In a startup, I find a lot of these processes are useful, but need to be tweaked. For example:
- Time works differently in a startup, approximately 3x faster than a 2k person company. One month in a startup = one quarter
- Iterate fast and prioritize ruthlessly. Priorities need to be set at the beginning of each week and any work that isn't directly related to that priority needs to be placed on the back burner.
- Set your future selves up for success. Build in a way where it's easy to add on additions as needed, but tackle major problems (eg multitenancy) early
- Customers are the most important thing at an early stage startup. Engineers must be product-minded and heavily involved in the customer experience and need. The cash candle is burning and we need to focus on delivering value
- Technology frameworks should serve the customer problem for most instances (unless you're a cutting-edge tech company). Interrogate why you want to build something using a certain tech. How will it impact your maintainability? How easy or hard will it be to hire? What's the ramp up period like? Boring tech gets stuff done!
- Startups are a marathon and energy management is key. There will be times when you need to push and times when you need to rest. If you are not ruthlessly fixing problems that cause issues along the way, they will build up and burn the team out. However, it should be expected that to build something new and great, it will take more effort than a more established company. More risk = higher rewards. These expectations must be set up front and part of the hiring process. Feedback loop internally must be kept tight here to keep a close eye on energy management of the team
In a startup, I find a lot of these processes are useful, but need to be tweaked. For example: