September 29, 2023 • 52 mins
Welcome to another episode of Software Quality Today! On today’s show, Dori welcomes Natalie Kaminski.
Amongst other things, they chat about Natalie’s path from QA Tester to CEO of a technology company, and how her background in QA shaped her approach to launching and running a software development company.
With more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry, Natalie is a dynamic and resourceful web and mobile technology entrepreneur. She is the CEO and founder of JetRockets, a custom software, web and mobile application development company.
She is also the co-founder of OneTribe, an HR management platform for hybrid and remote teams. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.
Follow Natalie on LinkedIn here and reach out to let her know you listened!
*Disclaimer: Podcast guest participated in the podcast as an individual subject matter expert and contributor. The views and opinions they share are not necessarily shared by their employer. Nor should any reference to specific products or services be interpreted as commercial endorsements by their current employer.
This is a production of ProcellaRX
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dori Gonzalez-Aceved (00:10):
podcasting from Alexandria, Virginia, just
a few miles from Washington DC,where we all hope doing what is
right the first time iseveryone's top priority. This is
software quality today presentedby Purcell RX, a podcast about
the trends and challenges ofsoftware quality testing and
computerized system validation.
And the people who are leadingthe way. Here interviews with
special guests and news fromcustomers and vendors. I'm your
(00:31):
host Dori Gonzalez Acevedo andwelcome to today's episode.
Jason Secola (00:38):
Thanks for joining us for a new episode of software
quality today. On today's show,Dory welcomes Natalie Kaminski.
And amongst other things, theychat about Natalie's path from
QA tester to CEO of a technologycompany and how her background
and QA shaped her approach tolaunching and running a software
development company. With morethan 20 years of experience in
the technology industry. Natalieis a dynamic and resourceful web
(01:00):
and mobile technologyentrepreneur. And she is the CEO
and founder of jet rockets, acustom software web and mobile
application development company.
She's also the co founder of onetribe and HR management platform
for hybrid and remote teams. Shecurrently lives in Brooklyn with
her husband and two daughters.
And now let's go ahead and jumpinto the show.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (01:20):
All right, well, welcome Natalie to
software quality today, it's sogood to see you. Good to see you
and be here. Thank you. Thanksfor joining us. So um, as we you
know, described in the bumper,or you are the co founder and
CEO of jet rockets. And Natalieis also a member of chief and so
(01:40):
I'm really excited to have youhere today. I'd love to hear a
little bit about your journeyand how you came to running your
own software development firm.
Natalie Kaminski (01:50):
Yes, well, thank you. It's a bit of a long
journey. So society now take youthrough it. I joined the tech,
I've kind of fell into the techindustry back in 1998. It was
part time because you know, wewere on the precipice of the end
of the world.
(02:10):
If you remember, that's right.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (02:11):
Yeah.
That was when I started mycareer too. So that's
interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie Kaminski (02:15):
And then, you know, it was so easy to get into
tech. All you had to do was, youknow, just apply for a job and
claim you knew how to dosomething within tech, and you
have a job, right? So I was arecent high school graduate, I
just moved from Israel to theUnited States. I ended up in
(02:36):
Minneapolis of all places. And Iwas desperate for a job that
would pay me whatever minimumwage it was at that time, you
know, and I was I met somepeople kind of closer to my age,
and everyone was working withinthe IT, and they said, Okay,
that sounds like it's a goodplace for me to go to. So let's
(02:57):
let me try that and, and I, atfirst, I got a job as a
programmer. And that was, youknow, we can bypass that story.
But for about six months, I wasrewriting a database table from
dealing with two digits todealing with four digits. Now.
At the end of that experience, Ilearned two things about myself.
(03:18):
I was not a programmer. Goodinformation. Yes. But I really
got excited about tech. And Iwas like, Oh, my God, you know,
you can use this amazing tools,you can write software that
really solves real businessissues, life issues can really
make your life easier. And so Iwanted to learn more. And
Unknown (03:40):
I,
Natalie Kaminski (03:41):
you know, came across this opportunity to try
myself out as a QA, qualityassurance tester. And I jumped
on it. And I was fascinated withthe field. You know, too many?
Back then it sounded like, Oh,you were just not good enough of
a programmer. That's why youwent into testing. Yeah, but
many
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (04:00):
people say that that's intriguing to
them to start,
Natalie Kaminski (04:04):
like, but the truth of the matter, I was
fascinated by the nuance, thedetails, the level of, you know,
attention that you have to payin order to do your job well.
And so I joined a small companyout in Minneapolis at that time,
it was called SWAT solutions,which stood for software
(04:26):
automation testing solution. AndI was really, you know, I was I
was really fortunate because theowner of the company, Steve
Timmerman, thank you, Steve.
Took really took a chance on meand He gave me this job, and he
put me to work and to learn theskill really, to learn and he
taught me very well, you know, Ijoined a project working for a
(04:46):
company called guidancecorporations, which they did
pacemakers, you know, they madepacemakers and other I guess
device says for healthcaredevices, and I had to pass this
very incredibly important pieceof software. So to me, being
part of the team, really knowingthat I was contributing to a
(05:10):
very important piece of, youknow, this product, and I had to
do my job super well, because Imean, life's, we're literally
I'm aligned.
Unknown (05:21):
I was, you know, I
Natalie Kaminski (05:23):
was super happy. And so fast forward, you
know, I spent three to fouryears growing into the software
development role. And I'velearned, you know, I got, I got
certified as a quality assuranceengineer, I've learned blackbox,
testing, white box testingautomation, I've done everything
(05:44):
you can, within the softwaredevelopment, testing. And then I
naturally started to move intosort of business analysis,
project management and otherroles over the next 10 years.
And after decades spent as asoftware development
professional, I felt that I wasready to go out on my own, and
(06:06):
kinda, you know, apply all theskills and see what else I could
do. And I've always had thisentrepreneurial streak to my
personality, you know, I alwayswanted to be my own boss, you
know, yes, sounds very romantic,right? Until you know what it
entails exactly,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (06:23):
all the gray hair that come with it, I'm
adjusting to that. Yeah,
Natalie Kaminski (06:27):
but the truth of the matter is, once you go
over to that side, it's verydifficult to go back. So you
know, for the past 14 years,I've been a co founder and the
CEO of a company called jetrockets. And we develop custom
software, web and mobileapplications. And we focus on
helping companies large andsmall, with a specific niche,
(06:48):
working with non tech founders,helping them launch their tech
platforms, you know, make theirdreams come true. And I truly
believe that my background insoftware testing has really
contributed to helping jetrocket stand, you know, create
its own niche, and really beunique in the way and the type
(07:10):
of service that we provide.
That's, that's, that's my story.
That's awesome. So
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (07:15):
I think that what intrigues me most
about the story, and how you'vecome to be now is in
relationship to non techfounders, or non tech, you know,
folks that want to do tech, butdon't necessarily have that
technical background. And I seethat similarly, in, in life
sciences, where we have qualitypeople like me, you know, we
(07:40):
quality's a general word, right.
But from your background,software quality is very
different than quality assuranceor quality control and other
realms and trying to relate orhave conversation between those
two kinds of roles can often bedifficult and challenging and
talking about cross talking withterminology with one another.
(08:02):
And I wonder, how do you how doyou handle that in terms of
having these conversations withnon technical folks about
technical things? Yeah,
Natalie Kaminski (08:13):
that's a that's a very interesting
question. It takes, you know, ittook us years to learn how to do
it properly, right. And I thinkquality is all encompassing,
right? And so the way we viewquality is that quality control
quality assurance has to startfrom the very first day like the
(08:35):
day we get the lead the day weintroduce ourselves to a
potential client. Everything hasto go through that filter of
quality, right? Are we are weare we communicating clearly,
because clear communication,especially when dealing with non
tech founders is key, right?
Because I don't want to makeassumptions, I don't want to use
terminology that they don'tunderstand. And oftentimes, non
(08:56):
tech founders, they feel alittle bit self conscious about
it. So they're not going toreadily admit to not
understanding what you'resaying, which then leads to, you
know, miscommunications and, youknow, problems down the road. So
you have to be very, very clearabout communication, you have to
(09:17):
be very clear about theexpectations that our clients
have, and how to manage thoseexpectations and how to educate
them along the way, using thisfilter of quality at all and
every step of the way. Right.
So, a jet rackets we'vedeveloped this sort of almost
(09:38):
like repeatable process that wego through, right? We, we want
to make sure that when we speakto potential clients, we want to
make sure that they first andforemost know what is the
problem that they're trying tosolve, because many people try
to get into startup worldbecause it's sexy. It's
exciting, you know, who doesn'twant to call themselves a
(09:59):
startup
Unknown (09:59):
founder right? My friend.
Natalie Kaminski (10:02):
And then the raise millions of dollars become
a unicorn and you know, havinggreat too often but but it's
it's the story that the mediatells. So it's very, you know,
it's appealing to many people.
And so we started, really thequality control. And that very
first meeting, my first questionis like, what, you know, tell me
(10:24):
about your product. I'minterviewing clients as much as
they're interviewing me. Right,right. I want to know that they
thought this through, I want toknow that they have a valid
business idea, I want to knowthat they have a go to market
strategy that they've alreadystarted thinking about, right,
Unknown (10:42):
even before they are building. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Because every step
Natalie Kaminski (10:48):
of the way, has to be done with such
meticulous detail and attentionto quality, because, you know,
it's oftentimes it's their lifesavings involved, right, the
time, the resources theycouldn't, you know, I don't want
these clients to walk awaydisappointed with a feeling of,
oh, you know, it's anothersoftware development company
(11:09):
that took my money and didn'tbuild what I wanted. And now I'm
back to square one.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (11:15):
Right? So let's talk about that. What is
the problem to solve? What areyou solving? Right? Like,
because that is ultimately whatsoftware does, right? It solves
some problem, whether it's abusiness problem, a technical
problem, it solves some gap,that, and that is why if someone
wants to buy stuff, right, wehave all these add ons and
plugins and all this stuff to alot of standard software out
(11:38):
there. Right? It's all over theplace. But each try to find its
own unique, what added value amI bringing to the table? What is
the problem that you're tryingto solve? So So can you talk me
through that? And how to helpsomeone really define that
statement? Or what are some ofthe pitfalls that you see when
(11:59):
they try to do that or not dothat? Well, and how can we help
them?
