WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:10.155 --> 00:00:15.765 Hey folks, and welcome to the small tech podcast by Ephemere Creative. 00:00:15.825 --> 00:00:17.215 I'm your host Raph. 00:00:17.325 --> 00:00:18.375 And today. 00:00:18.855 --> 00:00:21.765 We are going to talk about scale. 00:00:22.695 --> 00:00:24.495 Now for context. 00:00:24.945 --> 00:00:31.635 I am used to working with small companies, whether that's startups 00:00:31.665 --> 00:00:36.795 or non-profits or sometimes it's just entrepreneurs with an idea. 00:00:37.575 --> 00:00:42.495 Yeah the sort of largest companies I've worked with are in the 00:00:42.525 --> 00:00:44.985 sort of 30 employee range. 00:00:45.515 --> 00:00:50.655 Our clients vary a bit more than that, but myself personally 00:00:51.115 --> 00:00:52.945 that's the that's the experience. 00:00:53.845 --> 00:01:00.355 So that's my caveat before, before we start this episode, but I think there 00:01:00.355 --> 00:01:07.585 are still things that are important and interesting to think through when you are 00:01:07.585 --> 00:01:14.095 considering scaling your company and your product even just from that sort of two 00:01:14.095 --> 00:01:19.315 founders or a small nonprofit or whatever. 00:01:19.645 --> 00:01:23.755 And you've got this product and it's got a few users and you need to take it 00:01:23.755 --> 00:01:28.615 to thousands of users and you need to onboard a few employees to help manage it. 00:01:29.105 --> 00:01:35.975 Those are things that aren't always as obvious as they might seem to be. 00:01:36.505 --> 00:01:39.955 And yeah, they can be pretty complicated and they can help set the 00:01:39.955 --> 00:01:42.025 tone for like your company's growth. 00:01:42.475 --> 00:01:43.165 So. 00:01:43.795 --> 00:01:45.085 Yeah, let's talk about it. 00:01:45.535 --> 00:01:49.045 I kind of already touched on it, but the way I'm going to talk about 00:01:49.045 --> 00:01:56.165 growth or scale in this episode refers to users of an application. 00:01:56.835 --> 00:02:02.655 It refers to the size of your team that is managing and, or building the application. 00:02:03.145 --> 00:02:07.255 It's going to be about the infrastructure that your application runs on. 00:02:07.815 --> 00:02:13.245 And it's going to be about communication and how you interact with users. 00:02:13.815 --> 00:02:20.285 Those contexts, but broken down into design, engineering, marketing, 00:02:20.285 --> 00:02:23.015 and communications and operations. 00:02:23.585 --> 00:02:26.615 So let's talk about design. 00:02:27.275 --> 00:02:32.675 One of the things that I find happens with early stage products you know, 00:02:32.675 --> 00:02:38.305 an entrepreneur with an idea who's just ready to throw out an MVP or 00:02:38.365 --> 00:02:41.665 you know, a smaller organization who just wants to test out an idea. 00:02:42.415 --> 00:02:47.395 Is that design is very fluid. 00:02:47.725 --> 00:02:53.555 It's just throwing ideas together and changing them on the fly, testing them 00:02:53.555 --> 00:02:56.105 a little bit, but not a whole lot. 00:02:56.345 --> 00:03:01.205 Running them by some people that you trust, maybe a couple people 00:03:01.235 --> 00:03:05.525 that you don't know so well, if you can get ahold of them, but in the 00:03:05.525 --> 00:03:07.535 early stages, it's pretty tight. 00:03:07.535 --> 00:03:08.525 It's pretty limited. 00:03:08.585 --> 00:03:13.475 And so you can be very flexible and just throw things around. 00:03:14.125 --> 00:03:18.715 Eventually, that starts to get disjointed. 00:03:18.715 --> 00:03:26.425 If you don't have a system in place to manage your design assets, how you think 00:03:26.425 --> 00:03:28.735 about design, your design principles? 00:03:29.565 --> 00:03:33.905 And I guess even just like your information, the research 00:03:33.905 --> 00:03:35.615 that you do on your users. 