Why you should work for a product company — Part 1
As we are the heart and soul of StoriesOnBoard — a cloud-based tool used for agile software development — here at DevMads, we breathe together with other agile teams, trying to come up with ways to help them build lovable products. We believe in both the technique (user story mapping) our product is built on and the product itself called StoriesOnBoard. Working on a product means constantly learning about our users, rediscovering certain processes and trying to design better solutions than what we have today. This approach is fundamentally different from how service-based companies work.
In this series of blog posts, our goal is to show you how product teams differ in general from service-based companies and give you a sneak peek into the life of our product team. What’s more, at the end you can find a short test to find out whether your perfect match is a product-based or service-based company!
A short intro to our product team at DevMads
Our team of 17 is quite small and feels quite small. As for the feeling, we do plan on keeping it that way. Even when the company grows, we’d like to create a few smaller teams that are responsible for a certain product completely. The background of our product team is quite colourful.
I asked some developers, including the ones in our team, Product Owners, UI/UX designers and QA testers how working for a product-based company affects their everyday life, how they feel about it and why they chose being part of a product team.
Product-based vs. service-based companies — What’s the difference?
Product-based companies work on one or a few products during their entire lifecycle with the main goal of trying to meet their users/customers needs the best. They perfect their product — such as Prezi, Optimonk, DreamJobs, StoriesOnBoard — and try to sell it to as many clients as possible. Product teams are generally very tech-savvy and work with the latest technologies. You may have heard product-based companies recognized worldwide stress the importance of customer obsession, implying that their goal is to figure out their customers’ wishes even before the customer realizes them and constantly overdelivering on their expectations. This approach is what drives good product teams to success.
Service-based IT companies typically work in an agency or consultancy model and provide services to other companies. Some good examples you may know are EPAM, Supercharge or Attrecto. Their primary focus is to serve their client during the project the most, sticking to the scope and deadline of the project. Clients they work for- individuals, businesses or various organizations — and projects they work on may change regularly, meaning they have to become experts in a certain field almost overnight.
Find meaning in what you do in a product-based company
Have you ever wondered how many people do their jobs without hardly ever seeing the impact they make? So many follow orders and perform tasks for years without finding meaning in what they do. We asked our dev team about finding meaning at work and here’s what they all agreed on:
What makes a project truly meaningful for them is
- being technically challenging,
- making an impact,
- serving good purpose.
These have been decisive factors when deciding on working for a product-based company. While the first item on the list — being professionally challenged — is probably a key factor for every good developer, the other two are rather subjective. You could find meaning working for an NGO, a non-profit or serving a user base with a good product. You can try the product, jump into the user’s shoes, feel his/her pains and gains and develop a deep understanding very few dev teams have.
Seeing whether your work contributes to making in impact is much more tangible at a product-based company than in a service-based company because you get to
- interact with users,
- receive feedback directly,
- fine-tune the product to meet needs at a higher level.
At DevMads, we are thrilled about reading customers feedback from all over the world. It’s great to connect from a tiny Hungarian state with teams from Silicon Valley, Curacao or Sidney.
At the height of the pandemic, an Italian healthcare company used StoriesOnBoard to transform the entire medical equipment logistics system in the country within six days. Empowering other teams to make such an impact is what keeps us going.
Of course, developing a good product takes a long-term commitment many are not ready to make. For those who are ready, it is, however, very rewarding in the long run.
The bottomline for us is: to do both professionally and emotionally rewarding work
One of the main advantages of working for a product company is getting to know the product thoroughly and the technology behind it. To put it simply, you choose the product you want to work on, not only a company you want to work for, giving you a lot more motivation from a professional point of view.
If the product is catchy, globally valuable and serves a good purpose, you’re very likely to find meaning in your everyday work — or meaning will come and find you when you least expect it. Believing in the product you work is truly like an shot of motivation.
This post has been written by DevMads, the creator of StoriesOnBoard.
