“I’m a dev on a small team and we’re still looking for Product Market Fit. What are the best ways I can add value?”
My advice (thread):
1. Understand what PMF means. How is your team/company measuring it? How will you know if you’re on the right track? This is CRITICAL.
My advice (thread):
1. Understand what PMF means. How is your team/company measuring it? How will you know if you’re on the right track? This is CRITICAL.
2. Once the goal is clear, throw away conventional build-to-scale engineering approaches. Prioritise getting feedback on something that’s “good enough”. Iteration speed >> engineering quality *at this stage*.
3. Talk to customers. Get involved in customer support. Ask customers why they stopped using your product. Offer to do a cal with them.
Until you have PMF, as an engineer you need to understand your customers more than ever. This is just as important as building.
Until you have PMF, as an engineer you need to understand your customers more than ever. This is just as important as building.
4. If you’re a tech lead of this team: lead by example. Expose the team to the business. Get the product person and the CEO jam with the team. Bring customers to talk to the team… get creative.
5. Know what is on the line at this point: it’s survival. If you won’t reach PMF, there will be no future for this team/product/company.
This is why it’s pointless to invest in engineering practices related to scale.
You might never get to scale, if you focus on this part.
This is why it’s pointless to invest in engineering practices related to scale.
You might never get to scale, if you focus on this part.
6. Finally, a story: at Uber my team helped the JUMP team on a feature. Their codebase was a mess.
But then we talked with them: and realised they were in the “you get shut down if you don’t grow game.”
6 months later they were sold off. They were right to focus on moving fast.
But then we talked with them: and realised they were in the “you get shut down if you don’t grow game.”
6 months later they were sold off. They were right to focus on moving fast.
Oh, and if you have not reached Product-Market-Fit, ignore (almost) all advice on software engineering best practices.
You should move *rapidly* using prototyping and proof-of-concepts.
Did you know that Uber’s v1 app that proved PMF: it thrown out, to start from scratch? Yep.
You should move *rapidly* using prototyping and proof-of-concepts.
Did you know that Uber’s v1 app that proved PMF: it thrown out, to start from scratch? Yep.
And throw out your pride as a *programmer*. Now is the time to be an *engineer* and use tools to iterate fast, including manually doing stuff and no-code tools.
Instead of spending a week building a scheduling API triggered by emails, hook up Zapier to do the same in 10 minutes.
Instead of spending a week building a scheduling API triggered by emails, hook up Zapier to do the same in 10 minutes.
This last part - working more as a “prototyper” versus more as a “programmer” is what most engineers find challenging.
If the company reaches PMF, those excellent at prototyping often find it hard to transition to building more sustainably and for scale.
The fun of startups!
If the company reaches PMF, those excellent at prototyping often find it hard to transition to building more sustainably and for scale.
The fun of startups!
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