July 4, 2023 • 19 mins
EPISODE SUMMARY
Product development is the backbone of software companies, so nurturing your dev team is paramount to success. Despite this, the knee-jerk response to product development usually measures the KPIs for an optimal go-to-market. However, the secret to productivity lies in numbers and developer experience.
In this week's episode of Scale Your SaaS, DevStats Founder, and DevSquad CEO Phil Alvez shares the ingredients for successful product development with Host and B2B SaaS Sales coach, Matt Wolach. He highlights the importance of culture and encourages minimalism in software development. Set your developers for success and enjoy the domino effect on your bottom line by watching the video!
PODCAST-AT-A-GLANCE
Podcast: Scale Your SaaS with Matt Wolach
Episode: Episode No. 271, "How to Make Sure Your Dev Team Productivity is Maximized - with Phil Alves"
Host: Matt Wolach, a B2B SaaS sales coach, Entrepreneur, and Investor
Guest: Phil Alves, Founder at DevStats and CEO at DevSquad
TOP TIPS FROM THIS EPISODE
- Focus on Good Developer Experience
- Make Culture the Bedrock of Your Company
- Talk to Customers to Understand the Problem
- Create Solutions that Target Pain Points
- Avoid Copying Bigger Companies
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- Smaller Companies Have Lesser Bureaucracy
- The Best Software Leaders are Expert Visionaries
- Software Creation will Become Niched
TOP QUOTES
Phil Alves
[7:55] "I want to make my firm like the Disney for software developers."
[13:20] "I'm not talking to my customers to understand the solution. I'm talking to my customer to understand the problem.
[14:17] "I don't believe we can build software by using democracy."
Matt Wolach
[12:22] "Once we found the culture that worked for us, it just became so strong within our organization. It was something that we could hire to, something we could train to, something that people just kind of felt, and it helped them become more passionate for the business and what the business was doing."
LEARN MORE
To learn more about DevStats, visit: https://www.devstats.com/
To learn more about DevSquad, visit:
You can also find Phil Alves on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philalves/en
For more about how host Matt Wolach helps software companies achieve maximum growth, visit https://mattwolach.com/
Get even more tips by following Matt elsewhere:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Wolach (00:10):
Understanding how to get your company moving
forward, especially from adevelopment perspective, from a
product perspective can be verydifficult, especially if you are
a non technical founder. How doyou measure your dev team? How
do you make sure they're doingthe right things? How do you
understand what needs to happen?
And when? And is it even goingthe right way? Are you on the
right path? Well, Phil out ofthis came in, and he shared all
(00:30):
of these things with you. So youcan understand how to make sure
that things are moving forwardthe right way, how to make sure
you're building a better productthan your competitors, and how
to make sure that your companymoves forward successfully. So
definitely check this out.
There's a lot of great stuff inhere. A lot of good tidbits of
wisdom he's got great experienceis really going to help you.
Intro/ Outro (00:50):
Welcome to Scale Your SaaS, the podcast that
gives you proven techniques andformulas for boosting your
revenue and achieving your dreamexit brought to you by a guy
who's done just that multipletimes. Here's your host, Matt
Wolach.
Matt Wolach (01:07):
Welcome to Scale Your SaaS. Really excited to
have you here. Thank you verymuch for coming. Thanks for
listening. I am Matt Wolach. Andmy goal is to help you scale
your SaaS we're gonna help yougrow your company through more
leads through knowing how toclose those leads and scaling
your team so you get an amazingexit. If you're not subscribed
yet, make sure you'resubscribed. Hit that button
right there. That way you'regonna hear about all the cool
(01:28):
tips that we have coming forwardin the next few weeks.
Definitely make sure you are asubscriber. We have some great
subscribers who are looking togrow their company. Make sure
you join them. And today is agreat episode. I'm really
excited for today learning aboutwhat we're going to learn from
Phil Alvis. Phil, welcome to theshow.
Phil Alves (01:43):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Matt Wolach (01:44):
Absolutely. I'm so glad to have you here. Let me
make sure everybody knows whoyou are, Phil. So Phil, he's the
founder at DevStats, and alsoDevSquad, he led the build of
over 100 SaaS products forbootstrap founders and VC funded
startups alike, leading multipleclients to multimillion dollar
exits along the way. Now, he hasDevStats, and I'm excited to
join him and learn all aboutwhat dev stats does, because it
(02:08):
gives you x ray vision into yourdevelopment team's performance.
So you can build our tighttimely, high value projects to
satisfied stakeholders. Onceagain, Phil, thanks for coming
on the show.
Phil Alves (02:17):
Yeah, no problem.
Great to be here.
Matt Wolach (02:19):
It's super great to have you. So tell me what's been
going on with you lately? Andwhat's coming up?
Phil Alves (02:23):
Yeah, so the weather is great here in Utah. So I just
am flying a lot. When I'm notrunning my business. I'm a pilot
just for fun. So I have that'swhat I have been doing lately,
on top of working on building mymy companies.
Matt Wolach (02:37):
That's awesome. I'm super jealous. I've always
wanted to be a pilot. And thisis two guests in a row who have
who have a private pilot'slicense. And so I think it's a
sign for me that I need to goout and get my pilot's license.
I've always been an aviationenthusiast, I think I need to do
it Sure. is fun. Good for you.
That's super cool. So tell mewhat gave you the idea to start
dev stats, how did that come tobe?
Phil Alves (02:58):
So for the longest time, I always have this goal of
building high performingdevelopment teams. And that's
what my consulting firm wasabout was about helping people
build their products and givethem a development team that's
actually high performing. Andthat can deliver a lot of value.
And so that's been a topic thatI always study, because I want
to make sure my team deliver themost. And I actually, there was
(03:21):
some research that was made byGoogle, Google is sponsored
research called data matrix. Andthen from there, a couple of
software's probably start to bebuilt to try to solve that
problem to help companiesmeasure what matters. So you're
using one software, and thesoftware was pretty good. And
they got sold in the companythat bought the software made it
pretty bad. And so I was like,forget it, I'm just gonna do my
(03:44):
own and have a lot of experiencein that field. So that's kind of
like how it started.
Matt Wolach (03:50):
That's so cool. I find that necessity is the
mother of invention all thetime. But that's really cool
that you did that. And when youget started on something like
that, was that you know, goingfrom doing development for
others to now doing it foryourself? Were there any changes
that you had to adjust to?
Phil Alves (04:04):
Yeah, for sure. Now, I have to think about the big
picture of the of the wholebusiness, right. And now I'm
kind of like in my own customershoes and tried to get the
product to market quicker. Sothere's definitely some
adjustment, but I had a SaaSproduct before that I sold, and
I had just been this space for along time. So even though it's
kind of different, I really likeit too, because my consulting
(04:26):
firm got big. And it was morelike in the vision and strategy
part. And this allowed me to goback to the doing because the
team would have squad is onlylike six people that do my
consulting firms. 100 plus, so asuper fun to go back to like the
zero to one stage and actuallyget my hands dirty.
Matt Wolach (04:46):
Yeah, that's very true at that stage. Let me ask
you, how did you find your firstinitial customers for DevOps?
That's how you know I know itwhen you go back to zero. It's
like okay, what do we do now?
What did you guys do in thoseearly days to convince people
that hey, this is a platform you
Phil Alves (04:59):
Yeah. So we did call call rich, just cold email to
should use?
the people that I believe couldcould benefit from the products
and the emails and tried to setdemos and, and try to get them
on board. And I think I reallyliked their strategy, because
then you also get to test theirmessaging, like, what is the
problem that people are tryingto solve what it's going to make
(05:20):
someone answer my email, becausethere's just so much
competition, and it's thecheapest way to try to get some
traction. Like, I think longterm, there's other strategies
that you can do it. But that'show I did it for my other
business, like I started withcode. And that's what I did
here, too. I start with code.
And then I was able to get somecustomers. And, of course, I
also had some customers from aconsulting firm, but I didn't
want to start there, becausethey're big public companies.
(05:41):
And I need the smaller, smallercompanies using this product at
the beginning.
Matt Wolach (05:47):
Yeah, that makes sense. How did you identify your
ICP your ideal customers? Howdid you realize that smaller
would be better for the product?
Or where did that come from?
Phil Alves (05:55):
Yeah, so what happens, the bigger the company
is, the more like regulationsthere is. So for example, we
didn't have a sock shoecertification. And that takes
six months to a year to get itexpensive. And it's expensive.
So I figure, I, if I go to theseteams that are like 15 to 50,
(06:16):
developers, they're going to bebig enough. They can they can
get beneficiate from thesoftware, but they're not going
to have so much bureaucracy. Sothat was just my guess, like I
was I had ahypothesis, and they test the
hypothesis. Especially afterlike, I start first, actually, I
went over the bigger guys, andthey go, this is awesome. We're
just talking to them like,great. Should I shouldn't know
(06:37):
better.
So yeah, so that's how I gottalike, we went first to the lower
market, which is lessbureaucracy, and I'm talking to
decision makers. I love that Iappreciate going after the
smaller market as well, myself.
Now, this wasn't your firstbusiness, you've had other
businesses. Did you feel likeyou've learned things in those
previous businesses that youwere able to apply to your
(06:59):
software company? Well, yeah,for sure. For sure. There's
there's a lot of learning aroundstrategy around positioning
around managing people managingexpectations, managing money. So
there's, there's a bunch oflearning, that's all translate
into this. Yeah, that makes aton of sense. I've seen that as
well. What would you say, peoplewho are running dev teams, what
(07:19):
are some of those key problemsthat they encounter? And what
are the best ways to overcomethem? So I think the biggest
problem when you're running adev team, is to like measure the
output of your team and makesure you get like a big impact
for your team. And how you fixthat. I believe it doesn't start
with buying a product like thatstats doesn't start with doing
(07:41):
the the like dev ops newestthings, you start thinking about
developer experience, what isthe experience our developers
have of your company? What's theculture, what I like to say, I
want to make my firm like theDisney for software developers.
