One of the hardest things that any software product company has to do is balance the needs of today with the potential needs of tomorrow. Answers to how the business will scale in the future are largely unknown in the early going, creating the dilemma of either building just what you need for today and […]
Time or Money?
It seems most every decision in building technology products (or probably any business) revolves around one of these two constraints, often times both. However, you invariably have less of one than the other. If you’re building your technology product and have lots of time but no money, what should you do? Learn how to build […]
January 2017 Must-Haves
Each month I provide a list of resources (podcasts, talks, blog posts, books, music etc.) that I consider to be must-haves. There’s no doubt that you’ll see recurring themes or resources throughout these posts. I publish my Must-Haves on the closest Tuesday or Friday to the 15th of every month. Without further ado, here’s January […]
Generosity
I was in Austin, TX last week doing some work with one of my favorite companies, Telestax (I am an advisor). Telestax is an open-source project in the telecom space, and arguably one of the most successful open source projects in the world today. Anyway, enough pitching! If you’re ever around true open source people, […]
Refactoring is a Sign of Trouble With Your Project
Refactoring is a core concept in software development. A guy named Martin Fowler literally wrote the book on the topic, and he defines refactoring as “A controlled technique for improving the design of an existing codebase.” Good software developers are always looking for ways to do the things they did before better. Minor refactoring is […]
Hiring Junior Developers
There’s a time to hire junior developers, and it’s not when you’re trying to get your product off the ground. The early development team has to be 100% autonomous and not need time-consuming technical oversight. You’ll be struggling with lots of issues related to the business itself, and the last thing you need is to […]
Bonus Must-Haves
I’ve been reading some incredible books lately, and I thought that you might want to do the same over this next week of (at least some) downtime. Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future by Joi Ito and Jeff Howe – Nine principles for framing how you think about your life in the face of […]
The Scott Barstow Show, Episode #028 – Stephen Kane, CEO of ArbiClaims
My guest for this episode is Stephen Kane, CEO and founder of ArbiClaims. ArbiClaims is a platform that brings parties together to resolve small disputes using trained arbitrators without having to go to court. Stephen is a start up and small business attorney by background, Stephen has over 10 years of sales and business development experience including […]
The Scott Barstow Show, Episode #027 – Jake Loosararian, CEO of Gecko Robotics
My guest for this show is Jake Loosararian, CEO and co-founder of Gecko Robotics. Gecko Robotics make robots that do unassisted inspections of power plant boilers. These robots have sensors that measure things like temperature, wall thickness and other system failure indicators, as well as a mounted camera that records the entire trip around the […]
The Scott Barstow Show, Episode #026 – Brant Elliot, CTO of Stealz
My guest for this show is Brant Elliot. Brant is the CTO and Co-Founder of Stealz, a mobile app that rewards customers for being brand ambassadors for businesses they frequent. He has over 20 years’ experience building technology and tinkering with electronics. His early days in the tech space were spent hacking/exploring systems during the […]