00:03:35.895 --> 00:03:40.305 The data that you collect as you do interviews with them, that sort of thing. 00:03:40.665 --> 00:03:45.015 And I think it becomes more and more important as you grow the product. 00:03:45.015 --> 00:03:49.005 And as you grow the team, To make sure that you have all 00:03:49.005 --> 00:03:50.325 of those things in place. 00:03:50.915 --> 00:03:53.825 I think about this a little bit from a technical perspective, 00:03:53.825 --> 00:03:58.375 because that is generally how I approach things is as a developer. 00:03:59.135 --> 00:04:08.795 And so I like to know that a design team has things sort of tightly systematized. 00:04:09.335 --> 00:04:14.645 Perhaps at the early stages, as you're starting to build a bit of momentum, 00:04:14.885 --> 00:04:19.765 it doesn't need to be a full design system but at least some basics about 00:04:19.765 --> 00:04:23.185 color usage about, about spacing. 00:04:23.745 --> 00:04:27.135 And that sort of thing to help guide a developer so that they 00:04:27.135 --> 00:04:29.205 don't always need to refer back. 00:04:29.205 --> 00:04:30.015 They just know. 00:04:30.225 --> 00:04:30.645 All right. 00:04:30.705 --> 00:04:31.035 Yep. 00:04:31.065 --> 00:04:32.985 This is kind of how we do things. 00:04:33.595 --> 00:04:37.315 And if they see something in a design, they kind of instinctively 00:04:37.315 --> 00:04:39.945 know what they're working with. 00:04:40.095 --> 00:04:44.805 Otherwise, if they need to double check for every single design, like 00:04:44.865 --> 00:04:49.755 the pixels in between things or the spacing you're going to have a mess. 00:04:49.875 --> 00:04:51.405 It's going to be bad. 00:04:51.965 --> 00:04:58.745 And so just getting into the flow of creating sort of structure around design 00:04:58.925 --> 00:05:06.095 will help you create structure around your development processes, which might seem 00:05:06.095 --> 00:05:10.415 like it could slow you down initially, but it will speed you up down the line 00:05:10.475 --> 00:05:15.755 because developers won't need to always be questioning everything that they see. 00:05:16.255 --> 00:05:20.305 So I think, yeah, basically just making sure that these things are organized 00:05:20.305 --> 00:05:23.875 and communicated and sort of spread throughout the organization in a 00:05:23.875 --> 00:05:28.915 sort of structured way where people kind of know where to get things. 00:05:29.415 --> 00:05:31.335 From an engineering perspective. 00:05:31.835 --> 00:05:39.125 I have this thing that has happened to me many times over the years, which is. 00:05:40.025 --> 00:05:44.825 You build a monolith at first because it's simple and you can 00:05:44.825 --> 00:05:46.505 get something out the door quickly. 00:05:47.005 --> 00:05:51.885 And very quickly once you start to gain traction and people start to 00:05:51.885 --> 00:05:57.065 interact with your product or maybe you're just handling more data. 00:05:57.645 --> 00:06:00.015 Maybe something happens in the system. 00:06:00.045 --> 00:06:03.945 And even if you don't have a lot more users, you're now processing 00:06:03.945 --> 00:06:09.405 much larger video files or you're bringing in a million things to 00:06:09.405 --> 00:06:14.445 process instead of the thousand that you were processing the day before. 00:06:15.165 --> 00:06:20.745 And you start to realize how certain parts of your application just. 00:06:21.285 --> 00:06:25.635 Would do much better being split out into their own infrastructure 00:06:25.685 --> 00:06:28.685 that's specialized for its use case. 00:06:29.405 --> 00:06:34.335 And so you start breaking apart this monolith into different services. 00:06:34.575 --> 00:06:38.505 AKA are our favorite microservices term. 00:06:38.865 --> 00:06:40.185 And that can be painful. 