Natalie Kaminski (12:02):
Yes, I think that often, the biggest issue,
and where people fail, the most,from my experience, and from the
founders we've worked with
Unknown (12:13):
is, you know, you identify a problem,
Natalie Kaminski (12:18):
you see a problem that's happening in your
daily life, right. And it couldbe work related. And oftentimes
it is, I mean, most of thefounders we're working with,
they come out of, let's say,corporate world, you know, let's
say maybe they've worked in thelegal industry for many, many
years. And they know theindustry inside out. And for
years, they've been using Excelspreadsheets to track their
(12:39):
billable hours, whatever. AndI'm just making this up, right.
We're actually you know, what,maybe I shouldn't be making this
up. Maybe let me tell you a realstory using a real client. Yes,
because, yeah. So we have aclient, her name is Rachel West.
And she's phenomenal. I love hervery much. And her company is
called Safari portal. So whatRachel wanted to do, and prior
(13:01):
to founding Safari portal,Rachel was and still is an owner
of a very boutique, high endSafari, travel agency. And
during COVID, of course, whenbusiness was down, you know,
unlike many of her competitors,Rachel decided to act. Right?
(13:22):
And Rachel said, What is aproblem that I can solve within
my industry that couldpotentially set me up for
success
Unknown (13:30):
when this pandemic is over? And she came
Natalie Kaminski (13:33):
up with this brilliant solution. You know,
one of the problems of herindustry was lack of a software
product that allows you to puttogether beautiful, dynamic
custom itineraries. I mean,remember, she sells very, you
know, expensive trips, you wantthat experience to feel unique.
(13:54):
Yeah, yeah, right. Yep. And, youknow, most people in her
industry have relied on, youknow, Word and PDF files. That
doesn't feel very unique tosomeone who's willing to pay 10s
of 1000s of dollars to go onsafari, right. So, you know, so
Rachel came up with a solution.
And the reason that she was sosuccessful she is so successful
in her business is because shewas solving a real problem
Unknown (14:19):
that she herself knew has existed on the market.
Natalie Kaminski (14:24):
She tried many times to find the solution to
that problem by using variousproducts that are available on
the market, and each time shefailed. So inadvertently,
through those activities, shehad completed her market
research. So she knew thatnothing like this exists in the
market. She knew all theadvantages and the disadvantages
(14:44):
of existing platforms.
Unknown (14:47):
So she came to me with very clear problem solution
statement.
Natalie Kaminski (14:53):
She knew exactly who her target audience
was going to be once a productwas ready to go to market. it,
and she knew exactly how she'sgoing to sell it. She was set up
for success, every step of theway.
Unknown (15:10):
That is
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (15:12):
really important when we, when I
translate that right and how thepivoting happened and how the
articulation and the researchhappen when I translate that to
my vertical and life sciencesand the audience that often
listen to what we're talkingabout today. It's like drilling
down into where and what is themost important in order to drive
(15:38):
the biggest up, turn in? Whethermarket share drug purchase
clinical trial efficacy, likeall of those things, right. And
it's, you know, there's so manythings out on the market
already, there's so manyproducts out on the market. But
the internal IP of some of thebig life science companies and
(16:00):
biotech companies, right, iswhere the real differentiator is
for each and every one of them.
And so, being able to pivot likethat, and constantly evolve, is
really hard for largeorganizations, I can imagine
it'd be small for her given it'sa small thing. How do we
translate that to bigorganizations where the machines
(16:22):
behind the behind the curtains,if you will, are much larger? Do
you have any thoughts aroundthat? I do.
Natalie Kaminski (16:33):
And I think the key thought really, is to
have each department or eveneach team within the department
to function a little bit morelike a startup, you know, to
have that freedom to but butwith the freedom comes and
should come accountability,right? And Jeff rockets, we do
(16:54):
have experience working withlarger corporations as well. We
had a few clients in the pastand still have a few clients who
would be considered, you know,large companies. And one thing
that we see often times is thatlack of accountability, because
you know, working for a largecorporation, you are a middle
manager, yes, you have yourprojects, you have your
(17:15):
deliverables, but yourlivelihood is not on the line,
right? For the most part,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (17:20):
and it's very interesting, it is super
true, right? The urgency is notthere, right, and the lack of
moving up or down or momentumwithin the within the middle
managers is often very, veryhard to navigate. So you got to
you got to push right. And sothat is challenging, and why I
try very hard to use some of theprinciples when when you talk
(17:43):
like definition of done in termsof agile, right? And, you know,
just as a general term, notnecessarily in software
development, but what is thewhat is done really well look
like at the end? And what are wetrying to accomplish? Right? And
if we can try to hone in on thatintentionality of where's the
added value of what are we goingto do on a day to day basis
(18:07):
helps us able to pivot to right,because then you can take like,
a couple different scenarios andsay, Okay, well, this one's a
lot more risky. This one, and weshould focus over here versus
there. Right. But if we're notable to pivot well, with a clear
definition or a clearcommunication of why I suspect I
know from my experience, thatthat's where often the
(18:27):
derailment happens, right,because then there's too many
balls in the air, and not enoughfocus on what really matters.
Yeah,
Natalie Kaminski (18:36):
I agree. And, you know, to your point, I mean,
if you think about where all theinnovation comes from, for the
most part, it's smallbusinesses, right? It's the
small work, like, it's smallcompanies, it's startups. And if
you think back to like, let'ssay, when Airbnb became a thing,
right, it was, you know, acouple of kids more or less, I'm
(19:00):
not like some big Hiltoncorporation that came up with
that particular innovation.
Yeah. Because these largecompanies take, you know, I
think it almost feels like theyhave a lot more on the one hand,
they have a lot more to lose.
Unknown (19:16):
And so
Natalie Kaminski (19:17):
sometimes they are kind of like slow to move,
and they don't want to undertakeadditional risks. When When,
when, you know, that's that'spart of the reason why I love
working with our set of clientswho are small just starting out
startups.
Unknown (19:34):
Oftentimes, they,
Natalie Kaminski (19:35):
you know, wild, they have a lot to lose,
they also don't have a choice,you know, if they raise
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (19:40):
it, right, and then that really, you
know, to your point of when, iflarger companies broke this up
into smaller groups, right, werethere some independence in
innovation and, you know, whenwe saw a trend a couple years
ago, where, again, in the BigPharma life science, there was
small pockets of digital healthBoth in digital innovation and,
(20:02):
and trying to get movementwithin the larger framework. And
it's kind of like when you'rescouting for new drug, right,
and you're doing analyses on abunch of different molecules, or
target molecules, right, and youwant to be able to cast that net
wide enough to be able to getthe next blockbuster, right. And
(20:23):
we're talking about in thedigital space, it's the same
thing, right? But you need thatspace to innovate, right? And
try some different stuff and dothat market research, like and
talk about, like, how is itgoing to translate? How is it
going to make added value, andthen be able to hone in on
what's the ones to move forwardin the pipeline? Right,
essentially. And so what I'mseeing is that there's, while we
(20:46):
have, you know, large lifescience companies making awesome
products and great innovationfrom a drug person, but there's
this underlying operationalfoundation that also needs to
innovate as fast as possible. Iknow digital transformation is
one of your passions, as well.
And so I was wondering if youhad any thoughts around what
(21:06):
you're seeing in digitaltransformation today? And how we
may be able
Unknown (21:11):
to, to do better? Well, I
Natalie Kaminski (21:15):
think, again, I think it all goes back to
accountability and freedom tofail,
Unknown (21:20):
I think.
Natalie Kaminski (21:23):
Right? I mean, like, you can't expect people to
innovate, if you don't allow forany level of mistakes to be
made. Right.
Unknown (21:31):
And so
Natalie Kaminski (21:33):
and some companies, you know, let's say
Google are better than that thanothers, right.
Unknown (21:39):
But overall, I think,
Natalie Kaminski (21:41):
especially when, you know, when you take
into consideration, currentmarket, or economic economic
situation, right, in ourcountry, and around the world,
people are probably afraid tolose their jobs, right? People
don't want to make mistakes,people prefer to maintain status
quo, and be like, Okay, let mesit this one out, you know,
(22:02):
hopefully, I can sit throughwhatever comes down must come
up. So we should be okay, atsome points.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (22:09):
Ride the wave and eventually come back.
Yeah, yeah. But meanwhile, whileyou ride the wave, the ones that
are really swimming outpace youso fast, right? And so it is
calculated. And as you know, youknow, I, as a CEO, and as your
as the CEO, they were constantlylooking at 234 steps ahead. And
(22:32):
if we take that analogy to thesmall kind of pocket way of
working within largerorganizations, those leaders
also taking that very, very fardistant look of what are the
trends, and I know, we evenwithin chief, we talk a lot, and
we've been doing a lot of workin internal meetings, right
around AI and machine learning,and how is this impacting
(22:54):
leaders? And what do we need todo in order to start preparing
for and what are the risksaround it? And what can we
predict? And what can't wepredict where we want to move
forward in that, and at the sametime, I think what you said
around the ability and theculture of failure is super
important. And related to yourearlier comments around software
(23:18):
quality assurance that nothingis bug free,
Natalie Kaminski (23:22):
right? Nothing is bug free. And but that's
okay. That reality, you know, weshouldn't be striving for
perfection, you know, evenbeing, you know, coming, coming
out of QA. And having a very QAoriented mindset, I always say,
we cannot strive for perfection.
I mean, it's it's a well knownfact that perfection is the
killer of good, right. So wehave to take calculated risks,
(23:47):
we have to accept a certainlevel of failure is okay. And
it's part of the progress if wedon't make mistakes without
grill, right? I mean, you thinkabout kids, and before they
learn to walk, they fall so manytimes, and they get up and
continue running. Right. Andthat's, that's incredible. Like,
this is all around us. Butquickly, going back to sort of,
(24:07):
you know,
Unknown (24:12):
I really am
Natalie Kaminski (24:13):
a big proponent and a big believer in
small self managed teams. Right,and this is an I mean, I know,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (24:23):
code for agile, let's just be clear,
right? That is terminology thatfolks in the software world will
talk about. But if you literallyjust say those words
Unknown (24:33):
about Mr. Everything.
Yeah, absolutely.
Natalie Kaminski (24:36):
Right. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the
way we run things and jetrockets is we for every project
that we work on, we create aself manage team that comprises
just have the team members thatshould be on the team. We don't
try we don't have any middlemanagement within jet rockets. I
you know, and I understand thatjet rockets is just a 65 person
(25:00):
company, as opposed to some hugeconglomerates of 1000s of 1000s
employees. And of course, atcertain point, you do require
middle management.
Unknown (25:08):
But there should be still an essence of, of in
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (25:14):
touch, touch points and connectedness
to that, right. And I suspectyou, as the CEO, also have
tendrils in there, right, whileyour teams are self sufficient
and built to be self sufficient.
