work here and now - ideally OOB,
intuitively, fast.
A product almost solving customer problem cost only a small fraction (if you are lucky) of what it could cost if it was solving entirely the customer problem.
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Matching founders are key#9
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Matching Founders
Photo by Nick Royer - CC BY-SA 2.0 Photo by Konnor - CC BY 2.0
VS
Matching = As different as possible with similar values and passions
Matching ≠ Identical
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(Theoretical?) Example1. super strong technically, challenging everything and everyone, perfectionist, pessimist 2. bringing order & peace, totally reliable and responsible, predictable, realist 3. super fast builder & learner, caring for customers, mission-impossible person, optimist 4. influencer, inspiring, having strong vision, focused on strengths & opportunities, idealist
Photo from Xiaomi MIUI
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Small and simple is easyBig and simple is damn difficult
#10
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Dealing with complexity is hard• The simplicity needs constant care (our energy), complexity increases autonomously
otherwise. • One cannot achieve simplicity by adding things to already complex (or complicated)
system. Simplicity is achieved by removing, not adding. • When your organisation grows you are adding things. It’s very difficult to remove
anything. People think that adding is great and removing is bad. I am yet to see how to overcome it.
• Some simple development rules apply nicely: avoid ifs (corner cases), DRY (duplicate functions), name functions well and … refactor.
• It’s easy to kill diversity and innovation by the attempts to achieve simplicity by standardisation. <=>
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Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.L E O N A R D O D A V I N C I
“
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Do not believe into magic bullets.The context is everything
#11
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So, do we software engineers suck as CEOs?
• understand technology - the best currently vehicle letting us change the world • share knowledge, intensely collaborate (feel secure) • have attention to details, are precise in setting and measuring goals (e.g. growth hacking) • strive for simplicity • are used to work with quick cycles with a short feedback loop - key to learn fast • can fail fast • inspire masses - bringing innovations from IT to all other industries
It’s not that bad after all. We have a huge potential!
Software engineers:Leader
Manager
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People who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do
S T E V E J O B S
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