Building Better Developers

Detailed Notes

In the Building Better Developers podcast episode, hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche share valuable insights into effective product enhancement strategies. They explore how businesses can improve and expand their products and services without adding unnecessary complexity or sacrificing quality.

If you’re a business owner, product manager, or developer, this episode is packed with practical advice on how to grow your offerings sustainably in a customer-focused manner.

Read more; https://develpreneur.com/product-enhancement-strategies-how-to-add-value-without-adding-bloat/

*Your Next Step*

The episode wraps up with a challenge: What is your next product enhancement strategy?

Before your next release or feature update, ask yourself:

* Does this enhancement provide real value to my customers? * Do I have the resources to support it? * Will it improve the overall customer experience?

If you’re unsure, start by gathering feedback. Your customers’ input is the key to meaningful, sustainable product growth.

*Additional Resources*

* Pricing Strategies – The Value Of Your Product Or Service (https://develpreneur.com/pricing-strategies-the-value-of-your-product-or-service/) * Breaking Things Down for Success: How Developers Can Build Better Habits (https://develpreneur.com/breaking-things-down-for-success-how-developers-can-build-better-habits/) * Software Development Challenges and How To Navigate Them (https://develpreneur.com/software-development-challenges-and-how-to-navigate-them/) * Be A Better CEO – Interview with Donna Dube (https://develpreneur.com/be-a-better-ceo-interview-with-donna-dube/)

