"In this talk I'd like to explain why many startups fail when trying to build a product with fancy code and a "scalable" solution before learning what business/design needs they're trying to solve. Actually, it's not only for startups, it's also for you, as designer or developer. Why we should understand our ideas is more likely to fail than succeed? This is for sure much more important than learning Material Design, ReactJS or any other buzzword of our field." This talk was given at http://frontinamsterdam.nl/

1. Baby steps and why
it's more important
than your code skills
@ramonvictor

2. Front-End Engineer at
@ramonvictor
Recife, PE - Brazil

3. First of all,
why this
subject?

4. What this presentation is
*not* going to be about?

5. What do I mean
by “baby steps”?

6. Changing the mindset

7. But, does
changing the process
mean we’ll be working on
the right things?

9. Let’s talk about
real business impact

10. My experience
with failures

11. In the past I couldn’t explain
why we failed, because…
• The idea was nice;
• We had an amazing Engineering team;
• Good dev. infrastructure;
• The team mastered
Agile development techniques;
• Design process dream.

12. So, what was wrong?
Today, I have a few
hypothesis about
the why…

13. Here’s the
main reason:
We forgot
about
business!

14. If I could go back in
time, what would I try
to do differently?

15. I wouldn’t take
too long to
launch the first
MVP and validate
the business
impact
1

16. I would suggest
reducing the
technical team
and investing
more on
customer service
2

17. I would not
invest time
refactoring the
code to scale a
platform that has
no users
3

18. I would use
measurement
tools in our favor
to make better
business
decisions
4

19. Believe me,
it’s not a big deal

20. Failing fast!
From @jseiden - Lean UX: http://www.slideshare.net/jseiden/2013-oct-15-continuous-learning-and-delivery-dpm-summit-2013-seiden

21. Taking the evaluation
step seriously!

22. Taking the evaluation
step seriously!
A/B test everything you can!

23. Taking the evaluation
step seriously!
A/B test everything you can!
Source: http://blog.booking.com/hamburger-menu.html
Base Variant
VS

24. Taking the evaluation
step seriously!
Some tools that might help:

25. Learning with other
people’s mistakes

26. We focused on building
prototypes to validate
that our vision was
technically feasible.
Instead, we should have
released something.
Source: https://medium.com/inside-wattage/well-we-failed-77e795e16ecf
“

27. Conclusion

28. Don’t try to take a step
bigger than your
company can

29. Think big

30. …but start small

31. It doesn’t matter
how awesome the
technology you’re
using is,
your product should
be solving a real
business/user need.
And never forget!

32. Dank u wel! ;)
@ramonvictor