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Zero to Launch

Sean Nolan

I want to be clear up front that I’m not a “methodology” guy. Whatever the hype, software methodology is inevitably either (a) full employment for consultants; (b) an ego trip for somebody who did something good one time under specific circumstances and loves to brag about it; or (c) both. I’ve built software for decades and the basics haven’t changed, not even once.

With that said, the rest of this might sound a little bit like software methodology. You have been warned!

Crossing the Ocean

I spend a bit of time these days mentoring folks — usually new startup CTOs that are figuring out how to go from nothing to a working v1 product. “Zero to Launch” is a unique, intense time in the life of a company, and getting through it requires unique (sometimes intense) behaviors. In all cases the task at hand is fundamentally underspecified — you’re committing to build something without actually knowing what it is. In bounded time. With limited resources. Who even does that? Startup CTOs, baby.

Like an ocean crossing, getting from zero to launch is a long journey that requires confidence, faith and discipline. There are few natural landmarks along the way, but there are patterns — the journey breaks down into three surprisingly clear and consistent phases:

  1. What are we building anyways?
  2. Holy crap this is way bigger than we thought!
  3. Will this death march ever end?

Hopefully, one reason you have the job is that you know how to code fast and well — CTOs that can’t (or don’t) code drive me up the wall. And you’d better hire great people. But you’re going to need more than just those chops to get to launch. Each phase needs a different set of skills and behaviors; let’s dig in.

What are we building anyways?

You likely have two constituencies telling you what your software needs to do: (1) non-technical co-founders that see a market opportunity; and (2) users or potential users that want you to help them accomplish something. Each of these perspectives is essential, and you’d probably fail without them. But don’t be fooled — they are not going to give you clear requirements. They just aren’t. They think they are, but they’re wrong.

The first mistake you can make here is getting into a chicken-and-egg battle. Your partners ask for a schedule, you say you can’t do that without full requirements, they say they already did that, you point out the gaps, they glaze over, repeat, run out of money, everyone goes home. Don’t do that.

Instead, just understand and accept that it is up to you to decide what the product does. And further, that you’ll be wrong and folks will (often gleefully) point that out, and you’re just going to have to suck it up. This is why you hire program managers, because synthesizing a ton of vague input into clarity is their core competency — but it’s still on you to break ties and make judgment calls with incomplete information.

And I’m not just talking about invisible, technical decisions. I’m talking about stuff like (all real examples):

You get the idea. This can be hard even for the most egocentric among us, because really, what do we know about [insert product category here]? Even in a domain we know well, it’s a little bold. But there are two realities that, in almost every case, make it the best strategy:

  1. Nobody knows these answers! I mean sure, do all the research you can, listen, and don’t be stupid. But at the end of the day, until your product is live in the wild, many of these are going to be guesses. Asking your users or CEO to make the guess is just an indirection that wastes time. Take whatever input you can, make a call, consider how you’ll recover if (when) it turns out you were wrong, and move on.
  2. Normal people just aren’t wired to think about error or edge cases. For better or worse, it’s on you and your team to figure out what can go wrong and how to react. This is usually an issue of data and workflow — how can you repair something that has become corrupt? “Normal” people deal with these problems with ad-hoc manual intervention, which is a recipe for software disaster.

For this to work, you need to be obsessively transparent about what you’re building. Write down everything, and make sure all of your stakeholders have access to the documents. Build wireframes and clickthrough demos. Integrate early and often, and make sure everybody knows where the latest build is running and how they can try it. This isn’t a CYA move; that’s a losing game anyways. It’s about trying to make things real and concrete as early as possible, because people are really good at complaining about things they can actually see, touch and use. You’re going to get a ton of feedback once the product is live — anything you can pull forward before launch is gold. Do this even when it seems embarrassingly early. Seriously.

Transparency also gives people confidence that you’re making progress. As they say, code talks — a live, running, integrated test site is what it is. No magic, no hand-waving. It either works or it doesn’t; it has this feature or it doesn’t; it meets the need or it doesn’t. Seeing the product grow more complete day by day is incredibly motivating. Your job is to will it into existence. This is a key but often unstated startup CTO skill — you need to believe, and help others believe, during this phase.

Holy crap this is way bigger than we thought!

Once you’ve gotten over the first hump and folks have something to look at, things really start to heat up. Missing features become obvious. “Simple” tasks start to look a lot less simple. It can get overwhelming pretty quickly. And that’s just the beginning. Over on the business side of things, your colleagues are talking to potential customers and trying to close sales. Suddenly they desperately need new bells and whistles (sometimes even whole products) that were never on the table before. Everything needs to be customizable and you need to integrate with every other technology in the market. Sales people never say “no” and they carry a big stick: “Customers will never buy if they don’t get [insert one-off feature here].”

Herein we discover another problem with normal people: they have a really hard time distilling N similar instances (i.e., potential customers) into a single coherent set of features. And frankly, they don’t really have much incentive to care. But it’s your job to build one product that works for many customers, not the other way around.