It's not that you don't knowwhat's going on.
Natalie Kaminski (25:31):
Oh, I am.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Iam, you know, still battling my
control.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (25:42):
So, yeah, so I often refer to myself as a
recovering perfectionist,recovering control freak, right?
Like, those things that when youbecome at a certain level of
leadership, you really need tostop doing each and every day,
it'd be a conscious effort tonot do that. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Natalie Kaminski (26:00):
So I have one, you know, admission to make is
every morning with my morningcoffee, one of my most favorite
things to do is to read throughevery Slack channel, we haven't
come for details, but I kind ofscan through it, because I want
to know, what's what's going on.
And 99% of the time, you know,that gives me enough
(26:21):
information, so that if a clientwere to call me up and wanted to
chat about their progress, orabout the project, I would know
what to say. And I think it'simportant, you know, and that
goes hand in hand with qualityabsolute, because when clients
come to work with me, they, youknow, I give them my word, I
give them my reputation, youknow, underline, I tell them,
(26:41):
Look, I guarantee that we'regoing to do a good job for you,
right. So I have to know what'sgoing on. It doesn't mean that I
have to participate in a dailyoperation and be tactical,
absolutely not. I don't do anydaily, you know, routine tasks
or any such thing. But I do needto know enough to, to be able to
be proactive to interject, if Ithink if I if I believe things
(27:04):
aren't going the right way. And,you know, I used to interject a
lot more often than I do now.
Right? And I think it's, it's,it's evidence that one self
managed teams do work. It justrequires time for everyone to be
okay with the accountability.
You know, everyone lovesfreedom. But not everyone
(27:26):
understands and realizes and iswilling to accept the fact that
freedom comes withaccountability.
Unknown (27:34):
Yeah, yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (27:36):
Yeah. How do you how do you get that?
Because I think that, so that'sone of my, I often referred to
it as my quality tea, let's comehave some trust, education and
accountability. And if everyonecan sign up for those three
parts of the quality process,you know, and have common
understanding around those threethings. What are those things?
(27:57):
And how do we instill them? Thehardest, I think, is
accountability. You know, trustbuilds over time you fit that's
kind of gut instinct, you know,intuition folks can feel that or
not, you can out often have themarticulate that pretty well,
education. It's, you know,trainings, it's, you know,
(28:20):
involvement, those sorts oftangible things, but
accountability, how do youdefine it? And what are some of
the things and how do you putthat into place?
Unknown (28:29):
So I define
Natalie Kaminski (28:30):
accountability very simply as being
Unknown (28:33):
an adult, professional, and wanting to do your job.
Well. That's so simple. I loveit. You know,
Natalie Kaminski (28:43):
and I definitely, you know, having the
right people in the right seatshelps.
Unknown (28:50):
But do you think being
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (28:54):
a small business owner influences that?
Because I mean, you know, whenwe hire as a small business
owner, right, when we hire, wereally look for that as a
characteristic of it. For me, atleast, it's a fundamental, like,
if, if I don't have folks thatcan fit that bill. Exactly. In
the simplest terms, as you justsaid it,
Unknown (29:16):
they don't fit within the organization. But how do you
scan
Natalie Kaminski (29:19):
for that during a course of, I don't
know, a couple of interviews,right. It's very difficult
because, yeah, I mean, it's oneof the I think it's a universal
struggle, right? So and it'salmost always a shot in the
dark. So you take a chance onthe person that seems to be
fitting the bill. What we do ajet rockets is you know, we
(29:41):
tried to communicate our valuesand we have five values a jet
rockets that really drive everysingle decision that we make
around personnel, and not justpersonnel actually around
everything that we do. And thosevalues are results. And what it
really means is, you know, yes,we need to produce results. And
we need to be truthful. And weneed to be, you know, on task,
(30:06):
right? Then continuousimprovement, which means that
you constantly need to look forways to do better. Right? Learn,
expand your skill set,collaboration, which, again,
very self explanatory, we wantto make sure that you work well
with the team. And not just yourinternal team, but you know, the
(30:27):
clients team, right?
Unknown (30:30):
Transparency, super important
Natalie Kaminski (30:33):
for us to be transparent, and to talk about
issues as they arise and not tryand hide things. But you know,
for like I said, I'm okay withmistakes being made, what I'm
not okay with is with mistakesbeing hidden. Right? Right. And
I will always give it a secondchance to person who made the
mistake of came forward andsaid, Look, I messed up, I need
(30:54):
help, right, I will never give asecond chance to a person who
made a mistake, tried to concealit, and then ended up causing an
even bigger issue. And thefinal, and probably the most
important value is efficiency.
And what I mean by efficiency isthat, you know, especially in
software development, there'salways new technologies that
everybody wants to try sexy,they're excited, you know, let
(31:19):
us try AI, right, like whatever.
But the jacks rockets, webelieve that in order to develop
or deliver results, and youknow, have high quality and on
time, really need to usereliable tools that we have
worked with in the past manytimes, and they have proven them
(31:41):
to be unreliable. And since, youknow, stable, right. And so in
our case, whenever there is anyproblem, any software related
issue, and there's always morethan one way to solve it, we
always want to solve it, theeasiest, the simplest, the most
efficient way. Now, the reason Imentioned all those five values
(32:04):
right now is because when youlook at all those five values
together, they lead toaccountability. At least in my
company, right? So if youcollaborate, if you're
transparent, if you produceresults, if you, you know,
constantly looking to improveyourself, and if you're trying
to be as efficient as possible,
Unknown (32:24):
you're accountable.
Right. And
Natalie Kaminski (32:28):
so that's, that's how we, you know, we
that's the performance reviewsthat we do within the
organization, the hiring, thefiring, the, you know, award
decisions are made based onthese five values. And we, it's,
you know, it's important tocommunicate those values, not
just on your website, like manycompanies, for marketing, but
(32:51):
actually to drive them deep intothe hands of your employees. So
we, you know, we're talkingabout this values of all times,
we have our quarterly meetingswhere we remind everyone about
the values, and we also bringspecific examples. Let's say if,
you know, if we have anunfortunate situation that we
(33:13):
need to part ways, with anemployee, which sometimes
happens, we make sure to veryclearly explained why, and what
exact value that employee didnot
Unknown (33:24):
meet. Hmm. Interesting.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (33:28):
Do you This is extend to your customers
as well? Yes. Because, you know,one of the things I've seen
change pretty dramatically, inmy opinion, since COVID, right?
Is this over expectation andunrealistic, I should say,
(33:48):
expectations from some customersthese days in not only what they
want, when they want it, howthey want it,
Natalie Kaminski (33:57):
how much of it they how
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (33:59):
much they want, you know, how, you know,
even though it may not betechnically possible, they want
in any way and free by the way,right? Not paid for. Right. So.
So I that is bubbling up. Andand I know from a workforce
perspective, that adds atremendous amount of additional
(34:20):
mental burden on consultants.
Right. And so I was wonderinghow you relate your
understanding and how you likeaccountability, also to
Natalie Kaminski (34:31):
Dory, what a timely question and issue you
bring up. We actually justyesterday, we had a very lengthy
conversation about this verytopic with a colleague of mine.
But yes, I absolutely agree withyou, especially now in this you
know, very economically unstablesituation. We definitely you
know, we want to make sure ourclients are happy. I mean, don't
(34:52):
get me wrong, we want to makesure our clients are happy in
any economic situation. But nowespecially we cannot afford you
know, any Any, any issues. Soit's it's very difficult to, you
know, this dance, you know, havemake this dance and toe the line
between keeping some boundarieswith your client, but at the
(35:14):
same time providing the bestservice possible. And so what I
think, again, it goes back toquality, because I think that if
the team is able to develop fromthe get go from the very first
interaction with the client, ifthe team is able to develop open
and honest and transparentrelationship with the client,
(35:36):
where the client really viewsthemselves as the extension of
the team, and the team as theextension of their business,
that's where those things becomeless of an issue. Because, you
know, we have situations wheremy team makes mistakes, of
course, I mean, we're allhumans, right? And we have very
(35:58):
concrete examples where a clientis okay with that, you know,
mistake is being made for beingopen and transparent. And being
saying, you know, what, we madethe mistake, this is our plan to
fix the mistake, this is what'shappening right now, you know,
and the client is typically,okay, no problem. I understand
moving on. And unfortunately, wealso had situations where, you
(36:21):
know, we weren't successful atbuilding this relationship. And
so every little thing becomes ahuge issue. And every little
thing becomes a point ofcontention. And every little
thing becomes, oh, I want more,I want more, give me more. And
now, and, you know, now we'regoing back to that infamous
circle of fast, high quality andcheap, right, you can only have
(36:43):
to, correct, yeah. But it's ahuge issue. And I think just
honing in, at least Jeff rock ishoning in on those values of
open communication, focus onresults, collaborative approach,
continuous improvement, andreally being as efficient as
possible, helps us if not avoid,than minimize this unrealistic
(37:08):
expectations and the desire tosqueeze out as much as possible
out of, you know, poorconsultants. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (37:15):
yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I think it's areally is I think they having
that you said toeing the line.
And I think that's a reallyaccurate sort of, you know,
description of, and I net, andmore recently, I'm thinking
about it in terms of boundaries,right? Of, and relationships,
(37:37):
right boundaries, andrelationships and how that
extends to the customer. Andservice provider, right? In, in
this more complicated it techworld, right? We have more
interdependence on multipleproviders at the same time in
(37:57):
order to even provide a singleservice. Right. And so
Unknown (38:02):
that
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (38:04):
complex web that we have created, while
you know, it used to be likejust in the supply chain, right?
Where it has all these inputs,outputs, are they it now on top
of that, you have all thecomplicated systems that are on
top of that interconnected aswell. And it's very hard for,
(38:24):
for us as we go in and try to,to produce an understanding of a
framework of where is yourrisks? Where Where do you need
to spend focus on time where inyour digital platform or
computerized system is mostvulnerable? Right? When there is
so much input output and, andbased on relationships, not just
(38:48):
the digital technologyunderlying it, because at the
end of the day, people stillforget, have to remind them all
the time, a SaaS product isgreat, but a SaaS product behind
the scenes is a lot of people.
Yep. You know, and that is whatyou're paying for when you pay
for as a subscription model isactually a ton of people keeping
the lights on in a variety ofdifferent ways. Some do that
(39:12):
better than others moreoperationally efficient than
others, and there are economiesof scale. So you see different
prices, depending on the scaleof of of that efficiency, right?
