You're doing it wrong ...

Why your technology stack doesn’t matter for your product’s success!

Conferences

A talk I present at the following conferences:

  • Topconf in Linz, Austria on 3-Feb-2016

Abstract

When I get to talk to people about the product I’m working on (ed. the fintech startup vaamo, building a robo advisor), the first thing many if not most of them ask me about is the technology stack we use. Often followed by our process for makingthe decision for that specific stack in the first place.

While a little more than two years ago, when we were making that decision, I very likely would have asked the same things, after a while I began to think, that we as an industry are doing it all wrong. The choice of our technology or stack or even programming language, the things we so often argue or even fight about, actually don’t really matter when it comes to a product’s success.

But then, what matters? What are the things and factors that help to make your product successful? Of course other disciples like Design, UX, Product Management and then some are all hugely important.

Still, encompassing all those and how we do technology, are principles and practices that make our endeavors successful. It’s how we treat each other in a team, it’s how we conduct our work, how we arrive at the principles that guide and shape a team’s work.

In this talk I’ll share the story of how my team and myself did these things at our current product, a startup in the financial technology space.

I’ll share practices, which you can apply at your workplace no matter if you’re a developer or manager, that will help you make your product a success, by shaping the things that actually matter.

Slides