A solid foundation for rapid growth and scale

In this week's episode of the Platform Diaries podcast, we switched it up a little and interviewed yours truly! After interviewing guests with vast, diverse experiences for two seasons, I thought it was my turn to sit in the hot seat.

So my producer Chris Ashmore interviewed me, and I shared my advice for scaleups seeking to maximise their growth. 

Chris began by asking a complex question: how well do you think Aussie businesses are handling software projects?

In my book, I reference the Ph.D. thesis of Dr. Cecily Macdougall CPA, who explored software project failure. Her research indicated that only 64% of software projects in Australia succeed, leaving $5.4B wasted annually on projects that either don't deliver benefits or are abandoned. Notable recent project failures include the federal government's multi-million dollar investment in a COVID-19 contact tracing app that found merely 17 cases in NSW that manual tracking did not, the Melbourne Metro implementation of Myki, which went about half a billion dollars over budget, and the Queensland Health Department's payroll project, said to be the "most spectacular technology project failure in the Southern Hemisphere". 

While these examples are of large government and private enterprise projects, many smaller businesses are spending a similar amount of money relative to their revenue, which also isn't seeing successful results. So to answer Chris' question, I believe that Aussie businesses could be doing better. 

So why are they failing? One reason could be executive stakeholder engagement. Having someone in the organisation championing changes and software projects is vital. Broadly, this relates to enacting a solid adoption strategy. 

Another reason could be that it doesn't matter if you deliver a piece of software that you believe will add value; it matters if the person who needs to adopt it will get the benefit. If it's more effort to get the benefit, the users will simply not adopt. 

But Platform success doesn't boil down to adoption alone, and some Australian businesses are adopting platforms and getting results. ANZx hit the ground running with the very deliberate strategy to be a digital-first bank. Their careful consideration to leverage platforms and integrate properly early in their journey allowed for success down the track. Another Aussie business example is the work of a previous guest, Seb Poole, who has founded mental health tech startup Frankie Health. 

Seb benefits from the experience of having already scaled multiple startups. I believe that this allows him to transition from the "scrappy" stage - where Excel spreadsheets are the primary method of organisation and lengthy email chains are used for communication – to a thriving business that has been able to effectively onboard more staff and reach new heights, without severe growing pains. 

If you are embarking on your very first start-up, you may feel slightly lost. However, no two founders are the same, and no startup journey looks exactly alike. If you're a first-time founder, bringing in advisors - be it for sales and marketing, tech or investment - may assist you in solving problems when they inevitably arise. 

This is where founders may look for someone like me - a technology advisor - to guide them in the next stage of business. As some people scratch their heads when I tell them I am a technology advisory, I use the analogy of an advanced driving instructor. People who go to an advanced driving class already know how to drive. Similarly, the people who use my services already know how to run a business. But if you think about it, when you go to advanced driving class, instructors are not teaching you how to drive a car; they're teaching you to drive a car better, faster, and safer. So I describe my role very similarly. My clients know how to build a business, and my part is to help them scale through the right tools and processes. 

The first part of my job is to hone down on the strategy. I'll sit down with founders and go through a road mapping exercise, where we answer the questions "where are we taking the business?", "what's in your way today?" and "what do we need to do to get there?". This helps us sort out a roadmap that removes today's pain points and leaves the cables hanging out the back to enable any number of possible futures. The second part of my role is the advisory aspect, which is all about execution. This is where we will go through things like architecture, adoption, purpose, people, delivery, and support, ensuring that businesses have the right-sized teams and that platforms talk end-to-end to obtain the maximum value out of investments in software.

So why would scaleups choose me as their technology advisor? The value proposition I offer to my prospective clients is that I am 'platform agnostic and agenda free'. By this, I mean I don't represent a particular piece of software. I want to understand your business and help you make the right decisions around what makes sense for you based on what's available in the market. So when I say, 'agenda free', I mean that I don't have a team of people behind me to sell to you. In a nutshell, unlike my competitors, my advice is unbiased.

As I have mentioned in previous episodes of Platform Diaries, this practice has been shaped by my times in the trenches in corporate. Now, as an advisor, I have the means of having a genuine conversation with someone and helping them solve issues using the moments of learning (and mistakes) that punctuated my early career. 

Despite reflecting on my days in corporate and wondering if I suffered from a form of Stockholm Syndrome, where getting out has made me question how much I loved it, it did teach me a lot. Working at News Corp when printing newspapers was a license to print money, and later when it was in decline, helped me come up with business solutions that enabled growth while also working out strategies that enable cost reductions and improve operational efficiency. Combined, these lessons allow me to offer well-rounded 'right-fit' recommendations for smaller growing businesses.

Chris wrapped up our conversation by asking me what tech will look like in 20 years. Although I don't have a crystal ball, my predictions are that we will end in ecosystems of interconnected platforms. The next tech evolution will be built on web 3 technology centred around blockchain. 

Although the future of tech is somewhat unpredictable, there are some solid ways to lay the groundwork for your startup in business practices today.

If you're leading a maturing digital scaleup that's increasingly difficult to manage, then let's talk about your platform roadmap.

Perhaps you're an early-stage startup just looking for some advice? I'd like to chat.

Guwayu (the Wiradjuri word that can be interpreted as ‘until next time’).