Detailed Notes
In this episode of Building Better Developers, we talk with Angelo Zanetti (Co-founder & CEO of Elemental) about how founders can prove your MVP before scaling.
We cover: • How to validate you’re solving a real problem • Why simple MVPs win (and feature bloat kills momentum) • Why launching with bugs can ruin your first impression • Why marketing should start before development
🎧 Listen/Watch the full show: https://develpreneur.com/prove-your-mvp-strong-first-launch
About Angelo Zanetti Angelo is the co-founder and CEO of Elemental, a South African-based software development agency helping startups and scaleups worldwide build scalable, high-performance web apps and platforms.
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#BuildingBetterDevelopers #MVP #Startups #ProductDevelopment
Transcript Text
Hey, how you doing? >> Sorry, Rob and Michael. Yeah. >> Hey, how are you? >> I know. >> Doing good, thanks. And you? >> Let me uh bring some stuff up here. Uh so, uh thanks for joining us, uh Angelo. And we have what is this? I'm sorry. Trying to figure out why I suddenly got Okay, somebody just sent me an invite for a meeting right now. It's like uh no, I don't think I'm going to pick that one up. Um sorry. Uh let's see. So what thanks for joining us and we are going to do uh way we do this is it is a um really more of a conversational kind of thing than a um you know like a straightup interview or anything like that. We'll introduce myself I'll start the episode introduce myself uh Michael will introduce himself I'll have it toss it to you to introduce yourself and then really from there we're just going to dive right on in. Um, whenever we do it, it's it's always been um almost always just from the start. We get, you know, from your from your uh introduction, we get a couple of good uh questions out of it and then we just keep on going from there. >> Great. Sounds good. I'm I'm happy. >> Okay. >> Your audio cut out there for a moment >> already. Okay. Is it live now? >> Nope. There you go. >> That's better. There we go. Yeah, it was a little >> Where about in the states are you guys? >> I'm in the Nashville area. Nashville, Tennessee. >> Okay. And Michael? >> And I'm in between Nashville and Memphis. I'm in uh Jackson, Tennessee or just south of Jackson. >> Okay. All right. Nice. And where are you at? >> I'm in Cape Town, South Africa. >> Oh, okay. So, >> far away. >> 2:00 in the afternoon. 3:00 in the afternoon there. Six. Six. >> Oh, it's that part. Wow. Okay, >> you guys are way further east than I thought. So, all right. So, sorry. I'm just bringing all my stuff up. Let me get a little different lighting here. Uh, that should help a little bit. There we go. Uh, let's see. Get rid of this. Um, let's try this. Like, uh, Jeez, I don't know when that's going to happen. Let's try that. Oh, jeez. I hate it when people like pop stuff up on my calendars and such right as I'm stepping into a call. Uh, let's see. So, audio is good, Michael. >> Yeah, sounds good. >> Okay. >> How do I sound? Uh, good, good. So, all right. >> Not in here. >> I am recording, which is always a critical part of these things. Um, sometimes that doesn't happen and that is not good. So, we've got that going. Let me like get my crap organized a little bit here. So, I've got my workspace. All right. And we are going to go in three, two, one. Hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of building better foundations. We are the building better developers podcast also known as developneur. I am only known as Rob Broadhead, one of the founders of developer and also the founder of RB consulting where we help you assess your technology, clean out your junk drawer there and build a road map for success. Good things, bad things. Good thing is uh by the time I we are when you're seeing this because we record this a little bit ahead of the game. I am going to be past a flurry of doing a lot of crap to simplify my life and go down to about nothing and travel with simply a suitcase and a laptop. And probably by now I am really enjoying that cuz right now towards the end of it I am tired of it. It is exhausting. Uh the good thing is as we record this, we are getting into towards the end of the year, a very full year. Uh very much looking ahead and uh just really enjoying like what life has to give me at this point. It's one of those every day is full. It's exhausting to get to the end of it, but in a good way. Sort of like getting to the end of the introduction that Michael is about to give us. Go ahead and introduce yourself. >> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Mash. I'm one of the co-founders of Developer. I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we create and test custom software that solves real world problems so your business runs better and scales smarter. Uh good thing bad thing uh good thing as Rob said, you know, we're recording this a little before the end of the year. Uh getting into that time of the year where I'll be able to spend time with the holiday uh with family and kick back and catch up on some video games and just relax a little bit. Maybe watch some more Christmas episodes or feel good movies. Uh bad side, every day in Tennessee, it's a different weather day. Uh it can be snowy, icy, warm. Uh yesterday was a gorgeous afternoons and of course this morning I go outside and it's like 25 degrees. So I'm ready for spring. >> And today we are back with another interview and uh we're going to start into a conversation with Angelo. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself? >> Hey everybody. Uh thanks for the the uh intro. for the having me on the podcast. So I'm Angelo Zenetti. I'm the co-founder of Elemental. We're a web and software development company based all the way out in Cape Town, South Africa. So a lot of you know Elon Musk. He's our fellow countryman. Um so we build a lot of custom web apps, mobile apps, software. Been doing that for about 20 years. Um I originally was a developer but no longer. I leave that to the sort of skilled people in my team. Um, and uh, I can touch on a little bit of a good thing and a bad thing. I think the good thing is uh, it's it's great to be on this podcast. Um, good to share some insights with you guys and some discussions and I'm looking forward to that. I think the bad thing is we're kind of winding down to the end of the year, but it's full steam ahead still. And uh, yeah, you know, people always asking how you going, are you preparing for holiday? Are you winding down? And I'm like, she's that's that seems like a very far place right now. But I mean there's a lot of positive things and there's good reason for that. But I think that's the sort of bad thing. But there will be a break at some point which is much deserved and um you know Rob it sounds like you're going to have an amazing trip as well. So I think we all need to kick off a little bit at the end of the year. >> Yeah, that is the thing we always like that is that is the challenge of being in technology. it feels like is that there's always that like push at the end of the year and if you're lucky if things work out then you get like you know you earn that week or two or however long you can get that little bit of a quiet period or maybe just a long weekend and then go from there and then this year uh 2025 is just one of those that it like Christmas and and New Year's fall sort of in the middle of the week and I think that just like messes stuff up a little bit more so it just feels like there's just there's not enough time to prepare uh and there's just too much stuff that's got to get done between now and uh the holiday season. Let's dive right into um the whole web and application world because this is something that's like it's been around now for I mean web applications been around for a few decades and mobile apps have