But it's, it's still, at the endof the day, a combination of
technology and
Unknown (39:29):
people together.
Natalie Kaminski (39:31):
And people is still the most important factor,
unfortunately. Or fortunately. Imean, you know, we all do
business with people we like,right, and it goes it goes
without saying I always I alwayssay that. And funny again, it
ties back to quality because,you know, it's so much it's easy
to switch up and I always saythis, it's easy to change a
(39:52):
vendor. It's almost impossibleto change a partner.
Unknown (39:57):
Yeah, I like
Dori Gonzalez-Aceve (40:00):
Personally, I've gotten undergo lots of
different changes in the lastcouple of years. And it's made,
you know, my life verycomplicated. And at the same
time you're spot on, right,because you've also established,
you know, for an industry,regardless of which one you're
talking about, there'sexpectations out there, there
are norms out there that thatfolks have been accustomed to,
(40:23):
and want to experience becausethere's, you know, so and so
company has been doing it x, yfor in this sort of way for and
then you have these the newentry into the into the sphere.
And do they do it the same way?
No, right. But they might, theymight have a better product, but
they do it in a different way.
Or, you know, and it comes tiesback to what is the quality of
(40:46):
what they're actually sayingthat they're delivering or not
delivering? Or what can you door not do with that piece of
software or that system? Right.
I think it has gotten morecomplicated. And the what I, you
know, I know, we've talked to, Ithink you've been in on some of
the calls within chief aroundthe AI and machine learning
stuff. It's it's, you know,really trying to take that first
(41:07):
level mental burden
Unknown (41:12):
off of
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (41:15):
the people that we're talking about
right now, right, that are doingthe work on a daily basis? And
what can we automate and get toit to a point where then that
kind of first level, like, ifyou think about it in the sport
model, right, that first levelstuff is just automated for you,
right? And so that you can getto the deeper level, you know,
relationship questions, deeplevel of like, what does it
(41:37):
really mean refining those userstories, understanding what the
definition of done, like gettingto the richness of all of that,
while we can put aside some ofthe more routine or standard,
Unknown (41:51):
common
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (41:54):
ways of doing things that should be
universal, and some level atleast again, back to your
definition of candidate forprofessional, right? Like, or is
that professional kind of thing.
And we're not someone talkingabout coming right out of
school?
Natalie Kaminski (42:10):
Right? And because it's, you know, it's all
based on experience, and we haveto then teach this, like, you
can't learn School How to dealwith an upset client, because if
they don't teach that, and it'snot something you can learn from
books, right. I mean, school isvery important. Don't get me
(42:30):
wrong, but you know, you I, Ipersonally have been making
hiring decisions for jetrockets, I don't care about the
education level of a person.
That's, that's, that's the lastthing I actually care about.
Unknown (42:41):
What do you look for?
Natalie Kaminski (42:43):
cultural fit, most of the foremost, I truly
believe that any technicalskill, skill can be taught. And
we have proven over and over andover again,
Unknown (42:56):
you know, our best our
Natalie Kaminski (42:58):
team, or a players within our team, our
people who joined us 567 yearsago, coming out of whatever
coming out of universities attimes, sometimes just out of
nowhere, very little experience,but lots of fire, eagerness to
work, eagerness to do good job,and actually really that that
(43:20):
quality that, you know, peoplewho do what they really want to
do, are not capable of not doinga good job. Yeah, because they
take a lot of pride in theirwork. Yeah, I love that. I so
that's what I'm looking for, youknow, I want them to look, I
always say, you know, when,when, when jet rockets was
(43:44):
founded. The whole idea behindthis was to build a company that
I along with my co founders,ourselves, would want to work
for, if we ever were employees.
So it's like, you know, whatkind of company out of a
building company and where wewant to work. And so, it has
always been about, you know,work life balance, about
quality, about excitement abouttaking on challenging work.
Unknown (44:12):
And so it's very important
Natalie Kaminski (44:13):
for us to find the right cultural fit. And, you
know, sometimes we'resuccessful, other times we're
not, and because it's very, verydifficult to scan and kind of,
to really understand the personbased on just a few interactions
through through zoom most of thetime nowadays, right? So, yes,
we've been toying around withvarious personality tests, but
(44:34):
honestly, they doesn't work forus because even within my
leadership team, we're alsodifferent, right?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (44:42):
Well, one of the things is interesting, as
you're sharing, I, you know, I'mreflecting on it's
Unknown (44:48):
often
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (44:51):
so you know, whether or not we're being
evaluated to be, you know,brought on as a service
provider, right, like, Do youhave experience in x? Right, you
know, and there's often thiscriteria of, you know,
regulations or this or that,that that one wants to make sure
that you've experienced them.
But actually how you'vedescribed jet rocks in an my
underlying philosophy as well,right? If you can learn and
(45:17):
continue to question and do thatcritical thinking, well, it
doesn't matter, the what of whatyou're building, or what the
business use case or thevertical that you're in, right,
because it's those skills thatyou're, you're articulating that
are the critical part of a teamfunction on, we can find out all
(45:38):
that information, we can do allthat said, like it, you know,
that just to your point of view,you can learn all that tech
stuff, right? But it's how toapply that and, and how to make
meaning of it in to ultimatelysolve the problem that you're
trying to solve. So at the endof the day, it's it's
Unknown (45:57):
problem solving.
Absolutely. And you know, what,it's also it's, it's this desire
to be good
Natalie Kaminski (46:07):
at what you do. That is something inherent,
and it's personal. And it's partof, you know,
Unknown (46:13):
it's part of a person's nature.
Natalie Kaminski (46:16):
And not everyone is like that, and
that's okay. You know, weessentially at Jet rockets, we
have several we hire for most ofthe time we hire for either
engineering, project managementor QA. So those are the three
main roles that we have.
Unknown (46:29):
And, of course, the
Natalie Kaminski (46:33):
wild requirements are kind of the
expectations are slightlydifferent across the board.
There is this overarchingrequirement that I want people
who are self starters, I wantpeople who are willing to, you
know, suggest ideas, I wantpeople who are not afraid to
make mistakes, that's important.
I want people who at the sametime care for the quality of
(46:55):
their work. You know, if you'rea PM, if you're a QA if you're
an engineer, I want you to takepride in your work, because if
you don't, then this is not theright place for you.
Unknown (47:07):
So what does it look like when
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (47:10):
jet rockets when when folks don't
agree?
Natalie Kaminski (47:15):
They don't agree. Oh, give me like an
argument within the team orsomething?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (47:18):
Yeah.
What does that level?
Natalie Kaminski (47:20):
I believe?
Well, it depends, right? Weoftentimes have screaming
nachos, you know, not. Butthat's good. Like the way I
think it's like, when people arepassionate, and people want to
get their point across, andpeople really want to make sure
that they're being heard. And ofcourse, I'm exaggerating a bit
when I say Yes, pretty matches.
(47:43):
But yeah, we often have verypassionate, fiery discussions.
But at the end of the day, wedon't leave the room until we
all come to a solution. Now, ofcourse, compromises not always
possible, right? Becausesometimes somebody has to make a
decision, right? And that's whywould you have, you know, people
(48:05):
who are, I guess, you know,every team, the way we build our
teams, every team has a projectmanager, whose job really is to
coordinate with the client andcoordinate the team activities,
and to make sure everything isdone on time and on budget. And
according to plan, we typicallyhave a tech lead someone who
(48:27):
will be the tiebreaker. In suchcases, you know, someone who
will listen to all the sides andbe like, okay, you know, what,
if we all cannot come to anagreement, I'm going to make a
decision. So, and the process,you know, we run on us, I don't
know if you're familiar with us.
And so you know, we have allthese level 10 meetings, and
then issue ideas, solutionprocesses, etc. So we really
(48:51):
learn as we go. But I gotta saythat as we grow as a company, as
we grow as individuals, webecome become better and better
Unknown (49:02):
at it. So it's experience. Right? Yeah. So
Natalie Kaminski (49:06):
to earlier point, it's not something they
can teach us in school. It's acure
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (49:10):
now.
Exactly. And what you've alsodescribed is, while we were
talking earlier aroundboundaries between customers and
and your service provider withinthe team, you've also
established clear roles andresponsibilities and boundaries
and what those hats look like,right? Yeah. What Yeah, people
are coming on
Natalie Kaminski (49:33):
for.
Absolutely. So you know, we, wehave a number of team members
who are more experienced and whohave more skills and more
knowledge than others. And wemake it absolutely clear that
these people's virtual doors arealways open for any discussion.
We actually have several Slackchannels dedicated to education
(49:54):
and can experience share andknowledge sharing and We
encourage people to askquestions and to engage others,
even outside of the project. Sothat's why I always say to our
clients, you know, one of thebenefits of working with us is
even, you may have a small teamassigned to your project. But in
fact, you're the, you know, theknowledge of everyone on the
Unknown (50:19):
team. Right? Yeah. So that's great. Yeah, it's, um,
what do you think
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (50:27):
is the next steps for jet rockets as
you guys are looking forward?
Unknown (50:32):
Yeah, well, we
Natalie Kaminski (50:33):
want to continue and grow. Our goal
really, is to help, as many nontech founders launch their tech
platforms as we can. And we aretaking on certain, you know,
we're beginning we're startingto engage in certain activities
around that, for instance, weare about to publish our ebook,
on launching a tech platform asa non tech. As a first time non
(50:56):
tech founder. We also haveseveral initiatives that will be
announced shortly regarding anew thing called Jr. ventures.
And by the way, this is thefirst time I mentioned that I'm
out in public. Okay, well, it'sgoing to be a semi venture
studio, that we're going tolaunch within jet rocket. So
that's exciting. And our firstcohort will be focused on female
(51:17):
founders. Awesome.
Unknown (51:19):
I love that. That's perfect.
Natalie Kaminski (51:23):
Well, you know, that couldn't be a whole
separate topic for a podcast.
But yes, female founders,especially not in tech, female
founders have a whole other setof problems to worry about when
it comes to launching,
Unknown (51:36):
you know, a tech startup. Yeah. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (51:39):
Well, that sounds wonderful. And I'm
really excited for you, asyou're continuing to grow there.
And bringing a perspective todaythat I think is really important
Unknown (51:50):
to everyone. And that
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (51:54):
quality is by design from the very, very
beginning, right? And if we allcould do that, like what better
products in general that wecould have if if it wasn't seen
as a as a overburden orsomething that should be done
after the fact. But yet, embracefrom the very, very beginning.
So
Unknown (52:14):
thanks for that.
Natalie. Thank you for theopportunity. I
Natalie Kaminski (52:17):
really enjoyed that conversation.
