In 2019, the failure rate of startups was 90%. Technology Startups (aka. Tech Startups) had the highest rate of failures at 63%. One of the causes of this high rate in tech startups can be wrong technical decisions and practices. In this session, I describe 6 technical tips that can help tech startups truly become “Lean” to pave the way for success. The 6 technical tips will cover areas such as programming languages, development platforms, cloud-native architectures, testing, and big data. The session will conclude with BONUS technical tips for all startups and not just tech startups. These bonus tips will prove very useful for: 1- Startups wishing to launch new apps with very little experience in software development OR 2- Companies wishing to initiate startup projects as part of their digital transformation. I highly recommend this session for entrepreneurs who are about to start developing an innovative idea. It is also recommended for startups that have already started their journey and wish to improve.

1. 6+1 TECH TIPS FOR TECH STARTUPS
TEK CAFFE

2. ABOUT TEK CAFFE
TEK CAFFE
▸ Tek Caffe is a group dedicated to empowering the tech
community and enabling creativity and innovation in the
tech industry.
▸ It was established with the aim of organizing talks,
sessions, workshops, and events to achieve its mission.
▸ Its co-founders have a total combined experience of two
decades and have delivered:
▸ 47+ sessions
▸ 11 consultations
▸ 10 workshops and courses
▸ Total number of attendees the activities exceeds 4000
attendees.

3. MEET THE CO-FOUNDERS
FATMA ELESNAWY
▸ Mentor at Enpact and Women
Empowerment Program at US
Aid
▸ E-commerce Advisor at We
Finance (World Bank)
▸ 12 years experience in Business
development, Web
Development, Web Design

4. MEET THE CO-FOUNDERS
AHMED MISBAH
▸ Chief Software Architect and Engineer
▸ Independent Software Consultant
▸ Speaker at:
‣ DevOpsDays Cairo
‣ AMECSE
‣ Orange DevTest Days
‣ GDG
‣ Delta Technopreneurs
‣ JDC

5. MEET THE CO-FOUNDERS - AHMED MISBAH
TOPICS OF INTEREST
▸ Technology Startups
▸ DevOps
▸ Agile and Lean
▸ Cloud-Native Apps and beyond
▸ Software Architecture
▸ Java
▸ FOSS
▸ Arti
fi
cial Intelligence and ML

6. MEET THE CO-FOUNDERS - AHMED MISBAH
EXPERIENCE
▸ 10 years at Orange Innovation Egypt
▸ Delivered two award winning innovative
solutions
▸ Worked at two startups
▸ Helped many others!
▸ Winner of Dell Hacktrick 2022 UI/UX track
▸ PhD. candidate
▸ MSc. degree in ML and many other professional
certi
fi
cations
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Has successfully completed the program of study
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BigData & Data Science Diploma
for the period from October 2015 to July 2016
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Date

7. AGENDA
▸ Introduction
▸ 6 tips
▸ Bonus tips
▸ Conclusions

8. INTRODUCTION

9. A STARTUP IS A COMPANY OR PROJECT
UNDERTAKEN BY AN ENTREPRENEUR TO
SEEK, DEVELOP, AND VALIDATE A
SCALABLE ECONOMIC MODEL.
Wikipedia
WHAT IS A STARTUP?

10. A STARTUP IS A YOUNG COMPANY FOUNDED BY ONE OR MORE
ENTREPRENEURS TO DEVELOP A UNIQUE PRODUCT OR SERVICE
AND BRING IT TO MARKET. BY ITS NATURE, THE TYPICAL STARTUP
TENDS TO BE A SHOESTRING OPERATION, WITH INITIAL FUNDING
FROM THE FOUNDERS OR THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILIES.
Investopedia
WHAT IS A STARTUP?

11. A TECHNOLOGY STARTUP (AKA. TECH STARTUP) IS A COMPANY THAT
PROVIDES TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS OR SERVICES TO THE MARKET.
THEY ARE COMPANIES THAT DELIVER EITHER TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS
OR SERVICES THAT ARE NEW IN THE MARKET OR DELIVER EXISTING
TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS OR SERVICES IN A DIFFERENT WAY.
netshop
WHAT IS A TECHNOLOGY STARTUP?

