Hello, Startup by Brikman, Yevgeniy -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Preface

What will you find in this book?

Part I: Products Part II: Technologies Part III: Teams

Key ideas

Startups are about people Great companies are the result of evolution Speed wins

This book covers a lot of ground Who should read this book? Conventions used in this book Safari® Books Online How to contact us Acknowledgments Interviews

I. Products 1. Why Startups

The age of the tech startup What is a tech startup? Why you should work at a startup

More opportunity More ownership More fun

Why you shouldn’t work at a startup

It’s not glamorous It’s a sacrifice You probably won’t get rich Joining versus founding a startup

Recap

2. Startup Ideas

Where ideas come from

Knowledge

Experts Generalists

Generating ideas Environment for creativity

Give yourself plenty of time Keep an idea journal Work on the problem Get away from work Add constraints Look for pain points Talk to others

Stealth mode Idea versus execution

Validation

Speed Wins Customer development Validate the problem

Market sizing Talking to real customers Feasibility

Recap

3. Product Design

Design

Design is iterative User-centered design

User stories Personas Emotional design Simplicity Usability testing

Visual Design

Copywriting Design reuse Layout Typography Contrast and repetition Colors

A quick review of visual design

The MVP

Types of MVPs Focus on the differentiators Buy the MVP Do things that don’t scale

Recap

4. Data and Distribution

Data

What metrics to track

Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue The magic number

Data-driven development

Incorporating data into the product development process Data-driven development through controlled experiments Data-driven development strengths and weaknesses

Distribution

Word of mouth

Build a better product Provide great customer service Build viral loops into your product

Marketing

Advertising PR and media Email SEO Social media Inbound marketing

Sales Branding

Recap

II. Technologies 5. Choosing a Tech Stack

Thinking about tech stacks Evolving the tech stack Build in-house, buy commercial, or use open source?

Build in-house Buy a commercial product Use open source Technologies you should never build yourself Build in-house, buy commercial, or use open source summary?

Choosing a programming language

Programming paradigms

Object-oriented programming Functional programming Static typing Automatic memory management

Problem fit Performance Productivity Final thoughts on choosing a programming language

Choosing a server-side framework

Problem fit Data Layer View layer

Built-in view helpers Server-side versus client-side Logic versus logic-less templates

Testing Scalability

I/O bound CPU/memory bound

Deployment Security

Authentication CSRF attacks Code injection attacks Advisories

Final thoughts on choosing a server-side framework

Choosing a database

Relational Databases NoSQL databases

Key-value stores Document stores Column-oriented databases Graph databases

Reading data Writing data Schemas Scalability

Replication Partitioning

Failure modes Maturity Final thoughts on choosing a database

Recap

6. Clean Code

Code is for people Code layout Naming

Answer all the big questions Be precise Be thorough Reveal intent Follow conventions Naming is hard

Error handling Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) Functional programming

Immutable data Higher-order functions Pure functions

Loose coupling

Internal implementation dependencies System dependencies Library dependencies Global variables

High cohesion Comments Refactoring Recap

7. Scalability

Scaling a startup Scaling coding practices

Automated Tests

A primer on automated testing Types of automated tests Test doubles Test-driven development (TDD) What should you test? Automated testing best practices

Split up the code

Interfaces and modules Versioned artifacts Services

Code reviews

Design reviews Pair programming Pre-commit reviews Static analysis Code review best practices

Documentation

Written documentation Code documentation Community documentation Readme-driven development (RDD)

Scaling performance

Measure Optimize

Recap

8. Software Delivery

Done means delivered Manual delivery: a horror story Build

Version control

Write good commit messages Commit early and often

Build tool Continuous Integration

Trunk-based development Branch by abstraction Feature toggles

Deployment

Hosting Configuration Management

Application configuration Virtual machines Containers Orchestration tools Deployment automation

Continuous Delivery

Rollback Backward compatibility

Monitoring

Logging

Log names Log levels Log formatting Log aggregation

Metrics

Availability level Business level Application level Process level Code level Server level

Alerting

Recap

III. Teams 9. Startup Culture

Actions, not words Core Ideology

Mission

Concise Clear Timeless Inspiring

Core Values

Organizational design

Management-driven hierarchy Distributed organization

Hiring and promotions

The Peter Principle Management as a promotion

Motivation

Autonomy Mastery Purpose

The office

A place where you can work with others A place where you can do focused work alone A place where you can get away from work A way to customize the office for your personal needs

Remote work

Benefits Drawbacks Best practices

Communication

Internal communication External communication

Process

Use good judgment Software methodologies

Recap

10. Getting a Job at a Startup

Finding a startup job

Use your network Grow your network

Meetup groups and conferences Hackathons and competitions Talks, blog posts, open source

Build an online identity Online job search

Nailing the interview

Coding on a whiteboard Thinking out loud Know thyself Know the company Short, repetitive CS 101 problems

How to evaluate and negotiate a job offer

Salary Equity

What is stock? How do employees get stock? What is vesting? What are stock options? How do you sell your stock? How is stock taxed? Short-term versus long-term capital gains Gotchas with exercising stock options Do your research How much are my stock options worth? Salary versus equity

Benefits Negotiating

Should I tell them my salary? What if they promise a raise later on? What can you negotiate for? How to negotiate Competing offers

Recap

11. Hiring for Your Startup

Startups are about people Who to hire

Co-founders Early hires Later hires 10x developers What to look for

Smart/gets things done Culture fit Good communication skills I would be OK reporting to them

Finding great candidates

Referrals Employer branding Searching online Recruiters Premature optimization

Typos Poor targeting College degrees Avoiding premature optimization

The interview

The interview process

Step 1: Connect Step 2: Phone screens Step 3: On-site interview

Interview questions

Ask the candidate to teach you something Give the candidate a chance to learn something Have the candidate demonstrate their technical skills

Making an offer

What should you offer?

The opportunity Compensation Benefits

Follow-up and negotiation

Recap

12. Learning

Principles of learning

Choose your skills wisely Dedicate time to learning Make learning part of your job