Dori Gonzalez-Aceve (52:19):
Absolutely.
We'll have you back againanother time. Yes, looking
forward to All right. Thanks forlistening to software equality
today. If you like what you justheard, we hope you pass along
our web address for seller x.coto your friends and colleagues.
And please leave us a positivereview on iTunes. Be sure to
check out our previous podcastsand check us out on LinkedIn at
(52:40):
reseller X. Join us next timefor another edition of software
quality today.
podcasting from Alexandria, Virginia, just
a few miles from Washington DC,where we all hope doing what is
right the first time iseveryone's top priority. This is
software quality today presentedby Purcell RX, a podcast about
the trends and challenges ofsoftware quality testing and
computerized system validation.
And the people who are leadingthe way. Here interviews with
special guests and news fromcustomers and vendors. I'm your
(00:31):
host Dori Gonzalez Acevedo andwelcome to today's episode.
Jason Secola (00:38):
Thanks for joining us for a new episode of software
quality today. On today's show,Dory welcomes Natalie Kaminski.
And amongst other things, theychat about Natalie's path from
QA tester to CEO of a technologycompany and how her background
and QA shaped her approach tolaunching and running a software
development company. With morethan 20 years of experience in
the technology industry. Natalieis a dynamic and resourceful web
(01:00):
and mobile technologyentrepreneur. And she is the CEO
and founder of jet rockets, acustom software web and mobile
application development company.
She's also the co founder of onetribe and HR management platform
for hybrid and remote teams. Shecurrently lives in Brooklyn with
her husband and two daughters.
And now let's go ahead and jumpinto the show.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (01:20):
All right, well, welcome Natalie to
software quality today, it's sogood to see you. Good to see you
and be here. Thank you. Thanksfor joining us. So um, as we you
know, described in the bumper,or you are the co founder and
CEO of jet rockets. And Natalieis also a member of chief and so
(01:40):
I'm really excited to have youhere today. I'd love to hear a
little bit about your journeyand how you came to running your
own software development firm.
Natalie Kaminski (01:50):
Yes, well, thank you. It's a bit of a long
journey. So society now take youthrough it. I joined the tech,
I've kind of fell into the techindustry back in 1998. It was
part time because you know, wewere on the precipice of the end
of the world.
(02:10):
If you remember, that's right.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (02:11):
Yeah.
That was when I started mycareer too. So that's
interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie Kaminski (02:15):
And then, you know, it was so easy to get into
tech. All you had to do was, youknow, just apply for a job and
claim you knew how to dosomething within tech, and you
have a job, right? So I was arecent high school graduate, I
just moved from Israel to theUnited States. I ended up in
(02:36):
Minneapolis of all places. And Iwas desperate for a job that
would pay me whatever minimumwage it was at that time, you
know, and I was I met somepeople kind of closer to my age,
and everyone was working withinthe IT, and they said, Okay,
that sounds like it's a goodplace for me to go to. So let's
(02:57):
let me try that and, and I, atfirst, I got a job as a
programmer. And that was, youknow, we can bypass that story.
But for about six months, I wasrewriting a database table from
dealing with two digits todealing with four digits. Now.
At the end of that experience, Ilearned two things about myself.
(03:18):
I was not a programmer. Goodinformation. Yes. But I really
got excited about tech. And Iwas like, Oh, my God, you know,
you can use this amazing tools,you can write software that
really solves real businessissues, life issues can really
make your life easier. And so Iwanted to learn more. And
Unknown (03:40):
I,
Natalie Kaminski (03:41):
you know, came across this opportunity to try
myself out as a QA, qualityassurance tester. And I jumped
on it. And I was fascinated withthe field. You know, too many?
Back then it sounded like, Oh,you were just not good enough of
a programmer. That's why youwent into testing. Yeah, but
many
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (04:00):
people say that that's intriguing to
them to start,
Natalie Kaminski (04:04):
like, but the truth of the matter, I was
fascinated by the nuance, thedetails, the level of, you know,
attention that you have to payin order to do your job well.
And so I joined a small companyout in Minneapolis at that time,
it was called SWAT solutions,which stood for software
(04:26):
automation testing solution. AndI was really, you know, I was I
was really fortunate because theowner of the company, Steve
Timmerman, thank you, Steve.
Took really took a chance on meand He gave me this job, and he
put me to work and to learn theskill really, to learn and he
taught me very well, you know, Ijoined a project working for a
(04:46):
company called guidancecorporations, which they did
pacemakers, you know, they madepacemakers and other I guess
device says for healthcaredevices, and I had to pass this
very incredibly important pieceof software. So to me, being
part of the team, really knowingthat I was contributing to a
(05:10):
very important piece of, youknow, this product, and I had to
do my job super well, because Imean, life's, we're literally
I'm aligned.
Unknown (05:21):
I was, you know, I
Natalie Kaminski (05:23):
was super happy. And so fast forward, you
know, I spent three to fouryears growing into the software
development role. And I'velearned, you know, I got, I got
certified as a quality assuranceengineer, I've learned blackbox,
testing, white box testingautomation, I've done everything
(05:44):
you can, within the softwaredevelopment, testing. And then I
naturally started to move intosort of business analysis,
project management and otherroles over the next 10 years.
And after decades spent as asoftware development
professional, I felt that I wasready to go out on my own, and
(06:06):
kinda, you know, apply all theskills and see what else I could
do. And I've always had thisentrepreneurial streak to my
personality, you know, I alwayswanted to be my own boss, you
know, yes, sounds very romantic,right? Until you know what it
entails exactly,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (06:23):
all the gray hair that come with it, I'm
adjusting to that. Yeah,
Natalie Kaminski (06:27):
but the truth of the matter is, once you go
over to that side, it's verydifficult to go back. So you
know, for the past 14 years,I've been a co founder and the
CEO of a company called jetrockets. And we develop custom
software, web and mobileapplications. And we focus on
helping companies large andsmall, with a specific niche,
(06:48):
working with non tech founders,helping them launch their tech
platforms, you know, make theirdreams come true. And I truly
believe that my background insoftware testing has really
contributed to helping jetrocket stand, you know, create
its own niche, and really beunique in the way and the type
(07:10):
of service that we provide.
That's, that's, that's my story.
That's awesome. So
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (07:15):
I think that what intrigues me most
about the story, and how you'vecome to be now is in
relationship to non techfounders, or non tech, you know,
folks that want to do tech, butdon't necessarily have that
technical background. And I seethat similarly, in, in life
sciences, where we have qualitypeople like me, you know, we
(07:40):
quality's a general word, right.
But from your background,software quality is very
different than quality assuranceor quality control and other
realms and trying to relate orhave conversation between those
two kinds of roles can often bedifficult and challenging and
talking about cross talking withterminology with one another.
(08:02):
And I wonder, how do you how doyou handle that in terms of
having these conversations withnon technical folks about
technical things? Yeah,
Natalie Kaminski (08:13):
that's a that's a very interesting
question. It takes, you know, ittook us years to learn how to do
it properly, right. And I thinkquality is all encompassing,
right? And so the way we viewquality is that quality control
quality assurance has to startfrom the very first day like the
(08:35):
day we get the lead the day weintroduce ourselves to a
potential client. Everything hasto go through that filter of
quality, right? Are we are weare we communicating clearly,
because clear communication,especially when dealing with non
tech founders is key, right?
Because I don't want to makeassumptions, I don't want to use
terminology that they don'tunderstand. And oftentimes, non
(08:56):
tech founders, they feel alittle bit self conscious about
it. So they're not going toreadily admit to not
understanding what you'resaying, which then leads to, you
know, miscommunications and, youknow, problems down the road. So
you have to be very, very clearabout communication, you have to
(09:17):
be very clear about theexpectations that our clients
have, and how to manage thoseexpectations and how to educate
them along the way, using thisfilter of quality at all and
every step of the way. Right.
So, a jet rackets we'vedeveloped this sort of almost
(09:38):
like repeatable process that wego through, right? We, we want
to make sure that when we speakto potential clients, we want to
make sure that they first andforemost know what is the
problem that they're trying tosolve, because many people try
to get into startup worldbecause it's sexy. It's
exciting, you know, who doesn'twant to call themselves a
(09:59):
startup
Unknown (09:59):
founder right? My friend.
Natalie Kaminski (10:02):
And then the raise millions of dollars become
a unicorn and you know, havinggreat too often but but it's
it's the story that the mediatells. So it's very, you know,
it's appealing to many people.
And so we started, really thequality control. And that very
first meeting, my first questionis like, what, you know, tell me
(10:24):
about your product. I'minterviewing clients as much as
they're interviewing me. Right,right. I want to know that they
thought this through, I want toknow that they have a valid
business idea, I want to knowthat they have a go to market
strategy that they've alreadystarted thinking about, right,
Unknown (10:42):
even before they are building. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Because every step
Natalie Kaminski (10:48):
of the way, has to be done with such
meticulous detail and attentionto quality, because, you know,
it's oftentimes it's their lifesavings involved, right, the
time, the resources theycouldn't, you know, I don't want
these clients to walk awaydisappointed with a feeling of,
oh, you know, it's anothersoftware development company
(11:09):
that took my money and didn'tbuild what I wanted. And now I'm
back to square one.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (11:15):
Right? So let's talk about that. What is
the problem to solve? What areyou solving? Right? Like,
because that is ultimately whatsoftware does, right? It solves
some problem, whether it's abusiness problem, a technical
problem, it solves some gap,that, and that is why if someone
wants to buy stuff, right, wehave all these add ons and
plugins and all this stuff to alot of standard software out
(11:38):
there. Right? It's all over theplace. But each try to find its
own unique, what added value amI bringing to the table? What is
the problem that you're tryingto solve? So So can you talk me
through that? And how to helpsomeone really define that
statement? Or what are some ofthe pitfalls that you see when
(11:59):
they try to do that or not dothat? Well, and how can we help
them?
Natalie Kaminski (12:02):
Yes, I think that often, the biggest issue,
and where people fail, the most,from my experience, and from the
founders we've worked with
Unknown (12:13):
is, you know, you identify a problem,
Natalie Kaminski (12:18):
you see a problem that's happening in your
daily life, right. And it couldbe work related. And oftentimes
it is, I mean, most of thefounders we're working with,
they come out of, let's say,corporate world, you know, let's
say maybe they've worked in thelegal industry for many, many
years. And they know theindustry inside out. And for
years, they've been using Excelspreadsheets to track their
(12:39):
billable hours, whatever. AndI'm just making this up, right.
