Finding Passion for Software in a Product's DNA

I can imagine three ways software comes into being. A developer or team builds something they want to use, or they share something they built for themselves, or they copy something already in the market.

The first happens often in consumer software. It starts when someone says: “There has got to be a better way to call a cab”, and ends with Uber. Steve Jobs wanted 10,000 songs in his pocket and made that vision come true.

The second is common in enterprise software. An internal team or external consultant needs to accomplish a business task, creates tools to accomplish it, and then learns that many other companies have the same need. Upon which they turn their toolset into a product.

The third is distinctly different from the first two. It occurs when a big company or a heavily funded start up sees a new thing succeed in the marketplace and chases the innovators by building a competing product or buying a smaller company. These firms are very deep on resources but can be light on passion for the product and expose their weak connection to their product when they launch a “dogfooding” program. Any team needing to be reminded to use their own product is never going to make good software.

Knowing the origin story of a software product, it could be called the product’s DNA, will tell you how the product got to be the way it is. It will also predict how the product will mature. If the DNA is one of the first two stories above, the software will mature much faster because the developers are passionate users and are building what they want.

When evaluating software make sure you know the origin story – the product’s DNA.