been around and a big thing for you know a good 15 probably 20 years almost and it's gotten full. It's like you know there's just certain areas there is just a lot out there. If you go to like an app store or Google Play or something like that, there's just so much stuff out there and that's I mean all you see a lot of times is almost like the tip of the iceberg because there's all the you know the top ranking apps and then you can go down and you can find just such a a broad range of stuff. So how do you um particularly with your you know if there's stuff you're developing or for your customers like what are some ways to distinguish yourself within that that busy and loud market? Yeah, I think for the app stores, you know, there's even a service that certain marketing companies offer where they offer uh app store optimization. I don't know what the exact term is, but I think it's really difficult to to compete in that sort of those verticals on the app stores. I think you need to be driving downloads directly to your your user base and your customer base. And um I think it just comes down to the to the old adage of solve problems, you know, really add value. You know, I'm sure you guys also hear and see it and you know, there's so many new startups and tech products and you know, a lot of these products fail because there's no product market fit. They're solving problems that don't really exist and there's a little bit of an ego play there. So, if your product's really solving a problem and adding so so much value, you know, they're going to want to find your product or that or you going to market to that um audience and you know directly get people to the app stores to download your app. Um and then obviously web as well you know SEO and you know AI optimization you know um is also plays into that that sort of role. So that goes into it. We've actually we've had a couple of conversations with that in recent discussions as well about really like solving a problem. Make sure that you're actually you're giving a solution for a problem that people need to solve. Otherwise, they're probably not going to pay a lot of money for it. Now, when you're working with your customers, how do you how do you enforce that? How do you work with your customers to sort of help them uh vet their product or to to make sure that they are solving useful problems? Yeah, that's that's more on the UX and usability side. So that's not something that we're involved with, but we do know that there are companies that will do user based research. So they'll go and find sample sizes. They'll actually go and identify them. They'll do proper interviews. They'll record them and then essentially gather that information and and basically determine, you know, from the output, is this actually something that people are willing to, you know, pay for? Is it a solution that they're looking for? So, it's not something that we do. Um, but you know, when we speak to people, I spoke to a guy today, someone I know, he wants to build some sort of app in in the new year. And I said to him, you know, like we can build you the best app. It can look great. It can you know, do all the all different types of functionality, but you know, if you're not solving a problem, you know, and keep it simple as well, but if you're not solving a problem that people are willing to pay for, or if you had to take your app away, would they feel a bit of pain, you know, would they sort of miss it? And that's sort of the test. But it's it's really difficult, you know, cuz even these uh these interviews, you know, you can also go down a rabbit hole and you can you can interview like 10 people, you can interview 100 people. I mean, you you can do a thousand people, but you know, at some point you got to put something out there and really test is there product market fit, is there demand, is there positive feedback, um or is there no traction whatsoever. So, one of the things that you you mentioned that you guys are one of your strengths, I guess, for your company, one of the things values you add is building scalability from the start. And uh I find that's like I'm really curious about that because there's a lot of people, especially in the app market. It feels like there's a lot of like there's just that rush to market. there's just the like let's get, you know, get our website out, get our app out there, get in front of people, and then we'll come back later and worry about, you know, things like maintainability, scalability, and even stability. Um, how do you how do you do that? And how do you work that in with your conversations with your customers or your your projects as you step into them? >> Yeah, so it's a great question. Um, so for me, scalability is two things, right? It's the ability to, you know, be able to add more features to a product without the product having to be re-engineered. So, we're definitely not of the we're not fans of, you know, building something quickly, get it out, get some traction, you know, spend money on that, and then, you know, after 6 months or year, can it and then rebuild the product. I think it's a waste of money for for founders or whoever these tech owners are uh tech product owners are. Um, so I think that even if the app is small, it's an MVP, I think you still need to have a lot of best practices, you know, build a solid foundation, still think big, you know, in terms of how this thing can grow, how the the features can evolve and and and build it properly, you know, have a solid foundation to build to build on from the start and then, you know, in a year or two or three or 5 years time, it's still going to keep evolving, right? So I think that that sort of deals with the sort of feature and functionality uh scalability and um and growth and then the other side of the scalability is the data side right the usage you know cuz obviously when you start maybe you've got few hundred users few thousand users but we need to think about how does this platform look when there's like a hundreds of thousands or millions of users you know what is that data look like how does the database going to handle you you know what sort of cleanups do we need to do what sort of technology and architecture do we need to do and I think that's also very key to plan from the start as well you know so having that solid foundation and having that mindset and those sort of best practice you know um upfront uh spec you know how you specify the project how you think about you know growth from a data point of view I think really helps the app handle growth from a data and a usage point of view down the line. And you can always add sorry and and just one more point is you can always you know add more you know in terms of like the hosting you know more scalability more resources because you also don't want to um over you know engineer the the hosting component you know because it costs money right so you kind of want to have you know a a good fit for the start but you know as as it go as the the app and the usage grows you know you can always increase the hosting resources and scalability from that point of view. >> Sorry, Michael, over to you. >> Oh, no, it's okay. Um, I'm glad you expanded on that. So, how would you approach for those founders or those uh people developers with ideas that want to build a digital app or start a product, but they don't really necessarily have the technical foundation? Um, so I I think that it's all about taking that vision that's in their head and extrapolating that somehow, right? So you can even use AI tools these days. I think it's actually quite nice to visualize your your product. So like things like replet or lovable, you know, we've seen a lot of people come to us with those. They've built something on lovable and it's taken their idea further than just a concept in their head and it's expanded that