Building an ecosystem around a tech product

Technical products are not isolated products
anymore. Creating the right ecosystem for your product is as important as the product itself.

Transcript

1. Building an ecosystem around a tech product Migsar Navarro
2. Overview Technical products are not isolated products anymore. The purpose of the talk is to make you are aware of meaning and importance of ecosystems and understand the relationship with developers.
3. What is an ecosystem? Wikipedia: • An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system.
4. What is a business ecosystem? From "Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition" by James F. Moore quoted in Wikipedia, business ecosystems: • Are economic communities supported by organizations and individuals, that include suppliers, lead producers, competitors, and other stakeholders. • Align themselves with the directions set by a central company, that is the ecosystem leader and enables members to move toward shared visions to align their investments and roles.
5. The need for an aaS ecosystem Traditionally there are products and services, products are physical and services are not. For web product has a new definition, a virtual product, then you have SaaS, PaaS or IaaS, usually it is a service because you rely on a subscription model, paying as you use.
6. The aaS ecosystem The players: – Investors/Funding – Creators/developers – Customers – Others (the world) The scale: – Global
7. Some constrains • Timing is as important as the product. • Geographic frontiers are vanishing. • Interactions are more complex than traditionally. • Data driven decisions.
8. Developers • There is a global workforce. • News and technologies spread faster than ever. • It is a directed graph. • The developer is a marketing vehicle.
9. What developers want... • Developers are product creators. • Developers have different dynamics that most other professions, flexible schedule, remote working high job change rate. • It is not uncommon for developers to aim at start their own start-up in the near future.
10. Source: StackOverflow Survey 2018
11. Source: StackOverflow Survey 2018
12. Source: StackOverflow Survey 2018
13. Source: StackOverflow Survey 2018
14. Source: StackOverflow Survey 2018
15. Source: StackOverflow Survey 2018
16. • Developers are aware of technologies life-cycles. • Developers like to share experiences but also to search better fit to their particular skillset. • Developers can aspire to very similar living conditions, for average devs the ratio salary/expenses is very stable from country to country.
17. What is the landscape... • I consider landscape as composed by ecosystems. • Corporations like to have the best developers and are aware of the new market dynamics. • Start-up and corporations compete on common grounds, acquisitions are common and long-term strategies are present.
18. Source: Github Blog: Thank you for 100 million repositories
19. Source: Github Blog: Thank you for 100 million repositories
20. Source: Github Octoverse: Projects
21. Source: Github Octoverse: Projects
22. On building ecosystems People have to feel ownership of products. People prefer to re-use than to re-invent. The main product is given to customers but the ecosystem is given to a community, that is investors, developers and general public.
23. On building ecosystems Ecosystems rarely occurs spontaneously. They are better chances of success if they are designed. In software ecosystems are usually about tools, not IP or infrastructure. It is also better for development to have a clear separation of concerns and keep the core product isolated from the tools created to support it.
24. Conclusions Products can be easily build with money, ecosystems can’t, but they can be bought. Prestige and trust are more important than technical capacity, ecosystems produce both. Ecosystems create awareness of product and a communication channel, not the other way around.
25. References • The Emerging Art of Ecosystem Management • The Myths and Realities of Business Ecosystems • Dispelling the Myths of Ecosystems(transcript) • Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results 2018 • Github Octoverse
26. Thanks!