We're actually you know, what,maybe I shouldn't be making this
up. Maybe let me tell you a realstory using a real client. Yes,
because, yeah. So we have aclient, her name is Rachel West.
And she's phenomenal. I love hervery much. And her company is
called Safari portal. So whatRachel wanted to do, and prior
(13:01):
to founding Safari portal,Rachel was and still is an owner
of a very boutique, high endSafari, travel agency. And
during COVID, of course, whenbusiness was down, you know,
unlike many of her competitors,Rachel decided to act. Right?
(13:22):
And Rachel said, What is aproblem that I can solve within
my industry that couldpotentially set me up for
success
Unknown (13:30):
when this pandemic is over? And she came
Natalie Kaminski (13:33):
up with this brilliant solution. You know,
one of the problems of herindustry was lack of a software
product that allows you to puttogether beautiful, dynamic
custom itineraries. I mean,remember, she sells very, you
know, expensive trips, you wantthat experience to feel unique.
(13:54):
Yeah, yeah, right. Yep. And, youknow, most people in her
industry have relied on, youknow, Word and PDF files. That
doesn't feel very unique tosomeone who's willing to pay 10s
of 1000s of dollars to go onsafari, right. So, you know, so
Rachel came up with a solution.
And the reason that she was sosuccessful she is so successful
in her business is because shewas solving a real problem
Unknown (14:19):
that she herself knew has existed on the market.
Natalie Kaminski (14:24):
She tried many times to find the solution to
that problem by using variousproducts that are available on
the market, and each time shefailed. So inadvertently,
through those activities, shehad completed her market
research. So she knew thatnothing like this exists in the
market. She knew all theadvantages and the disadvantages
(14:44):
of existing platforms.
Unknown (14:47):
So she came to me with very clear problem solution
statement.
Natalie Kaminski (14:53):
She knew exactly who her target audience
was going to be once a productwas ready to go to market. it,
and she knew exactly how she'sgoing to sell it. She was set up
for success, every step of theway.
Unknown (15:10):
That is
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (15:12):
really important when we, when I
translate that right and how thepivoting happened and how the
articulation and the researchhappen when I translate that to
my vertical and life sciencesand the audience that often
listen to what we're talkingabout today. It's like drilling
down into where and what is themost important in order to drive
(15:38):
the biggest up, turn in? Whethermarket share drug purchase
clinical trial efficacy, likeall of those things, right. And
it's, you know, there's so manythings out on the market
already, there's so manyproducts out on the market. But
the internal IP of some of thebig life science companies and
(16:00):
biotech companies, right, iswhere the real differentiator is
for each and every one of them.
And so, being able to pivot likethat, and constantly evolve, is
really hard for largeorganizations, I can imagine
it'd be small for her given it'sa small thing. How do we
translate that to bigorganizations where the machines
(16:22):
behind the behind the curtains,if you will, are much larger? Do
you have any thoughts aroundthat? I do.
Natalie Kaminski (16:33):
And I think the key thought really, is to
have each department or eveneach team within the department
to function a little bit morelike a startup, you know, to
have that freedom to but butwith the freedom comes and
should come accountability,right? And Jeff rockets, we do
(16:54):
have experience working withlarger corporations as well. We
had a few clients in the pastand still have a few clients who
would be considered, you know,large companies. And one thing
that we see often times is thatlack of accountability, because
you know, working for a largecorporation, you are a middle
manager, yes, you have yourprojects, you have your
(17:15):
deliverables, but yourlivelihood is not on the line,
right? For the most part,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (17:20):
and it's very interesting, it is super
true, right? The urgency is notthere, right, and the lack of
moving up or down or momentumwithin the within the middle
managers is often very, veryhard to navigate. So you got to
you got to push right. And sothat is challenging, and why I
try very hard to use some of theprinciples when when you talk
(17:43):
like definition of done in termsof agile, right? And, you know,
just as a general term, notnecessarily in software
development, but what is thewhat is done really well look
like at the end? And what are wetrying to accomplish? Right? And
if we can try to hone in on thatintentionality of where's the
added value of what are we goingto do on a day to day basis
(18:07):
helps us able to pivot to right,because then you can take like,
a couple different scenarios andsay, Okay, well, this one's a
lot more risky. This one, and weshould focus over here versus
there. Right. But if we're notable to pivot well, with a clear
definition or a clearcommunication of why I suspect I
know from my experience, thatthat's where often the
(18:27):
derailment happens, right,because then there's too many
balls in the air, and not enoughfocus on what really matters.
Yeah,
Natalie Kaminski (18:36):
I agree. And, you know, to your point, I mean,
if you think about where all theinnovation comes from, for the
most part, it's smallbusinesses, right? It's the
small work, like, it's smallcompanies, it's startups. And if
you think back to like, let'ssay, when Airbnb became a thing,
right, it was, you know, acouple of kids more or less, I'm
(19:00):
not like some big Hiltoncorporation that came up with
that particular innovation.
Yeah. Because these largecompanies take, you know, I
think it almost feels like theyhave a lot more on the one hand,
they have a lot more to lose.
Unknown (19:16):
And so
Natalie Kaminski (19:17):
sometimes they are kind of like slow to move,
and they don't want to undertakeadditional risks. When When,
when, you know, that's that'spart of the reason why I love
working with our set of clientswho are small just starting out
startups.
Unknown (19:34):
Oftentimes, they,
Natalie Kaminski (19:35):
you know, wild, they have a lot to lose,
they also don't have a choice,you know, if they raise
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (19:40):
it, right, and then that really, you
know, to your point of when, iflarger companies broke this up
into smaller groups, right, werethere some independence in
innovation and, you know, whenwe saw a trend a couple years
ago, where, again, in the BigPharma life science, there was
small pockets of digital healthBoth in digital innovation and,
(20:02):
and trying to get movementwithin the larger framework. And
it's kind of like when you'rescouting for new drug, right,
and you're doing analyses on abunch of different molecules, or
target molecules, right, and youwant to be able to cast that net
wide enough to be able to getthe next blockbuster, right. And
(20:23):
we're talking about in thedigital space, it's the same
thing, right? But you need thatspace to innovate, right? And
try some different stuff and dothat market research, like and
talk about, like, how is itgoing to translate? How is it
going to make added value, andthen be able to hone in on
what's the ones to move forwardin the pipeline? Right,
essentially. And so what I'mseeing is that there's, while we
(20:46):
have, you know, large lifescience companies making awesome
products and great innovationfrom a drug person, but there's
this underlying operationalfoundation that also needs to
innovate as fast as possible. Iknow digital transformation is
one of your passions, as well.
And so I was wondering if youhad any thoughts around what
(21:06):
you're seeing in digitaltransformation today? And how we
may be able
Unknown (21:11):
to, to do better? Well, I
Natalie Kaminski (21:15):
think, again, I think it all goes back to
accountability and freedom tofail,
Unknown (21:20):
I think.
Natalie Kaminski (21:23):
Right? I mean, like, you can't expect people to
innovate, if you don't allow forany level of mistakes to be
made. Right.
Unknown (21:31):
And so
Natalie Kaminski (21:33):
and some companies, you know, let's say
Google are better than that thanothers, right.
Unknown (21:39):
But overall, I think,
Natalie Kaminski (21:41):
especially when, you know, when you take
into consideration, currentmarket, or economic economic
situation, right, in ourcountry, and around the world,
people are probably afraid tolose their jobs, right? People
don't want to make mistakes,people prefer to maintain status
quo, and be like, Okay, let mesit this one out, you know,
(22:02):
hopefully, I can sit throughwhatever comes down must come
up. So we should be okay, atsome points.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (22:09):
Ride the wave and eventually come back.
Yeah, yeah. But meanwhile, whileyou ride the wave, the ones that
are really swimming outpace youso fast, right? And so it is
calculated. And as you know, youknow, I, as a CEO, and as your
as the CEO, they were constantlylooking at 234 steps ahead. And
(22:32):
if we take that analogy to thesmall kind of pocket way of
working within largerorganizations, those leaders
also taking that very, very fardistant look of what are the
trends, and I know, we evenwithin chief, we talk a lot, and
we've been doing a lot of workin internal meetings, right
around AI and machine learning,and how is this impacting
(22:54):
leaders? And what do we need todo in order to start preparing
for and what are the risksaround it? And what can we
predict? And what can't wepredict where we want to move
forward in that, and at the sametime, I think what you said
around the ability and theculture of failure is super
important. And related to yourearlier comments around software
(23:18):
quality assurance that nothingis bug free,
Natalie Kaminski (23:22):
right? Nothing is bug free. And but that's
okay. That reality, you know, weshouldn't be striving for
perfection, you know, evenbeing, you know, coming, coming
out of QA. And having a very QAoriented mindset, I always say,
we cannot strive for perfection.
I mean, it's it's a well knownfact that perfection is the
killer of good, right. So wehave to take calculated risks,
(23:47):
we have to accept a certainlevel of failure is okay. And
it's part of the progress if wedon't make mistakes without
grill, right? I mean, you thinkabout kids, and before they
learn to walk, they fall so manytimes, and they get up and
continue running. Right. Andthat's, that's incredible. Like,
this is all around us. Butquickly, going back to sort of,
(24:07):
you know,
Unknown (24:12):
I really am
Natalie Kaminski (24:13):
a big proponent and a big believer in
small self managed teams. Right,and this is an I mean, I know,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (24:23):
code for agile, let's just be clear,
right? That is terminology thatfolks in the software world will
talk about. But if you literallyjust say those words
Unknown (24:33):
about Mr. Everything.
Yeah, absolutely.
Natalie Kaminski (24:36):
Right. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the
way we run things and jetrockets is we for every project
that we work on, we create aself manage team that comprises
just have the team members thatshould be on the team. We don't
try we don't have any middlemanagement within jet rockets. I
you know, and I understand thatjet rockets is just a 65 person
(25:00):
company, as opposed to some hugeconglomerates of 1000s of 1000s
employees. And of course, atcertain point, you do require
middle management.
Unknown (25:08):
But there should be still an essence of, of in
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (25:14):
touch, touch points and connectedness
to that, right. And I suspectyou, as the CEO, also have
tendrils in there, right, whileyour teams are self sufficient
and built to be self sufficient.
It's not that you don't knowwhat's going on.
Natalie Kaminski (25:31):
Oh, I am.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Iam, you know, still battling my
control.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (25:42):
So, yeah, so I often refer to myself as a
recovering perfectionist,recovering control freak, right?
