Nurture a business mindset

It’s business first, technology second.

That’s a different mindset from the one I started with. I was on the execution side. Write code and deliver tickets.

I wanted elegant technical solutions—new frameworks, technologies, microservices, and automated deployments. To be on the bleeding edge. SSDs for my database. Kubernetes…

But the deeper I went into technical leadership, the less relevant the tech became.

Here is the punch to the face. No one cares how beautiful the tech is if it doesn’t solve the right problem for the right person.

🤯

And then you still need to market it and sell it.

The thing is, if you start from the tech up and then try to find a use case, you’re going the wrong way.

I had to learn this the hard way.

Now, I believe in this:

• Find the right problem to solve.
• Find a way to market it to the people who have it.
• Build a solution for that problem and get it to the users.

And tighten all the feedback loops.

Quick iterations, fast feedback, adjust, retry.

You can only do that if you also know the business you are in.

Only then can you make informed tech decisions and build something that’s technically elegant when the time is right.

From my experience, that time is likely far past the point where you’ve got paying customers.

Best regards from Berlin,

Taj