00:06:40.875 --> 00:06:41.985 It can be. 00:06:42.765 --> 00:06:45.435 Very helpful, but painful. 00:06:46.045 --> 00:06:50.305 Because splitting out those things that are tightly coupled generally 00:06:50.305 --> 00:06:51.535 when you're building a monolith. 00:06:51.955 --> 00:06:55.825 It's just, it's hard if you're not technical, basically you're 00:06:55.825 --> 00:06:59.935 taking things that have been like tightly bound together. 00:07:00.385 --> 00:07:02.785 And expect to be bound together. 00:07:03.175 --> 00:07:08.395 And you're trying to split them apart into these different systems that now have 00:07:08.395 --> 00:07:15.465 to interact with each other more loosely and they have to grow independently and 00:07:15.465 --> 00:07:21.375 change and they still need to be able to talk back and forth with each other. 00:07:21.865 --> 00:07:26.215 And that stuff becomes kind of hard to organize. 00:07:26.725 --> 00:07:27.685 So, yeah. 00:07:27.785 --> 00:07:28.805 On a side note. 00:07:28.995 --> 00:07:33.615 We at Ephemere Creative are building a framework called the Chewy Stack, 00:07:33.915 --> 00:07:36.835 which you can find at gochewy.io. 00:07:36.855 --> 00:07:40.425 That's G O C H E W Y dot I O. 00:07:40.875 --> 00:07:45.405 And the whole point is to make it really easy to build something that 00:07:45.405 --> 00:07:50.925 feels like a monolith when you're working on it but actually is deployed 00:07:50.925 --> 00:07:56.085 as microservices and makes it easy for you to build out those services. 00:07:56.505 --> 00:08:00.975 And manage the infrastructure on which they run and how they're configured 00:08:00.975 --> 00:08:02.415 and how they talk to each other. 00:08:02.805 --> 00:08:08.025 Basically the idea is it should be easy to build microservice-based applications. 00:08:09.015 --> 00:08:13.755 Or just as easy to build them as it is to build monolithic ones. 00:08:14.025 --> 00:08:15.945 So that's my little side note. 00:08:16.455 --> 00:08:18.555 The other thing as you start. 00:08:19.035 --> 00:08:23.185 Growing your your technical product. 00:08:23.685 --> 00:08:25.365 Is that you'll find. 00:08:25.365 --> 00:08:25.605 Okay. 00:08:25.605 --> 00:08:28.215 So you will start splitting things into microservices. 00:08:28.815 --> 00:08:33.135 And now maybe you've got a couple of developers working on one service and 00:08:33.135 --> 00:08:34.935 other developers working on another. 00:08:35.235 --> 00:08:41.205 And you need to make sure that everyone is able to run what they need to run 00:08:41.265 --> 00:08:44.385 effortlessly otherwise work stops. 00:08:45.315 --> 00:08:51.575 And there's a whole thing around dev ops and making sure that deployments 00:08:51.575 --> 00:08:53.225 are automated and all of that. 00:08:53.435 --> 00:08:58.235 But I think another thing that's not spoken about enough that I 00:08:58.235 --> 00:09:01.325 find is often a huge pain point. 00:09:01.955 --> 00:09:07.925 Is making sure that developers actually can run what they need 00:09:07.925 --> 00:09:09.815 to on their local machines. 00:09:09.865 --> 00:09:13.945 Even before deploying to an environment that they control, making 00:09:13.945 --> 00:09:18.185 sure that they have access to the things that they require is painful. 00:09:18.185 --> 00:09:22.415 So make sure you think through those processes, whether it's just like access 00:09:22.415 --> 00:09:29.245 control in your git provider of choice or whether it's cloud environments or 00:09:29.245 --> 00:09:34.135 provisioning laptops or whatever, like just make sure you've got a good process 00:09:34.135 --> 00:09:39.055 to make sure that developers communicate between each other, the requirements 00:09:39.055 --> 00:09:43.745 of the application and can get it up and running quickly without having 00:09:43.745 --> 00:09:48.635 to jump through hoops or go through meetings with other developers and. 00:09:49.235 --> 00:09:51.005 Make sure things are documented. 