Like, those things that when youbecome at a certain level of
leadership, you really need tostop doing each and every day,
it'd be a conscious effort tonot do that. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Natalie Kaminski (26:00):
So I have one, you know, admission to make is
every morning with my morningcoffee, one of my most favorite
things to do is to read throughevery Slack channel, we haven't
come for details, but I kind ofscan through it, because I want
to know, what's what's going on.
And 99% of the time, you know,that gives me enough
(26:21):
information, so that if a clientwere to call me up and wanted to
chat about their progress, orabout the project, I would know
what to say. And I think it'simportant, you know, and that
goes hand in hand with qualityabsolute, because when clients
come to work with me, they, youknow, I give them my word, I
give them my reputation, youknow, underline, I tell them,
(26:41):
Look, I guarantee that we'regoing to do a good job for you,
right. So I have to know what'sgoing on. It doesn't mean that I
have to participate in a dailyoperation and be tactical,
absolutely not. I don't do anydaily, you know, routine tasks
or any such thing. But I do needto know enough to, to be able to
be proactive to interject, if Ithink if I if I believe things
(27:04):
aren't going the right way. And,you know, I used to interject a
lot more often than I do now.
Right? And I think it's, it's,it's evidence that one self
managed teams do work. It justrequires time for everyone to be
okay with the accountability.
You know, everyone lovesfreedom. But not everyone
(27:26):
understands and realizes and iswilling to accept the fact that
freedom comes withaccountability.
Unknown (27:34):
Yeah, yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (27:36):
Yeah. How do you how do you get that?
Because I think that, so that'sone of my, I often referred to
it as my quality tea, let's comehave some trust, education and
accountability. And if everyonecan sign up for those three
parts of the quality process,you know, and have common
understanding around those threethings. What are those things?
(27:57):
And how do we instill them? Thehardest, I think, is
accountability. You know, trustbuilds over time you fit that's
kind of gut instinct, you know,intuition folks can feel that or
not, you can out often have themarticulate that pretty well,
education. It's, you know,trainings, it's, you know,
(28:20):
involvement, those sorts oftangible things, but
accountability, how do youdefine it? And what are some of
the things and how do you putthat into place?
Unknown (28:29):
So I define
Natalie Kaminski (28:30):
accountability very simply as being
Unknown (28:33):
an adult, professional, and wanting to do your job.
Well. That's so simple. I loveit. You know,
Natalie Kaminski (28:43):
and I definitely, you know, having the
right people in the right seatshelps.
Unknown (28:50):
But do you think being
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (28:54):
a small business owner influences that?
Because I mean, you know, whenwe hire as a small business
owner, right, when we hire, wereally look for that as a
characteristic of it. For me, atleast, it's a fundamental, like,
if, if I don't have folks thatcan fit that bill. Exactly. In
the simplest terms, as you justsaid it,
Unknown (29:16):
they don't fit within the organization. But how do you
scan
Natalie Kaminski (29:19):
for that during a course of, I don't
know, a couple of interviews,right. It's very difficult
because, yeah, I mean, it's oneof the I think it's a universal
struggle, right? So and it'salmost always a shot in the
dark. So you take a chance onthe person that seems to be
fitting the bill. What we do ajet rockets is you know, we
(29:41):
tried to communicate our valuesand we have five values a jet
rockets that really drive everysingle decision that we make
around personnel, and not justpersonnel actually around
everything that we do. And thosevalues are results. And what it
really means is, you know, yes,we need to produce results. And
we need to be truthful. And weneed to be, you know, on task,
(30:06):
right? Then continuousimprovement, which means that
you constantly need to look forways to do better. Right? Learn,
expand your skill set,collaboration, which, again,
very self explanatory, we wantto make sure that you work well
with the team. And not just yourinternal team, but you know, the
(30:27):
clients team, right?
Unknown (30:30):
Transparency, super important
Natalie Kaminski (30:33):
for us to be transparent, and to talk about
issues as they arise and not tryand hide things. But you know,
for like I said, I'm okay withmistakes being made, what I'm
not okay with is with mistakesbeing hidden. Right? Right. And
I will always give it a secondchance to person who made the
mistake of came forward andsaid, Look, I messed up, I need
(30:54):
help, right, I will never give asecond chance to a person who
made a mistake, tried to concealit, and then ended up causing an
even bigger issue. And thefinal, and probably the most
important value is efficiency.
And what I mean by efficiency isthat, you know, especially in
software development, there'salways new technologies that
everybody wants to try sexy,they're excited, you know, let
(31:19):
us try AI, right, like whatever.
But the jacks rockets, webelieve that in order to develop
or deliver results, and youknow, have high quality and on
time, really need to usereliable tools that we have
worked with in the past manytimes, and they have proven them
(31:41):
to be unreliable. And since, youknow, stable, right. And so in
our case, whenever there is anyproblem, any software related
issue, and there's always morethan one way to solve it, we
always want to solve it, theeasiest, the simplest, the most
efficient way. Now, the reason Imentioned all those five values
(32:04):
right now is because when youlook at all those five values
together, they lead toaccountability. At least in my
company, right? So if youcollaborate, if you're
transparent, if you produceresults, if you, you know,
constantly looking to improveyourself, and if you're trying
to be as efficient as possible,
Unknown (32:24):
you're accountable.
Right. And
Natalie Kaminski (32:28):
so that's, that's how we, you know, we
that's the performance reviewsthat we do within the
organization, the hiring, thefiring, the, you know, award
decisions are made based onthese five values. And we, it's,
you know, it's important tocommunicate those values, not
just on your website, like manycompanies, for marketing, but
(32:51):
actually to drive them deep intothe hands of your employees. So
we, you know, we're talkingabout this values of all times,
we have our quarterly meetingswhere we remind everyone about
the values, and we also bringspecific examples. Let's say if,
you know, if we have anunfortunate situation that we
(33:13):
need to part ways, with anemployee, which sometimes
happens, we make sure to veryclearly explained why, and what
exact value that employee didnot
Unknown (33:24):
meet. Hmm. Interesting.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (33:28):
Do you This is extend to your customers
as well? Yes. Because, you know,one of the things I've seen
change pretty dramatically, inmy opinion, since COVID, right?
Is this over expectation andunrealistic, I should say,
(33:48):
expectations from some customersthese days in not only what they
want, when they want it, howthey want it,
Natalie Kaminski (33:57):
how much of it they how
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (33:59):
much they want, you know, how, you know,
even though it may not betechnically possible, they want
in any way and free by the way,right? Not paid for. Right. So.
So I that is bubbling up. Andand I know from a workforce
perspective, that adds atremendous amount of additional
(34:20):
mental burden on consultants.
Right. And so I was wonderinghow you relate your
understanding and how you likeaccountability, also to
Natalie Kaminski (34:31):
Dory, what a timely question and issue you
bring up. We actually justyesterday, we had a very lengthy
conversation about this verytopic with a colleague of mine.
But yes, I absolutely agree withyou, especially now in this you
know, very economically unstablesituation. We definitely you
know, we want to make sure ourclients are happy. I mean, don't
(34:52):
get me wrong, we want to makesure our clients are happy in
any economic situation. But nowespecially we cannot afford you
know, any Any, any issues. Soit's it's very difficult to, you
know, this dance, you know, havemake this dance and toe the line
between keeping some boundarieswith your client, but at the
(35:14):
same time providing the bestservice possible. And so what I
think, again, it goes back toquality, because I think that if
the team is able to develop fromthe get go from the very first
interaction with the client, ifthe team is able to develop open
and honest and transparentrelationship with the client,
(35:36):
where the client really viewsthemselves as the extension of
the team, and the team as theextension of their business,
that's where those things becomeless of an issue. Because, you
know, we have situations wheremy team makes mistakes, of
course, I mean, we're allhumans, right? And we have very
(35:58):
concrete examples where a clientis okay with that, you know,
mistake is being made for beingopen and transparent. And being
saying, you know, what, we madethe mistake, this is our plan to
fix the mistake, this is what'shappening right now, you know,
and the client is typically,okay, no problem. I understand
moving on. And unfortunately, wealso had situations where, you
(36:21):
know, we weren't successful atbuilding this relationship. And
so every little thing becomes ahuge issue. And every little
thing becomes a point ofcontention. And every little
thing becomes, oh, I want more,I want more, give me more. And
now, and, you know, now we'regoing back to that infamous
circle of fast, high quality andcheap, right, you can only have
(36:43):
to, correct, yeah. But it's ahuge issue. And I think just
honing in, at least Jeff rock ishoning in on those values of
open communication, focus onresults, collaborative approach,
continuous improvement, andreally being as efficient as
possible, helps us if not avoid,than minimize this unrealistic
(37:08):
expectations and the desire tosqueeze out as much as possible
out of, you know, poorconsultants. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (37:15):
yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I think it's areally is I think they having
that you said toeing the line.
And I think that's a reallyaccurate sort of, you know,
description of, and I net, andmore recently, I'm thinking
about it in terms of boundaries,right? Of, and relationships,
(37:37):
right boundaries, andrelationships and how that
extends to the customer. Andservice provider, right? In, in
this more complicated it techworld, right? We have more
interdependence on multipleproviders at the same time in
(37:57):
order to even provide a singleservice. Right. And so
Unknown (38:02):
that
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (38:04):
complex web that we have created, while
you know, it used to be likejust in the supply chain, right?
Where it has all these inputs,outputs, are they it now on top
of that, you have all thecomplicated systems that are on
top of that interconnected aswell. And it's very hard for,
(38:24):
for us as we go in and try to,to produce an understanding of a
framework of where is yourrisks? Where Where do you need
to spend focus on time where inyour digital platform or
computerized system is mostvulnerable? Right? When there is
so much input output and, andbased on relationships, not just
(38:48):
the digital technologyunderlying it, because at the
end of the day, people stillforget, have to remind them all
the time, a SaaS product isgreat, but a SaaS product behind
the scenes is a lot of people.
Yep. You know, and that is whatyou're paying for when you pay
for as a subscription model isactually a ton of people keeping
the lights on in a variety ofdifferent ways. Some do that
(39:12):
better than others moreoperationally efficient than
others, and there are economiesof scale. So you see different
prices, depending on the scaleof of of that efficiency, right?
But it's, it's still, at the endof the day, a combination of
technology and
Unknown (39:29):
people together.
Natalie Kaminski (39:31):
And people is still the most important factor,
unfortunately. Or fortunately. Imean, you know, we all do
business with people we like,right, and it goes it goes
without saying I always I alwayssay that. And funny again, it
ties back to quality because,you know, it's so much it's easy
to switch up and I always saythis, it's easy to change a
(39:52):
vendor. It's almost impossibleto change a partner.
