Category: tools

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cloud hacks payments security startup strategy support tools

Tech Stack for Payments

Your business is growing and you are considering expanding your offering to new verticals. The next phase, if you haven’t done it already, is to add payments and ‘quilty-of-life’ tools to help your teams. A good start tech stack for a business which is growing and adding new products is in the diagram. This is the time to also rigorously review your whole tech stack and start taking things out. Carve out 2 weeks every quarter to spend on the tech stack to stay on top of it in terms of cost, usefulness and to ensure you are using tools fit for purpose. Your business has evolved and what worked during the first 6 months might not work now.

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cloud decisions design hacks leadership program security startup strategy team tools

Tech Stack for Growth

So you have launched. You figured out how to make money and you are ready to grow. A good tech stack for growth businesses is depicted in the diagram. Gowing the business usually requires more people. So your tech stack will need to expand to include user management tools. My guidance here is to make sure you figured out what’s available from Gsuite or Office 365 before adding new complexity. By the way, you should only use either Gsuite or Office 365. Never both. Remember to always avoid complexity. If you like us and many other businesses, you will have Macs and Windows. You should also understand Gsuite or Office 365 offering for user kit management before adding new tools. As a growing business, you will consider adding new customer channels. We added fairly quickly telephony and webchat and also integrations to other (non-core) services. You don’t want to build any of this unless it’s your USP which is very unlikely. Finally, remember to constantly review your technology stack to continuously remove legacy.

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cloud design hacks innovation startup strategy system tools

Tech Stack for Launch

So you are ready to launch an MVP or ‘open-to-all’ service? Scary, right? Preparing for launch it’s never easy. Bear in mind that no one has many users to start. However, if you have keen investors or an active board, the pressure is on. A good start tech stack is depicted in the diagram. The big difference is analytics and tools the business needs to make a success out of the launch. So a lot of new tools are added to facilitate timely and accurate product usage tracking. Finally, marketing and support tools will make or break the business so overinvest in figuring what works for you. Challenge arguments based on people’s previous experiences. (We used MailChimp at X). Also, remember to constantly review your technology stack to continuously remove legacy.

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design hacks patterns short startup tools

Early stage startup design resources

The Black Design resources let you conduct a meaningful user observation, engage in product design, and communicate value of your business.
http://www.black.design

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leadership other people support team tools work

Bridging Tech-Business gap

Best way for Tech to bridge gap with the Business is to be helpful and to ensure that tech works 100% of the time.

How to be helpful? Organise knowedge sharing sessions with functional teams (finance, for example), focus on their needs and their core apps, show them how to use the tools to make their job easier. Do this to establish a baseline of Tech knowledge across organisation.

If you are a smaller business or have a developed support function, follow up with one to ones that can be between a few minutes to 30mins. Check user set up, show tools shortcuts, explain new tools use case. Use a check list to ensure consistency.

100% useful/works: Needless to say ensure that Tech works by making common tasks seamless: login, email, change password, file sharing, system updates, printing.

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design hacks other process tools

Okta

Ok. So you believe in micro services and shadow IT. You add a task management tool, e-payslips, HR app, case management and more. They all make sense since they address a specific need. And then at some point you feel a need to link them first via a single sign on (with a service like Okta) and later as a coordinated work flow. Don’t do this since you will be adding complexity and removing optionality to use the best service for the job since you will be embedding the tools that you selected because they are easily replaceable.

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hacks other process tools

Kaseya

Use Kaseya to manage internal IT (asset management, IT config management, for example).

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hacks other tools

TeamViewer

TeamViewer is super useful when reviewing / running / debugging code with a remote dev. Use it.

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other tools

Audacity

Use Audacity to record WAV files for your IVR.