Dennis Pilarinos, founder of Buddybuild and Unblocked and former Microsoft Director, compares startup product development approaches to big tech habits.
“And that was actually kind of one of the anti-patterns for Microsoft. Microsoft focused a lot on what's the technology that we're going to use. And they're just running around the campus trying to find a problem for it.”
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More from Dennis Pilarinos
Opinion
Pilarinos: Calling internal big-tech projects 'startups' is disingenuous
“When I was at Microsoft, I remember people had gone and started companies, and I'd be like, oh yeah, I'm doing a startup inside a company, and you're like, that is the most disingenuous thing you can say. I was like, really? If you fail, does your paycheck sto…”
Dennis PilarinosMar 21, 2024▶ 17:35Essential lessons for building and scaling DevTools | Dennis Pilarinos (Unblocked, Buddybuild)
Insight
Pilarinos: Direct customer conversations inherently bias user feedback experiments
“I don't think you can be fully intellectually honest if you're talking to the person. How we're sitting, the tone of our voice, what we're wearing, all these things have influence. It's the only way you can be truly intellectually honest if you have absolutely…”
Dennis PilarinosMar 21, 2024▶ 54:25Essential lessons for building and scaling DevTools | Dennis Pilarinos (Unblocked, Buddybuild)
Insight
Pilarinos: Major tech shifts always drive business model shifts
“So every time you have these kind of significant technology shifts, you tend to find that there is actually a shift in the business model that goes along with it.”
Dennis PilarinosMar 21, 2024▶ 3:20Essential lessons for building and scaling DevTools | Dennis Pilarinos (Unblocked, Buddybuild)
“I think if you can apply those technologies in a way that actually provides unique utility, that's the first principle that really matters. To what degree does that technology unlock something you weren't able to do before?”
Dennis PilarinosMar 21, 2024▶ 4:27Essential lessons for building and scaling DevTools | Dennis Pilarinos (Unblocked, Buddybuild)
Insight
Pilarinos: Dev tools must impress immediately because developers rarely give second chances
“You have a very small window by which you can make a very good impression. And if you don't deliver that, that bit is effectively flipped. It's really, really hard to come back from, hey, give this another shot. It's gotten better or what have you. So develope…”
Dennis PilarinosMar 21, 2024▶ 5:09Essential lessons for building and scaling DevTools | Dennis Pilarinos (Unblocked, Buddybuild)
Insight
Pilarinos: Dev tools fail the moment developers feel they are being sold to
“Developers don't like being sold to. They have a BS detector that's very sensitive. And so I think as you think about the products, it really can't be buzzwordy. It actually has to have some utility or provide some, something that's meaningful, that helps thei…”
Dennis PilarinosMar 21, 2024▶ 5:29Essential lessons for building and scaling DevTools | Dennis Pilarinos (Unblocked, Buddybuild)
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