DevReady Podcast

How Thought Leadership is Changing Content with Robyn Foyster - Episode 60

On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony sit down with former editor-in-chief and current content strategy entrepreneur Robyn Foyster to talk all things thought leadership.
Robyn is the founder of InProfile, a thought leadership agency that helps clients curate their online presence through a specialized content strategy.
In the current climate of personal brands and 24/7 news, we’re all thought leaders, no matter the size of our audience. Robyn believes having a strategy behind the content you put out into the world is key to attracting followers to your corner of the internet. Content has changed so much in the past 25 years, but as a former journalist and editor-in-chief, Robyn says she still uses that “gut feeling” instinct to guide content strategy and keep followers engaged.
The thing is, we’re all the editors and publishers of our own personal content brands, but just because we have that power, doesn’t mean we know how to wield it—that’s where Robyn and her team come in.
The episode wraps up with the three discussing how much is too much to share when curating your online brand, and the importance of creating consistent content for your audience. In the past, getting on the sofa for a talk show interview was the surest way to get your message out there, now we all have the ability to share our story through personalized social media channels. That power is available to us, but to truly become a thought leader in the online space, we have to create a consistent and engaging content strategy that compels people to stick around to hear what we have to say.
Topics Covered:
• Why Robyn started InProfile
• How thought leadership is changing marketing
• How to become a thought leader?
• The strengths of LinkedIn
• Tools to create weekly content
• Being the publisher and editor of your own content
• How content has changed in the last 25 years
• Personal branding versus business branding and the crossover
• Creating content to become a thought leader
• Creating consistent content for your audience

Succeeding with Software Business with Stewart Marshall - Episode 59

On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Stewart Marshall, commercial software strategist and SaaS extraordinaire.
Stewart covers everything from using software to solve problems and implementation. He says that most people just want their problems solved, but devs need to think about it in the context of the system as a whole. As a SaaS expert, Stewart also joins the podcast to talk about some of the hurdles that software services overcome in the developmental stages as well as in going to market.
This is Stewart’s guide to developing a business plan for any startup itching to deliver a tech solution:
1. Articulate the problem.
2. Understand whose problem it is.
Get it to a point where you can walk up to a person and say “here’s the problem we have and here’s how we’re going to solve it.” Then you have a business. But remember that technology on its own is not a solution but merely a tool.
A key takeaway from this episode is Stewart’s advice to founders about incorporating technology. He says it’s like looking at a jigsaw puzzle. The commercial side of the business will look at the picture, but the technical side will look at the pieces and how they fit together. When they work together, you get a really good outcome.
Topics Covered:
● How COVID has forced digitization on Australia?
● SaaS experts today and what they have to offer.
● Smart marketing to your target audience.
● Software is only a tool.
● Mistrust in the technology sphere because of pricing structure.
● The AI arms race of the future.
● The distinction between customer needs and the customer wants.
● Why UX & UI are inherently complicated?
● Need to be inquisitive?

High Performance Teams in the Remote-Work Era with Julie Starovoitova - Episode 58

On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony speak with Julie Starovoitova, People Experience Lead at PaperCut Software.
Over the course of the conversation, Julie describes some of the key initiatives she has helped launch toward building high-performing teams. Some of these strategies include: 1. Making sure that all your values and principles are actually lived. This even informs performance reviews. 2. Job-swapping helps team members understand each others’ roles.
Julie also shares how PaperCut’s performance review questions reflect a desire to build high-performing teams.
The four questions for a PaperCut performance review (adopted from Deloitte):
1. General performance and cultural fitness
2. Performance around values and principles
3. Risk of low performance question
4. If at risk of leaving, what should be done to keep them.
Topics Covered:
● Controlling growing teams.
● Successes in transitioning to a remote work platform.
● Seeing team members adapt to working from home.
● What high-performing culture means.
● Investing in teams as pivotal to growth.
● “Anyone can talk to anyone” as a principle.
● Bringing transparency and openness to decisions like promotion.
● Real-life scenarios are more accurate than abstract performance reviews.
● Codifying the essence of your business.