to something visual that they can play with. It's a little bit tangible. They can run through different steps and but it's not really production grade ready. I wouldn't go to market with it. Um so I think that you know if if we had this conversation maybe a year or two ago I wouldn't have said that you know but I think that's a a good way for founders. We help clients scope out their project in terms of we do discovery. Um so you know we'll we'll workshop their idea. We'll challenge them on certain things. We'll suggest certain things that they haven't thought about based on our experience and we basically architect the the the scope of work the MVP and future phases in a sort of discovery engagement that happens at the start of the project. Um so I don't know if I've answered your question but you know I've sort of given you two different ways of tackling that. >> Oh definitely. Uh so to kind of expand upon that so with your uh years of experience with this and dealing with you know technical and non-technical founders what are some of the biggest mistakes you see them making at the start and then what are some of the successes you've seen as well? Some of the mistakes I would say are that they try and pack too many things into their MVP. So founders are very proud. They're very passionate about their product and sometimes they're a little bit ego-driven and they want to have these little bells and whistles and these nice to haves and it's not always needed, right? Um so I think really keeping it simple you know this whole MVP uh principle you know a minimum viable product if it's not going to add if it's not going to solve the core problem that you're trying to solve don't include it you know you can always bring it in later but you know keep it simple it's going to keep the founders costs down I think other things are I think yeah I think also maybe even you know we kind of touched at the beginning, you know, getting validation from their potential user base, you know, are they actually validating their idea or are they just kind of building something hoping, you know, that if I build it, they'll come. Um, and I think that's, you know, then you've got to kind of pivot or change direction during development or after the MVP. And that's more costly and time consuming. And I think a really big mistake that I see is that a lot of founders, you know, they've they've seen a niche problem or a niche problem as you say in the states. They've come up with a solution. Um hopefully they've been in that industry and that that's always, you know, a lot more success guaranteed from that. But they think that they'll build a pro a product and once it's launched, the floodgates are going to open. And I've seen that where founders that have allocated a lot of budget, they've thought about marketing, they've thought about how am I going to acquire customers, they do really really well. And others that think that okay, I'm just going to launch this to the world and I'm going to get lots of clients and users and subscribers that generally is doesn't work and you know inevitably the product fails. Um, so I think marketing is really, really important, you know, and to think about it even before development. Um, yeah. >> So, if you could sum all of that up and say the top three things founders should do when starting to build a product, a mobile app, what would be your top three picks? Yeah, I think it's I think it's what I said, you know, I think product market fit, you know, are you really building something that's going to solve a problem or are you building something for a problem that doesn't really exist? Keep it simple. So, you know, keep it MVP, keep it as, you know, launch as easy as possible and don't launch with bugs. I I don't like that. You know, I think a lot of there's this it's a little bit common in the industry to go, let's launch, get it to market, even if it's full of bugs, then we'll fix the bugs as it's live. I I I'm not a fan of that. I think you've got a a really good opportunity to make a very strong first impression. And if your impression is not good because of bugs and, you know, errors and things like that, I think it it you actually blow your your chances of wowing that that user. And then I think the marketing thing, you know, I think that's a big thing. Um, yeah. >> So I have uh one more followup and I'll pass it back to Rob. So I'm a big QA guy. I like test driven development myself. And in the world of mobile apps, there's a lot of different tools out there for doing mobile testing, AB testing, things of that nature. Uh any suggestions that you have or any of particular tools you like to help test your mobile apps? So there are quite a few different tools. Um I think we've we we're using like Selenium. There's some other tools that we're using. Um we're still also doing quite a bit of manual testing. I think these tools don't pick everything up and I think there's a lot of um intricacies that need to be thought about from a user's point of view. Um yeah and you can obviously write things like unit tests as well but you know that takes a lot of time you know it's almost as much time as it is to build the product itself. So it sometimes doesn't from a value and cost point of view doesn't warrant it. So I think it's a balance of humanbased testing and that sort of functional testing and visual testing you know interface testing and then using some sort of automated testing as well. But keen to hear from your side, you know, like what what's working from for you and uh what what you know, what tools you're you're prescribing to your clients. So, a lot of the tools I use kind of depend on which device. Like if you're doing Android, the uh Android Studios has actually a pretty good uh test suite built into it. Uh Catalin is another one that's pretty good. Uh I've used Selenium in the past and there's a couple other ones. It also depends on the language. I found like if you're using React, Expo is really good. It has some really good test tools in it for testing a lot of mobile apps along that nature. Uh the biggest thing that uh I struggle with, especially with mobile development, I don't know if you run into this, but uh when you build mobile apps, do you pick a language like Android or iOS or do you tend to go for the more open platforms where you build once and deploy anywhere? Yeah, we typically go more the hybrid the hybrid app route or the progressive web app route. So we're not building a native. Um, so it is typically built once deployed to iOS to Android. And in South Africa, we've got Huawei, which is a Chinese uh operating system, but I don't think it's very popular in the US. A lot of people look at me when I tell them that and they don't even know what I'm talking about, but it's it's actually similar to Android, the App Store and the operating system. Oh, let's go back to swing back a little bit on the ideas of uh talk about MVPs and stuff like that because you touched on something that's actually something we've run across many times is where you're you're building an MVP, you're working where you're working with somebody on MVP and it's just keeping the M part of that becomes very challenging because they're they they want to push something else in. They're like, well, what would it take to just like let's just put this one extra feature in. And you've also mentioned that uh something I'm starting to see as well is sort of a rise of the um the no code MVP kind of thing where like a founder or visionary or somebody has sat down and they've put something together that is yeah it's not production grade as you mentioned but it's it sort of works. It's a it's a clickable demo maybe a little better than that. Have you found that there's more push back now that there's people have sort of gotten a little bit gotten their hands dirty? Do you see a little more