We presented a method of focusing a web startup engineering team on finding a must have use case for the company's product. At least one must have use case is needed for a technology company to achieve a product market fit. The engineering team would build an environment of rapid iteration toward this goal.

1. Dev
&
Ops
for
Lean
Startups
Alex
Shers*nsky
V.P.
of
Product
Development,
CatchFree,
Inc.
ashers*nsky@catchfree.com
|
@AlexShes*nsky
MuckerLab
February
28,
2012
Copyright
CatchFree,
Inc.
3/1/12
1
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for
MuckerLab

2. Quick
Intro
• MustHave
Score
measures
product
market
fit
– Iden*fies
your
product’s
“Must
Have”
use
cases
– Helps
tech
companies
guide
product
development
and
grow
the
legions
of
authen*c
evangelis*c
users
– Basic
service
is
FREE
at
www.musthavescore.com
Copyright
CatchFree,
Inc.
3/1/12
2
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MuckerLab

3. Target
Audience
• Web
soUware/services
startup
• Low
technical
risk
• Strong
all-­‐around
engineers
• Funding
for
9
months
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CatchFree,
Inc.
3/1/12
3
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MuckerLab

4. Goals
• Goal
1:
Get
to
product
market
fit
– Build
MVP
(minimum
viable
product)
– Facilitate
learning
– Speed
– Cost
control
• Goal
2:
See
Goal
1
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CatchFree,
Inc.
3/1/12
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MuckerLab

5. Process
• Market-­‐focused,
service-­‐oriented
engineering
culture
• No
development
without
requirements
• MVP
mindset
(enough
to
validate
value
proposi*on)
• Rigorous
priori*za*on
(no
“nice
to
have”
features)
• Rapid
itera*ons
to
learn
“compelling
reasons
to
use”
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CatchFree,
Inc.
3/1/12
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6. Example
Service
Arch.
for
MVP
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CatchFree,
Inc.
3/1/12
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7. Components
(overview)
• Uniform
environments
– development,
tes*ng,
produc*on,
demo/staging
• Con*nuous
deployment
• Usability
tes*ng
• Metrics,
analy*cs
• Customer
feedback,
surveys
• Virtualized
hos*ng
• Automa*c
provisioning
of
servers
• Produc*on
monitoring,
aler*ng,
&
recovery
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CatchFree,
Inc.
3/1/12
7
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MuckerLab

8. Design
for
Speed
of
Learning
• Con*nuous
integra*on/deployment
– From
check-­‐in
to
produc*on
in
minutes
–
mul*ple
itera*ons
every
day
– Engineers
constantly
release
func*onality
to
produc*on
– Stability
through
automated
tests
• Learning
– Capture
&
report
on
funnels
for
product
market
fit
&
general
web
analy*cs
– A/B
tes*ng
• Maintain
automated
tests
only
for
the
Must
Have
use
cases
– Allows
for
fast
itera*on
w/o
compromising
quality
where
it
mahers
most
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CatchFree,
Inc.
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MuckerLab

9. Design
for
Nimble
OperaNons
• Applica*on
Hos*ng:
Use
cloud
service
provider
– All
servers
in
the
cloud
–
easy
to
set
up
&
low
setup
costs
– Fast
&
cost-­‐effec*ve
to
scale
when
needed
• Capacity
Scaling:
Automa*c
Resource
Configura*on
– Brings
up
addi*onal
server
in
minutes
– Instrumental
for
recovery
or
changing
service
provider
• Reliability:
Monitoring
&
Alerts
- Automa*c
recovery
- Hands-­‐off
opera*on
- Allows
planning
ahead
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CatchFree,
Inc.
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10. Some
Specific
Choices
(most
Open
Source)
• Basic
Tools
&
Technologies
– CentOS
Linux;
Ruby/Rails;
MySQL;
Memcached;
Apache;
NGINX;
Solr
• Development
Environment
– Mac
OS;
Git;
GitHub*
– Business
Gmail*;
Skype;
Social
Cast,
Yammer;
Bugzilla;
Pivotal
Tracker*
• Test
– Selenium
• Con*nuous
Deployment
– Capistrano;
JetBrains/TeamCity*
• Hos*ng
&
Provisioning
– DNS
Made
Easy*;
Linode,
Rackspace,
Amazon,
Heroku;
Opscode/Chef*
• Monitoring
– Munin;
Nagios;
Monit
• Tracking,
Usability
Tes*ng,
Learning,
Feedback
– KISS
Metrics;
Google
Analy*cs;
UserTes*ng;
MustHave
Score
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CatchFree,
Inc.
3/1/12
10
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MuckerLab

11. Q&A
Thank
You!
ashers*nsky@catchfree.com
|
@AlexShes*nsky
Copyright
atchFree,
Inc.
C
3/1/12
11
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for
MuckerLab