Introducing Potluck Tech, a software development firm founded by two seasoned product and engineering leaders from Google. We’ve spent collectively >25 years across the tech industry, from building products at startups to massively scaleable global services such as Google Translate, Ads, and Maps. We are now applying our years of knowledge and experience toward helping technology-driven companies succeed.
Our approach revolves around the ethos of “potluck” because building awesome products takes teamwork, and our team can help your company improve its performance and deliver products that your users will love.
Over the last few years, we’ve been coaching and advising early-stage companies, and have seen them struggle over and over again with the same questions:
- How do I build my first product, or build in a new product area - through using contractors, outsourcing to a dev shop, or hiring full-time employees?
- How do I hire the right people, e.g. who will want to weather the ups and downs of a startup environment?
- How do I build product quickly and effectively, without going over budget and schedule?
- When do I use low/no-code platforms vs building my own product?
There are no easy answers here because every company’s situation is different. Worse yet, the wrong steps can be costly, especially when you haven’t found product-market fit. That’s why we created Potluck Tech - we partner with early-stage companies to navigate these tough decisions, support you with high-quality advice and resources, provide flexible staffing, and ultimately give you a higher chance of success.
How we work with companies:
Assessment:
When you meet with us, we’ll start with an assessment to determine your needs, and determine if there’s a mutual fit. If we move forward, we’ll partner with you to design the product plus building options that fit your criteria. Because we know budget and timeline are critical, expect some tough love from us - if you can develop and iterate on your MVP simply by stitching together low-code tools, we’ll say so and recommend the tools to use. If we think you’re trying to tackle too much at once, we’ll say so as well. This helps avoid the common problem of ending up with an expensive engineering solution that you don’t actually need and may even throw away.
Development:
Startups pivot fast and are constantly balancing tradeoffs. In this environment, it’s important to build quickly and retain flexibility, while remaining laser-focused on your users and customers. This is why we staff agile, goal-oriented teams to build your product. By launching quickly and then continuously iterating based on user feedback, we ensure that your product is as dynamic as your company.
Advisory:
Even if you hold off on building product with software engineers, you’ll be faced with many technology and product decisions. It can be very helpful to have experts in your corner as a sounding board. Can you create an MVP with low-code or no-code tools? How and should migrate your technology infrastructure? Who should you hire as a founding engineer or technical lead? We’ve been around the block a few times and can give you unbiased information backed by many years of experience. Additionally, we can coach your team to develop and refine your product roadmap.
Staff Augmentation:
Regardless of whether we're providing full-stack development or advisory services, we believe that the best way to help our customers is by staying in lockstep with their needs and working closely with their team. This is why we prefer to embed into companies in a staff augmentation model. This allows you to remain agile, stay goal-oriented, and even start building the foundations of your team culture.
How this helps you:
What does all this mean for our customers? You'll be able to increase your chances for success by augmenting your company with a high-quality, elastic team while retaining the nimbleness and responsiveness that's critical in today's technology environment.