So in once you start from thatfoundation, then it's when you
(08:02):
Okay, let's, let's go thinkabout other ways that it can
measure performance, then youcan look at things like Laura
metrics, but performance alone,if you don't, like associated
with OKRs, and we've businessimpact doesn't do anything. So
then you have to find a way totie all those together. So you
can protect your team and helpher to be more productive, and
(08:25):
be successful. But again, itstarts with that developer
experience. That's thefoundation that I believe anyone
or any development team shouldshould prioritize in the
experience, from, like themachines that they work from the
culture, from the technologiesthat we use from, like the
culture unquote, code, review,collaboration, the all those
(08:45):
things are important to createan amazing experience for the
development team. I think that'sawesome. And taking us that
experience for a developmentteam is is such a unique
perspective. I don't think a lotof people think of that. If
somebody starts a software, andthey're not technical. What are
some of the metrics that theyshould be looking at around
their development team? What,what what kind of things are
(09:06):
they able to get out of DEVstats that's going to help them
they can look at things likecycle time, which is the time
from when developers startedtasks to someone, the developer
finished the task. They can lookat data of how are the team
planning plan acuris. So like wesay, we did this how much of
what we say we do, we would do?
(09:26):
They can look at collaborationare the developers doing code
review, how deep is the codereviews, code review being
happen? The system also going tolet them know if someone is
likely to be overwork orburnout, like they're working
weekends, they're like getting alot or going on a was like too
much work in progress.
(09:47):
They just there's a lot of datapoints they're going to look at,
to make sure there's not burnoutfor those developers. So but at
the end of the day, that'sthat's the two that hopefully is
going to help even that nottangkoko
and communicate in a better waywith the developers. Because
sometimes when you're nottechnical, you don't know if
your developers are doing a goodjob or not. So like, you go back
(10:09):
to our performance metrics,which is your daughter metrics,
and you're like, Okay, this is abenchmark your team against this
industry standards, it was likea research, believe over 30,000
companies. So you look at thatbenchmark. And you say, how is
my team doing out those six ofthose benchmarks like how we
were planning, how much howmuch? How many bugs we have? How
(10:32):
fast are we moving throughthings, and then you can see
here teams are performing ornot. Now, just because your team
is doing super well, it doesn'tmean that they you're creating
things that do the impact, andthat's product management. But
those are two different things.
But like, if you can figure likethe engineering part, then you
can go back into Okay, let's getthe product management in the
right direction, too. So hopethat makes sense. It's a long
(10:52):
way to say that there's a lot of
Matt Wolach (10:55):
Yeah, no, no, it's great stuff. It definitely makes
sense to me. I want to ask, youknow, what are some of the
traits, you've worked with a lotof SaaS companies? What are the
traits that some of the bestsoftware companies have? And
some of the best softwareleaders have? that others don't?
Phil Alves (11:12):
Yeah, so I think specifically, let's talk about
the best software leaders, Ithink they really understand
their industry. And they're verygood at casting their vision of
where they're trying to do whatthey're trying to accomplish. So
I believe leaders have to bevisionaries, and they have to be
able to communicate their goalsin a very simplistic way. So
(11:35):
their team understand. Andthere's of course, from works,
they can use, like OKRs. Butgreat leaders, I believe they're
amazing, understand the industrythat they're trying to play
with. There are very goodcommunicating their vision. And
third, I think, great leadersprioritize culture, like, first
(11:57):
time intrapreneurs, they care alot, a lot of things by now,
usually culture, they're like,Okay, let's, let's move fast.
Let's do this. Let's domarketing by culture, like
people say, eats strategy forbreakfast. So it's the
foundation of everything. Youknow, I totally agree. I love
that feedback. And that thatsentiment, because culture is so
(12:19):
critical. And it took me a whileto learn that. You're absolutely
right. Once we found the culturethat worked for us, I mean, it
just became so strong within ourorganization, it was something
that we could hire to somethingwe could train to something that
people just kind of felt, and ithelped them become more
passionate for the business andwhat the business was doing. And
you could kind of see thatpeople felt connected with each
(12:41):
other. Right? Yeah, exactly. Andthat's why I say it is the
foundation before you buy tools,before you make a strategy. It
is just the foundation that youhave to build upon to build a
strong product and a strongcompany. Yeah, totally. And I
also love that you were sayingthat you've got to know your
customer. And that's somethingthat I try to teach my clients a
lot is you really have tounderstand them and get them and
(13:04):
really know what makes themtick. What do they care about?
