Scaling from new start to enterprise platform  

Ali Khajeh-Hosseini

@AliKhajeh

Oct 2014, Product Tank Edinburgh

®

®

I’m here to talk about…

a few things I learned going from a 2-person startup to working in a 150-person startup

What’s a startup? A startup is a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Steve Blank

As you scale…

What do we do? We let you deploy your software on whatever cloud you want, then give you tools to manage, monitor and scale it. Our products: Cloud Management, Self-Service, Cloud Analytics

Cloud Analytics

Forecast costs based on switching clouds or

increased growth

Who buys our products?

Enterprises like Sony, EA Games, PBS,

Pearson Publishing, Zynga…

Jan 2009: Started researching cloud cost forecasting in St Andrews

Dec ‘11: With Hassan, we launched PlanForCloud

Jul ‘12: Acquired by RightScale

Nov ‘13: Launched Private-Beta of Cloud Analytics

Mar ‘14: Cloud Analytics goes into Public-Beta

Oct ‘14: Cloud Analytics is Generally Available

Our story so far…

Academic origins

Khajeh-Hosseini A, Greenwood D, Smith J W, Sommerville I. 2012. The Cloud Adoption Toolkit: Supporting Cloud Adoption Decisions in the Enterprise. Software: Practice and Experience Khajeh-Hosseini A, Sommerville I, Bogaerts J, Teregowda P. 2011. Decision Support Tools for Cloud Migration in the Enterprise. IEEE 4th Int. Conf. on Cloud Computing (CLOUD 2011)

Khajeh-Hosseini A, Greenwood D, Sommerville I. 2010. Cloud Migration: A Case Study of Migrating an Enterprise IT System to IaaS. IEEE 3rd Int. Conf. on Cloud Computing (CLOUD 2010) Khajeh-Hosseini A, Sommerville I, Sriram I. 2010. Research Challenges for Enterprise Cloud Computing. LSCITS Technical Report

Sriram I, Khajeh-Hosseini A. 2010. Research Agenda in Cloud Technologies. LSCITS Technical Report Smith J W, Khajeh-Hosseini A, Ward J S, Sommerville I. 2012. CloudMonitor: Profiling Power Usage. IEEE 5th Int. Conf. on Cloud Computing (CLOUD 2012)

Rooksby J, Khajeh-Hosseini A. 2012. Diagnostic Work in Cloud Computing. ACM Conf. on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2012)

1. Install… Eclipse 3.5 Modelling bundle, Python 2.6, PyDev, Libxml2-python-2.7.4, Libxslt-1.1.26, matplotlib-0.99.1, networkx-1.0.1, numpy-1.3.0-superpack, cost modelling tool.

2. Spend 5mins configuring Eclipse… From the Eclipse Pydev Package Explorer, right click on companyX > New > Other > UML 2.1 Diagrams >

Deployment Diagram. Each deployment diagram will have two files: a .uml file that contains the model, and a .umldepl file that contains presentation information. Open the model’s .umldepl file using Eclipse’s Deployment Diagram Editor, right click on the screen anywhere on the model and select Load resource > Browse workspace > then open the profile/Deployment.umlprofile file. Right click on the Palette window in Eclipse…

Usability of research tools

Academia to startup Ditched all the prototypes Started a new Rails app Simplified it a lot

Business plan The YCombinator application form is a good way to think about your startup https://apply.ycombinator.com

The acquisition We predicted it in our YC application form by listing 5 companies that might acquire us early Why did we go ahead with it? 1.  The potential of what we could do together with RightScale

was much bigger than what we could do our-self 2.  There was a great product fit between PlanForCloud and

RightScale 3.  There was a lot of trust between the two companies

Starting up

We both did a bit of everything, one focused on building it, one focused on getting users.

2 people Use money to buy time so you can focus on users & the product Tools: GitHub, Heroku, MonsterTemplates, 99designs

Keep it simple

Google docs does the job

Growing to 4 people Look for people who complement your skill-sets,

not someone like you! full-stack eng + designer.

It’s difficult to hire first few people. Go to every

meetup/conference with your company tshirt,

give talks, write blogs etc.

You might find 10 people that say

they’ll apply but only 4 will,

and there “won’t be a match” for 3…

Be super-selective

Do technical interviews (i.e. coding or a

task) and non-technical interviews.

You’re building the core team so look for

experience, passion and quick learners.

If it doesn’t work out, act quickly as an

empty seat is better than a seat filled

with the wrong person.

I spent more time on pairing, reviewing stuff,

and hiring.

Hassan spent more time with users and

thinking ahead.

New tools: whiteboard, web-based scrum tool

Our roles changed slightly

6 people Our role changed from

describing what we should do next to

explaining the problem and

setting the context

and letting the team come-up with solutions

Focus on keeping it fun, spend money on food, events, office toys.

New tools: started using wiki, continuous integration

10 people Two teams with overlaps, but different focuses

Product-to-production workflow

Weekly backlog grooming meetings

Weekly front/back-end meetings

Product roadmap meetings

Team retrospectives

TechTalks

End of sprint demos

A lot of new tools

Our roadmap Roadmap vision features: features that we’re looking at building, but have not yet been

designed in a wiki.

Product iTimes: features that have been worked on by anyone during their Friday afternoon

iTime projects.

In Design: features that have been designed in the wiki, but have not yet been implemented.

In Development: features that are currently in development or are being tested, and will be

released soon.

Live for RightScale employees: feature is visible to employees.

Live for private-beta users: features is visible for private-beta or selected users.

Live for all users: shipped!

Cool stuff coming out of iTime

We build prototypes and let

users try them using their live data!

150 people ~100 people in engineering & product

~50 people in sales, marketing, services, finance

PMs spend a lot of time communicating with Sales & Marketing

Setup of teams is reflected in our products

PMs & architects are key to integration across products

Give people freedom to experiment, Friday afternoon is iTime

Strive for transparency, and trust people to execute

Communicate the context; give people problems to solve, not

solutions to implement

Manage your managers

Empower people to change things

What’s important?

Lead the way

Edinburgh, Santa Barbara and remote…

RightScale Employee Meetup (a week of fun in California)

Dev tools

Invest in good tools

Invest in design

eng.rightscale.com

Invest in open source

Invest in automation Meet Leeroy: our bot

Our quotes page

Remember that as you scale…

Inspired: how to create products customers love: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Inspired-Create-Products-Customers-Love/dp/0981690408

Engineering Management: http://algeri-wong.com/yishan/engineering-management.html

The Leadership Challenge: http://www.leaderpresence.com/resources/The%20Leadership%20Challenge.pdf

Netflix Culture: http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664

How Google Works: http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Google-Works-Eric-Schmidt/dp/1455582344

Some articles that have influenced my thinking