00:09:51.525 --> 00:09:53.925 I know we all put that off developers. 00:09:54.255 --> 00:09:55.935 Love to put off documentation. 00:09:56.085 --> 00:10:00.705 The other thing is like, as your systems become more complex you know, you will 00:10:00.705 --> 00:10:04.515 inevitably add different services, whether they are your own services that you're 00:10:04.515 --> 00:10:08.265 managing or you're using third-party APIs. 00:10:08.265 --> 00:10:11.445 You're providing integrations to other systems. 00:10:11.865 --> 00:10:18.285 And as you do that, just little things sort of explode into bigger things. 00:10:18.285 --> 00:10:22.875 And one little system that fails here is going to cascade 00:10:22.875 --> 00:10:25.455 into a giant failure elsewhere. 00:10:25.775 --> 00:10:29.375 And that can happen even with like pretty small applications 00:10:29.405 --> 00:10:30.755 and it can be hard to debug. 00:10:30.755 --> 00:10:36.305 So make sure that you have tooling in place to be able to find those failures 00:10:36.365 --> 00:10:39.095 and make sure you can fix them fast. 00:10:39.595 --> 00:10:41.845 Okay, so marketing and communications. 00:10:42.275 --> 00:10:48.265 This is the stuff that I find is the most, like fun, to deal with 00:10:48.325 --> 00:10:50.485 in in terms of like, scaling. 00:10:51.145 --> 00:10:56.335 In part, because I just love looking at like the data and the flows that you can 00:10:56.335 --> 00:11:03.675 build on top of on top of the data in an application or around an application. 00:11:04.215 --> 00:11:04.665 I don't know. 00:11:04.725 --> 00:11:05.985 It's just really neat to me. 00:11:06.265 --> 00:11:08.335 And I love integrating apps. 00:11:08.385 --> 00:11:15.045 With tools like Segment and Customer.io or Intercom, or I don't know, whatever else. 00:11:15.345 --> 00:11:17.835 But I think there's something really important there. 00:11:18.175 --> 00:11:23.155 Which is that early on, you might just use an SMTP provider and you 00:11:23.155 --> 00:11:26.785 might just shoot out emails from your app when certain things happen. 00:11:27.745 --> 00:11:32.185 And I think that's valid for a lot of use cases, even as you grow. 00:11:32.525 --> 00:11:34.955 But there are certain things that you'll find, oh, I want to 00:11:34.955 --> 00:11:37.505 communicate something with a user. 00:11:37.985 --> 00:11:42.875 It's more about onboarding or it's about I don't know, retention. 00:11:42.875 --> 00:11:44.135 You want to bring them back? 00:11:44.505 --> 00:11:48.285 After they've dropped off for a while or, and those things you don't really 00:11:48.285 --> 00:11:53.115 want to deal with that in your app, you, you should be doing that elsewhere 00:11:53.115 --> 00:11:57.825 in a system that's built for it, like customer.io or like Intercom. 00:11:58.265 --> 00:12:00.605 And you can build these really complex flows. 00:12:01.345 --> 00:12:04.705 And that will help you sort of scale your communications. 00:12:05.455 --> 00:12:07.315 But then you also need to be able to respond. 00:12:08.215 --> 00:12:11.335 And so making sure that you've got like the right. 00:12:11.965 --> 00:12:18.805 Infrastructure in place to handle people trying to reach out to you is 00:12:18.805 --> 00:12:23.695 important that can even just be like, if you're using Google workspace. 00:12:24.055 --> 00:12:28.135 Just make a group for like the support email. 00:12:28.765 --> 00:12:31.225 And make sure that the right people have access to it. 00:12:31.555 --> 00:12:38.135 It can be that simple, or you can use a custom, like a shared inbox with Intercom, 00:12:38.155 --> 00:12:43.435 where you can collaborate on messages and see user data as you deal with it. 00:12:43.535 --> 00:12:44.555 Or something like that. 00:12:44.855 --> 00:12:49.975 But I find that some people don't know that those systems exist, and yeah, I 00:12:49.975 --> 00:12:51.325 guess I just wanted to put it out there. 