push back and a little more of a how hard can that be to like just let's go add that feature in or is it still has it still managed to be roughly the same kind of conversations you've had in the past? >> It depends on a case by case basis. Um I think it's also depends on the feature and if it makes sense to include it and how big is that feature or how small it is and what impact will that have on on the launch or the value to the user. Um and then in terms of your question about the uh people getting their hands dirty. Yeah, I think a lot of people are getting their hands dirty. Um so they're playing with these tools, these AI tools, you know, Lovable and Replet and um you know, they're taking their idea to a certain point, but they're not developers or engineers by trade. So there's a lot of things they don't know to think about, right? and they don't know to even prompt these things, you know, let alone will that be correct or not. So, I think that's our job as developers is to think of, you know, the exceptions, you know, what happens when something fails, what happens um when there's this strange possibility and how does the user journey get impacted by that, you know? So from a functionality point of view and a user journey point of view. Um so I think that's where there's a lot of shortcomings and I yeah so it it's got its place. I think these clickable prototypes or these proof of concepts are are good and I think it's good to help them you know as I mentioned earlier to to take their vision and to sort of visually see what they can do and maybe take it to some stakeholders get some feedback you know get some buy in or push back and you know that's maybe a way to to validate you know if I had to build this properly would you use it would you pay for it what would be comfortable paying to subscribe to this kind of platform. Yeah, I was wondering if that because that's, you know, there's in the past we've had situations we'll do like a clickable demo or or a proof of concept and it's it looks good enough that they're like, "Well, why can't we ship it now?" You know, it's it's one of those where they there's a disconnect between production grade software and a you know, something that you rip together over a weekend or anything like that. I'm wondering are you seeing then and particularly because this gets into the concept of you know AI and people thinking that AI is going to take all the developer jobs and and some of those kinds of you know fears that are out there. Are you finding that uh founders and and owners are more respective I guess respectful of software development now as they sort of get into it and realize that like they they've sort of they're like okay I'm ready to hand this over to you because I I know I'm beyond my depth or is it is there more of that like well you know I could probably do this myself but I'll let you guys do it because you may do it a little bit better. Yeah, I think there is a lot of respect for for developers, you know, especially if if you don't have a tech background and you're kind of vibe coding this application and then you change something in some place and then something else breaks and you know, we've seen that a lot and it's quite frustrating for for the founders. Um but what I think it's done is it's actually created more opportunities you know so people who had never sort of entertained the idea of building a product and trying to take it to market now they can actually do that or take that concept you know out of their head and and take kick the can a little bit further down the line and then if they're getting traction you know maybe they go to an investor and say listen this is what I've put together I've spoken to these 20 people they've shown interest do you want to back me with some money um and then they know they need to build it properly. Um, yeah, I think the other thing to consider is the security, the cyber security of these web applications. I don't know if you've seen these videos of these hackers and then how they just, you know, these AI lovable whatever these vibecoded tools. These hackers are just having a field day. It's like a little playground for them where they can just get API keys and, you know, break these apps. And yeah, there's quite a few videos about that as well. So that's obviously a massive concern. Um, which again, a non tech founder has got no idea about that and they can find out the the hard way and the the painful way. Um, yeah, which is kind of sad, but it is the reality of the world that we live in. >> Yeah, you've got to watch. I mean, that's the whole that's the challenge with security is that there's people out there trying to get you. Even when you don't think they're, you know, you think you're too small or you're not a target, there's still it's easy to get a target on your back. And especially stuff like that, it's um it's too easy for them now to to put together like whip together a little app and then, you know, have a little back door in it or something like that. And the next thing you know, you've you've put this out there and taken taken advantage of some people that aren't really paying attention enough. So, sort of the using the uh the traditional the tried andrue, you know, methods to get your apps and and things like that are probably going to be more important than uh than ever. And that is where we're going to pause right now. So that is part one of our episode and we will be or part one of our interview and we will come coming back next episode with part two uh continue our discussion with Angelo and uh get into actually even more of the esoteric part of web and application development. Uh definitely getting a little geekier, a little more detailed this time than we have in a couple of the prior ones. Well, I guess we did geek out a little bit on AI on a few of those, but definitely down into a little bit more of the coding side of this, but there are definitely some really good entrepreneurial points that get brought up along the way as well, particularly if you're thinking about building some sort of a solution and whether you're thinking like, oh, an app would be really cool versus a web application. We will talk about that. And if you stick around after the next one, uh there might be some bonus material that has something to do with that. And uh again, it's one of those I think is very important for you to think about that before you dive in because we all know once you start writing a lot of code and sort of building something out, it's hard to just say, "Nope, I'm going to trash this and start over on a completely different uh, you know, platform." That being said, we're going to wrap this one up, let you get back to your day. So, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time.
Transcript Segments
Hey, how you doing?
>> Sorry, Rob and Michael. Yeah.
>> Hey, how are you?
>> I know.
>> Doing good, thanks. And you?
>> Let me uh bring some stuff up here. Uh
so, uh thanks for joining us, uh Angelo.
And we have
what is this? I'm sorry.
Trying to figure out why I suddenly got
Okay,
somebody just sent me an invite for a
meeting right now. It's like uh no, I
don't think I'm going to pick that one
up. Um sorry. Uh let's see. So what
thanks for joining us and we are going
to do uh way we do this is it is a um
really more of a conversational kind of
thing than a um you know like a
straightup interview or anything like
that. We'll introduce myself I'll start
the episode introduce myself uh Michael
will introduce himself I'll have it toss
it to you to introduce yourself and then
really from there we're just going to
dive right on in. Um,
whenever we do it, it's it's always been
um almost always just from the start. We
get, you know, from your from your uh
introduction, we get a couple of good uh
questions out of it and then we just
keep on going from there.
