Last week I gave a talk about the lessons learned during the exponential growth of our company the last six years. I was invited to to talk at the Appsterdam meetup in Delft about "growing pains". In other words: what lessons did we learn when our company grew from 3 to 100 employees. I enjoyed the preparations as much as the actual talk, as it forced me to step back and think about the things we did and did not last years. I covered lessons learned in four categories: company, culture, product development, and product evolution. Attempting to cover all these subject automatically means that you stay at a high level. However, I think I was able to share some valuable experiences from the trenches.

1. App Delivery Platform-as-a-Service
How we revolutionized the app development market
Johan den Haan
CTO, Mendix
@JohanDenHaan
http://www.theenterprisearchitect.eu

2. 1000s of users
100s of successful deliveries
100+ employees
13 million dollar raised last year
6 years in business
1 vision
0 failed customer projects

3. 1. Why Mendix?
2. Product
3. Lessons learned: company
4. Lessons learned: culture
5. Lessons learned: product development
6. Lessons learned: product evolution

4. Why Mendix?

5. Software is becoming
ubiquitous…

6. “It’s not the strongest who survive,
nor the most intelligent, but the
ones most adaptable to change.”
- Charles Darwin

7. Applications need to
evolve continuously

8. 68% of all new software projects
are NOT successful
32%
68%

9. HOUSTON
we have a problem!

11. What companies need?
1. Apps that perfectly fit their business
2. At the moment they need them

12. Evolve Capture
App Delivery
Deploy Develop

13. Evolve Capture
Improve each step of the lifecycle to be
able to respond to change fast
App Delivery
From one working app version to the next
Deploy Develop

14. Product

15. Mendix Apps Platform

16. The only way to successfully create
applications truly fitting in the
business is to create them in close
collaboration with the business

18. source

19. The best way to really improve
apps is to engage with users

20. Revolutions in the entire App Delivery
lifecycle
Capture Social Productivity
Develop Model-Driven Development
Deploy Model-Execution-as-a-Service
Evolve User Engagement

21. Social Project Collaboration
Capture requirements,
manage backlog, plan
sprints, incorporate
ongoing feedback &
collaborate

22. Mendix Business Modeler
Build & integrate
custom business apps
easier and 5x faster
using visual modeling!

23. App Store
More than 100 apps
and counting in our
Community AppStore

24. Enterprise Cloud Platform
1 click deploy & manage
Deploy apps into the
cloud in a single click
Central dashboard to
monitor all apps and
manage IT governance

25. Gather feedback directly in app

26. Process feedback

27. Lessons learned:
company

28. Focus on building a global startup:
think about scalability and
internationalization from day 1

29. Be prepared for different company
growth stages
Start up 1 room, prototyping, searching for the right
market, early adopters.
Ramp up >10 people, hiring is key, time-to-market.
Delegation >20 people, team leads / managers,
“departments”.
Professionalization >50 people, coordinate
communication, knowledge transfer, support.
Expansion >100 people, forecasting, alignment,
strategic positioning, competition.

31. Business-IT collaboration is a key
success factor: do not become
too technology-oriented

32. Your team is the
most important
success factor

33. Having your own Apps
platform can be risky:
bookkeeping… let’s
build an app for that…

34. Lessons learned:
culture

35. Your company culture
is a competitive
advantage which
cannot be copied

36. Autonomy the desire to be self-directed
Mastery the urge to get better at stuff
Purpose the need to make a contribution
That’s what motivates highly-skilled people

37. What do traveling home, wet
notes, and dedicated research
days have in common?

38. Do not always
run. Stop once in
a while to listen
to your brain!
Relaxation will
unleash your
brain's full
potential.

39. Social productivity is boosted
by the use of Sprintr: social
activity streams and project
management combined

40. Lessons learned:
product development

41. Focus on quality
Don’t settle with mediocrity
Do not release a feature if it doesn’t feel good
“Impossible” is not an argument
So many interesting things to do... focus!

42. small, focused teams
that release early and often

43. Drink your own champagne:
close to users, early feedback

44. Build a platform: open your APIs, build a
community, make delivery of “content” easy

45. People do not like
change: if you
disrupt a field, be
prepared for
resistance

46. Lessons learned:
product evolution

47. Do not grow
R&D into an
ivory tower:
involve users,
make giving
feedback easy

48. An effortless feedback
mechanism will amaze you…

49. Handling large amounts of feedback
Put effort in documentation and training
Tap into your community
Avoid interruptions:
it’s difficult to re-enter the zone

50. If I'd asked my customers what they
wanted, they'd have said a faster horse.
- Henry Ford

51. Product management is more than
handling feedback…
Product vision
Market trends
Marketing
Sales Research & Development
User feedback

52. 1. Why Mendix?
2. Product
3. Lessons learned: company
4. Lessons learned: culture
5. Lessons learned: product development
6. Lessons learned: product evolution

53. It has been a fun ride…
and we have just started!

54. App Delivery Platform-as-a-Service
How we revolutionized the app development market
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Johan den Haan
CTO, Mendix
@JohanDenHaan
http://www.theenterprisearchitect.eu