During this phase, your team is going to get really stressed out, as every solved problem just seems to add three new ones on the pile. They’re going to want to cut, cut, cut — setting clear boundaries that give them a chance to succeed. This is an absolutely sane reaction to requirement chaos, but it’s on you to keep your team from becoming a “no” machine.

A useful measure of technical success is how often you are able to (responsibly) say “yes” to your stakeholders. But saying “yes” doesn’t mean you just do whatever random thing you’re told. It means that you’re able to tease out the real ask that’s hiding inside the request, and have created the right conditions to do that. It’s very rare that somebody asks you to do something truly stupid or unnecessary. Normal people just can’t articulate the need in a way that makes software sense. And why should they? That’s your job.

During this phase, you have to be a mediator, investigator, translator and therapist. Try to be present at every feature review, so you can hear what the business folks and users say first-hand. If you can’t be there, schedule a fast follow-up with your team to discuss any new asks while they’re still fresh. Never blind-forward requests to your team. Propose simpler alternatives and ask why they won’t (or will) work. Use a cascading decision tree:

  1. What is the real ask? If you’re getting an indirect request through sales, ask them to replay the original conversation exactly — what words were used? If it’s coming from users, ask them to walk you through how they think the feature should work, click by click. Ask what they do now. What do other similar products do? Try to find other folks making the same ask — how do they word it?
  2. Do we need to do anything? Sometimes new asks are just a misunderstanding about what the product already does. As they say in Hamilton, “most disputes die and no one shoots.”
  3. Do we need to do something right now? Beyond just schedule, there are good reasons to delay features to “vNext” — you’ll know more once you’re live. Do we really need this for launch, or can it wait? One caveat here — be careful of people who want to be agreeable. I remember one company in particular where the users would say “it’s ok, we don’t need that,” but then go on to develop elaborate self-defeating workarounds on their own. It took awhile to get everyone on the same page there!
  4. Can we stage the feature over time? This is often the best place for things to end up. Break the request down into (at least) two parts: something simpler and easier for launch and a vNext plan for the rest. You’ll learn a ton, and very (very) often the first version turns out to be more than good enough. Just don’t blow off the vNext plan — talk it out on the whiteboard so you don’t have to rebuild from scratch or undo a bunch of work.
  5. Is there something else we can swap for? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. And don’t turn stakeholder conversations into horse trading arguments. But costs are costs, and if you can remove or delay something else, it makes launch that much closer. Again, you’re always learning, and there’s no honor in “staying the course” if it turns out to be wrong. Be smart.

This phase is all about managing up, down and sideways. Things will get hot sometimes, and people will be frustrated. Reinforce with your stakeholders that you’re not just saying “no” — you’re trying to figure out how to say “yes.” Remind your team that you understand the quantity-quality-time dilemma and that if there’s a fall to be taken, it’s on you not them. And tell your CEO it’s going to be OK … she’ll need to hear it!

Will this death march ever end?

You might notice that, so far, I haven’t mentioned “metrics” even once. That’s because they’re pretty much useless in the early stages of a product. Sorry. Products start out with one huge issue in the database: “build v1.” That becomes two, then four, and suddenly you’re in an exponential Heather Locklear shampoo commercial. New features come and go every day. Some are visible and quantifiable, but many are not. You are standing in for metrics at first — your gut and your experience. Read up on proton pump inhibitors my friend.

But as you get closer to launch, this balance shifts. Requirement changes slow down, and issues tend to look more like bugs or tasks — which tends to make them similar in scope and therefore more comparable. There’s some real comfort in this — “when the bug count is zero, we’re ready to launch” actually means something when you can measure and start to predict a downward trend.

But things get worse before they get better, and sometimes it feels like that downward shift will never happen. This is when the most grotty bugs show up — tiny miscommunications that blow up during integration, key technology choices that don’t stand up under pressure, missing functionality discovered at the last minute. Difficult repros and marathon debugging sessions suck up endless time and energy.

The worst are the bug pumps, features that just seem to be a bundle of special-cases and regressions. I’ve talked about my personal challenge with these before — because special-cases and regressions are exactly the symptoms of poor architecture. Very quickly, I start to question the fundamentals and begin redesigning in my head. And, sometimes, that’s what it takes. But just as often during this phase, you’re simply discovering that parts of your product really are just complicated. It’s important to give new features a little time to “cook” so they can settle out before starting over. Easy to say, tough to do!

During this home stretch, you need to be a cheerleader, mom and grandpa (please excuse the stereotypes, they’re obviously flawed but useful). A cheerleader because you’re finding every shred of progress and celebrating it. A mom because you’re taking care of your team, whatever they need. Food, tools and resources, executive air cover, companionship, music — whatever. And a Grandpa because you’re a calming presence that understands the long view — this will end; it’s worth it; I’ve been there.

I can’t promise your company will succeed — history says it probably won’t. But I can promise that if you throw yourself into these roles, understand where you are in the process, stay focused, hire well and work your butt off, you’ve got a really good chance of launching something awesome. I’m not a religious guy, but I believe what makes humans special is the things we build and create — and great software counts. Go for it, and let me know if I can help.

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