>> Great. Sounds good. I'm I'm happy.
>> Okay.
>> Your audio cut out there for a moment
>> already. Okay. Is it live now?
>> Nope. There you go.
>> That's better. There we go. Yeah, it was
a little
>> Where about in the states are you guys?
>> I'm in the Nashville area. Nashville,
Tennessee.
>> Okay. And Michael?
>> And I'm in between Nashville and
Memphis. I'm in uh Jackson, Tennessee or
just south of Jackson.
>> Okay. All right. Nice.
And where are you at?
>> I'm in Cape Town, South Africa.
>> Oh, okay.
So,
>> far away.
>> 2:00 in the afternoon. 3:00 in the
afternoon there. Six. Six.
>> Oh, it's that part. Wow. Okay,
>> you guys are way further east than I
thought. So,
all right. So,
sorry. I'm just bringing all my stuff
up. Let me get a little different
lighting here.
Uh, that should help a little bit. There
we go.
Uh, let's see. Get rid of this.
Um,
let's try this. Like,
uh, Jeez, I don't know when that's going
to happen. Let's try that.
Oh, jeez. I hate it when people like pop
stuff up on my calendars and such right
as I'm stepping into a call. Uh, let's
see. So, audio is good, Michael.
>> Yeah, sounds good.
>> Okay.
>> How do I sound? Uh, good, good. So, all
right.
>> Not in here.
>> I am recording, which is always a
critical part of these things. Um,
sometimes that doesn't happen and that
is not good. So, we've got that going.
Let me like get my crap organized a
little bit here. So, I've got my
workspace.
All right. And we are going to go in
three, two, one. Hello and welcome back.
We are continuing our season of building
better foundations. We are the building
better developers podcast also known as
developneur. I am only known as Rob
Broadhead, one of the founders of
developer and also the founder of RB
consulting where we help you assess your
technology, clean out your junk drawer
there and build a road map for success.
Good things, bad things. Good thing is
uh by the time I we are when you're
seeing this because we record this a
little bit ahead of the game. I am going
to be past a flurry of doing a lot of
crap to simplify my life and go down to
about nothing and travel with simply a
suitcase and a laptop. And probably by
now I am really enjoying that cuz right
now towards the end of it I am tired of
it. It is exhausting. Uh the good thing
is
as we record this, we are getting into
towards the end of the year, a very full
year. Uh very much looking ahead and uh
just really enjoying like what life has
to give me at this point. It's one of
those every day is full. It's exhausting
to get to the end of it, but in a good
way. Sort of like getting to the end of
the introduction that Michael is about
to give us. Go ahead and introduce
yourself.
>> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Mash.
I'm one of the co-founders of Developer.
I'm also the founder of Envision QA
where we create and test custom software
that solves real world problems so your
business runs better and scales smarter.
Uh good thing bad thing uh good thing as
Rob said, you know, we're recording this
a little before the end of the year. Uh
getting into that time of the year where
I'll be able to spend time with the
holiday uh with family and kick back and
catch up on some video games and just
relax a little bit. Maybe watch some
more Christmas episodes or feel good
movies. Uh bad side, every day in
Tennessee, it's a different weather day.
Uh it can be snowy, icy, warm. Uh
yesterday was a gorgeous afternoons and
of course this morning I go outside and
it's like 25 degrees. So I'm ready for
spring.
>> And today we are back with another
interview and uh we're going to start
into a conversation with Angelo. Why
don't you go ahead and introduce
yourself?
>> Hey everybody. Uh thanks for the the uh
intro. for the having me on the podcast.
So I'm Angelo Zenetti. I'm the
co-founder of Elemental. We're a web and
software development company based all
the way out in Cape Town, South Africa.
So a lot of you know Elon Musk. He's our
fellow countryman. Um so we build a lot
of custom web apps, mobile apps,
software. Been doing that for about 20
years. Um I originally was a developer
but no longer. I leave that to the sort
of skilled people in my team. Um, and
uh, I can touch on a little bit of a
good thing and a bad thing. I think the
good thing is uh, it's it's great to be
on this podcast. Um, good to share some
insights with you guys and some
discussions and I'm looking forward to
that. I think the bad thing is we're
kind of winding down to the end of the
year, but it's full steam ahead still.
And uh, yeah, you know, people always
asking how you going, are you preparing
for holiday? Are you winding down? And
I'm like, she's that's that seems like a
very far place right now. But I mean
there's a lot of positive things and
there's good reason for that. But I
think that's the sort of bad thing. But
there will be a break at some point
which is much deserved and um you know
Rob it sounds like you're going to have
an amazing trip as well. So I think we
all need to kick off a little bit at the
end of the year.
>> Yeah, that is the thing we always like
that is that is the challenge of being
in technology. it feels like is that
there's always that like push at the end
of the year and if you're lucky if
things work out then you get like you
know you earn that week or two or
however long you can get that little bit
of a quiet period or maybe just a long
weekend and then go from there and then
this year uh 2025 is just one of those
that it like Christmas and and New
Year's fall sort of in the middle of the
week and I think that just like messes
stuff up a little bit more so it just
feels like there's just there's not
enough time to prepare uh and there's
just too much stuff that's got to get
done between now and uh the holiday
season.