Design Thinking & Architecting Enterprises with Darryl Carr - Episode 57

On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Darryl Carr, enterprise architect and professional community builder. During their conversation, Darryl talks about enterprise architecture and how business can architect solutions that deliver results and scale to profit.
Darryl describes how he understands systems and community architecture. He talks about how businesses should work with architects early on in the development process to have them inform all stages. Architects can help businesses plan a software solution that will actually deliver value, empower investors, and scale. Among his most poignant pieces of advice is that understanding architecture is ultimately about scale.
A key takeaway from this episode is that businesses primarily need to concern themselves with creating solutions for real problems. A common problem with tech startups is that they try to create solutions for problems that don’t really exist. Avoid this trap by listening to your clients. Give them your honest ear that will allow you to hear their problems for what they are, empowering your team to develop solutions that affect meaningful change. And that’s the bottom line. Deliver value at the end of the day.
Topics Covered:
● How architecture fits into the agile movement.
● Don’t launch straight into the technology.
● Non-functional requirements.
● How to architect to scale your solutions.
● Advice for building a tight tech team.
● Your main goal should be to create value.
● We need to find problems that actually need solving.
● Why communicating drive and passion matters.
Key Quotes:
❏ “Architects help you make sure, when you’re building something, that it’s built well, that it will run well and that it will scale well.” (4:20)
❏ “Involve your architects as early as possible.” (6:15)
❏ “Architecting a platform, really, is understanding the scale.” (9:30)
❏ “Pivot toward something you can validate in the real world.” (19:45)
❏ “You can impact and create more value by listening.” (22:10)
❏ “What you really want to convey is how passionate you are about the problem you’re solving.” (27:50)

E56 - Good Hustle: Building A Better World with Tom Dawkins

Our guest on this episode of the DevReady Podcast is Tom Dawkins, CEO and Co-Founder of StartSomeGood, the leading home of cause-driven crowdfunding, innovative partnerships and social entrepreneur education. Before StartSomeGood, Tom founded Australian youth non-profit Vibewire, was the first Social Media Director at Ashoka in Washington DC and was the founding Director of the Australian Changemakers Festival. Tom’s varied experience and journey to where he is now has taught him valuable lessons but also gave him the insight he needs to better support the next generation of social entrepreneurs. His passion for innovation and sustainable impact is the basis behind StartSomeGood and has helped countless people find success along the way.
Tom’s journey to a career that didn’t exist when he started out was full of risk but his optimistic attitude and adherence to his vision and purpose has helped him to achieve significant goals. As an early adapter and innovator, he wasn’t deterred by technology he didn’t understand but learned the value of key partnerships and how to leverage them to get to where you want to be. At the end of the day, Tom’s desire to help others better create social change is inspiring and truly accessible. Throughout this conversation he shares useful advice and combines it with tangible action steps, connecting anyone wanting to pursue their ideas with the tools they need to make it happen.
Topics Covered:
• How seemingly random events and opportunities paved the way for Tom’s career path
• Becoming a crowdfunding entrepreneur before it existed
• Youth empowerment is tokenistic, haphazard and deeply biased towards wealth.
• Tom’s path as an early adapter and innovator
• Building technological companies as a non-tech person
• Focus on equipping people
• Success stories from the platform
• What inspires people to give and invest
Key Quotes:
• “My whole life purpose is to try and build… a better democracy and to me that means one where people can participate in making things happen.” (1:22)
• “The heart of democracy is not an election. It's every other day of the year; how we participate, how we make a difference, how we create the future that we want (1:43)
• “Today you shouldn't know what you want [to do] because the thing you want to be probably doesn't exist yet.” (2:36)
• “Create spaces where people can engage in conversation, can share their stories and perspectives, and hopefully come up with new ideas and ways to collaborate together to create a better future.” (8:32)
• “I'm an early adapter and so I'm constantly scanning what's around me and then wondering how that might be relevant for the things I care about. (13:00)
• “People are always looking for that big idea that fresh idea that they can come out of their own mind, but sometimes we can take a concept that's in one market or another country and then bring it into a different space and create something new and innovative.” (14:58)
• “Paying for innovation means paying for failure. The only way you get innovation is by trying stuff that may or may not work and along the way there is risk.” (17:35)
• “Burnout is actually one of the great sources of failure for startups.” (34:46)
• “One of the things we pitch with crowdfunding is; it's not just an alternative source of capital, it's a source of validation that then helps you get the capital.” (40:39)