*Follow-us on:*

* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur

Transcript Text

[Music]
and let's just like do a little just
clicked record and we are back live so
well not live live and
recorded we are recorded live as they
always said in the back in the day
recorded before a live studio audience
the studio audience being the two people
you're seeing right here as far as I
know maybe there's a you know some sort
of animal like a cat around as
well all right so that was a pretty I
think that went pretty
good talking about product placement now
I'm trying to think of
what if there's like a good little
follow on to that um because we've
talked about like when to
hire um have we talked
about when to
expand well let's see I we talked about
hiring but I'm thinking more from a
product like when to add another product
because it's sort of a financial
management overcoming barriers elevator
pitch scaling with contractors and
employees
hiring Talent strategies for building
strong teams uh business Automation and
templates leveraging AI business growth
when and how to scale
successfully uh work life balance
disaster recovery business continuity
and business Network strategies and how
to succeed with digital
marketing so I think what so because I'm
thinking of is like when
to I guess it's almost now as I'm
thinking more of it thinking more of it
as like enhanc strategies for a product
is do you build another product do you
create another product to sort of expand
and get bring in more customers or do
you enhance your existing product to
bring in more
customers this is particularly like you
know when you go from version one to
version two how does that what does that
look like how am I going to approach
that and so I'm thinking maybe we do
that I was like I guess um horizontal
versus vertical growth in a product
essentially if we want to get all
technical with it
yeah kind
of not necessarily product quality
control but
um product
Improvement and enhancement yeah this is
this is definitely like adding new
features and things like that so it's
definitely not it's this isn't really
quality as much as it is um enhancing
extending enhancing increasing the um
your offering basically whether it's you
know new Services whether it's
more on top of the service that you
already have it from a product it would
be things like um do we have a second
product that we run with or do we just
have this product and we have now a
module or an add-on or just something
that you get free as a customer there's
another service now that is part of this
product
offering okay yeah I'm I'm with yeah
it's I like that one that that goes
well then we will get going in a second
I just keep this going for a second
hello and welcome back we are the
developer or podcast we are building
better developers I am Rob Broadhead
happen to be one of the founders of
develop Andor building better developers
as well I am also a founder of RB
Consulting where we help you do
technology better it's basically one of
those things where it's like technology
is expensive it is in a lot of places
your probably your second or third
biggest cost in your business number one
is almost always going to be your people
uh even if it's a even if it's yourself
it's most likely going to be you know
people but then technology sends to be
right behind it because yes it is I'm
sort of grouping it in a big way but it
is because you may have technology is
going to do things like help your back
office help your front office help your
C your customer relationships it's going
to help your employee relationships it's
going to help you fill out all the
paperwork that you need to for come tax
time and all that kind of stuff so we
help you through simplification
automation integration Innovation we sit
down we make sure that we're clear on
what your business is and what your
special offerings are and then we look
at our experience in technology and
building teams and Building Solutions
and find the best way whether it's
building something for you buying it off
a shelf uh maybe making even just a
little adjustments to what you have
sometimes it may be as simple as here's
a piece of paper and a pencil and if you
guys just keep track of this in a column
or format
it's going to be a better approach
however that is that's what we provide
good thing bad
thing good thing this is so this morning
I was like you know what I need to go
find a place I want to park I want to
have some nice internet I'm maybe gonna
have a little you know have some tea
have a breakfast not in my office my
office is like in flux right now so
there's a great little place and I'm
like oh cool and they've got some good
food and so I walk in and Michael is
smirking because he knows uh you guys in
video I guess are the ones that see it
if you're audio you don't because he
knows that one of the things I complain
about is I walk in and I'm like the
coffee hits my nose but then the next
thing is a lady playing music right
there at the door and this is like one
of their offerings this is the service
that they provide in their business is
that they have live music there on a
Saturday morning which is when I walked
in and I was like oh good I'm gonna walk
right back out because I don't need
somebody that loud while I'm trying to
enjoy my breakfast and my
tea that being said
you do want to go enjoy Michael who's
going to introduce himself I know that's
a really bad like segue but I'll work on
that it's it's too early in the morning
introduce yourself
mister thanks Rob hey everyone my name
is Michael malash one of the co-founders
of developer building better developers
and I'm also the founder of a company
called Invision QA where we are a small
software company that helps businesses
clinicians whoever in their search for
better software to help them grow and
build their business we work with
doctor's offices we work with small
businesses and what we do is we come in
and we help you assess what you
currently have what software you're
currently using for your business and
what your business really needs we embed
ourselves within your processes we
understand all the ins and outs of your
business and then we do a full
assessment of your software stack to
determine is the software working for
you or are you working for your software
meaning are you spending more time
trying to make the software work for you
whereas you should be able to either
build or buy something that is going to
save you time and money so that's one of
the biggest Services we offer along with
you know building software for companies
or helping softwares that have software
that they need support with good thing
bad
thing uh good thing bad thing so good
thing uh it is spring my wife is
starting to build out her garden for the
year uh and I bought her a nice uh
little yard cart so she could move
things around a little bit bigger than a
uh those little red wagons uh bad thing
FedEx ran over it the other day when
they pulled into the yard along with
hitting the big pile of bags of dirt in
that that we had sitting there oh my go
in theard so uh for my wife that was
very bad thing um and for my pocketbook
it was a very bad thing cuz I had to go