What are they striving for? Whatkeeps them up at night? And part
of that is having thoseconversations and understanding
from them what they see. Andthen kind of applying that
across? Right? Yeah, and I get,I feel like when you're having
those conversations, though, amistake they see people do, I'm
not talking to my customers tounderstand the solution, I'm
talking to my customer tounderstand the problem, it's my
(13:26):
job to make this solution as afounder, you know, so it's my
job to call the shots to makethe beds to think about the
features or how I'm going tosolve a specific problem. So
that's why I believe there'salways the outliers. But the
people that understand theindustry, themselves have an
(13:46):
advantage, because I can hearfrom like, I can speak with 30
engineering managers or review,VP of engineers or CTO, and they
can get like their problems, andthey're going to have ideas for
solutions. But I cannot buildall those solutions. So it's
like, it's up to me tounderstand to digest the
information. And it's up to meto make the decision of what
(14:09):
we're going to build. I cannotoutsource that to my customers.
I cannot build a product by havea committee of people and we
vote like I don't believe we canbuild software by using
democracy.
We listen to everybody. And thenyou make the decision. Of
course, the more insights thatyou have, the better your
decision is going to be. Yeah, Iwould agree with that. It's very
(14:29):
tough to have a committee decideon exactly how to do it because
everybody makes concessions andit doesn't not it ends up not
being as good as it should be.
That's a that's a great point.
How do you see the tech industryevolving over the next five to
10 years or so and and how areyou positioning your company dev
stats to make sure that you'reready for that future? I see
softer development becomingeasier and easier. Especially
(14:52):
with this AI like there's toolslike GitHub co pilot that we're
using every day that's makingdevelopment a lot quicker
Oh, and there's, I think therewas many years where there was a
lot of money. People tend toover engineer and to
overcomplicate stuff. But nowthere's like people are going
back to simplicity to makethings simpler. So I see, in the
(15:15):
next five years softwaredevelopment becoming even easier
than what it is today, buildinga SaaS products 10 years ago was
a lot harder than it is today.
And I think five years from nowis going to be even easier than
it is right now. So how you'repreparing, I believe that status
is one of those tools that'smaking software development
easier, easy to understand, easyto communicate your development
teams. And I think it's going tobe more and more down to your
(15:37):
knowledge of our industry. Andnot just to like creating
something or writing somethingis getting easier and easier to
write products. It's are you anexpert? Do you understand
English very well, it's morelike the thinking is going to be
more and more and more importantto the thinking, because the
creating is going to be easierand easier. That's how I see it.
(15:59):
And I believe big companies likeSalesforce, that are very
horizontal are and for awaken,because when it makes super easy
to make software, we start tosee CRM for construction CRM for
financial advisors, CRM, Forex,CRM, Forex, so like, I always
start to see a lot of like,people really niching down
because they understand thatpiece of the market super well.
(16:21):
And they can build something forthat piece. And then it's big,
horizontal play becomes harder,because you don't have all the
knowledge. So that's kind oflike how I see I see.
A lot of companies going to bestarting to be successful,
because how easy it's going tobecome to build products. Yeah,
(16:41):
that's so true. And so if that'sthe case, if it becomes easier,
what can SAS founders do to makesure that they build strong
products that they kind of stayahead of their competition, it
goes back to they really have tounderstand their market and to
think about the pain point thatthey're solving, in, like really
everything they can to to solvetheir pain, pain point. That's,
(17:02):
that's what founders have todeal with. And also, I think
they have to stay focused, nottrying to go to any directions.
You know, so you stay focused,and you stay to where you're
doing a good job. And so I thinkwe should do mono, should.
Matt Wolach (17:18):
We all should?
Yeah.
Okay, so somebody's startingtheir company, they're setting
off on this journey. You've doneit, you've worked with others.
Phil, what advice do you havefor software leaders who are
starting out?
Phil Alves (17:31):
I would say, keep it simple. Don't look at big
companies are doing today andtry to copy them. That's a huge
mistake, that I see people doingokay, hey, Netflix, use this
thing called micro service.
Let's use it. But if you go lookat Netflix, they never use micro
service from day one. Actually,just recently, Amazon was like
AWS, like, hey, there are thispiece of our software like I
(17:54):
think is their video piece.
They'll use micro service weovercomplicated stuff in your
going back to the basics. We aregoing back to a monolithic
approach to build software. Ifeel like as a new SAS holder
have to be careful not toovercomplicate not over
engineer, and not to have hypesto like as you're choosing your
(18:14):
tech stack, you don't need thenewest thing because they keep
change. You need the thingsthat's the most stable, that's
gonna allow you to keep doingwell. And the thing that has
been doing well for the last fewyears. So those are like, few of
my volunteers for people thatare starting right now. I love
it. Those are great pointers.
For sure. This has been a lot offun. Phil, how can our audience
learn more about you and Devstats? Well, they have stats,
(18:34):
they can just go toDevstats.com. And about me, I
have my own site, it's fewhours.com philalves.com. From
there, you can sign up to mynewsletter. There's a link to my
podcast, SaaS or just stories.
