Recurly - 'Entrepreneuring' Company Growth - Lessons learned between $0 and $1Bn in payment volume
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Transcript of Recurly - 'Entrepreneuring' Company Growth - Lessons learned between $0 and $1Bn in payment volume
#recurlyboulder
Powering Subscription Billing Success Since 2009
Dan BurkhartCEO and Co-founder
@danburkhart
Renato MascardoChief Technical Officer
@rmascardo#recurlyboulder
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Building A Company Is An Un-Natural Act
Requiring Many Deviations From Your ‘Comfort Zone’
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Humans Learn By Repetition
Sometimes Unlearning Behaviors Is Even More Difficult
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When building a company, it is difficult to know when to shift gears… in People, Process, Infrastructure, and Organization
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4Seed
$1.6M
12Series A
$6M
60Series B
$12M
85
Funding Team Business Technology Organization Process
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2
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5
R
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Lessons learned between then…
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… and Now
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Stage of Business: Determines Approach
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Influencing Factors
• Seeking Funding vs. Freshly Funded • Architectural Maturity • Customer Demands (B2B vs. B2C) • Business Model • Brand ‘Promise’ To Customers
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Pre-Seed
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Scrappy, Scramble, Survival Mode
• Building functionality at a breakneck pace
• Nothing to lose, everything to gain
• Proof of concept, pursuit of MVP and validation
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4Seed
$1.6M Early Revenue Monolithic Engineer + 1 Support
Scrappy + Tired
Funding Team Business Technology Organization Process
Where We Were At Our Seed Stage Of Funding…
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Post-Seed Funding
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Pursuit of Traction + (MVP)
• Iterating Quickly • Building Features At A Breakneck Pace • Infrastructure Build-out to become PCI compliant • Added Support
GearShift Moment
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Series A Funding Sets Expectation For Growth
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Series A
$6M 8 Revenue Early SOA Eng + Product + Support Early Scrum
Funding Team Business Technology Organization Process
4Seed
$1.6M Early Revenue Monolithic Engineer + 1 Support
Scrappy + Tired
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2012
2014
Today
Adding Product Management
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To An Engineering Culture
• Existing Full-Stack Engineers Resistant • ‘Why Do We Need Product Managers?” • Organization Needed Process and Definition • Engineering Staffing Moved From “I” To “We”
GearShift Moment
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Coming of Age Rituals
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Architect For Failure + Resiliency
Postmortem: - Architectural Failures - Process Failures - People Failures
The Wake Up Call:
Lessons: - Hire Ops Early - Hire Experience ($$) - Systems-Level Thinkers - Think In Failure Modes - Test Everything. Again.
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Startup Mode:
Mature Company Mode:
“I Built This Feature…It Works Like This”
“I Built This Feature…Here’s How It Works…”
“When It Fails…Here Is What Happens…”
GearShift Moment
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Series A
$6M 8 Revenue Early SOA Eng + Product + Support Early Scrum
Funding Team Business Technology Organization Process
4Seed
$1.6M Early Revenue Monolithic Engineer + 1 Support
Scrappy + Tired
SOARevenue Growth
Eng, Product Support, Design,
QA, Ops, Acct. Mgmt, Sales, Mktg
Scrum40Series B
$12M
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Stability, Scalability, Performance and Security are Features
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Technology and Architecture Continuum
Prototype
(MVP) Minimum Viable Product
1-3 Yr. Architecture
5-10 Yr. Architecture
Future
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Choose Iterative Architectures Over Pure Perfection Or Pure Time-To-Market
Evolve Your Technical Design Review Process
Technology and Architecture
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‘Stage Appropriate’ Architecture
Technology decisions must consider architectural purpose and ability to execute balanced against time-to-market requirements
They Are Ultimately Business Decisions
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Technology and Architecture
Always Have A Strategy For How You Build Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) Into Your Product
SOA and Organizational Alignment
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Technology and Architecture
Entropy Applies to Software and It’s Called Technical Debt
#recurlyboulder
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Technology and Architecture
Technology Decisions And Staffing Decisions Are More Coupled Than Most Think
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Organizational Structure
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Evolution Of Organizational Structure Takes Time..
Organization
Typically The Realization That Change Is Needed Hurts…Before It Can Change
Anticipating Change In Advance Can Greatly Smooth Out PainPoints
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Organization
Recurly Appropriately Invested In Great Customer Support Early On.
Nothing Can Kill SaaS Companies More Quickly Than Poor Customer Support
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Organization
Double Down On Ops Early On
Otherwise, BOTH Ops (Stability) And Engineering Progress Suffer
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Organization
Invest In QA Early, Especially If Your Business Proposition Depends On High Availability (B2B)
Your Customers Will Thank You With Their Loyalty
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Don’t Be Afraid To ‘Re-Factor’ Your Execution Process
Process
If Your Business Is Growing Your Processes Become Obsolete… Repeatedly
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Process Is Also ‘Stage Appropriate’
Random Scramble
Kinda-Smells-Like-Scrum
Oh That’s Scrum
Cross-Team Execution
Cross-Team, Cross-Matrix Execution
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Company Culture
Company Culture Can Help With ‘GearShift’ Moments Requiring Change
Company Values Define Pillars of Culture
…Defines Personality and Temperament During Critical Transitions
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Be MindfulEmpathetic to customers Champion of the user Accountable to your team
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Solve ElegantlyDo more with less Focus where it matters
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Iterate EverythingProduct, Process, Behaviors
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Debate Passionatelyand Compromise Accordingly
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Own the OutcomeGet shit done, Play to win
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Questions?
THANK YOU
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