buy another one immediately and get it
overnighted so that she could have it to
put all those piles of dirts where it
needed to go so it's spring is here and
it's good and
bad that reminds me I guess of the the
Home Alone where they would always like
you know the the Train the van or the
bus or taxi or whatever come in and
they'd hit that that little uh you know
statuette or whatever every time and
knock it over and then have to like set
it back up H gosh
at least it wasn't you I have I've had a
couple of those times where I've
destroyed something because it was
closer to my car than I thought and yes
that that was your good thing is it was
not your
fault so I want to talk about it's
essentially expanding your product uh
think about or enhancing it or however
you look at it whether it's a product or
a service and there's really a couple
ways you can go about it either you can
take your existing service your existing
product and you can add features to it
think about it from a should like a old
school desktop application or even a web
application maybe what you do is you're
adding some features that are
essentially other menu options that a
user will have or modules or plugins
that a user will have uh when you think
of like I go back to like CRM is can be
very basic it could be you know customer
address and a customer history well
maybe you want to add on a uh like an
email campaign or an integration to
somebody like a uh like a mail champ or
somebody like that or maybe you want to
add some reports you those would that's
those are kinds of things I'm talking
about in a service area it may be things
like you want to maybe you want to
expand the services that you offer maybe
you were previously only doing let's say
frontend web work and now you want to
actually add that you're also going to
do some of the middle tier work or the
backend work web a lot of times that
would probably make sense is it maybe
your front end devel ER and you are now
going to start adding the backend so
that it can talk to your front
end the thing about these is that
there's there as there isn't so many
things there is a consideration as far
as what is it what is the impact of
doing this now part of it is the
customer side and that honestly is the
most important is where am I adding
value to the customer and that's that is
such a critical question because I think
too often we don't think about that we
do something that is cool or neat or
something that we want to do and now
we've just added bloat we haven't really
added something that is useful to the
customer sometimes we actually detract
from it I think of now because I'm just
not a fan of it if you go to a lot of
The Office Products the words and the
excels and things like that there's you
know there's menus upon menus upon menus
and there's a lot of stuff that it does
but if you just want to do like basic
stuff it's it's just too much it takes
too long to figure it out I want you
know I want to be able to go to these
you know these things and just go bam
bam bam I can find them I can save it I
can load it whatever it is and then move
on I don't need all of those other
features and so that I think is one of
the things that you want to think about
is first does my product need to be
enhanced improved upgraded because
sometimes it doesn't sometimes you can
just keep doing that and maybe it's just
a little bit of doing it better what you
did so you're not providing anything
actually
necessarily uh extra to it it's the same
service or the same product it's just of
a higher quality it doesn't fail as
often or maybe it's a little faster or
something like that you know performance
tweaks and stuff like that can in
themselves be a very big benefit for a
product particularly uh like because
this is one that I've dealt with a lot
if you're doing like data migrations and
data moving and things like that for
large data sets sometimes those can take
hours and and even days and if you can
build something that does that faster
then now you're saving you know hours or
even
days so I think the first thing
is one I guess it's now this is one of
those little chicken and egg kind of
thing the first one is is this valuable
to the customer is this something where
you're you're using your product you're
providing your service and you've gotten
feedback because this is talking about
an existing product so you should have
feedback or have conversations with your
customers that provide with this
information that says hey it would be
beneficial if you did X or if you did it
this way or if you if we had this thing
that we could work with as well within
your
product those are the kinds of things
that you need and then the the next side
of it
is am I essentially am I positioned to
do this because sometimes adding or
growing adds different stuff like for
example if you're building a team every
time you add another person that's
another set of potential points of
failure for communication if you know
two people talking together it's just
back and forth now if you got three
people then you know a has to talk to B
and to C correctly by B and C off and
then as you grow obviously it grows in
complexity that can be the same thing
with our products as we grow into
another add another feature or
enhancement or even you know in a a
parallel thing maybe we say well we have
this product offering but now we're
going to offer a second product that
maybe it works with ours maybe it
doesn't but what we've also done is
we've expanded quite likely our customer
pool or our ideal customer base are we
positioned to do so because sometimes we
step into this stuff too soon and we
haven't essentially we haven't firmed up
our position where we're at and instead
we step into this new thing thinking
well we're going to expand but we expand
too fast and the next thing you know it
all comes crumbling down because we
haven't built a good enough
Foundation thoughts on that Michael yeah
so it's interesting that last one
especially
because when when you are growing your
business and you are expanding
especially with software one of the
biggest things we like to do especially
with the agile is fail fast
like make changes quickly to your
product or to your uh environment get
the software out there find out if the
users like it or not and then roll it
back if they don't and you you in a
constant state of flux but if you have a
specific product out there like say
Microsoft Word you're not going to want
to be making Fast tweaks to it and
having it fail it's an established
product so if your product is something
out there that's established you don't
want to break it you don't want to make
it unstable so that's one of the biggest
things you got to be careful of when
you're looking to expand or grow or
enhance your products or even offer a
secondary product because the other
thing it it's almost like baking uh and
this just comes to mind because I'm my
wife's beig watching all the Tournament
of Champions or whatever it is uh on
Food Network right now but nine out of
10 times your customer is happy with one
product if you give them one product you
give them a solid product you give them
two products if they are competing