Let's dive right into
um the whole web and application world
because this is something that's like
it's been around now for I mean web
applications been around for a few
decades and mobile apps have been around
and a big thing for you know a good 15
probably 20 years almost and it's gotten
full. It's like you know there's just
certain areas there is just a lot out
there. If you go to like an app store or
Google Play or something like that,
there's just so much stuff out there and
that's I mean all you see a lot of times
is almost like the tip of the iceberg
because there's all the you know the top
ranking apps and then you can go down
and you can find just such a a broad
range of stuff. So how do you um
particularly with your you know if
there's stuff you're developing or for
your customers like what are some ways
to distinguish yourself within that that
busy and loud market?
Yeah, I think for the app stores, you
know, there's even a service that
certain marketing companies offer where
they offer uh app store optimization. I
don't know what the exact term is, but I
think it's really difficult to to
compete in that sort of those verticals
on the app stores. I think you need to
be driving downloads directly to your
your user base and your customer base.
And um I think it just comes down to the
to the old adage of solve problems, you
know, really add value. You know, I'm
sure you guys also hear and see it and
you know, there's so many new startups
and tech products and you know, a lot of
these products fail because there's no
product market fit. They're solving
problems that don't really exist and
there's a little bit of an ego play
there. So, if your product's really
solving a problem and adding so so much
value, you know, they're going to want
to find your product or that or you
going to market to that um audience and
you know directly get people to the app
stores to download your app. Um and then
obviously web as well you know SEO and
you know AI optimization you know um is
also plays into that that sort of role.
So that goes into it. We've actually
we've had a couple of conversations with
that in recent discussions as well about
really like solving a problem. Make sure
that you're actually you're giving a
solution for a problem that people need
to solve. Otherwise, they're probably
not going to pay a lot of money for it.
Now, when you're working with your
customers, how do you how do you enforce
that? How do you work with your
customers to sort of help them uh vet
their product or to to make sure that
they are solving useful problems?
Yeah, that's that's more on the UX and
usability side. So that's not something
that we're involved with, but we do know
that there are companies that will do
user based research. So they'll go and
find sample sizes. They'll actually go
and identify them. They'll do proper
interviews. They'll record them and then
essentially gather that information and
and basically determine, you know, from
the output, is this actually something
that people are willing to, you know,
pay for? Is it a solution that they're
looking for? So, it's not something that
we do. Um, but you know, when we speak
to people, I spoke to a guy today,
someone I know, he wants to build some
sort of app in in the new year. And I
said to him, you know, like we can build
you the best app. It can look great. It
can you know, do all the all different
types of functionality, but you know, if
you're not solving a problem, you know,
and keep it simple as well, but if
you're not solving a problem that people
are willing to pay for, or if you had to
take your app away, would they feel a
bit of pain, you know, would they sort
of miss it? And that's sort of the test.
But it's it's really difficult, you
know, cuz even these uh these
interviews, you know, you can also go
down a rabbit hole and you can you can
interview like 10 people, you can
interview 100 people. I mean, you you
can do a thousand people, but you know,
at some point you got to put something
out there and really test is there
product market fit, is there demand, is
there positive feedback, um or is there
no traction whatsoever.
So, one of the things that you you
mentioned that you guys are one of your
strengths, I guess, for your company,
one of the things values you add is
building scalability from the start. And
uh I find that's like I'm really curious
about that because there's a lot of
people, especially in the app market. It
feels like there's a lot of like there's
just that rush to market. there's just
the like let's get, you know, get our
website out, get our app out there, get
in front of people, and then we'll come
back later and worry about, you know,
things like maintainability,
scalability, and even stability. Um, how
do you how do you do that? And how do
you work that in with your conversations
with your customers or your your
projects as you step into them?
>> Yeah, so it's a great question. Um,
so for me, scalability is two things,
right? It's the ability to, you know, be
able to add more features to a product
without the product having to be
re-engineered.
So,
we're definitely not of the we're not
fans of, you know, building something
quickly, get it out, get some traction,
you know, spend money on that, and then,
you know, after 6 months or year, can it
and then rebuild the product. I think
it's a waste of money for for founders
or whoever these tech owners are uh tech
product owners are. Um,
so I think that even if the app is
small, it's an MVP, I think you still
need to have a lot of best practices,
you know, build a solid foundation,
still think big, you know, in terms of
how this thing can grow, how the the
features can evolve and and and build it
properly, you know, have a solid
foundation to build to build on from the
start and then, you know, in a year or
two or three or 5 years time, it's still
going to keep evolving, right? So I
think that that sort of deals with the
sort of feature and functionality uh
scalability and um and growth and then
the other side of the scalability is the
data side right the usage you know cuz
obviously when you start maybe you've
got few hundred users few thousand users
but we need to think about how does this
platform look when there's like a
hundreds of thousands or millions of
users you know what is that data look
like how does the database going to
handle you you know what sort of
cleanups do we need to do what sort of
technology and architecture do we need
to do and I think that's also very key
to plan from the start as well you know
so having that solid foundation and
having that mindset and those sort of
best practice you know um upfront
uh spec you know how you specify the
project how you think about you know
growth from a data point of view I think
really helps the app handle growth from
a data and a usage point of view down
the line.
And you can always add sorry and and
just one more point is you can always
you know add more you know in terms of
like the hosting you know more
scalability more resources because you
also don't want to um over you know
engineer the the hosting component you
know because it costs money right so you
kind of want to have you know a a good
fit for the start but you know as as it
go as the the app and the usage grows
you know you can always increase the
hosting resources and scalability from
that point of view.
>> Sorry, Michael, over to you.
>> Oh, no, it's okay. Um, I'm glad you
expanded on that. So, how would you
approach for those founders or those uh
people developers with ideas that want
to build a digital app or start a
product, but they don't really
necessarily have the technical
foundation?
Um, so I I think that
it's all about taking that vision that's
in their head and extrapolating that
somehow, right? So you can even use AI
tools these days. I think it's actually
quite nice to visualize your
your product. So like things like replet
or lovable, you know, we've seen a lot
of people come to us with those. They've
built something on lovable and it's
taken their idea further than just a
concept in their head and it's expanded
that to something visual that they can
play with. It's a little bit tangible.
