jazzc
Elite Member
- Jan 27, 2009
- 2,964
- 14,717
Sunday, 3:40pm - 4:35pm I will be giving a talk at Augustus 2; come say hi if you're not still drunk from the previous night's party 
An executive's guide to Scalable Applications - how to survive a tsunami of users you weren't expecting to love your app.
What you need to know as a business owner to build ambitious software that your programmer does not tell you and couldn't tell you even if he wanted to.
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Think of a golden horse carriage. Stop. Now think of a huge car factory. Which one would you choose to own? Riding downtown like a Roman emperor is perfectly fine but if you're like me, the pick is a no-brainer.
You've had the idea for an app so great that Zuck himself will be falling on his knees begging you to accept his $17 billion - no, wait - $97 billion for it. You find a ninja, rock-star programmer and he builds it for you. Users come, love it and you're ecstatic. They invite their friends, the friends of their friends (and their cats) and soon you have more users than France has fries.
And then, disaster! Member retention falls like crazy, things crash left and right, your app is slower than a snail strolling during mid-summer and everyone's complaining across the inter-webs. Oh, and your investors just called for an urgent meeting. What did just happen?
Well Joey, your app simply wasn't designed to cope with it. But how? Your programmer was a real ninja after all. Why wasn't a catastrophe like this foreseen? The truth is that it was neither your nor your programmer's fault. Building scalable applications is never a requirement when you're at the beginning - nobody worries about Argentinian Tango dancing lessons for his 2 y.o. toddler that can barely walk.
A nice problem to have though, one might say. You just get Jean Claude Van Damme instead of a ninja this time and make everything roll faster than Rick does. The bad news is that unfortunately it doesn't really work that way because frankly, you just can't mod a horse cart into a Veyron when you're in need of a Bugatti. At that point, you will be forced to redo everything from scratch.
"It wasn't that bad the first time, so why should I be worried now John?". Just pause and think about it. Now that you have proven to your cash flow rich and established competitors that your app is a money making printing press, can you really afford to be out of the loop for a minimum of 6 months? Can you really afford to turn stagnant like MySpace?
Scalable applications are notoriously hard to do. The reason is that there can never be a one-size-fits-all solution to this problem because of its super complex nature - battling Kryptonite loaded invaders from outer space pales in comparison. Even worse, scaling is something that less than 0.05% of programmers will ever face. If you thought finding a great programmer was hard, wait till you need to find a great programmer who understands the intricacies of scalability.
So what is a factory really? Is it the building, is it the machinery, is it the workers? No, not at all. The secret sauce, the mind essence of the factory is the process - how actions are orchestrated. Think about what you need to do to build a wall in your garden. Now think about what you need to do to build the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Is it simply more material and workers? Oh, how I'd wish!
To tame the monster of complexity you require the factory process. Yet, before you can work on the process, you need to know what you're up fighting against. Rejoice, for this is exactly what you will learn in my session! No worries, zero arcane technical stuff will be included, this is the executive's guide after all - and no Exec ever wants to listen to a presentation spoken in ancient Mesopotamian painted with hieroglyphics. What you WILL get is the conceptual understanding required to make the proper decisions to guide your team to success from the very beginning. Plus, a chance to let me know how awesome your latest project is - you can't really resist that now, can you? See you on board!
----
I hope you'll enjoy the session as much as I've enjoyed preparing it
I've created a Twitter account for those who like that means of communication, feel free to add me: @bhwjazzc
An executive's guide to Scalable Applications - how to survive a tsunami of users you weren't expecting to love your app.
What you need to know as a business owner to build ambitious software that your programmer does not tell you and couldn't tell you even if he wanted to.
----
Think of a golden horse carriage. Stop. Now think of a huge car factory. Which one would you choose to own? Riding downtown like a Roman emperor is perfectly fine but if you're like me, the pick is a no-brainer.
You've had the idea for an app so great that Zuck himself will be falling on his knees begging you to accept his $17 billion - no, wait - $97 billion for it. You find a ninja, rock-star programmer and he builds it for you. Users come, love it and you're ecstatic. They invite their friends, the friends of their friends (and their cats) and soon you have more users than France has fries.
And then, disaster! Member retention falls like crazy, things crash left and right, your app is slower than a snail strolling during mid-summer and everyone's complaining across the inter-webs. Oh, and your investors just called for an urgent meeting. What did just happen?
Well Joey, your app simply wasn't designed to cope with it. But how? Your programmer was a real ninja after all. Why wasn't a catastrophe like this foreseen? The truth is that it was neither your nor your programmer's fault. Building scalable applications is never a requirement when you're at the beginning - nobody worries about Argentinian Tango dancing lessons for his 2 y.o. toddler that can barely walk.
A nice problem to have though, one might say. You just get Jean Claude Van Damme instead of a ninja this time and make everything roll faster than Rick does. The bad news is that unfortunately it doesn't really work that way because frankly, you just can't mod a horse cart into a Veyron when you're in need of a Bugatti. At that point, you will be forced to redo everything from scratch.
"It wasn't that bad the first time, so why should I be worried now John?". Just pause and think about it. Now that you have proven to your cash flow rich and established competitors that your app is a money making printing press, can you really afford to be out of the loop for a minimum of 6 months? Can you really afford to turn stagnant like MySpace?
Scalable applications are notoriously hard to do. The reason is that there can never be a one-size-fits-all solution to this problem because of its super complex nature - battling Kryptonite loaded invaders from outer space pales in comparison. Even worse, scaling is something that less than 0.05% of programmers will ever face. If you thought finding a great programmer was hard, wait till you need to find a great programmer who understands the intricacies of scalability.
So what is a factory really? Is it the building, is it the machinery, is it the workers? No, not at all. The secret sauce, the mind essence of the factory is the process - how actions are orchestrated. Think about what you need to do to build a wall in your garden. Now think about what you need to do to build the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Is it simply more material and workers? Oh, how I'd wish!
To tame the monster of complexity you require the factory process. Yet, before you can work on the process, you need to know what you're up fighting against. Rejoice, for this is exactly what you will learn in my session! No worries, zero arcane technical stuff will be included, this is the executive's guide after all - and no Exec ever wants to listen to a presentation spoken in ancient Mesopotamian painted with hieroglyphics. What you WILL get is the conceptual understanding required to make the proper decisions to guide your team to success from the very beginning. Plus, a chance to let me know how awesome your latest project is - you can't really resist that now, can you? See you on board!
----
I hope you'll enjoy the session as much as I've enjoyed preparing it
I've created a Twitter account for those who like that means of communication, feel free to add me: @bhwjazzc
