To understand how I approach the startup condition, here are some of the patterns and anti-patterns I have encountered and how I address them.
| Observed | Solution | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Context | When a founding team is heads down and building, context is hard to get, and learnings can get lost in the rush to market. | → |
"Context is KING". A fractional CTO can help
bridge the gap when tech challenges are impacting
revenue and growth. It can build in source of new patterns
and solutions.
Read More:Ai Focus Groups |
| Perspective | Founding teams build on what they know when they get started. When driving for revenue, its hard to justify a huge set of skill changes or framework refactor. | → | Changing tech stack and processes requires a different technique, patterns and approaches. Assuming a complete refactor will solve problems is a common anti-pattern. |
| Mental | "What got you here, will not get you there" This is a common warning to founders. Your assumptions about your customers and their needs can be a huge blocker to getting your company to revenue positive. | → |
A framework for scoring solutions can help
break the founder assumption problem and
breaking the 'this worked so far' approach.
And tech debt is not bad, its just misunderstood! |
| Myths | Startup founders and tech leaders often have myths and tropes that drive tech decisions. | → | The less tech used the better! No-code patterns is cheap, fast and too valuable to pass up or ignore. Startups raise money to hire tech. Tech costs often do not correlate to revenue growth. Tech decisions can enable teams break assumptions about their customers needs. |
| Experimentation | Founders know that experiments are important, but find that making them happen can challenge any agile team. | → |
Promoting an experiment and measure mindset
can help break the assumptions deadlock that leads
startups to miss productivity gains.
Read More: Sunk Cost Thinking |
| Tuning | Teams grow, but founders can find productivity remaining stagnant. How can things not speed up with more people working on a problem? | → | Teams and processes need tuning. They need to assessed against metrics that align with milestones. Frameworks can help score solutions. Frameworks can promote tech decision making patterns that align with revenue growth. |
| Code | Code is the default for B2B startups. We raise VC funds to hire coders. We give equity to find tech resources. CEOs think they need dedicated tech resources to build a business. | → |
Tech
is a Capital Expenditure! Treat it that way.
A focus on tech first solutions can impede learnings, and
burn valuable funding. No Code, Glue Code and Duct-tape solutions
are the way to break the tech bind.
Read More: Why devs run to code. |
| Time | Limited time, limited runway and limited staff can train a founding team to make all decisions quickly, using instinct, in the place of intentionality. | → |
Giving a team a source of context can allow a team
to process decisions at different speeds, and break
the "get it done yesterday" type of solutions that can
become the norm in many startup teams.
Read More: Poverty is good? |