In failing to build a company, I have learned many things. Core to all of them is that a company is not a product. Ideas change, products change, people change. We “pivot”, rapidly, relentlessly, sometimes ruthlessly.

Managed well, change is a catalyst. Managed badly, it can be catastrophic.

In this series, I try to explain the various ways in which I failed to understand this, and how I would endeavour to do better next time. You may notice that the style of these posts is more instructive than usual. Remember that these are mostly addressed to my future self, and as such, I am telling myself what to do; you, my dear article assimilator, can do whatever you want.

Yes, yes, I know. Data is the new God. We can’t make any decision without spreadsheets.

But when you start a company, typically, you have no data. You don’t have customers, you don’t have a product, and you don’t know where to start.

When you don’t have something to ground you, it can be very easy to be swayed by someone a little more charismatic than you. This whole process is so exciting, after all!

And yet, you do have something to keep you level: your gut. Pay attention to the small sensations going on in your body when your co-founders propose a direction, or when you’re trying to figure out how to approach your first customer. At this point, your instinct is all you have. Use it well.

Sometimes, something won’t sit right. Listen to your inner monologue. Take your time. It’s early, and you’re in no rush; it’s OK to do absolutely nothing for a moment until you figure out what it is that’s bothering you.

Other times, it will just be nerves; a fear of the unknown, or anxiety about exposing yourself. That’s fine too. Acknowledge it, understand it, perhaps even say so out loud.

And then do it anyway. After all, this is the start. It’s time to explore new ideas.

More in the series

1. Introduction
2. Focus on the problem, not the solution
3. If the company goals change, the company should probably change too
4. "Do research" is not a corporate strategy
5. Your corporate values transcend your product vision
6. Trust your gut, understand your heart, and open your mind

In failing to build a company, I have learned many things. Core to all of them is that a company is not a product. Ideas change, products change, people change. We “pivot”, rapidly, relentlessly, sometimes ruthlessly.

Managed well, change is a catalyst. Managed badly, it can be catastrophic.

In this series, I try to explain the various ways in which I failed to understand this, and how I would endeavour to do better next time. You may notice that the style of these posts is more instructive than usual. Remember that these are mostly addressed to my future self, and as such, I am telling myself what to do; you, my dear free thinker, can do whatever you want.

A product company is not the product.

A product company, or any company, is a collection of people who come together for a common purpose. (Well, and to get paid, but let’s be a little more idealistic today.)

And so, we have more to do than just make the thing. I guess you could call it “governance”. We have to decide how we go about making the thing.

At some level, this is about your development process: do you use Jira, stick Post-Its on a wall, or just yell at each other?

Values are more important than that. Your process can and will change, as will your product, but values rarely do.

At their heart, values guide you in making decisions. They might encourage you to give open feedback as soon as possible, even in public, or they might tell you that you need to wait for a private moment. They tell you whether you should ship before you’re comfortable, or only release once you’re confident you have a thing of beauty.

And they need to be shared. Explicitly. If the people running the company can’t agree on these, everyone around them will suffer.

As a founder, you need to do two things: agree on the company values with your colleagues, and make sure these resonate well with your own personal values. (If you don’t know what those are, it’s time to figure that out.)

“Right” and “wrong” don’t really exist, but they can in context.

Sometimes it’s time to change the values at the heart of the company (or in your own heart). Just like the goal, expect everything else to change too, whether you like it or not.

More in the series

1. Introduction
2. Focus on the problem, not the solution
3. If the company goals change, the company should probably change too
4. "Do research" is not a corporate strategy
5. Your corporate values transcend your product vision
6. Trust your gut, understand your heart, and open your mind

In failing to build a company, I have learned many things. Core to all of them is that a company is not a product. Ideas change, products change, people change. We “pivot”, rapidly, relentlessly, sometimes ruthlessly.

Managed well, change is a catalyst. Managed badly, it can be catastrophic.

In this series, I try to explain the various ways in which I failed to understand this, and how I would endeavour to do better next time. You may notice that the style of these posts is more instructive than usual. Remember that these are mostly addressed to my future self, and as such, I am telling myself what to do; you, my dear content consumer, can do whatever you want.

We founded Prodo with two goals: to research novel, ML-powered methods of detecting bugs in code, and to build products upon that research to help the average application developer find bugs.

In hindsight, I think this was quite foolish (though my fellow founders might disagree).

“Research” implies that the work is quite difficult, will take a long time, and most importantly, has a substantial chance of failure. In contrast with product development, where “failure” often means “we didn’t know how to do it with our skills, on time and within budget”, a failure in research could mean that your task is impossible with current technology, or requires breakthroughs in the fundamentals of mathematics.

If you want to do research, do it in academia, or a company that can afford gigantic, multi-year failures. A nascent startup seems like the wrong place to make huge, expensive, time-consuming bets; a sequence of tiny ones is much more likely to pan out.

More in the series

1. Introduction
2. Focus on the problem, not the solution
3. If the company goals change, the company should probably change too
4. "Do research" is not a corporate strategy
5. Your corporate values transcend your product vision
6. Trust your gut, understand your heart, and open your mind

An incomplete list of the things you need to drive a car at high speed:

• a powerful engine
• high-quality brakes
• power steering
• solid suspension
• tires in good repair
• a clean windshield
• a seatbelt
• an airbag
• enough fuel
• an open road
• good-quality tarmac (asphalt)
• excellent weather conditions
• clear visibility
• quick reflexes
• a solid night’s sleep
• years of experience

Next time someone asks you why you’re wasting time writing tests, or refactoring code, or introducing continuous deployment, consider this list.

In failing to build a company, I have learned many things. Core to all of them is that a company is not a product. Ideas change, products change, people change. We “pivot”, rapidly, relentlessly, sometimes ruthlessly.

Managed well, change is a catalyst. Managed badly, it can be catastrophic.

In this series, I try to explain the various ways in which I failed to understand this, and how I would endeavour to do better next time. You may notice that the style of these posts is more instructive than usual. Remember that these are mostly addressed to my future self, and as such, I am telling myself what to do; you, my dear sentient being, can do whatever you want.

We have a problem to solve. We try something. We iterate. We talk to people.

It’s highly likely that upon talking to people, your vision of your product will change. This is the point. Get used to it, share your thoughts with your colleagues, and try to make sure you’re on the same page pretty often.

Sometimes, the product vision changes so much that it nudges the company in a very different direction. At Prodo, we switched, at some point, from creating ML-powered analysis tools to much more straightforward creation tools. I think it was probably a good decision: why cure what you can prevent?

Unfortunately, I don’t remember ever actually discussing this. It just… happened. No decisions were explicitly made.

When something this big happens, it’s natural that not all of the company founders, executives, or employees will necessarily agree on the new direction. This is reasonable. Talk about it. Some people may decide to leave the company at this point, including founders (maybe even you), and you need to be ready for this.

When the dust settles, it’s time to take a hard look at which roles and responsibilities need to be fulfilled in this new company. You might find you have a missing role, or overlap. In our case, we ended up with the CTO (me) and the CEO vying for control over the product’s interfaces, which caused problems for the whole organisation.

If you don’t take the time to change the company when the vision changes, it’ll change anyway. The difference is, you won’t like the change.

More in the series

1. Introduction
2. Focus on the problem, not the solution
3. If the company goals change, the company should probably change too
4. "Do research" is not a corporate strategy
5. Your corporate values transcend your product vision
6. Trust your gut, understand your heart, and open your mind