So it's everything in there.
Matt Wolach (18:51):
Okay, perfect. And we'll put all that into the show
notes are in the description sothat if you're watching or
listening, you'll be able to getthat and see that Phil, this has
been a lot of fun. Thanks somuch for coming on the show and
sharing your wisdom go, noproblem. That was great. Thank
you. Yeah, absolutely. Andeverybody out there. Thank you
for joining us really appreciateyou being here. Please make sure
you subscribe. We've got somegreat interviews coming up some
great leaders like Phil who aregoing to come on and share their
(19:13):
expertise. So hit that subscribebutton. Also, we're looking for
reviews. If you feel like thisis something that's helpful for
you. Please leave us a review onthe podcast service that you're
using. That way that'll tell usthis is good and we can start
you know, keep going in the samedirection. And it helps other
people see it as well. So thankyou for being here. Take care.
We'll see you next time. Byebye.
Intro/ Outro (19:34):
Thanks for listening to Scale Your SaaS for
more help on finding great leadsand closing more deals. Go to
Mattwolach.com
Understanding how to get your company moving
forward, especially from adevelopment perspective, from a
product perspective can be verydifficult, especially if you are
a non technical founder. How doyou measure your dev team? How
do you make sure they're doingthe right things? How do you
understand what needs to happen?
And when? And is it even goingthe right way? Are you on the
right path? Well, Phil out ofthis came in, and he shared all
(00:30):
of these things with you. So youcan understand how to make sure
that things are moving forwardthe right way, how to make sure
you're building a better productthan your competitors, and how
to make sure that your companymoves forward successfully. So
definitely check this out.
There's a lot of great stuff inhere. A lot of good tidbits of
wisdom he's got great experienceis really going to help you.
Intro/ Outro (00:50):
Welcome to Scale Your SaaS, the podcast that
gives you proven techniques andformulas for boosting your
revenue and achieving your dreamexit brought to you by a guy
who's done just that multipletimes. Here's your host, Matt
Wolach.
Matt Wolach (01:07):
Welcome to Scale Your SaaS. Really excited to
have you here. Thank you verymuch for coming. Thanks for
listening. I am Matt Wolach. Andmy goal is to help you scale
your SaaS we're gonna help yougrow your company through more
leads through knowing how toclose those leads and scaling
your team so you get an amazingexit. If you're not subscribed
yet, make sure you'resubscribed. Hit that button
right there. That way you'regonna hear about all the cool
(01:28):
tips that we have coming forwardin the next few weeks.
Definitely make sure you are asubscriber. We have some great
subscribers who are looking togrow their company. Make sure
you join them. And today is agreat episode. I'm really
excited for today learning aboutwhat we're going to learn from
Phil Alvis. Phil, welcome to theshow.
Phil Alves (01:43):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Matt Wolach (01:44):
Absolutely. I'm so glad to have you here. Let me
make sure everybody knows whoyou are, Phil. So Phil, he's the
founder at DevStats, and alsoDevSquad, he led the build of
over 100 SaaS products forbootstrap founders and VC funded
startups alike, leading multipleclients to multimillion dollar
exits along the way. Now, he hasDevStats, and I'm excited to
join him and learn all aboutwhat dev stats does, because it
(02:08):
gives you x ray vision into yourdevelopment team's performance.
So you can build our tighttimely, high value projects to
satisfied stakeholders. Onceagain, Phil, thanks for coming
on the show.
Phil Alves (02:17):
Yeah, no problem.
Great to be here.
Matt Wolach (02:19):
It's super great to have you. So tell me what's been
going on with you lately? Andwhat's coming up?
Phil Alves (02:23):
Yeah, so the weather is great here in Utah. So I just
am flying a lot. When I'm notrunning my business. I'm a pilot
just for fun. So I have that'swhat I have been doing lately,
on top of working on building mymy companies.
Matt Wolach (02:37):
That's awesome. I'm super jealous. I've always
wanted to be a pilot. And thisis two guests in a row who have
who have a private pilot'slicense. And so I think it's a
sign for me that I need to goout and get my pilot's license.
I've always been an aviationenthusiast, I think I need to do
it Sure. is fun. Good for you.
That's super cool. So tell mewhat gave you the idea to start
dev stats, how did that come tobe?
Phil Alves (02:58):
So for the longest time, I always have this goal of
building high performingdevelopment teams. And that's
what my consulting firm wasabout was about helping people
build their products and givethem a development team that's
actually high performing. Andthat can deliver a lot of value.
And so that's been a topic thatI always study, because I want
to make sure my team deliver themost. And I actually, there was
(03:21):
some research that was made byGoogle, Google is sponsored
research called data matrix. Andthen from there, a couple of
software's probably start to bebuilt to try to solve that
problem to help companiesmeasure what matters. So you're
using one software, and thesoftware was pretty good. And
they got sold in the companythat bought the software made it
pretty bad. And so I was like,forget it, I'm just gonna do my
(03:44):
own and have a lot of experiencein that field. So that's kind of
like how it started.