Unknown (39:57):
Yeah, I like
Dori Gonzalez-Aceve (40:00):
Personally, I've gotten undergo lots of
different changes in the lastcouple of years. And it's made,
you know, my life verycomplicated. And at the same
time you're spot on, right,because you've also established,
you know, for an industry,regardless of which one you're
talking about, there'sexpectations out there, there
are norms out there that thatfolks have been accustomed to,
(40:23):
and want to experience becausethere's, you know, so and so
company has been doing it x, yfor in this sort of way for and
then you have these the newentry into the into the sphere.
And do they do it the same way?
No, right. But they might, theymight have a better product, but
they do it in a different way.
Or, you know, and it comes tiesback to what is the quality of
(40:46):
what they're actually sayingthat they're delivering or not
delivering? Or what can you door not do with that piece of
software or that system? Right.
I think it has gotten morecomplicated. And the what I, you
know, I know, we've talked to, Ithink you've been in on some of
the calls within chief aroundthe AI and machine learning
stuff. It's it's, you know,really trying to take that first
(41:07):
level mental burden
Unknown (41:12):
off of
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (41:15):
the people that we're talking about
right now, right, that are doingthe work on a daily basis? And
what can we automate and get toit to a point where then that
kind of first level, like, ifyou think about it in the sport
model, right, that first levelstuff is just automated for you,
right? And so that you can getto the deeper level, you know,
relationship questions, deeplevel of like, what does it
(41:37):
really mean refining those userstories, understanding what the
definition of done, like gettingto the richness of all of that,
while we can put aside some ofthe more routine or standard,
Unknown (41:51):
common
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (41:54):
ways of doing things that should be
universal, and some level atleast again, back to your
definition of candidate forprofessional, right? Like, or is
that professional kind of thing.
And we're not someone talkingabout coming right out of
school?
Natalie Kaminski (42:10):
Right? And because it's, you know, it's all
based on experience, and we haveto then teach this, like, you
can't learn School How to dealwith an upset client, because if
they don't teach that, and it'snot something you can learn from
books, right. I mean, school isvery important. Don't get me
(42:30):
wrong, but you know, you I, Ipersonally have been making
hiring decisions for jetrockets, I don't care about the
education level of a person.
That's, that's, that's the lastthing I actually care about.
Unknown (42:41):
What do you look for?
Natalie Kaminski (42:43):
cultural fit, most of the foremost, I truly
believe that any technicalskill, skill can be taught. And
we have proven over and over andover again,
Unknown (42:56):
you know, our best our
Natalie Kaminski (42:58):
team, or a players within our team, our
people who joined us 567 yearsago, coming out of whatever
coming out of universities attimes, sometimes just out of
nowhere, very little experience,but lots of fire, eagerness to
work, eagerness to do good job,and actually really that that
(43:20):
quality that, you know, peoplewho do what they really want to
do, are not capable of not doinga good job. Yeah, because they
take a lot of pride in theirwork. Yeah, I love that. I so
that's what I'm looking for, youknow, I want them to look, I
always say, you know, when,when, when jet rockets was
(43:44):
founded. The whole idea behindthis was to build a company that
I along with my co founders,ourselves, would want to work
for, if we ever were employees.
So it's like, you know, whatkind of company out of a
building company and where wewant to work. And so, it has
always been about, you know,work life balance, about
quality, about excitement abouttaking on challenging work.
Unknown (44:12):
And so it's very important
Natalie Kaminski (44:13):
for us to find the right cultural fit. And, you
know, sometimes we'resuccessful, other times we're
not, and because it's very, verydifficult to scan and kind of,
to really understand the personbased on just a few interactions
through through zoom most of thetime nowadays, right? So, yes,
we've been toying around withvarious personality tests, but
(44:34):
honestly, they doesn't work forus because even within my
leadership team, we're alsodifferent, right?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (44:42):
Well, one of the things is interesting, as
you're sharing, I, you know, I'mreflecting on it's
Unknown (44:48):
often
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (44:51):
so you know, whether or not we're being
evaluated to be, you know,brought on as a service
provider, right, like, Do youhave experience in x? Right, you
know, and there's often thiscriteria of, you know,
regulations or this or that,that that one wants to make sure
that you've experienced them.
But actually how you'vedescribed jet rocks in an my
underlying philosophy as well,right? If you can learn and
(45:17):
continue to question and do thatcritical thinking, well, it
doesn't matter, the what of whatyou're building, or what the
business use case or thevertical that you're in, right,
because it's those skills thatyou're, you're articulating that
are the critical part of a teamfunction on, we can find out all
(45:38):
that information, we can do allthat said, like it, you know,
that just to your point of view,you can learn all that tech
stuff, right? But it's how toapply that and, and how to make
meaning of it in to ultimatelysolve the problem that you're
trying to solve. So at the endof the day, it's it's
Unknown (45:57):
problem solving.
Absolutely. And you know, what,it's also it's, it's this desire
to be good
Natalie Kaminski (46:07):
at what you do. That is something inherent,
and it's personal. And it's partof, you know,
Unknown (46:13):
it's part of a person's nature.
Natalie Kaminski (46:16):
And not everyone is like that, and
that's okay. You know, weessentially at Jet rockets, we
have several we hire for most ofthe time we hire for either
engineering, project managementor QA. So those are the three
main roles that we have.
Unknown (46:29):
And, of course, the
Natalie Kaminski (46:33):
wild requirements are kind of the
expectations are slightlydifferent across the board.
There is this overarchingrequirement that I want people
who are self starters, I wantpeople who are willing to, you
know, suggest ideas, I wantpeople who are not afraid to
make mistakes, that's important.
I want people who at the sametime care for the quality of
(46:55):
their work. You know, if you'rea PM, if you're a QA if you're
an engineer, I want you to takepride in your work, because if
you don't, then this is not theright place for you.
Unknown (47:07):
So what does it look like when
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (47:10):
jet rockets when when folks don't
agree?
Natalie Kaminski (47:15):
They don't agree. Oh, give me like an
argument within the team orsomething?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (47:18):
Yeah.
What does that level?
Natalie Kaminski (47:20):
I believe?
Well, it depends, right? Weoftentimes have screaming
nachos, you know, not. Butthat's good. Like the way I
think it's like, when people arepassionate, and people want to
get their point across, andpeople really want to make sure
that they're being heard. And ofcourse, I'm exaggerating a bit
when I say Yes, pretty matches.
(47:43):
But yeah, we often have verypassionate, fiery discussions.
But at the end of the day, wedon't leave the room until we
all come to a solution. Now, ofcourse, compromises not always
possible, right? Becausesometimes somebody has to make a
decision, right? And that's whywould you have, you know, people
(48:05):
who are, I guess, you know,every team, the way we build our
teams, every team has a projectmanager, whose job really is to
coordinate with the client andcoordinate the team activities,
and to make sure everything isdone on time and on budget. And
according to plan, we typicallyhave a tech lead someone who
(48:27):
will be the tiebreaker. In suchcases, you know, someone who
will listen to all the sides andbe like, okay, you know, what,
if we all cannot come to anagreement, I'm going to make a
decision. So, and the process,you know, we run on us, I don't
know if you're familiar with us.
And so you know, we have allthese level 10 meetings, and
then issue ideas, solutionprocesses, etc. So we really
(48:51):
learn as we go. But I gotta saythat as we grow as a company, as
we grow as individuals, webecome become better and better
Unknown (49:02):
at it. So it's experience. Right? Yeah. So
Natalie Kaminski (49:06):
to earlier point, it's not something they
can teach us in school. It's acure
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (49:10):
now.
Exactly. And what you've alsodescribed is, while we were
talking earlier aroundboundaries between customers and
and your service provider withinthe team, you've also
established clear roles andresponsibilities and boundaries
and what those hats look like,right? Yeah. What Yeah, people
are coming on
Natalie Kaminski (49:33):
for.
Absolutely. So you know, we, wehave a number of team members
who are more experienced and whohave more skills and more
knowledge than others. And wemake it absolutely clear that
these people's virtual doors arealways open for any discussion.
We actually have several Slackchannels dedicated to education
(49:54):
and can experience share andknowledge sharing and We
encourage people to askquestions and to engage others,
even outside of the project. Sothat's why I always say to our
clients, you know, one of thebenefits of working with us is
even, you may have a small teamassigned to your project. But in
fact, you're the, you know, theknowledge of everyone on the
Unknown (50:19):
team. Right? Yeah. So that's great. Yeah, it's, um,
what do you think
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (50:27):
is the next steps for jet rockets as
you guys are looking forward?
Unknown (50:32):
Yeah, well, we
Natalie Kaminski (50:33):
want to continue and grow. Our goal
really, is to help, as many nontech founders launch their tech
platforms as we can. And we aretaking on certain, you know,
we're beginning we're startingto engage in certain activities
around that, for instance, weare about to publish our ebook,
on launching a tech platform asa non tech. As a first time non
(50:56):
tech founder. We also haveseveral initiatives that will be
announced shortly regarding anew thing called Jr. ventures.
And by the way, this is thefirst time I mentioned that I'm
out in public. Okay, well, it'sgoing to be a semi venture
studio, that we're going tolaunch within jet rocket. So
that's exciting. And our firstcohort will be focused on female
(51:17):
founders. Awesome.
Unknown (51:19):
I love that. That's perfect.
Natalie Kaminski (51:23):
Well, you know, that couldn't be a whole
separate topic for a podcast.
But yes, female founders,especially not in tech, female
founders have a whole other setof problems to worry about when
it comes to launching,
Unknown (51:36):
you know, a tech startup. Yeah. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (51:39):
Well, that sounds wonderful. And I'm
really excited for you, asyou're continuing to grow there.
And bringing a perspective todaythat I think is really important
Unknown (51:50):
to everyone. And that
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo (51:54):
quality is by design from the very, very
beginning, right? And if we allcould do that, like what better
products in general that wecould have if if it wasn't seen
as a as a overburden orsomething that should be done
after the fact. But yet, embracefrom the very, very beginning.
So
Unknown (52:14):
thanks for that.
Natalie. Thank you for theopportunity. I
Natalie Kaminski (52:17):
really enjoyed that conversation.
Dori Gonzalez-Aceve (52:19):
Absolutely.
We'll have you back againanother time. Yes, looking
forward to All right. Thanks forlistening to software equality
today. If you like what you justheard, we hope you pass along
our web address for seller x.coto your friends and colleagues.
And please leave us a positivereview on iTunes. Be sure to
check out our previous podcastsand check us out on LinkedIn at
(52:40):
reseller X. Join us next timefor another edition of software
quality today.
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