12. INTERESTING STATISTICS
▸ Since 2007, the number of tech startups has increased by up to 47%. From
116,000 companies in 2007 to 171,000 in 2016.
▸ The United States averages 20 technology companies founded per year that
reach $100 million in revenues and is currently leading other countries with a
total of 71K startups.
▸ Today, the most valuable companies in the world are tech startups. Examples
of those companies are Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta.

13. IN 2019, THE FAILURE RATE OF STARTUPS WAS AROUND
90%. RESEARCH CONCLUDES 21.5% OF STARTUPS FAIL
IN THE FIRST YEAR, 30% IN THE SECOND YEAR, 50% IN
THE FIFTH YEAR, AND 70% IN THEIR 10TH YEAR
Sean Bryant - Investopedia
NOT ALL SUNSHINE AND ROSES!

14. ACCORDING TO BUSINESS OWNERS, REASONS FOR FAILURE
INCLUDE MONEY RUNNING OUT, BEING IN THE WRONG
MARKET, A LACK OF RESEARCH, BAD PARTNERSHIPS,
INEFFECTIVE MARKETING, AND NOT BEING AN EXPERT IN
THE INDUSTRY
Sean Bryant - Investopedia
WHY DO STARTUPS FAIL?

15. WHY DO STARTUPS FAIL?
INFOGRAPHIC

16. WHY DO STARTUPS FAIL?
TECHNOLOGY STARTUPS
▸ Tech Startups had the highest rate of failures at 63%. Researchers and experts have identi
fi
ed several
reasons that justify this high failure rate. Those reasons include:
▸ Poor product
▸ No market needs
▸ Lack of business model
▸ Failure to pivot
▸ Ignoring customers and their feedback
▸ Poor technology choices
▸ Poor technical practices

17. WHAT HAPPENED IN 2011?

18. MOST STARTUPS FAIL. BUT MANY OF THOSE
FAILURES ARE PREVENTABLE. THE LEAN
STARTUP IS A NEW APPROACH BEING
ADOPTED ACROSS THE GLOBE, CHANGING
THE WAY COMPANIES ARE BUILT AND NEW
PRODUCTS ARE LAUNCHED
The Lean Startup

19. LEAN THINKING IS ABOUT CREATING THE MOST VALUE
FOR THE CUSTOMER AT THE MINIMUM COST, WHICH IS
ACHIEVED BY MINIMIZING RESOURCES, TIME, ENERGY
AND EFFORT (I.E. WASTE).
Planet Lean
WHAT IS LEAN? (AKA LEAN THINKING)

20. THE LEAN STARTUP
LEAN STARTUP STRATEGY FOR STARTUP COMPANIES
▸ Ries was a senior software engineer with There, Inc., which had a failed
expensive product launch.
▸ Ries sees the error in both cases as "working forward from the technology
instead of working backward from the business results you're trying to achieve.”
▸ Instead, Ries argues that to build a great company, one must begin with the
customers in the form of interviews and research discovery. Building an MVP
(Minimum viable product) and then testing and iterating quickly results in less
waste and a better product market
fi
t.

21. THE LEAN STARTUP
THE MVP

22. THE LEAN STARTUP
THE MVP

23. THE LEAN STARTUP
THE MVP

24. THE LEAN STARTUP
PIVOTING

25. THE LEAN STARTUP
LEAN STARTUP CYCLE

26. 6 TECHNICAL TIPS
FOR TECH STARTUPS

27. GO SERVERLESS
TIP (1)

28. SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURES ARE APPLICATION DESIGNS THAT
INCORPORATE THIRD-PARTY “BACKEND AS A SERVICE” (BAAS)
SERVICES, AND/OR THAT INCLUDE CUSTOM CODE RUN IN MANAGED,
EPHEMERAL CONTAINERS ON A “FUNCTIONS AS A SERVICE” (FAAS)
PLATFORM. BY USING THESE IDEAS, AND RELATED ONES LIKE SINGLE-
PAGE APPLICATIONS, SUCH ARCHITECTURES REMOVE MUCH OF THE
NEED FOR A TRADITIONAL ALWAYS-ON SERVER COMPONENT.
SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURES MAY BENEFIT FROM SIGNIFICANTLY
REDUCED OPERATIONAL COST, COMPLEXITY, AND ENGINEERING LEAD
TIME, AT A COST OF INCREASED RELIANCE ON VENDOR DEPENDENCIES
AND COMPARATIVELY IMMATURE SUPPORTING SERVICES.
Mike Roberts

29. SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURES
BACKEND AS A SERVICE (BAAS)
Serverless was
fi
rst used to describe applications that signi
fi
cantly or fully
incorporate third-party, cloud-hosted applications and services, to manage
server-side logic and state. Examples of such services include:
▸ Cloud accessible databases (e.g., Firebase)
▸ Authentication services (e.g., Auth0, AWS Cognito)

30. SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURES
FUNCTION AS A SERVICE (FAAS)
Serverless can also mean applications where server-side logic is still written by
the application developer, but, unlike traditional architectures, it’s run in stateless
compute containers that are event-triggered, ephemeral (may only last for one
invocation), and fully managed by a third party. Examples of FaaS platforms:

31. SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURES
SERVERLESS = FAAS U BAAS

32. SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURES
EXAMPLE USING AWS

33. SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURES
BENEFITS
1. Reduced operational costs
2. Easier operational management
3. Reduced development costs (BaaS)
4. Reduced hosting costs
5. Improved scalability and scaling costs (FaaS)
6. Greener computing
7. Less time to market
8. Better
fl
exibility
9. More focus on UI/UX

34. SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURES
EVOLUTIONARY!
Style Architectural Quantum Incremental Change Guided by Fitness
Functions
Appropriate Coupling
Layered Monolith Entire system Easy Easy Technical SOC
Modulith Entire system Easy Easy Good
Microservices Fine grained Possible with DevOps Possible Excellent
Service-based Coarse grained Possible Possible Good
Serverless N/A Easy Easy Vendor lock-in

35. GO CROSS-PLATFORM
TIP (2)

36. GO CROSS-PLATFORM
BENEFITS

37. APPLY TESTER-LESS
APPROACH
TIP (3)

38. APPLY TESTER-LESS APPROACH
WHAT IS TESTER-LESS APPROACH?
▸ Tester-less approach involves the execution of a number of activities to
promote testing in software development teams in the absence of software
testers
▸ Commonly applied in start-ups that lack software testers
▸ Has been applied by companies like Facebook and Yahoo

39. APPLY TESTER-LESS APPROACH
PRACTICES TO APPLY TESTER-LESS APPROACH
▸ Test Driven Development (TDD)
▸ Behavior Driven Development (BDD)
▸ Test Automation
▸ Dogfooding
▸ Continous Monitoring
▸ Log Aggregation
▸ Distributed Tracing and Crash
reporting

40. APPLY TESTER-LESS APPROACH
KENT BECK’S RECIPE
Some attractors in the space of all possible tests:
▸ Programmer (aka. “unit” tests): Give up tests being
predictive and inspiring for being writable, fast, and
speci
fi
c.
▸ Acceptance (aka. ATDD, BDD, SBE): Make tests
readable for non-programmers even if you give up
some speed and speci
fi
city.
▸ Monitoring: Yes, monitoring is a test too, or rather
tests and monitoring are both forms of feedback.
Monitoring abandons being predictive and to some
degree being automated (modulo alerting).

41. CHOOSE YOUR PROGRAMMING
LANGUAGE WISELY
TIP (4)

42. PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
HOW TO CHOOSE A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE?
▸ Learning Curve
▸ Availability of developers
▸ Ecosystem and Community
▸ Compiled or Interpreted?
▸ Connection with other languages and ecosystems
▸ Vendors and platform
▸ Cloud-native?
▸ The demand and industry trends
▸ Longevity

43. PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
QUESTIONS TO ASK
▸ Bad question: Which language is the best?
▸ Good questions:
▸ Which language suits the most for….. ?
▸ Which languages are used for…… ?

