Issues of startup organization

I have got the chance to work in start-up in USA. Company is working in IP Telephony System. And now after working for last 3 years they are about to release their product. I tried to understand the reason why their product fails earlier. I found some interesting points behind that.

First point is selecting the right technology to implement the product. Company tried to prepare the product in C++/VC++ earlier. But as every one knows C++/VC++ is good for client server application where there are so much involvement of users comes in. But if application requires several layers, J2EE is getting advantage over C++/VC++. As lot of complex job, is being done already by several frameworks freely available in the Market.

So company could not prepare the first version of product with help of C++/VC++ in their first year. Then realizing the power of J2EE technology they tried to use that for preparing the product. Since then they are working with J2EE technology for making it better.

Next point is about the Architecture. A good architect product is always easy to implement and maintain. Company’s second version (J2EE product) of product fails due to bad architecture.

And third point comes the outsourcing. Amazing!! Don’t believe it. Me too! I could not believe that any startup would try to outsource their part of product. But due to saving money on user interface, as hiring a user interface guy here may be costlier to them. But they didn’t realize that being as a startup, when things hardy clear to everybody, they should not outsource any part of process to other company. And that was third failure for them.

Getting continuous third failure, now company has been much mature, and they realized the importance of technology, architecture and management of the product. So they hire New VP, New Architect and few very good technical people. So they can reduce the time of product formation.

Besides that company also thought about the coverage part. Earlier they had tried to cover everything in one go. Now they realize the complexity of that and decided to move gradually. And that decision provides them another step to success of their product.

Now company is able to release their product and trying to enhance the coverage of that product. Some another form of issues is coming into the picture. And those are related with managing the growing team. Although nothing serious as of now but may impact in future.

Now as company is having sufficient of resources and they are growing as per time. Still some people are working in the company for longer than years; Old resources are being possessive about the part they have completed. And this possessiveness doing harm to whole product without unknowingly. Due to that another issue is being arising is lack of distribution of role, authority and responsibility, particularly in their quality process. Still they are not realizing the quality process for their product. I am pretty sure after some time it will going to cost them big.