Want Scale? Balance the Interdependencies of Your Tech From the Start
If you ever want your company to scale, your technology solutions need to work together.
Your ability to balance the interdependencies of your technical ecosystem will determine whether you successful build a highly scalable system — or not.
Most tech companies are trying to build a scalable process. That’s no surprise.
Rather than building a solid product only to learn the hard way that you can’t handle enough demand and need to do some serious tinkering, build interoperability and into your solutions from the ground up. Do it right the first time.
Money Alone Won’t Solve the Problem
Successfully scaling your business is challenging. Organizations are tempted to throw capital at the problem without thoroughly understanding all of the details.
This is a highly ineffective approach. Money won’t solve all your problems. You need to know exactly what you’re doing.
In a distributed network, for example, the balance between storage, compute capacity, network drain, and the makeup of that drain must be tailored to aggregate demand. If that balance isn’t engineered correctly, customer experience will take a hit as apps lag or crash.
It’s true, you do need money. But more than that, you need technical know-how.
Organizations Choose to Do ‘What Works’
More than a handful of organizations are perfectly fine with accepting “what works” instead of “what works with efficiency.”
It’s understandable: The tech world moves quickly, and companies are charging forward quickly toward the next round of funding or hoping for an IPO. As long as the product is evolving and improving — at least on the surface — many decision makers are okay with patchwork solutions. It’s a quick fix.
But efficiency needs to be built from the ground up. Any engineer will tell you how it’s much easier to nip a problem in the bud rather than discovering it way down the line.
Despite the general ease of doing “what works” in some instances, it’s never advisable — and it’ll almost certainly come back to haunt you.
Why Doing ‘What Works’ Isn’t Enough
“What works” is a short-term solution.
Doing “what works” can buy you some time, but you’ll have to confront reality sooner or later. This is concerning because organizational costs escalate with scale. Wouldn’t you rather spend what you need to up front instead of having to fork over even more down the line to fix a problem?
More often than not, the “what works” approach will come back to bite you. Just take a look the Zenefits saga: A darling unicorn of Silicon Valley cut a lot of corners, and it paid off for a while — to the tune of a $4.5 billion valuation. But those shortcuts came back to hurt the company, to say the least. Time will tell if it ever recovers.
It used to be easy to use Salesforce along with SAP, along with JIRA, along with…
Back then (how is it already “back then”?!), we had maybe a few hundred clients. We have many more now. And they all need to interact with one another — or the user experience suffers big time.
The last thing you want is your users frustrated by your product.
Efficiency Matters More Over Time
As an industry segment matures and moves from disruptive toward commodity — the successful ones always do — the above becomes even more critical.
Your tech will need to absorb your ever-growing user base, which means all of your products will need to work together seamlessly.
Think about the efficiency of the engine in a Model T Ford compared to a 2017 Honda. It’s night and day. The engine, and the technology that powers it, has changed drastically.
If you’re looking to scale your products — and who isn’t — you can’t afford to overlook the importance of balancing interdependencies and ensuring your solutions work with one another. The earlier you embrace this philosophical approach to your products, the quicker your organization can comfortably scale.