products they're going to compare the
two and if they both are not solid
products they're going to look at one
and say well this is great but this is
crap so why should I buy the great one
if you're providing crap here is this
one really crap behind the scenes so one
of the things you have to be cautious of
as you expand Services as you grow the
product is to make sure that you keep
the same level of quality across your uh
service line you want to make sure that
everything you provide meets the same
standards that you've been providing
your customers from the beginning you
don't want to give them something new
that's now subpar
now oh oh sorry I just oh and you're
mute I just want to say real quick that
is that is a very key thing from a
quality perspective is that um when you
grow we talked about this with you know
when we hire as well is that when you
grow then it can be more difficult to do
the high quality processes that you need
to do because there is a there is a you
know a cost to doing so and you may not
be able to expand that so I just sorry I
wanted to jump into that even though I
was had muted myself um and you know go
ahead and carry forward with that sure
so that was the first thing I wanted to
touch on so the second thing is you may
have an established product you may have
an established software service one of
the things over time is the quality of
life of your product might be
degradating now in the last episode we
talked about you know product placement
we talked about products and things like
that but over time especially in the
digital Arena we can write software that
lasts for decades as long as the
operating system or the environment that
it's on is stable that software pretty
much runs
forever either until the computer dies
or we just can't load the software
anymore on a
system that essentially falls under
What's called the quality of life or end
of life of a product how long can your
product live one of the interesting
tweets
and this is from a product enhancement
perspective is is there something you
can do to constantly tweak your software
to improve its Quality of Life by either
speeding it up improving processes just
take what you have and make it better
for your end users now to do that Rob
touched on this but talk to your
customers do like quarterly
questionnaires or surveys or hey let me
take you out for coffee and sit down and
just talk to you about your business is
this product still working for you how
are you using it you know are there
things missing from this application or
software that we could add to it that
could improve your life now with that
last little bit there is a catch22 with
that if you have a large customer base
and you talk to two or three of your
customers and they say hey this would be
a really great feature to add to your
product but if you do not kind of check
with all your customer bases you may put
something into your product that turns
off 90% of your user base and now
suddenly your project is failing it's
losing customers your quality is down
the tubes so be very careful when you
are looking to enhance the products that
you do a large kind of query of your
customers to make sure that what you're
adding makes sense from a business
perspective and a user flow of the
software because if you put something in
there that now requires two additional
clicks to do something you've just
slowed your customer down and they're
not going to like that and like Rob
mentioned especially with the Office
Products all those buttons and things up
there are nice features to have but for
someone that just wants like a notepad
they're not going to use word they're
not going to use that product or they're
going to look at and be like oh this is
too complicated and they're going to go
somewhere else so you kind of need to
put on your customer goggles your user
user goggles and re-evaluate your
products your services from the customer
perspective and make sure that what you
are providing really meets the value of
the customer live in their shoes
understand what it is that they need
don't just say hey this is a cool Bell
and whistle it'll improve my product and
at the end of the day it doesn't it
actually detracts from your product so
again it it's kind of quality control in
a sense but it's also customer feedback
get engaged with your C Customer because
if you don't what you're building really
is in a silo and it may be great or it
may be trash so be very careful with how
you spend your time and how you interact
with your customers you don't want to
sour the pool if you already have a good
customer
base and yeah I think you always need to
have that good cross-section of of
customers and feedback most in most
situations you're going to have like one
or two you know or three or some small
number of
uh golden customers that they are they
use your product a lot they understand
its usage they understand their business
and they have very and they're open to
they're very uh you know driven to give
you feedback and to to help work with
you so and a lot of this is going to be
in a relationship you Foster with them
so there's this open line of
communication because those are really
the people that are your your driving
force or the boots on the ground people
the people that run this thing use this
thing day in and day out uh you know a
lot of times the the check signer for
example like let's say that's a CEO
you've got a product that it's it's at a
company level that you the the CEO's got
to buy in on it he's gota she's got a
sign on the dotted line for that product
to be sold however that doesn't mean
that that's the person that should drive
the product necessarily what you
probably want to do is get to the people
that are using that product talk to them
and let them push that information up
now you can you know you can approach
sales in a lot of different ways and
things like that but this is where you
know you don't want to be using a
product that like let's say it's a help
desk software that you sell and you're
in a lunch with the CEO of the company
of your biggest customer and the CEO
offers like a couple of suggestions say
you know it'd be nice if the product did
this or did that or did this other thing
that doesn't mean that those they might
be that may be a CEO there very in tune
and in touch with and has their finger
on the pulse of their people or maybe
not so you take those and then you go
talk to said people and say Hey would
this help you would this be useful what
if we provided this feature because that
is a great way to uh while it's nice to
have open-ended feedback from them this
is something to really test out those
specific deals as Michael was alluding
to is where it's
really it's like what is it that you're
thinking to do to enhance or improve or
you know add another product and then is
that specific thing is it useful is it
valueable able is it something that your
your existing customer base wants and
then I guess there is the other OPP
opportunity to say well actually what I
want to do is take my product that is
for some set of customers and now create
it in a whole different realm and a
whole new set of customers that is a
different ball of wax basically to deal
