Triumph through failure
How one SumUp software developer turned a product performance issue into a personal development opportunity.
When Cristian Oliveira Da Rosa, a software developer in our Berlin office, returned to his hometown in Brazil for a holiday earlier this year, he seized the opportunity to convert a family member into a SumUp merchant. “My mother had recently opened a small clothes store to make some extra money,” he explains, “so of course, I told her that she had to use SumUp for her card payments!”
But after convincing her that the SumUp Air Card Reader would perfectly suit her needs as a new small business owner, Cristian’s excitement quickly turned to embarrassment: “when she tried to create an account via our app, it took so long for the sign-up page to load that she thought it was broken. This surprised me because we test all our products extensively, but it revealed a blind spot. In the office, we use brand-new computers and have fast, stable internet, but my mom was using a mobile device in an area with relatively slow connection. She’s not so young or tech-savvy, which is typical of many SumUp merchants. I thought, if she’s struggling, many others will be too, so we really need to improve the experience.”
On returning to work, Cristian embarked on a mission to raise internal awareness of these issues. “Using my mom’s experience as a starting point, I prepared a presentation on product performance — how we track it internally, how we could improve it and the impact this might have on our customers. We have a group at SumUp to help people prepare presentations, so they helped me develop my ideas, and then I gave a talk to the whole tech team.”
The response was overwhelmingly positive: “People liked the way I presented the topic, so I applied to speak at some external conferences. But what was really great was that the company was so open to constructive criticism. We don’t pretend our products are perfect, even though that’s what we’re aiming for. Because of this, I felt I could raise these issues without negative consequences. And since the internal talk, we’ve created tools to measure load speed and we put together a task force focused on improving performance.”
The good news kept on coming, as Cristian promptly received an invitation to present his talk at React Conf Armenia, an all-React conference for frontend and full-stack developers held at Yerevan’s Russian-Armenian University. “I have to admit, when I got the invite I thought ‘oh this’ll be a nice small conference, no real pressure.’ But then they announced the other speakers, and they were all these highly respected industry figures — I realised it was actually quite a big deal! And I started thinking about how it was my first conference, and about how I had to present in English, which is my second language — that’s when the stress really kicked in. But I felt supported by SumUp throughout the whole process. I even took some internal public speaking classes, which were really helpful.”
Overcoming his pre-conference nerves like a pro, Cristian went on to deliver a talk that really resonated with attendees: “Often, people show up to these events to brag about their achievements and talk about how great their companies are. But I went in with a different approach, speaking about failure and how we tried to address this. Also, I’m really into video games, especially RPGs, so I themed the talk around this. I used Dark Souls as an example of learning through failure, as it’s a famously difficult game in which you die a lot. People enjoyed this nerdy approach and appreciated that I was putting myself in a vulnerable position by speaking about failure. I got some laughs as well, which was nice!”
Finally, we wanted to know whether Cristian’s mother persevered with SumUp after her frustrating initial experience: “Yes, she’s now a happy merchant, and so are my sister and aunt! My sister’s a hairstylist and she borrows my mom’s card reader. And my aunt bought her own — she runs school transportation. The user-friendliness and ease of set-up are big selling points. You just need an email address and a bank account to get started. I think especially in Brazil, people are afraid to get into the bureaucracy. That was why my mom hadn’t accepted card payments before. She would’ve had to create a special account, apply for a device at a bank, she thought it was all too much trouble. But with SumUp, she was accepting payments in the shop within 3 days of buying the reader.”
