yegor256 podcast

When a microtask arrives to you, very often you may need some additional information, which is not specified in the task description. Your first intent would be to go and find that information, even if it's not available. This would be a mistake. You should not spend your time, which is a valuable project resource, on something the management hasn't approved yet. You should create a new ticket/task and ask for additional information. It will be provided and you will be able to continue your main task. The video is here: https://youtu.be/XYXNOOH8q3M

Most managers and business owners believe that programmers are interested in their ideas, in their business, in their vision. They expect programmers to work because they share a global vision. In reality, it doesn't work that way. Programmers work for their own profit and care about their own personal results. If the business fails to align its objects with personal objectives of its programmers, it will get enemies, not friends. The video is here: https://youtu.be/TvvSQq_c4X8

The business model of Zerocracy by definition requires a pretty big amount of venture capital in order to connect many programmers with many customers and make them attractive to each other. In order to attract VC money, we have to demonstrate them the traction on the market. Zold is going to help us achieve exactly that, by collecting micro-investments from you and showing bigger money people that the market is interested in us. Help us make Zerocracy bigger, invest in Zold! The video is here: https://youtu.be/sbONYCd5iUI

Microtasking is a great method of managing programmers, but it's very difficult or almost impossible to switch to this new model of work from traditional full-time management. There is a list of five simple steps I would recommend you making with your team if you want to get yourself ready for microtasking in a few months or a few years. First, make sure the use GitHub. Second, make them report their weekly results in a list of completed tasks. Third, make sure their code gets into the repository via pull requests and only after code reviews. Fourth, invite external reviewers and let them submit their ideas only through tickets. Fifth, let them work remotely, from home. The video is here: https://youtu.be/0mOn9MvuMzU

What do you do as a customer, when you realize the your architect is totally wrong and the architecture is flawed and you have to start from scratch? Most likely, you got aware of that from one of your friends of the experts you invited to the project. What's next? Replace the architect? Start from scratch? Or continue working with the existing team? My recommendation: never start from scratch. The video is here: https://youtu.be/RWV6f90eHek

How much would it cost to create a Twitter clone? You won't believe how often I hear this or similar questions. There is no such thing as a realistic estimate of a software price if we are talking about a more or less big product. It starts with a few thousand dollars and ends with a few billion if the product becomes successful on the market. Those who tell you that to develop your app would cost, say, $100,000 are just trying to fool you or they don't understand what they are talking about. The video is here: https://youtu.be/j5uXrY2gttA

A team of freelancers working in a microtasking mode is not focused on your business objectives, by definition. They are doing what they are willing to do, randomly covering the entire scope of the product's functionality. This is why so many customers get frustrated when they experience this for the first time. In order to avoid this frustration, you should do something, to align technical goals with your business objectives and focus the team on tickets, which are important. The video is here: https://youtu.be/w3HwEtFU2wo

Very often customers of Zerocracy ask me whether we can find them some good UI/UX designers, who will make sure their application looks great and can work together with programmers. We can't do that because UI people are too artistic and their work has no explicit borders. It's better to find them somewhere else, make sure they are managed and disciplined somehow differently and let programmers integrate their code with their creativity, somehow. How exactly you do that, depends on many technical factors. The video is here: https://youtu.be/dzepTbcQkgU

Why do startups fail? Conflicts between investors and founders, marketing issues, lack of customer development, not enough money, etc. I believe that all those issues are secondary. The primary cause of problems is the inability to manage programmers right and make sure they deliver what they promise to deliver. Everything else happens as a consequence of the technical incompetence of the software team. The video is here: https://youtu.be/AwN4emJT0n4

Very often our customers in Zerocracy expect software architects to be very knowledgeable in the tech stack they are going to use in their projects. Even though it doesn't hurt, but this is not what software architects are for. An architect is not going to be the knowledge provider in the project, instead, he or she has to know where to find the right experts, how to engage them, how to motivate them, and how to deal with the information flow they provide and programmers work with. Soft skill is what differ an architect from a regular programmer. The full video is here: https://youtu.be/_XPonwxsXGI