Matt Wolach (03:50):
That's so cool. I find that necessity is the
mother of invention all thetime. But that's really cool
that you did that. And when youget started on something like
that, was that you know, goingfrom doing development for
others to now doing it foryourself? Were there any changes
that you had to adjust to?
Phil Alves (04:04):
Yeah, for sure. Now, I have to think about the big
picture of the of the wholebusiness, right. And now I'm
kind of like in my own customershoes and tried to get the
product to market quicker. Sothere's definitely some
adjustment, but I had a SaaSproduct before that I sold, and
I had just been this space for along time. So even though it's
kind of different, I really likeit too, because my consulting
(04:26):
firm got big. And it was morelike in the vision and strategy
part. And this allowed me to goback to the doing because the
team would have squad is onlylike six people that do my
consulting firms. 100 plus, so asuper fun to go back to like the
zero to one stage and actuallyget my hands dirty.
Matt Wolach (04:46):
Yeah, that's very true at that stage. Let me ask
you, how did you find your firstinitial customers for DevOps?
That's how you know I know itwhen you go back to zero. It's
like okay, what do we do now?
What did you guys do in thoseearly days to convince people
that hey, this is a platform you
Phil Alves (04:59):
Yeah. So we did call call rich, just cold email to
should use?
the people that I believe couldcould benefit from the products
and the emails and tried to setdemos and, and try to get them
on board. And I think I reallyliked their strategy, because
then you also get to test theirmessaging, like, what is the
problem that people are tryingto solve what it's going to make
(05:20):
someone answer my email, becausethere's just so much
competition, and it's thecheapest way to try to get some
traction. Like, I think longterm, there's other strategies
that you can do it. But that'show I did it for my other
business, like I started withcode. And that's what I did
here, too. I start with code.
And then I was able to get somecustomers. And, of course, I
also had some customers from aconsulting firm, but I didn't
want to start there, becausethey're big public companies.
(05:41):
And I need the smaller, smallercompanies using this product at
the beginning.
Matt Wolach (05:47):
Yeah, that makes sense. How did you identify your
ICP your ideal customers? Howdid you realize that smaller
would be better for the product?
Or where did that come from?
Phil Alves (05:55):
Yeah, so what happens, the bigger the company
is, the more like regulationsthere is. So for example, we
didn't have a sock shoecertification. And that takes
six months to a year to get itexpensive. And it's expensive.
So I figure, I, if I go to theseteams that are like 15 to 50,
(06:16):
developers, they're going to bebig enough. They can they can
get beneficiate from thesoftware, but they're not going
to have so much bureaucracy. Sothat was just my guess, like I
was I had ahypothesis, and they test the
hypothesis. Especially afterlike, I start first, actually, I
went over the bigger guys, andthey go, this is awesome. We're
just talking to them like,great. Should I shouldn't know
(06:37):
better.
So yeah, so that's how I gottalike, we went first to the lower
market, which is lessbureaucracy, and I'm talking to
decision makers. I love that Iappreciate going after the
smaller market as well, myself.
Now, this wasn't your firstbusiness, you've had other
businesses. Did you feel likeyou've learned things in those
previous businesses that youwere able to apply to your
(06:59):
software company? Well, yeah,for sure. For sure. There's
there's a lot of learning aroundstrategy around positioning
around managing people managingexpectations, managing money. So
there's, there's a bunch oflearning, that's all translate
into this. Yeah, that makes aton of sense. I've seen that as
well. What would you say, peoplewho are running dev teams, what
(07:19):
are some of those key problemsthat they encounter? And what
are the best ways to overcomethem? So I think the biggest
problem when you're running adev team, is to like measure the
output of your team and makesure you get like a big impact
for your team. And how you fixthat. I believe it doesn't start
with buying a product like thatstats doesn't start with doing
(07:41):
the the like dev ops newestthings, you start thinking about
developer experience, what isthe experience our developers
have of your company? What's theculture, what I like to say, I
want to make my firm like theDisney for software developers.
So in once you start from thatfoundation, then it's when you
(08:02):
Okay, let's, let's go thinkabout other ways that it can
measure performance, then youcan look at things like Laura
metrics, but performance alone,if you don't, like associated
with OKRs, and we've businessimpact doesn't do anything. So
then you have to find a way totie all those together. So you
can protect your team and helpher to be more productive, and
(08:25):
be successful. But again, itstarts with that developer
experience. That's thefoundation that I believe anyone
or any development team shouldshould prioritize in the
experience, from, like themachines that they work from the
culture, from the technologiesthat we use from, like the
culture unquote, code, review,collaboration, the all those
(08:45):
things are important to createan amazing experience for the
development team. I think that'sawesome. And taking us that
experience for a developmentteam is is such a unique
perspective. I don't think a lotof people think of that. If
somebody starts a software, andthey're not technical. What are
some of the metrics that theyshould be looking at around
their development team? What,what what kind of things are
(09:06):
they able to get out of DEVstats that's going to help them
they can look at things likecycle time, which is the time
from when developers startedtasks to someone, the developer
finished the task. They can lookat data of how are the team
planning plan acuris. So like wesay, we did this how much of
what we say we do, we would do?