They can run through different steps and
but it's not really production grade
ready. I wouldn't go to market with it.
Um so I think that you know if if we had
this conversation maybe a year or two
ago I wouldn't have said that you know
but I think that's a a good way for
founders. We help clients scope out
their project in terms of we do
discovery. Um so you know we'll we'll
workshop their idea. We'll challenge
them on certain things. We'll suggest
certain things that they haven't thought
about based on our experience and we
basically architect the the the scope of
work the MVP and future phases in a sort
of discovery engagement that happens at
the start of the project. Um so I don't
know if I've answered your question but
you know I've sort of given you two
different ways of tackling that.
>> Oh definitely. Uh so to kind of expand
upon that so with your uh years of
experience with this and dealing with
you know technical and non-technical
founders what are some of the biggest
mistakes you see them making at the
start and then what are some of the
successes you've seen as well?
Some of the mistakes I would say are
that they try and pack too many things
into their MVP. So founders are very
proud. They're very passionate about
their product and sometimes they're a
little bit ego-driven and they want to
have these little bells and whistles and
these nice to haves and it's not always
needed, right? Um
so I think really keeping it simple you
know this whole MVP uh principle you
know a minimum viable product if it's
not going to add if it's not going to
solve the core problem that you're
trying to solve don't include it you
know you can always bring it in later
but you know keep it simple it's going
to keep the founders costs down I think
other things are
I think
yeah I think also maybe even you know we
kind of touched at the beginning, you
know, getting validation from their
potential user base, you know, are they
actually validating their idea or are
they just kind of building something
hoping, you know, that if I build it,
they'll come. Um, and I think that's,
you know, then you've got to kind of
pivot or change direction during
development or after the MVP. And that's
more costly and time consuming. And I
think a really big mistake that I see is
that a lot of founders, you know,
they've
they've seen a niche problem or a niche
problem as you say in the states.
They've come up with a solution. Um
hopefully they've been in that industry
and that that's always, you know, a lot
more success guaranteed from that. But
they think that they'll build a pro a
product and once it's launched, the
floodgates are going to open. And I've
seen that where founders that have
allocated a lot of budget, they've
thought about marketing, they've thought
about how am I going to acquire
customers, they do really really well.
And others that think that okay, I'm
just going to launch this to the world
and I'm going to get lots of clients and
users and subscribers that generally is
doesn't work and you know inevitably the
product fails. Um, so I think marketing
is really, really important, you know,
and to think about it even before
development. Um, yeah.
>> So, if you could sum all of that up and
say the top three things founders should
do when starting to build a product, a
mobile app, what would be your top three
picks?
Yeah, I think it's I think it's what I
said, you know, I think product market
fit, you know, are you really building
something that's going to solve a
problem or are you building something
for a problem that doesn't really exist?
Keep it simple. So, you know, keep it
MVP, keep it as, you know, launch as
easy as possible and don't launch with
bugs. I I don't like that. You know, I
think a lot of there's this it's a
little bit common in the industry to go,
let's launch, get it to market, even if
it's full of bugs, then we'll fix the
bugs as it's live. I I I'm not a fan of
that. I think you've got a a really good
opportunity to make a very strong first
impression. And if your impression is
not good because of bugs and, you know,
errors and things like that, I think it
it you actually blow your your chances
of wowing that that user. And then I
think the marketing thing, you know, I
think that's a big thing. Um, yeah.
>> So I have uh one more followup and I'll
pass it back to Rob. So I'm a big QA
guy. I like test driven development
myself. And in the world of mobile apps,
there's a lot of different tools out
there for doing mobile testing, AB
testing, things of that nature. Uh any
suggestions that you have or any of
particular tools you like to help test
your mobile apps?
So
there are quite a few different tools.
Um I think we've we we're using like
Selenium. There's some other tools that
we're using.
Um we're still also doing quite a bit of
manual testing. I think these tools
don't pick everything up and I think
there's a lot of um
intricacies that need to be thought
about from a user's point of view. Um
yeah and you can obviously write things
like unit tests as well but you know
that takes a lot of time you know it's
almost as much time as it is to build
the product itself. So it sometimes
doesn't from a value and cost point of
view doesn't warrant it. So I think it's
a balance of humanbased testing and that
sort of functional testing and visual
testing you know interface testing and
then using some sort of automated
testing as well. But keen to hear from
your side, you know, like what what's
working from for you and uh what what
you know, what tools you're you're
prescribing to your clients.
So, a lot of the tools I use kind of
depend on which device. Like if you're
doing Android, the uh Android Studios
has actually a pretty good uh test suite
built into it. Uh Catalin is another one
that's pretty good. Uh I've used
Selenium in the past and there's a
couple other ones. It also depends on
the language. I found like if you're
using React, Expo is really good. It has
some really good test tools in it for
testing a lot of mobile apps along that
nature. Uh the biggest thing that uh I
struggle with, especially with mobile
development, I don't know if you run
into this, but uh when you build mobile
apps, do you pick a language like
Android or iOS or do you tend to go for
the more open platforms where you build
once and deploy anywhere? Yeah, we
typically go more the hybrid the hybrid
app route or the progressive web app
route. So we're not building a native.
Um, so it is typically built once
deployed to iOS to Android. And in South
Africa, we've got Huawei, which is a
Chinese uh operating system, but I don't
think it's very popular in the US. A lot
of people look at me when I tell them
that and they don't even know what I'm
talking about, but it's it's actually
similar to Android, the App Store and
the operating system.