00:12:51.325 --> 00:12:55.045 Like you, there are tools to like, make your life easier when it 00:12:55.045 --> 00:12:59.155 comes to handling a lot of people trying to talk to you at once. 00:12:59.575 --> 00:13:04.315 And you will need to scale up your team to deal with that, but there are things 00:13:04.315 --> 00:13:06.445 that you can do to make it simpler. 00:13:06.525 --> 00:13:07.425 So yeah. 00:13:08.415 --> 00:13:09.735 Operational perspective. 00:13:09.765 --> 00:13:13.125 I guess this ties into everything that we've already talked about. 00:13:13.785 --> 00:13:16.875 As you're building out with just like a couple people you don't 00:13:16.875 --> 00:13:18.375 really think about process. 00:13:18.885 --> 00:13:21.075 It's just, it's responding. 00:13:21.345 --> 00:13:24.135 It's things happen and you react to them. 00:13:24.975 --> 00:13:30.585 But as you find people who like your product. 00:13:31.095 --> 00:13:34.815 And it starts to solidify somehow in some ways. 00:13:35.375 --> 00:13:40.235 You then get to a point where you're like, okay, we're doing this a lot. 00:13:40.655 --> 00:13:41.315 And. 00:13:41.815 --> 00:13:43.105 I can't do it anymore. 00:13:43.705 --> 00:13:46.855 I needed someone else to do it, but I'm the one who knows how to do it. 00:13:47.065 --> 00:13:47.455 And. 00:13:48.055 --> 00:13:53.425 From an engineering perspective, just because that's how I frame things a lot. 00:13:54.235 --> 00:13:58.555 We always think about like building systems and so writing 00:13:58.555 --> 00:14:00.595 scripts to automate things for us. 00:14:01.095 --> 00:14:03.575 In a human mode like. 00:14:04.115 --> 00:14:05.675 You can't do that. 00:14:06.175 --> 00:14:07.315 But you can. 00:14:07.915 --> 00:14:08.905 Document things. 00:14:08.905 --> 00:14:12.265 And you can tell people, Hey, this is where you need to look 00:14:12.295 --> 00:14:13.825 for all of the information to. 00:14:13.885 --> 00:14:15.625 Through the things that you need to do. 00:14:16.225 --> 00:14:20.245 And I think it's really important to start doing that early to say, 00:14:20.275 --> 00:14:21.895 yep, these are the processes. 00:14:21.995 --> 00:14:27.965 These are the ways in which we do things and the ways in which we provide our value 00:14:27.965 --> 00:14:32.195 to the world . And getting that done ASAP. 00:14:32.405 --> 00:14:36.455 As soon as you start seeing that you're repeating yourself over and over. 00:14:36.755 --> 00:14:40.445 And you start thinking, man, I wish someone else would do this. 00:14:40.945 --> 00:14:42.025 Start documenting it. 00:14:42.525 --> 00:14:45.975 I think also this ties back to what I was saying about design, 00:14:45.975 --> 00:14:50.535 but like making sure people have access to the data that they need. 00:14:50.925 --> 00:14:53.535 And don't have access to the data that they don't. 00:14:54.465 --> 00:14:57.525 Is a good thing to start thinking through ASAP. 00:14:58.335 --> 00:15:03.675 You want to make sure that you know, that someone that you hire who might 00:15:03.675 --> 00:15:05.985 turn out not to be a great person. 00:15:06.385 --> 00:15:09.895 Doesn't have access to things that they shouldn't have access to. 00:15:10.435 --> 00:15:13.705 On the flip side, you want that go getter. 