Hope Driven Software Development

A development model that never works


Part of my CTO Coaching

There is something I call Hope Driven Software Development. It is common in startups but can also sometimes be found in large enterprises that missed the train.

The situation is always the same. In a startup, the last investment round money has been squandered on different things, mostly because the startup has no strategy. Or has no vision, often the founder confuses an idea they had with a vision. Then growth isn’t what it should be. Because of this, there is no new investment round. The end of the runway can be seen. Founders get desperate. Or enterprise CEOs get desperate because the company missed the train on some technical development, they are disrupted by a startup, or their product drifted way off the market.

The CEO can’t put more money into marketing, their first reflex. This has failed, because there was no—or no longer is—product market fit (PMF). It’s like a bucket with a hole in the bottom, you pour water in, but it’s not staying in the bucket. Marketing buys users, but they churn.

Then the CEO and product management put all their hope in this one feature. If it works, it will bring back growth, even the hockey stick, the turnaround! Pressure on development is rising, to a boiling point. This needs to be released ASAP to “safe the company”. Developers are driven to release. The mood is turning bad. Some developers leave.

Then the feature is released. Usage is average, it rarely is a turnaround feature. All hopes were put on this one feature. As it does not turn the company around, there will be another safe-the-company-feature. This is right before the company pivots to some new hope after layoffs. The cycle begins again.

This is what I call hope driven development.

We see this often in opportunity driven companies without a vision. With a vision and strategy, when a step does not work, you find a new step. But no step will need to “turn the company around.” Hope driven development is a sign that the founders have no clue about the market or customers. When opportunities dry up, and growth isn’t there, we get hope driven development. The one feature to safe us all.

There is also Hope Driven B2B Sales. It’s the same as with the feature, but with one customer. “If we sign this one customer, everything will be fine” the CEO says. And often the B2B customers want some features before they sign. The same mechanisms kick into gear. Pressure is put on developers to deliver the leads (not yet a customer!) wishes. Development is done, and the lead does not sign on. Or the lead becomes a customer and does not turn the company around. Or the lead becomes a customer and destroys the vision and strategy by their gravity. This often results in opportunity driven development, with high hopes on some features.

I have seen startups that were transformed by one big B2B customer. But many more I have seen haven’t. Sometimes the big customer and the feature they demand are the final straw to derail the startup.

I myself put my hope in hope driven features. Not because of the runway, but because of getting the hockey stick and investment. None of them worked. The same goes for B2B customers, “This customer will change everything”—it didn’t.

What to do instead? Have a vision for your product, were you and the market will be in five years. Build for the future as Steven Jobs did, not for the current market. Know where it moves. Have a strategy on how you get there. Have a business strategy, a product strategy that supports business and a tech strategy that supports product. Adapt the strategy when you see something doesn’t work. Measure the success of your features ruthlessly. When less than 80% of features work, change the way you come up with features. As CEO, go and talk to customers most of the time. You need to understand the market. If you want to become a unicorn, there can’t be anybody else who knows more about the market and the future of it. But don’t do hope driven product development.

Product Market Fit, the hockey stick, overnight-success takes a long time for most startups. Don’t squander your money. Success is not coming from hope driven features, but from not dying. As Paul Graham said, “If you can just avoid dying, you get rich.”

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