Oh, let's go back to swing back a little
bit on the ideas of uh talk about MVPs
and stuff like that because you touched
on something that's actually something
we've run across many times is where
you're you're building an MVP, you're
working where you're working with
somebody on MVP and it's just keeping
the M part of that becomes very
challenging because they're they they
want to push something else in. They're
like, well, what would it take to just
like let's just put this one extra
feature in. And you've also mentioned
that uh something I'm starting to see as
well is sort of a rise of the um the no
code MVP kind of thing where like a
founder or visionary or somebody has sat
down and they've put something together
that is yeah it's not production grade
as you mentioned but it's it sort of
works. It's a it's a clickable demo
maybe a little better than that. Have
you found that there's more push back
now that there's people have sort of
gotten a little bit gotten their hands
dirty? Do you see a little more push
back and a little more of a how hard can
that be to like just let's go add that
feature in or is it still has it still
managed to be roughly the same kind of
conversations you've had in the past?
>> It depends on a case by case basis. Um I
think it's also depends on the feature
and if it makes sense to include it and
how big is that feature or how small it
is and what impact will that have on on
the launch or the value to the user. Um
and then in terms of your question about
the uh people getting their hands dirty.
Yeah, I think a lot of people are
getting their hands dirty. Um so they're
playing with these tools, these AI
tools, you know, Lovable and Replet and
um you know, they're taking their idea
to a certain point, but they're not
developers or engineers by trade. So
there's a lot of things they don't know
to think about, right? and they don't
know to even prompt these things,
you know, let alone will that be correct
or not. So, I think that's our job as
developers is to think of, you know, the
exceptions, you know, what happens when
something fails, what happens
um when there's this strange possibility
and how does the user journey get
impacted by that, you know? So from a
functionality point of view and a user
journey point of view. Um
so I think that's where there's a lot of
shortcomings and I yeah so it it's got
its place. I think these clickable
prototypes or these proof of concepts
are are good and I think it's good to
help them you know as I mentioned
earlier to to take their vision and to
sort of visually see what they can do
and maybe take it to some stakeholders
get some feedback you know get some buy
in or push back and you know that's
maybe a way to to validate you know if I
had to build this properly would you use
it would you pay for it what would be
comfortable paying to subscribe to this
kind of platform.
Yeah, I was wondering if that because
that's, you know, there's in the past
we've had situations we'll do like a
clickable demo or or a proof of concept
and it's it looks good enough that
they're like, "Well, why can't we ship
it now?" You know, it's it's one of
those where they there's a disconnect
between production grade software and a
you know, something that you rip
together over a weekend or anything like
that. I'm wondering are you seeing then
and particularly because this gets into
the concept of you know AI and people
thinking that AI is going to take all
the developer jobs and and some of those
kinds of you know fears that are out
there. Are you finding that uh founders
and and owners are more respective I
guess respectful of software development
now as they sort of get into it and
realize that like they they've sort of
they're like okay I'm ready to hand this
over to you because I I know I'm beyond
my depth or is it is there more of that
like well you know I could probably do
this myself but I'll let you guys do it
because you may do it a little bit
better. Yeah, I think there is a lot of
respect for for developers, you know,
especially if if you don't have a tech
background and you're kind of vibe
coding this application and then you
change something in some place and then
something else breaks and you know,
we've seen that a lot and it's quite
frustrating for for the founders. Um but
what I think it's done is it's actually
created more opportunities you know so
people who had never sort of entertained
the idea of building a product and
trying to take it to market now they can
actually do that or take that concept
you know out of their head and and take
kick the can a little bit further down
the line and then if they're getting
traction you know maybe they go to an
investor and say listen this is what
I've put together I've spoken to these
20 people they've shown interest do you
want to back me with some money um and
then they know they need to build it
properly. Um,
yeah, I think the other thing to
consider is the security, the cyber
security of these web applications. I
don't know if you've seen these videos
of these hackers and then how they just,
you know, these AI lovable whatever
these vibecoded tools. These hackers are
just having a field day. It's like a
little playground for them where they
can just get API keys and, you know,
break these apps. And yeah, there's
quite a few videos about that as well.
So that's obviously a massive concern.
Um, which again, a non tech founder has
got no idea about that and they can find
out the the hard way and the the painful
way. Um,
yeah, which is kind of sad, but it is
the reality of the world that we live
in.
>> Yeah, you've got to watch. I mean,
that's the whole that's the challenge
with security is that there's people out
there trying to get you. Even when you
don't think they're, you know, you think
you're too small or you're not a target,
there's still it's easy to get a target
on your back. And especially stuff like
that, it's um
it's too easy for them now to to put
together like whip together a little app
and then, you know, have a little back
door in it or something like that. And
the next thing you know, you've you've
put this out there and taken taken
advantage of some people that aren't
really paying attention enough. So, sort
of the using the uh the traditional the
tried andrue, you know, methods to get
your apps and and things like that are
probably going to be more important than
uh than ever. And that is where we're
going to pause right now. So that is
part one of our episode and we will be
or part one of our interview and we will
come coming back next episode with part
two uh continue our discussion with
Angelo and uh get into actually even
more of the esoteric part of web and
application development. Uh definitely
getting a little geekier, a little more
detailed this time than we have in a
couple of the prior ones. Well, I guess
we did geek out a little bit on AI on a
few of those, but definitely down into a
little bit more of the coding side of
this, but there are definitely some
really good entrepreneurial points that
get brought up along the way as well,
particularly if you're thinking about
building some sort of a solution and
whether you're thinking like, oh, an app
would be really cool versus a web
application. We will talk about that.
And if you stick around after the next
one, uh there might be some bonus
material that has something to do with
that. And uh again, it's one of those I
think is very important for you to think
about that before you dive in because we
all know once you start writing a lot of
code and sort of building something out,
it's hard to just say, "Nope, I'm going
to trash this and start over on a
completely different uh, you know,
platform."
That being said, we're going to wrap
this one up, let you get back to your
day. So, go out there and have yourself
a great day, a great week, and we will
talk to you next time.