Episode 55 - Growing Your Tech Business with Zachary Kohler

Episode 55 - Growing Your Tech Business with Zachary Kohler by Aerion Technologies

Episode 54 - Legal Agility In Developing New Tech with Jeremy Streten

Our guest on this episode of the DevReady Podcast is Jeremy Streten, founder of “Business Legal Life Cycle”, a business focused on making legal advice accessible to business owners.
Jeremy briefly started out his career in IT before pivoting to become a lawyer about 17 years ago. After several years in the industry, Jeremy realized that many lawyers tend to speak with their clients in unnecessarily complicated ways that are not helpful to average people who do not have legal training. He saw an opportunity for building a bridge between business owners and helpful legal advice and he sought out a developer to help him create the infrastructure. The basis for the BLL assessment came from Jeremy’s outline of the 13 business phases, which eventually became his book entitled “The Business Legal Life Cycle.”
During the creation of the first version of the Business Legal Life Cycle software, Jeremy experienced plenty of miscommunications with the developer he had hired. This solidified in his mind the necessity for a tech partner and also for the implementation of proper documentation at the beginning of all client and employment relationships. When it came time to work on version 2.0, Jeremy reached out to a Mastermind group that he was a part of in the U.S. and met an interested developer there who eventually became his business partner. He says that having a tech partner continually involved in the business and the evolution of the tech being used is a crucial part of the business.
Topics Covered:
• Many lawyers aren’t very helpful because they don’t speak plain English to their clients.
• How Jeremy’s legal background helped prepare him to fill in this gap between business owners and proper legal advice.
• Keeping in mind what you want to do in the future.
• Setting up your documentation the right way from the start.
• Finding the right developer and building out the tech.
• How miscommunications can lead to misaligned expectations and outcomes.
• Changing the targeting of the product based on feedback.
• Having a larger purpose: to make legal advice accessible to business owners.
Key Quotes
• “It’s to help business owners generally to know what they need to do from a legal perspective.” (1:10)
• “People change. Money changes people.” (6:04)
• “Every business evolves over time, and if you’re not evolving then you’re probably going backward.” (19:25)
• “You get what you pay for.” (25:11)

Episode 53 - Four Pillars of Scaling SaaS Company with Matt Wolach

On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony sit down with Xsellus founder and SaaS enthusiast, Matt Wolach.
Matt has been into SaaS for about 15 years. On the podcast, Matt shares his insights into how to develop a SaaS company, how to market it to the right people, and how to scale to something big—even in a world dominated by cloud services.
Matt argues that people are usually missing one or more of the four pillars of scaling your SaaS company. He developed these pillars as follows:
1. Attract—This is where you guarantee you bring the right people in.
2. Engage—It doesn't matter how you do this, but you need to find a way to engage your customers in a meaningful way.
3. Close—Once you’ve spent the money attracting and engaging them, you need to close the deal. Focus on emotion.
4. Scale—We need to be able to repeat this.
Beyond this, Matt shares key details about what actually works when thinking about attracting and engaging the people who will really allow your company to flourish.
Key takeaways from this episode are that you need to figure out how to remove barriers to your product (both on entry and exit), and that there is a way to use emotion to create buy-in that transforms into real conversion. Matt says the emotional language is about getting people to see services applied to their very own situations. Get them talking about themselves to understand the real emotional value.
Topics Covered:
● SaaS businesses.
● Methods to scale a SaaS business.
● Steps to attract customers for expansion.
● Why you need to pounce.
● How to remove barriers to entry (so you can close).
● Understanding the middle ground.
Key Quotes:
❏ “I help other software founders to not go through those early-stage struggles that I went through.” (3:00)
❏ “It’s really hard to find anything that’s not server-based now.” (4:45)
❏ “Whether or not you do it, your information is still there.” (6:00)
❏ “Everyone is so used to being pitched at for some new software tool.” (7:30)
❏ “We, as founders, still have conversations with our market.” (9:20)
❏ “Competitors will come.” (18:00)
❏ “Free trials are not your closers. Free trials are not your closers.” (21:00)
❏ “Never make it hard for someone to hand you money.” (26:15)
❏ “If they’re not a good fit, don’t make it hard for them to transition out.” (29:30)
❏ “People get emotional about themselves, about their own world.” (31:50)
❏ “They kind of sell themselves.” (34:20)
❏ “Hire three; fire two.” (36:30)
❏ “If you have the right process, it’s all about reining them in.” (39:45)

