Project A Podcast

What is brand intelligence, how can a brand be ranked and its value be measured? Irina Ermak, Business Director at Interbrand, and Simon Walter, our Chief Brand Officer, shed light on the topic and discuss why startups should look into this, too!

If you'd like to know more about Brand Value, or other brand-related topics, don't forget to sign up for our annual Project A Knowledge Conference! Apply for a ticket now. We look forward to seeing you there. Apply for an online ticket now: https://bit.ly/2ZAY6hH

Most of us know what an MVP is supposed to do. .. in theory. An MVP is an early product version that is simple, cheap, and quick to build, so you can test it with real users. But if it's so simple, why do some engineering teams get stuck iterating on MVP-quality code? Why is it so hard to throw the MVP away and start from scratch? In this week's discussion, Stephan and I try to clarify this conundrum with some concrete examples.

As the startup grows, the founding CTO has to undergo a painful metamorphosis into a fully-fledged executive. Or not. Some eventually step aside and allow a more experienced hire to assume the role. Could continuing education help technical founders evolve into well-rounded CTOs who stick around for the long haul? Something like a… CTO school? Merlin chats with our own CTO, Stephan Schulze, to address this very question.

A discussion with Paul Murphy, who recently joined Lightspeed Venture Partners' in London. We discuss Paul's long, varied and impressive career on both sides of the table. From company founder, angel investor to venture capitalist. He gives us an insight into Lightspeed's ambitions in Europe and his own investment philosophy.

What do mid-career developers do next? You could go down the leadership and management path and become a CTO. But is that the only path available? In this edition of TechInsights, we talk about some of the different tracks that senior developers can choose from when considering the next step in their careers.

Covid-19 has exposed schools not being ready for digital learning. Students have to take matters into their own hands. That's what Benedict Kurz, founder of the digital learning platform Knowunity, is convinced of. He explains how his app has attracted almost 1 million students already. You can find Knowunity's job opportunities here: https://knowunity.join.com

With the rise of product-led growth and the developer tools market, it seems everyone's trying to get developers to notice their products. But getting the attention of developers is famously difficult. Traditional marketing and sales tactics tend to fall flat. So how do you do it? Well, one way to find out is to ask. So I quizzed our CTO Stephan Schulze on how he thinks marketers could reach "tech people" and what skills they need to talk the talk.

Generally speaking, observability is about measuring the health of your application's internal organs. But if your tech team is tiny, what do you prioritize? You can't observe everything under the sun, but nevertheless, there are some vital signs that you should always keep an eye on. I talk to our CTO Stephan about how he approaches observability when advising startups.

If your project "has issues" you should obviously flag them early on. But not too early. There's a subtle art to the timing and delivery of warnings. Our CTO Stephan and I discuss this art in the latest edition of Tech Insights.