with because now you're you're having to
almost start from scratch at that point
yes you can lean on existing customers
and we are we've satisfied our customers
and you know maybe it is things like
customer service and happiness and
things like that are are high for our um
for what we provide and now we're going
to provide this to you in this different
industry so it could be you know for
example if you have something that is
used by you know milk toow farmers and
now you've suddenly been able to find a
way to take that and transition
transition that over to Formula One
racer teams bully for you but there's
not going to be any real you know
crossover from your customers so you
have to figure out how you want to do
that you have to build those Rel ships
and see if that is you know truly
helpful to them or not your challenge
this time
is what is your next enhancement for
your product think about it and maybe
you're right in the middle one so maybe
it's very easy but if not if you're or
maybe if you're almost to the end of
version one or version two or a you a
release what is going to be the next
step and these are things that I think
are very helpful as you particularly as
you're getting close to the end of
completing a project or a version of a
product is that you
can it helps you avoid the we need to
stuff this into this product itis we'll
call it where it's it's one of those
things it's like well if we don't fix
this now if we don't add this now then
it's going to be too long and we don't
want the customers to you have to wait
for this so we're going to do it or
maybe we even don't even know how but
you if you know that that's going to be
in the next product then in the next
version say you know what this it makes
a lot of sense for us to not tackle it
right now so that instead we can do it
cleanly and better you know the product
ahead but it is also something maybe
this is a time where even though there's
are some features that maybe you feel
are very valuable and your customers
feel are very valuable maybe instead you
step back and say you know but our stuff
is dog slow we need to like we need to
figure out a way to you know maybe or
maybe there's there's a lot of bugs so
maybe we need a bug fix release where we
really just focus on squashing bugs and
improving quality or maybe it's one
where it's we we do a performance tuning
release where it's like we want to do it
you know better faster smaller things
like that that's the challenge for you
this time around is like where is your
next Improvement step going to be where
is it going to come
from for us our next step is always
getting an email from you if we get an
email from you that helps us this is
that customer feedback you are our
customers we want to hear from you the
boots on the ground people that are out
there info@ developer.com tell us what
you like what you don't like what or
some suggestions maybe you have what
have you liked in the past or what would
you like us to spend more time on what
would you like us to spend less time on
uh even format if there's something like
you know I wish you guys could change
this around I would love for you guys to
do a 24hour long you know podcast okay
probably not going to make it that way
and you would not enjoy that but things
like that like any feedback is welcome
love to hear it because you are the
reason we are
here for the rest of this I'm just going
to say you need to now be the reason you
are here in your life and go out there
and have yourself a great day a great
week and we will talk to you next time
bonus
material so for this
one we you touched on it a little bit
with the challenge but what I would say
here
is if you have a pride but you you're
not sure if an enhancement makes sense
or if adding onto your product makes
sense look at your competition this is a
great time to take a step back and say
okay where am I currently positioned in
my industry who is my competition what
are they providing do some customer uh
you know do some research and see what
is really out there is your product
still best in class or are the enhan en
Ms that you need to add to your product
are basically to get it to Best in Class
and then that's going to move you up and
position you higher in the current
industry and bring in more customers and
more
Revenue I think that's a that is
something that we haven't really talked
about so that's I'm glad you brought
that up is that you you can always like
you know they say theft is the greatest
you know form of um you know saying
something nice about your competition
basically but
look at what's out there where where are
things trending and it's this is one of
those too is do you want to Zig where
everybody else is zigging and you want
to sort of like jump on that bag wag
bandwagon and add those what are now
going to be common features because it
is going to come up if it's something
where you you know the you'll end up
having competition you'll talk to your
customer perspective customers and
they'll say well hey products AB andc do
this do you do that and you you know you
do want to say yes we do but maybe
instead you want a zag and you say well
no we don't we haven't found that's as
valuable as this other thing that we do
and
so those kinds of things I think are
important as well is like where is the
industry going uh but I think my the
bonus thing I would like to add is
regardless of how you move forward I
think it's very valuable to have a
steady drum beat of improvement in some
way form or fashion in the core piece
now sometimes that's a little bit risky
because you maybe you'll break something
while you're in there trying to fix it
but uh things like technical debts and
performance improvements and performance
tuning and you know better testing and
less bugs and those kinds of things are
all very valuable but it's very hard for
us sometimes to just do a release based
on that and they can get lost they can
be you know constantly at the bottom of
the backlog and just get shuffled and
shuffled and shuffled so I think you
know make sure that that's some you know
percentage essentially of your your
enhancement is it's you know whether
it's 10% or 25% or whatever it is so
that you are at least advancing on those
areas as
well and I think we will wrap this one
up thank you so much for listening for
hanging out with us again and for
putting up with us uh like we said
earlier we love feedback uh anywhere you
know show notes Here email You Name It
We love to hear it you know what do you
like what don't you like what can we do
next that is going to be you know a
better fit for you including season
topics we are not at the end of this
season nowhere close but we are in a
situation where you know if you guys
have some good you know some good ideas
then that helps us think about those for
allows us to allow those to percolate
and for us to come up with a you know a
season of topics or series that you know
maybe will benefit you guys even more
and now we will wrap this one up so go
out there and have yourself a great day
enjoy the world outside and then come
back and see us again next time
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Transcript Segments