00:15:13.735 --> 00:15:18.775 Who's just an amazing new hire who wants to help out and has great 00:15:18.775 --> 00:15:20.575 ideas about how to do X, Y, or Z. 00:15:20.635 --> 00:15:24.345 That, To have all of the things that they need to get that done. 00:15:24.415 --> 00:15:28.225 And sometimes it's not super obvious all of the things that they'll need. 00:15:28.745 --> 00:15:33.965 So just making sure you have, I mean, it could be as simple as like a shared drive 00:15:33.995 --> 00:15:36.335 in Google workspace, just being like, yep. 00:15:36.385 --> 00:15:39.535 This is where all of the marketing assets go. 00:15:39.845 --> 00:15:44.495 This is where we put all of our, I don't know, sales information. 00:15:45.185 --> 00:15:46.145 Stuff like that. 00:15:46.175 --> 00:15:50.075 Just making sure that they have access to that and they can use it 00:15:50.125 --> 00:15:52.405 without having to ask you for it. 00:15:52.735 --> 00:15:56.625 Because if they're having to ask someone then you're, everything's going to 00:15:56.625 --> 00:15:58.575 slow down and it's going to be a pain. 00:15:59.325 --> 00:16:02.325 And then there's tied into this like communication. 00:16:02.805 --> 00:16:07.455 I know so many people who think about this a lot, because it's painful. 00:16:07.455 --> 00:16:09.165 Like communication is so messy. 00:16:09.625 --> 00:16:10.855 Just generally. 00:16:11.215 --> 00:16:16.615 Because of the proliferation of 20,000 different ways to communicate. 00:16:16.885 --> 00:16:17.755 As a team. 00:16:18.245 --> 00:16:21.005 Or as a human being with other people, 00:16:21.075 --> 00:16:22.875 On your phone, on your computer. 00:16:23.505 --> 00:16:28.675 But yeah, just making sure that you have clear guidelines on how to 00:16:28.675 --> 00:16:33.025 communicate with other people when and where I think that's really key. 00:16:33.335 --> 00:16:35.525 That's the thing that sometimes I have trouble with. 00:16:36.065 --> 00:16:40.745 But I think it's really important as you grow a company, as you grow product. 00:16:41.055 --> 00:16:45.825 Making sure that people know who they can reach out to when, where, why. 00:16:46.305 --> 00:16:47.565 Yeah, I dunno. 00:16:48.345 --> 00:16:49.575 I feel like that's mostly it. 00:16:49.945 --> 00:16:51.775 I guess this was just sort of my thoughts. 00:16:51.775 --> 00:16:56.885 I was thinking about like a few different companies that we've worked with at EC. 00:16:57.325 --> 00:17:00.895 And a companies that I've worked with in the past and thinking 00:17:00.895 --> 00:17:02.665 about like those challenges. 00:17:03.025 --> 00:17:09.055 As you go from, you know, a couple of co-founders to 10 employees, 20 00:17:09.055 --> 00:17:14.875 employees, 30 employees, or you've got 10 users on your app and suddenly 00:17:14.875 --> 00:17:19.075 you've got a thousand users on your app or 10,000 users on your app. 00:17:19.435 --> 00:17:22.905 And you're just like, oh, I think I need to change things. 00:17:23.405 --> 00:17:25.745 I think I need to be ready for this. 00:17:26.405 --> 00:17:28.085 Cause it's happening fast. 00:17:29.055 --> 00:17:34.815 So yeah, just a couple of thoughts and hopefully they were helpful. 00:17:34.995 --> 00:17:36.675 So yeah. 00:17:37.135 --> 00:17:41.215 If you want to keep up with this stuff, make sure to like, and subscribe that's 00:17:41.215 --> 00:17:46.375 on the YouTube or in your podcast app, or I don't know, we've been posting some 00:17:46.375 --> 00:17:49.135 of this stuff on LinkedIn and elsewhere. 00:17:49.355 --> 00:17:52.085 If you have thoughts, if you want to, if you want to talk to me on 00:17:52.085 --> 00:17:53.975 the show, that would be awesome. 00:17:54.005 --> 00:17:58.595 Reach out I'm at raphael@ephemerecreative.ca. 00:17:59.015 --> 00:17:59.975 Shoot me an email. 00:18:00.005 --> 00:18:00.905 We can chat. 00:18:01.065 --> 00:18:02.445 We can do an episode together. 00:18:03.065 --> 00:18:05.165 And yeah, we all want to do some good in the world. 00:18:05.195 --> 00:18:07.325 So go out there and build something. 00:18:07.325 --> 00:18:08.405 Good friends. 00:18:08.975 --> 00:18:09.545 See ya.