Want to Accelerate Software Development for Startups? Think Like an Engineer
It seems like every software startup wants to move fast and accelerate software development. There are many reasons to move fast:
- You’ve got a great idea and you want to get to market quickly.
- Startups are often under pressure to get funding and attract talent.
- Your investors want to see a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to start generating revenue.
- These demands make it important to move rapidly in the software development stage.
But not every great software idea leads to lasting business success. That’s because too many software startup CEOs don’t do the upfront work required to successfully design, build, launch, and support a commercial software product. Below are the separate and distinct steps of product engineering that can be executed quickly, but require focused attention and time.
- Strategic product design
- Validating assumptions with proofs of concept
- Rapid prototyping
- Engineering a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that isn’t throwaway
Startup software development teams often think like developers who are focused only on speed. But ironically, if you want to not just “get to market fast” but “have a successful product launch,” first, you need to take a step back and slow down. Think like an engineer, not a developer. Developers write code. Engineers build products.
Thinking like a developer: “Let’s innovate! How fast can we whip this product out? Build it and they will come!”
Thinking like an engineer: “Let’s bring engineering discipline to this software development process. How can we make sure that we have a stable and scalable product on-schedule that will deliver real value to the customers who matter most to our business?”
Let’s look at a few key tenets of how software startup CEOs can create a stronger foundation to accelerate software development. Don’t just build software faster, but build successful products that generate lasting value.
Focus on Value Delivered to Specific Personas
Assuming you’ve identified your target market and defined your key customer personas, you need to think strategically about how your software product delivers value for each of these people. Think about what value you want to deliver and how you want to change the life of each persona or customer that your software product serves.
For example, if you’re building a new ERP system, don’t just focus on the people who will be creating contracts or defining trades. Focus on the people they report to and the executives who will sign your checks. Think about how your software drives value for the people in the ecosystem whom you will ultimately be selling to.
Think expansively, talk about it with someone you trust, map it out on a whiteboard, or write it on a napkin: “Here’s how I want to change the life of a user, a customer service person, a salesperson, a senior executive.” Whatever the personas are for your target market, make sure you understand how your software product will add perceived value for these players.
By looking at your software through the lens of your buyers, customers, and users, it will affect (and improve) your software product design more than you might expect.
Do Software Product Design, Not Just Software Development
The way you go about your software development process is going to make a big difference to the ultimate outcome, and it starts by testing your core concepts. However, creating a proof of concept is not the same as designing your product.
Sometimes software developers are too focused on just trying new things as fast as possible, hammering out code to see what works. But this is often a waste of time and energy. If you were manufacturing a new car or a new building or a new physical product, would you start building the product without first having a blueprint or a design? Of course not. But too many software teams are using this same short-sighted approach: developing without product design.
Before you start developing software, you need a product design and technology roadmap for that product. You need to have confidence that the idea that’s in your head is going to be able to be brought to life, step-by-step, phase-by-phase, quarter-by-quarter.
Successful Execution Through Engineering Discipline
A startup that’s done its homework, that’s done the research, that understands how the personas will perceive the value that’s being offered to them, will be much more likely to have a successful software product launch. Hope is not a strategy, and “build it and they will come” doesn’t work.
Do your homework, understand your value proposition, and you’ll be ready to execute. But successful execution takes the discipline of an engineering mindset. Startup CEOs need to think like engineers – not just engineers of your software product, but engineers of your business.
At Modularis, we’re engineers, not developers. We think like engineers. We believe that engineering discipline is the best – and only – path to effective execution in software development. That engineering discipline needs to be brought into your software development process at every level of execution:
1. Build a prototype in no more than 30 days.
Why is it important to timebox your prototype to 30 days? Because when you spend too much time on prototyping, engineering discipline can get lost. Sometimes companies get bogged down with prototypes. Customers start requesting new features, the team’s under pressure to add too many features, costs multiply, and the product never ships. Other companies might spend a whole year and burn through millions of dollars working on a prototype – but the market can completely change within one year.
Limiting your prototyping to 30 days will impose budget and resource constraints and help your team maintain engineering discipline. Constraints can be useful; they give you well-defined boundaries to innovate within. Sometimes “less is more.” Especially with prototypes.
2. Get to a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in 90 days.
A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is not just a larger prototype. The MVP is generating revenue. It needs to be a production-grade, stable subset of all the functionality and value that you want to deliver. Again, we recommend timeboxing your MVP to 90 days. This limited time frame helps impose discipline, and keeps your team focused on delivering value, without the risk of feature bloat and budget overruns.
3. Develop a commercial product with iteration and decision discipline.
If you don’t compromise on your architecture, if you don’t compromise on the quality of engineering that actually goes into your prototype and MVP, this is the path to financial success and growth. Engineering discipline helps you achieve faster time to market with minimum risk and maximum reward.
At every level, you need to maintain engineering discipline and keep getting the architecture right. Keep making the conscious choice to do the right things. If you need to build something the right way, when is the right time to not be disciplined? Never. If you compromise on the quality of the engineering, you will pay for it in major ways. You’ll either stall out or burn out.
If you can maintain a disciplined, engineering-focused approach to building your software product, now you have created a software development factory. This is a repeatable process if you have a strong foundation of software product design and rigorous engineering discipline. You can deliver value to your customers every 90 days. This is the path to net new revenue and quarter-over-quarter growth.
How Automation Can Accelerate Software Development
Automation is the only way to deliver higher-quality software products in less time, with fewer people, and for less money. By using automation with a generative low-code platform, Modularis can help your software development team punch above their weight. Our PlatformPlus® reduces coding time by 80% and helps launch your software in 90 days – guaranteed. This is a paradigm shift, a fundamentally different way of building software.
We don’t just “help you do it faster,” we show you a better way. We built a generative low-code platform because we’re engineers, not developers. And in the space of automation for software development, Modularis is the only game in town. Nobody builds products faster than us. Let us do it for you, or let us help you do it by making your software development process faster and better than ever.
How Modularis Is Speeding Up Software Development
Modularis can work with startups at every stage of the software development process, depending on your business challenges:
- You have an idea and some seed capital but haven’t built out your engineering team: Talk to us. We have a time-tested process. We’ll be your strategic technology partner, helping you realize your vision and bringing the engineering discipline and raw horsepower that you need.
- You have an idea and a concept you want to bring to life, but haven’t built a team yet: Talk to us. We’ll help you do it right with minimum risk and maximum return.
- You have a team, but you’ve been unable to deliver a quality, stable product in a reasonable time frame: If you feel like you’re building on top of sand, talk to us. We’ll help bring engineering discipline to your organization, fix what’s broken, and set your team on the right path.
- You’ve already burned through your seed capital, and you’re stuck: If software development feels like a car stuck in a rut and you don’t know what to do about it, give us a call.
Want to see how Modularis can help your company achieve an MVP in 90 days? Talk with our CEO, A.J. Singh. We’ll help you get a game plan to accelerate software development for your company!