Ready Tech

Marty Cagan founded theSilicon Valley Product Group [https://svpg.com/] in 2003 to pursue his interests in helping others create successful products through his writing, speaking, advising and coaching.  Previously, Marty served as an executive responsible for defining and building products for some of the most successful companies in the world, including HP Labs, Netscape Communications, and eBay. Marty is the author ofINSPIRED [https://svpg.com/inspired-how-to-create-products-customers-love/]: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love, and the recently releasedEMPOWERED [https://svpg.com/empowered-ordinary-people-extraordinary-products/]: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products.Marty is an invited speaker at conferences and companies worldwide, and is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz and of the Stanford University Executive Institute. Some of the questions: * What is a true product company? * Share some hard truths? * The difference runs deep between Product teams (outcome) vs feature teams (output), can you explain? * You’ve written extensively about product fail. Tell us some of those root causes? * What is the role of leadership in a great product company? * People wanting to get into product management, what would you advise? References: * Feature Teams vs Product Teams: https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/ [https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/] * Product fails: https://svpg.com/product-fail/ [https://svpg.com/product-fail/] * Product Management - start here: https://svpg.com/product-management-start-here/ [https://svpg.com/product-management-start-here/] * Lead with context not control: https://svpg.com/lead-with-context-not-control/ [https://svpg.com/lead-with-context-not-control/]

Today Sam is CTO and Co-Founder at Residently [https://residently.com/], where they are building a global platform that empowers renters to thrive in their homes. If you've ever rented, you know it's a problem that needs solving. Most of his career has been spent in startups, where Sam has been part of two successes. Previously, Sam was Head of Engineering at Shutl. He led a major replatforming, the launch in the US and was part of the team that sold the business to eBay in 2013 [http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/22/ebay-acquires-uk-startup-shutl-to-change-the-ecommerce-game-with-one-hour-delivery/]. Before that, Sam was developer #1 for On The Beach Travel (built 2005, sold 2007 [http://www.livingbridge.com/case-studies/on-the-beach/]), now a major UK travel agent, with IPO in 2015. The conversation flows through many topics and Sam shares his unique and honest perspective on things. If you a CEO of a product company, a Founder of a company, a person simply looking to better understand product and engineering there is something in this conversation for you. Tech Vision: * To you, what is technology? * What do you think we are doing well in the world right now with technology? * What innovation excites? * For a start-up founder who is not a technical minded leader - what would your advice be? Where would you focus? * What are the tech pitfalls you can make as a starting entrepreneur ? * Starting from scratch - what would your first hire be? * As a CTO what do you feel your purpose is a leader? * Tell us about the highest technical project failure you experienced? Creating tech: * What is best practice engineering? Building teams: * How do you design your engineering teams? * How do you set them up for success? * How do you organise your teams to focus on tackling improvement (tech debt), BAU and innovation? * How do you keep the innovation mindset in the team? * What does it take to attract and retain tech talents? Mind of tomorrow: * For someone thinking about choosing tech as their career, what would you advise? * If you had the power through the use of technology to solve one of the world's problems/opportunities what would it be and why?? References: * Pioneers, Town planners & Settlers: https://wardleypedia.org/mediawiki/index.php/Pioneers_settlers_town_planners [https://wardleypedia.org/mediawiki/index.php/Pioneers_settlers_town_planners] * Pioneers, Town planners & Settlers: https://agilebusinessmanifesto.com/agilebusiness/a-structure-for-continuous-innovation-pioneers-settlers-town-planners/ [https://agilebusinessmanifesto.com/agilebusiness/a-structure-for-continuous-innovation-pioneers-settlers-town-planners/]

*We apologise in advance for the sound quality in this episode* Kenneth is a VP, Engineering. A global engineering leader who left school at 14 to begin his career as a Software Engineer. Kenneth started a business at 17 which he ran for a number of years and went onto sell in 2011. Having performed multiple roles since then at the Perform Group, Kenneth delivers impact in his role as VP Engineering. DAZN is the leading global sports streaming service. Created by fans, for fans, it is leading the charge to give affordable access to sport anytime, anywhere. DAZN is available on most internet-connected devices, including smart TVs, smartphones, tablets, PCs, game consoles, streaming sticks and set-top boxes. DAZN launched in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Japan in 2016, Canada in 2017, Italy and U.S. in 2018 and Spain and Brazil in 2019. In 2020, DAZN expanded to more than 200 countries and territories, reinforcing the commitment to becoming a global sports destination platform. The first phase of DAZN’s global expansion is an English-language service focused on boxing, building on the company’s significant investment in the sport over the past two years. The conversation flows through many topics and Kenneth shares his unique and honest perspective on things. If you a CEO of a product company, a Founder of a company, a person simply looking to better understand product and engineering there is something in this conversation for you. Tech Vision: * To you, what is technology? * What do you think we are doing well in the world right now with technology? * What innovation excites? * For a start-up founder who is not a technical minded leader - what would your advice be? Where would you focus? * What are the tech pitfalls you can make as a starting entrepreneur ? * Starting from scratch - what would your first hire be? * As a VP, Engineering what do you feel your purpose is a leader? * How do you decide to internalise vs externalise? * Tell us about the highest technical project failure you experienced? * How do you interact with product management? Creating tech: * What is the role of engineering in a product company? * How should a company be set up to optimise/leverage engineering? * What is best practice engineering? * What is the ideal SDLC, in your opinion? Building teams: * How do you design your engineering teams? * How do you set them up for success? * How can teams focus on solving the short term and long term problems? * How do you organise your teams to focus on tackling improvement (tech debt), BAU and innovation? * How do you keep the innovation mindset in the team? * What does a high performing engineering team look like? * What does it take to attract and retain tech talents? Mind of tomorrow: * For someone thinking about choosing tech as their career, what would you advise? * If you had the power through the use of technology to solve one of the world's problems/opportunities what would it be and why?? References: Conways law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway] Daniel Pink: https://www.danpink.com/ [https://www.danpink.com/] Jim Collins: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Great-Jim-Collins/dp/0712676090 [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Great-Jim-Collins/dp/0712676090] Cloud Guru: https://acloudguru.com/ [https://acloudguru.com/] O'REILLY: https://www.oreilly.com/ [https://www.oreilly.com/] Failure parties: https://hbr.org/2011/04/strategies-for-learning-from-failure [https://hbr.org/2011/04/strategies-for-learning-from-failure] The power of vulnerability: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare [https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_the_power_of_vulnerability?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare] Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/ [https://www.udemy.com/] What Kenneth could not recall in the podcast is the following: https://www.udemy.com/course/the-web-developer-bootcamp/ [https://www.udemy.com/course/the-web-developer-bootcamp/]

We live in a world where technology is all around us. We want to take you on a knowledge sharing journey where some amazing, talented, humble and outspoken guests who will share their unique perspectives. Telling us stories and sharing information on innovations, lessons learned in start-ups, investment, how organisations need to better serve customers, culture, founder pitfalls, hiring and retaining great talent. We will uncover a wide variety of topics so we can share as much knowledge as possible. The team at Beephenom are delighted to host this podcast series featuring some true phenoms.