- Fortumo is a leading global provider of direct carrier billing, operating in over 90 countries with partnerships with 350+ carriers. It has been profitable since 2009 and has over 150,000 merchants signed up. - Fortumo provides payment solutions for app stores, video/music subscriptions, gaming, social networks, software subscriptions, and fintech. It faces challenges adopting classical product development approaches. - The presentation discusses moving from traditional Scrum/PO models to having external stakeholders work directly with engineering teams through focus products and iterative improvement, to improve feedback and meet stakeholder needs.

1. Product development
Where engineering meets
business development

2. Fortumo overview
➢ Leading global provider of direct carrier billing
➢ Operating in 90+ countries, partnered with 350+ carriers
➢ Founded in 2007, profitable since 2009
➢ Over 150,000 merchants signed up
➢ Investment from Intel Capital in February 2013
2

3. Merchants using Fortumo
2-Oct-163
App stores:
official in-app billing partner
VOD & Music:
subscriptions for premium accounts
Gaming:
sale of virtual in-game items
Social networks:
sale of premium
features and airtime
Digital publishers:
subscriptions for premium
accounts
Software:
subscriptions for
premium accounts
Fintech:
top-ups for virtual
credit cards

4. Challenges to adopt the classical way

5. 6 Merchant Facing Payment Products
Merchant Onboarding
Merchant Services
Public Web
Fraud
Analytics
Backoffice
Commercial Management
Accounting
Infra
Carrier Connections
2
P
L
A
T
F
O
R
M
S
R
U
B
Y
VS
J
A
V
A

6. What should we do?
1. Bet on the future
2. Do iterative improvements
3.Focus on immediate revenue growth

7. Reality (today vs tomorrow) x 3
Merchant needs Internal needs Platform needs

8. Challenge. Comparing apples to oranges
Merchant needs
• £$€ gained
• £$€ lost
Internal needs
• time saved => £$€
• stress removed
Platform needs
• scaling => £$€
• maintainability

9. SCRUM. Planning & workflow
Engineering
P
R
O
D
U
C
T
S
T
R
A
T
E
G
Y
ISH
ESH
ISH
ISH ISH
ISH
ISH
ISH
ISH
ISH
ISH
ISH
ISH
ESH ESH ESH
ESH
ESH
ESH
ESH
ESH
ESH
ESH
ESH

10. Lets build an empire
CPO
PO PO PO
Scrum
team
Scrum
team
Scrum
team
Team Lead Team Lead Team Lead
Minimum team:
15 PO-s
15 TL-s
60-120 engineers

11. Main shortcomings in our case
• Relatively big organisational overhead
• Constant multitasking, lack of focus
• PO becomes bottleneck
• PO looses touch with the market
• Engineers not part of design and creative work
• Ownership in engineering
• Delivery meets the spec vs stakeholder needs

12. Merging Engineering, Product, Business

13. What we want to change?
• Remove PO as a bottleneck
• Ones who feel the pain is the best stakeholder
• Increase ownership in engineering
• Faster feedback loop and understanding what and for
whom
• Delivery meets stakeholder needs not only the specs :)
• Engineers directly in touch with stakeholders
• Remove distraction and reduce context switch for engineering

14. Fortumo. Stakeholders work directly with engineering
Engineering
S
T
R
A
T
E
G
Y
EXTERNAL
STAKEHOLDERS
ISH 1 ETL
Engineering
Engineering
ETL
ETL
ISH 1
ISH 1
ISH 1
ISH 1

15. Fortumo Product development
Focus Products
Product Projects
Carrier Connections
Infra
BAU & Maintenance
Automation & Tech Debt
• Q focus -> monthly plans -> weekly sprints
• Monthly plan review with stakeholders &
product steering
• Allocated time for different areas from q to q
• Continuous investment to the future
• Most of the internal development and
feature requests managed by ISH
• own budget, better decisions
• Every focus product has technical lead &
owner

16. Feature requests. Can we not do it?
Our first instinct is to keep our products lean and not to do it by asking the
following questions:
• Does it make sense at all?
• Is it something the merchant is asking for and we actually have something
already that solves the merchants’ need?
• Does it make sense as a product feature to all merchants?
• Does it fit to our overall vision?
• Is it something that would require basically rewriting everything and
therefore not feasible?
• Is there revenue to be gained?
• Is it somehow remotely blocking additional revenue?
• If we do this, what can’t we do?
9-Jun-16

17. Thank you!