(09:26):
They can look at collaborationare the developers doing code
review, how deep is the codereviews, code review being
happen? The system also going tolet them know if someone is
likely to be overwork orburnout, like they're working
weekends, they're like getting alot or going on a was like too
much work in progress.
(09:47):
They just there's a lot of datapoints they're going to look at,
to make sure there's not burnoutfor those developers. So but at
the end of the day, that'sthat's the two that hopefully is
going to help even that nottangkoko
and communicate in a better waywith the developers. Because
sometimes when you're nottechnical, you don't know if
your developers are doing a goodjob or not. So like, you go back
(10:09):
to our performance metrics,which is your daughter metrics,
and you're like, Okay, this is abenchmark your team against this
industry standards, it was likea research, believe over 30,000
companies. So you look at thatbenchmark. And you say, how is
my team doing out those six ofthose benchmarks like how we
were planning, how much howmuch? How many bugs we have? How
(10:32):
fast are we moving throughthings, and then you can see
here teams are performing ornot. Now, just because your team
is doing super well, it doesn'tmean that they you're creating
things that do the impact, andthat's product management. But
those are two different things.
But like, if you can figure likethe engineering part, then you
can go back into Okay, let's getthe product management in the
right direction, too. So hopethat makes sense. It's a long
(10:52):
way to say that there's a lot of
Matt Wolach (10:55):
Yeah, no, no, it's great stuff. It definitely makes
sense to me. I want to ask, youknow, what are some of the
traits, you've worked with a lotof SaaS companies? What are the
traits that some of the bestsoftware companies have? And
some of the best softwareleaders have? that others don't?
Phil Alves (11:12):
Yeah, so I think specifically, let's talk about
the best software leaders, Ithink they really understand
their industry. And they're verygood at casting their vision of
where they're trying to do whatthey're trying to accomplish. So
I believe leaders have to bevisionaries, and they have to be
able to communicate their goalsin a very simplistic way. So
(11:35):
their team understand. Andthere's of course, from works,
they can use, like OKRs. Butgreat leaders, I believe they're
amazing, understand the industrythat they're trying to play
with. There are very goodcommunicating their vision. And
third, I think, great leadersprioritize culture, like, first
(11:57):
time intrapreneurs, they care alot, a lot of things by now,
usually culture, they're like,Okay, let's, let's move fast.
Let's do this. Let's domarketing by culture, like
people say, eats strategy forbreakfast. So it's the
foundation of everything. Youknow, I totally agree. I love
that feedback. And that thatsentiment, because culture is so
(12:19):
critical. And it took me a whileto learn that. You're absolutely
right. Once we found the culturethat worked for us, I mean, it
just became so strong within ourorganization, it was something
that we could hire to somethingwe could train to something that
people just kind of felt, and ithelped them become more
passionate for the business andwhat the business was doing. And
you could kind of see thatpeople felt connected with each
(12:41):
other. Right? Yeah, exactly. Andthat's why I say it is the
foundation before you buy tools,before you make a strategy. It
is just the foundation that youhave to build upon to build a
strong product and a strongcompany. Yeah, totally. And I
also love that you were sayingthat you've got to know your
customer. And that's somethingthat I try to teach my clients a
lot is you really have tounderstand them and get them and
(13:04):
really know what makes themtick. What do they care about?
What are they striving for? Whatkeeps them up at night? And part
of that is having thoseconversations and understanding
from them what they see. Andthen kind of applying that
across? Right? Yeah, and I get,I feel like when you're having
those conversations, though, amistake they see people do, I'm
not talking to my customers tounderstand the solution, I'm
talking to my customer tounderstand the problem, it's my
(13:26):
job to make this solution as afounder, you know, so it's my
job to call the shots to makethe beds to think about the
features or how I'm going tosolve a specific problem. So
that's why I believe there'salways the outliers. But the
people that understand theindustry, themselves have an
(13:46):
advantage, because I can hearfrom like, I can speak with 30
engineering managers or review,VP of engineers or CTO, and they
can get like their problems, andthey're going to have ideas for
solutions. But I cannot buildall those solutions. So it's
like, it's up to me tounderstand to digest the
information. And it's up to meto make the decision of what
(14:09):
we're going to build. I cannotoutsource that to my customers.
I cannot build a product by havea committee of people and we
vote like I don't believe we canbuild software by using
democracy.