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27.599

and let's just like do a little just

30.24

clicked record and we are back live so

32.559

well not live live and

35.96

recorded we are recorded live as they

39.079

always said in the back in the day

40.84

recorded before a live studio audience

42.92

the studio audience being the two people

45.28

you're seeing right here as far as I

46.719

know maybe there's a you know some sort

48.559

of animal like a cat around as

50.879

well all right so that was a pretty I

54.199

think that went pretty

55.399

good talking about product placement now

58.96

I'm trying to think of

60.48

what if there's like a good little

62.28

follow on to that um because we've

65.72

talked about like when to

68.36

hire um have we talked

72.4

about when to

expand well let's see I we talked about

hiring but I'm thinking more from a

80.4

product like when to add another product

83.56

because it's sort of a financial

85.32

management overcoming barriers elevator

87.799

pitch scaling with contractors and

89.52

employees

90.759

hiring Talent strategies for building

92.92

strong teams uh business Automation and

95.52

templates leveraging AI business growth

98.159

when and how to scale

100

successfully uh work life balance

102.2

disaster recovery business continuity

105.079

and business Network strategies and how

107.64

to succeed with digital

109.64

marketing so I think what so because I'm

112.04

thinking of is like when

115.479

to I guess it's almost now as I'm

117.759

thinking more of it thinking more of it

119.119

as like enhanc strategies for a product

121.32

is do you build another product do you

123.96

create another product to sort of expand

126

and get bring in more customers or do

127.799

you enhance your existing product to

130.759

bring in more

132.12

customers this is particularly like you

134

know when you go from version one to

135.2

version two how does that what does that

136.72

look like how am I going to approach

138.12

that and so I'm thinking maybe we do

140.28

that I was like I guess um horizontal

144.48

versus vertical growth in a product

146.48

essentially if we want to get all

148.239

technical with it

151.16

yeah kind

153.36

of not necessarily product quality

155.84

control but

159.04

um product

161.04

Improvement and enhancement yeah this is

163.48

this is definitely like adding new

164.84

features and things like that so it's

166.4

definitely not it's this isn't really

167.76

quality as much as it is um enhancing

171.319

extending enhancing increasing the um

176.04

your offering basically whether it's you

178.159

know new Services whether it's

180.44