Episode 52 - R&D, Product Design, and Innovation with George Mirabelli

On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony sit down with SoftLogic Solution's R&D Director, George Mirabelli.
George got his start designing air-traffic controller systems for the military and various governments around the world. He then started working with R&D in insurance and finance systems. He had a long career in design and software development. Recently, he’s been showing businesses how to really make the most of the R&D tax incentives from a design perspective.
Criteria for the R&D tax incentive:
● Australian company
● High innovation
● New knowledge requires experimentation and risk of failure
George really plainly puts it that with R&D, you’re investing previous profits into developing new products—so it needs to be worth it. The R&D structure of your product design needs to be fully incorporated to reap your maximum ROI. George also explains the difference between the apportionment method vs. the timesheet method.
Topics Covered:
● Understanding the R&D tax incentive.
● The knowledge that can be easily accessed is not new knowledge.
● Core and supporting R&D activities.
● Getting your documentation straight early on is key.
● R&D is an integral part of the product strategy.
● Tracking costs in core and supporting R&D.
● Creating an R&D manual.
Key Quotes:
❏ “With a rebate up to 43%, [The R&D tax incentive] is designed for high innovation, like new knowledge.” (4:30)
❏ “It doesn’t matter if the experimentation is successful.” (5:45)
❏ “It’s really important that people take the documentation process and embed it into the way they think about R&D, which is basically what I do.” (12:25)
❏ “It’s important in software development to separate the idea of Agile development from the iterations.” (15:45)
❏ “It’s just writing it down.” (17:15)
❏ “You want to be able to find [your R&D processes] consistently.” (24:45)
❏ “R&D starts when the product is being conceptualized.” (28:30)

DevReady Podcast E51 - Conquer Your Market With Design Thinking with Andrew Bird

On this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony talk to Andrew Bird, director at Foundstone Advisory. During their conversation, they talk about implementing a meaningful business strategy, involving your tech team from the beginning, and how technology and design thinking can transform how you bring value to your customers.
Before working at Foundstone Advisory, Andrew spent eight years at Datacom managing strategy and consulting businesses. At Foundstone, he has done a lot of work with businesses in technology and the digital space. He helped develop technology solutions in healthcare and other industries, consulting them on how to migrate and scale their models with growing IT and digital functions.
Andrew provides some insight into how design thinking can help alleviate headaches downstream from the initial business strategy rollout. He stresses getting into the mindset of the client and spending as much time front-end loading to try to understand their problems and wishes. And of course, do not fall into the trap of thinking that technology itself can stand in as a solution to big industry problems. Ask good questions, but the customer’s needs first, and seriously consider how technology could enable you to do business better.
Topics Covered:
● How technology comes into a strategy in the first place.
● Technology should be used to better customer experience.
● We need to educate senior people on what technology can really do.
● Customer experience and getting into the head of your audience.
● Communicating upfront will greatly increase your ROI.
● People jump into building the product way too early.
● Tech teams are often removed from the business strategy.
● The principle of design thinking.
● Covid changed people’s minds about design thinking.
Key Quotes
❏ “If you’re not asking how technology can better a customer experience, you probably need to question why you’re investing in that technology.” (4:00)
❏ “People on the board need to ask ‘how can technology actually enable our business?’” (6:35)
❏ “Building technology, really, is the easy part.” (8:45)
❏ “Technology is not the be-all, end-all of any solution. (10:30)
❏ “What can we do to make sure we’re building a product that people need and actually want in the first place?” (14:00)
❏ “We try to get as close to the customer as possible. (16:15)
❏ “Explore what you know and what you don’t know, and make the decision after. (22:30)
❏ “Asking good questions is the key.” (28:00)
❏ “The customer wants to be heard, ultimately.” (39:30)