Sounds like everyone was bouncing up against both unknown knowns (Bluetooth latency) and unknown unknowns (fickle market / perceived value). But curious, what could management have done to navigate these blocks?
A few things: 1) when you're acquiring a company that doesn't have proven PMF at scale, then you need to plan for 12-18 months of PMF work while you start scaling it up. If you're only going to give it 6-9 months, then don't buy it. 2) Any experienced software dev team could have told the management that the project wasn't going to come in on budget or with a full scope. I certainly let them know immediately, but then said we'd be happy to do our best. Maybe would have been good for them to listen to the experts and make a different plan rather than roll the dice and watch their plan fall short. 3) The acquisition of the LittleBits company may have looked strategically ideal, and they may have known it would doom Specdrums, and internallly they made that hard decision eyes-wide-open. This certainly wasn't communicated and should have been.
Oh something else I didn't mention in the story is that part of the reason that the requirements and bluetooth library were problematic is that the internal dev team was too focused on other company priorities and just didn't turn their attention to Specdrums in time. Poorly managed.
All in all it felt like what happens when you have smart people that don't really have experience working in teams and delivering on a good rhythm.
hi from spain! if you are near of barcelona send me a telegram @sporesandseeds_shop
Sounds like everyone was bouncing up against both unknown knowns (Bluetooth latency) and unknown unknowns (fickle market / perceived value). But curious, what could management have done to navigate these blocks?
A few things: 1) when you're acquiring a company that doesn't have proven PMF at scale, then you need to plan for 12-18 months of PMF work while you start scaling it up. If you're only going to give it 6-9 months, then don't buy it. 2) Any experienced software dev team could have told the management that the project wasn't going to come in on budget or with a full scope. I certainly let them know immediately, but then said we'd be happy to do our best. Maybe would have been good for them to listen to the experts and make a different plan rather than roll the dice and watch their plan fall short. 3) The acquisition of the LittleBits company may have looked strategically ideal, and they may have known it would doom Specdrums, and internallly they made that hard decision eyes-wide-open. This certainly wasn't communicated and should have been.
Oh something else I didn't mention in the story is that part of the reason that the requirements and bluetooth library were problematic is that the internal dev team was too focused on other company priorities and just didn't turn their attention to Specdrums in time. Poorly managed.
All in all it felt like what happens when you have smart people that don't really have experience working in teams and delivering on a good rhythm.