44. DATA IS THE NEW
GOLD! DATA IS KING!
TIP (5)

45. I NEVER GUESS. IT IS A CAPITAL
MISTAKE TO THEORIZE BEFORE ONE
HAS DATA. INSENSIBLY ONE BEGINS
TO TWIST FACTS TO SUIT THEORIES,
INSTEAD OF THEORIES TO SUIT FACTS.
Arthur Conan Doyle

46. DATA IS THE NEW GOLD! DATA IS KING!
WHAT IS DATA USEFUL FOR?
▸ Business / Data Analytics
▸ Arti
fi
cial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning
▸ Business Intelligence
▸ Security and Privacy Awareness
▸ Awareness of regulation (e.g. GDPR) and compliance (e.g. PCI)

47. DATA IS THE NEW GOLD! DATA IS KING!
DATA ANALYTICS PLAYERS

48. SEEK EXPERTS TO REVIEW YOUR
DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY
CHOICES
TIP (6)

49. SEEK EXPERTS TO REVIEW YOUR DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY CHOICES
SHIFT-LEFT MINDSET

50. SEEK EXPERTS TO REVIEW YOUR DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY CHOICES
INSPIRED BY AGILE PRACTICES
▸ Code Reviews
▸ Quick Design Sessions
▸ Pair and Mob Programming

51. SEEK EXPERTS TO REVIEW YOUR DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY CHOICES
FINDING EXPERTS
▸ Tek Caffe!
▸ LinkedIn
▸ Tech Twitter
▸ Incubation programs
▸ Conferences, online and of
fl
ine meetups and
talks
▸ Freelancing platforms (upwork, toptal,
codementor, etc.)
▸ Software Engineering Competence Center
(SECC)

52. BONUS TIPS!

53. EVERY BUSINESS IS A SOFTWARE
BUSINESS.
Watts S. Humphrey

54. EVERY COMPANY IS A SOFTWARE COMPANY.
YOU HAVE TO START THINKING AND
OPERATING LIKE A DIGITAL COMPANY. IT’S
NO LONGER JUST ABOUT PROCURING ONE
SOLUTION AND DEPLOYING ONE. IT’S NOT
ABOUT ONE SIMPLE SOFTWARE SOLUTION.
IT’S REALLY YOU YOURSELF THINKING OF
YOUR OWN FUTURE AS A DIGITAL COMPANY.
Satya Nadella

55. DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
TRANSFORM OR VANISH!

56. DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY ENABLERS
▸ APIs
▸ Social Media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
▸ Software as a Service (SaaS) for HR, Sales, Marketing, and Operations
▸ E-commerce Builders (Wuilt, Shopify)
▸ No / Low code platforms (aka. Application / Website builders and creators)
▸ JAMStack
▸ CMSs
▸ Clone Apps?

57. DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
PROCESS ENABLERS
▸ Agile and Lean
▸ Lean UX
▸ Design Thinking
▸ Design Sprint
▸ Rapid Application Development (RAD)
▸ User Story Mapping
▸ Behaviour Driven Development (BDD)
▸ Domain Driven Design (DDD)

58. DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
THE RIGHT TECH FOR THE RIGHT TIME

59. DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
THE RIGHT TECH FOR THE SUB-DOMAIN

60. LEAN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
INSTRUCTIONS AND WARRANTY!
▸ Start with hygiene: First of all, make sure that you have basic
professional software development practices in place: a version-
controlled code repository, coding standards, build automation,
comprehensive testing, etc.
▸ Hire the right people: Hire for skill and experience. There's no
substitute for capable people, especially if you work in a small
company.
▸ Focus: Do not try to do too many things at once or to improve
everything at the same time. Find the one unique thing that you
can do better than anyone else and focus all of your attention on
doing that very well. Collaborate with others to provide breadth.

61. CONCLUSIONS

62. SUMMARY
▸ This workshop builds upon ideas proposed by Eric
Ries’ lean startup strategy.
▸ It explains 6 technical tips tech startups can use to
build an MVP (Minimum viable product) and then
test and iterate quickly to achieve a better product
market
fi
t with less waste.
▸ The 6 technical tips will cover areas such as
programming languages, development platforms,
cloud-native architectures, testing and big data.
▸ Keep innovating!
CONCLUSIONS

63. CONFERENCE PAPER
Scan QR to download paper
CONCLUSIONS

64. THANK YOU!

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