[CASE STUDY] How a startup scaled its product development and went from “haphazard development” to “well-oiled delivery machine” in 3 months

CASE STUDY: B2B TECHNOLOGY PRODUCT STARTUP (E-COMMERCE PLATFORM)

Headcount: 30+ // Funding: Series A // Location: Seattle, WA

This E-commerce product replenishment company was quickly becoming a market leader

The ex-Amazonian founded startup had achieved product-market fit by proving that its platform helped its clients enhance customer retention and improve order economics. As a result, it experienced a dramatic rise in on-boarding new clients, developing new feature sets, and managing existing clients.

With a small product team, both the CEO and CTO were concerned that the product might become a bottleneck in the company’s growth, risking revenue losses

The product team constantly juggled between priorities reactively. Between bringing on new clients, fixing production issues and developing new features, the product breaking became a daily concern. All these factors also led to the non-productive and inefficient use of team and capital; and the CTO was knee-deep in the day-to-day management of the team. With so many things on the go, could the company scale and hit its growth targets?

We introduced 3 systems to rapidly scale product development

• Controlled and prioritized the work coming at the product team using a scoring mechanism based on the company’s strategic goals
• Standardized common elements to curb “reinvention of the wheel”, ensure consistency in delivery and allow the team to focus on meaningful activities
• Merged project management with product management to maximize team output and introduce a focus on scope and timeline of delivery

Within 3 months, the company was able to onboard and support multiple customers simultaneously at a reduced cost without breaking the product

With the 3 systems in place, the startup witnessed a dramatic shift from reactive “fire-fighting” mode to proactive planning. The CTO was able to move away from day-to-day management as the product team gained autonomy through the processes in place. And all this was achieved while keeping the team engaged and avoiding burnout.