We listen to everybody. And thenyou make the decision. Of
course, the more insights thatyou have, the better your
decision is going to be. Yeah, Iwould agree with that. It's very
(14:29):
tough to have a committee decideon exactly how to do it because
everybody makes concessions andit doesn't not it ends up not
being as good as it should be.
That's a that's a great point.
How do you see the tech industryevolving over the next five to
10 years or so and and how areyou positioning your company dev
stats to make sure that you'reready for that future? I see
softer development becomingeasier and easier. Especially
(14:52):
with this AI like there's toolslike GitHub co pilot that we're
using every day that's makingdevelopment a lot quicker
Oh, and there's, I think therewas many years where there was a
lot of money. People tend toover engineer and to
overcomplicate stuff. But nowthere's like people are going
back to simplicity to makethings simpler. So I see, in the
(15:15):
next five years softwaredevelopment becoming even easier
than what it is today, buildinga SaaS products 10 years ago was
a lot harder than it is today.
And I think five years from nowis going to be even easier than
it is right now. So how you'repreparing, I believe that status
is one of those tools that'smaking software development
easier, easy to understand, easyto communicate your development
teams. And I think it's going tobe more and more down to your
(15:37):
knowledge of our industry. Andnot just to like creating
something or writing somethingis getting easier and easier to
write products. It's are you anexpert? Do you understand
English very well, it's morelike the thinking is going to be
more and more and more importantto the thinking, because the
creating is going to be easierand easier. That's how I see it.
(15:59):
And I believe big companies likeSalesforce, that are very
horizontal are and for awaken,because when it makes super easy
to make software, we start tosee CRM for construction CRM for
financial advisors, CRM, Forex,CRM, Forex, so like, I always
start to see a lot of like,people really niching down
because they understand thatpiece of the market super well.
(16:21):
And they can build something forthat piece. And then it's big,
horizontal play becomes harder,because you don't have all the
knowledge. So that's kind oflike how I see I see.
A lot of companies going to bestarting to be successful,
because how easy it's going tobecome to build products. Yeah,
(16:41):
that's so true. And so if that'sthe case, if it becomes easier,
what can SAS founders do to makesure that they build strong
products that they kind of stayahead of their competition, it
goes back to they really have tounderstand their market and to
think about the pain point thatthey're solving, in, like really
everything they can to to solvetheir pain, pain point. That's,
(17:02):
that's what founders have todeal with. And also, I think
they have to stay focused, nottrying to go to any directions.
You know, so you stay focused,and you stay to where you're
doing a good job. And so I thinkwe should do mono, should.
Matt Wolach (17:18):
We all should?
Yeah.
Okay, so somebody's startingtheir company, they're setting
off on this journey. You've doneit, you've worked with others.
Phil, what advice do you havefor software leaders who are
starting out?
Phil Alves (17:31):
I would say, keep it simple. Don't look at big
companies are doing today andtry to copy them. That's a huge
mistake, that I see people doingokay, hey, Netflix, use this
thing called micro service.
Let's use it. But if you go lookat Netflix, they never use micro
service from day one. Actually,just recently, Amazon was like
AWS, like, hey, there are thispiece of our software like I
(17:54):
think is their video piece.
They'll use micro service weovercomplicated stuff in your
going back to the basics. We aregoing back to a monolithic
approach to build software. Ifeel like as a new SAS holder
have to be careful not toovercomplicate not over
engineer, and not to have hypesto like as you're choosing your
(18:14):
tech stack, you don't need thenewest thing because they keep
change. You need the thingsthat's the most stable, that's
gonna allow you to keep doingwell. And the thing that has
been doing well for the last fewyears. So those are like, few of
my volunteers for people thatare starting right now. I love
it. Those are great pointers.
For sure. This has been a lot offun. Phil, how can our audience
learn more about you and Devstats? Well, they have stats,
(18:34):
they can just go toDevstats.com. And about me, I
have my own site, it's fewhours.com philalves.com. From
there, you can sign up to mynewsletter. There's a link to my
podcast, SaaS or just stories.
So it's everything in there.
Matt Wolach (18:51):
Okay, perfect. And we'll put all that into the show
notes are in the description sothat if you're watching or
listening, you'll be able to getthat and see that Phil, this has
been a lot of fun. Thanks somuch for coming on the show and
sharing your wisdom go, noproblem. That was great. Thank
you. Yeah, absolutely. Andeverybody out there. Thank you
for joining us really appreciateyou being here. Please make sure
you subscribe. We've got somegreat interviews coming up some
great leaders like Phil who aregoing to come on and share their
(19:13):
expertise. So hit that subscribebutton. Also, we're looking for
reviews. If you feel like thisis something that's helpful for
you. Please leave us a review onthe podcast service that you're
using. That way that'll tell usthis is good and we can start
you know, keep going in the samedirection. And it helps other
people see it as well. So thankyou for being here. Take care.
We'll see you next time. Byebye.
Intro/ Outro (19:34):
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