The Million-Dollar Development Team

Intro

If you are reading this article there are very high chances that you are already part of a Million-Dollar Software development team in your company.

Equally, there are also high chances that you joined this team when the initial product was already out, which means that, technically you are simply an extension of that original Million-Dollar team.

Do you want to be one of these original members of the Million-Dollar team?

I do! I want it with all my heart, at least one more time. <br /> Here is how I think we can!

Preface

In this article, I want to walk you through all my learnings during the past decade in the tech industry (as a software engineer) having seen and experienced many of these Million-Dollar teams.

Hopefully, by the end of the article, you'll have a solid understanding of how difficult but at the same time how easy it is to form one of these teams.

You and I might be part of the same Million-Dollar team in the near future.

The Beginning

Almost all of the tech companies in the history as well as the most recent ones were created by a very small development team and of course a person with the initial Vision of the product (who could be also part of this small development team )

The person with the Vision might have had enough money, to fund the initial MVP by paying the development team their salary*.

*The salary would probably be much less competitive than a well-established and funded company.

On the other hand, the *Visionary * person might not have had a cent in their bank but still managed to convince a couple of members to try out and develop the idea by building the MVP.

Once the MVP is ready to be delivered to customers it doesn't mean that will be ever successful or worth a Million Dollars, but it has definitely the potential and the opportunity, as opposed to having an idea and doing nothing about it.

Either way, these few members managed to shape an idea and delivered it. They are the Million-Dollar Team.

The Visionary

Before we go any further let's talk about the "Visionary" and how hard it is to be one. Not everybody on this planet needs to be one.

In fact, I can reassure you that there are enough visionaries who are simply stuck with ideas but live too comfortably to actually start to find out a path to pursue in order to shape those ideas.

On the other hand, there are soo many people that try so hard to be a Visionary but they simply can't come up with an idea or product that makes sense in today's world or they get stuck at the first obstacle and give up.

Of course, let's not forget to credit those people that really try as hard as they can to figure out a way to translate the idea into something and they achieve it.

Anyhow, do you need to be a visionary to be part of the Million-Dollar team? Of course not! Trust me.

Sometimes "the visionary" person simply conversates with other people and those people unlock the next piece of the puzzle for them.

You are a visionary not only if you are lucky enough to have the final idea nice and shaped in your awesome brain.

You can be classified as one even if you simply involve other people to follow your way of thinking and push them to help you to unlock the next step.

Quote: Brainstorming with other people is essential. Be open-minded and allow people to criticize your ideas and diverge when necessary.

But remember, you don't need to be a Visionary, you'll see why a little later.

Why is hard today?

In the majority of cases, the "Visionary" is the person that needs to hold all of the burdens to start talking to people and convince those people that his idea (which maybe is not even properly shaped) is the one they need to trust and help him/her to achieve it.

I find this pretty limiting and exclusive to people that are extroverts with a pinch of sales skills in them.

I do think that is much more healthy if people with a common interest (such as being part of the Million-Dollar team ) gather together and willingly start collaborating and ideating with low EGO.

The team would naturally form and the initial idea offered by one or more of the members could branch to something much bigger and something that makes much more sense!

Now, it is true that if we both have in common the interest of being part of the Million-Dollar but then you like birds and I like cars, it could be difficult to come up with something that makes sense.

But at least 1 of the interest is in common, so we have a starting point. Maybe once I hear your idea of a bird's app, I could find it very fascinating, you never know! Or we could combine my interest in cars with birds and we could come up with a very cool game; just saying…

So the take-home for this section would be, let's gather together, let's talk, and let's see what we can come up with without EGO, we will naturally shift to something we think is cool!

Quote: It doesn't matter who kills the rabbit if everybody eats at the end.

If you made it this far, we probably are compatible as we share at least one common interest of being part of the Million-Dollar team.

Forming the team

As I previously mentioned forming a team is hard especially if you don't have enough money to pay 1 or 2 software engineers 1 UX designer etc…

But… It doesn't need to be hard!

I don't think you'd be surprised if I tell you that there are soooo many engineers/developers/designers/product managers, that simply want to be part of something but they don't know what.

They would jump in at the first opportunity that is given to them, for free! Even if they don't enjoy the concept, they would work countless hours after their normal 8 office hours.

For proofs, look at github.com or behance.com, etc… there are countless people sharing their work for free (including me) and we do it because we enjoy it.

Now, It is not necessarily healthy if you participate without interest in an opportunity, but since there aren't as many out there, people try.

I wish we could go to a website called www.opportunities-for-you.com and browse/share ideas to join, either for-profit or non-profit, it all depends on what you want.

So the take on this would be,

nowadays it is very difficult to find people that want to be part of something, but in reality, there are plenty! so, why don't you join me in the comments and tell me that you also are looking for opportunities?

It doesn't matter if you are a designer / product manager / software developer etc… It also doesn't matter if you don't have ideas, someone might have something you are looking for and you can unlock the next piece of the puzzle.

Everything starts with a conversation, confront your idea with others, and look for people that are looking for opportunities like you are.

Everyone wins

When you commit to a project or opportunity, especially while having a full-time job it is extremely hard to keep focus when trying to do it by yourself.

There are people that can cope with it and they were the Million-Dollar team all by them-self and it happened many times.

But most of the time, we work so hard, all by ourselves, without confrontation and support. Then naturally, our thoughts will start shifting in the direction of:

What if, all of this work I'm doing is not going to work?

Is this particular thing the right approach? I have nobody to ask/confront it might be completely wrong, I'm scared to waste time

I'm now stuck and I'm by myself I would really want to know what other people's ideas could be to solve this

I've been there, countless times when I tried to do things all by myself. Probably I'm not one of the lucky people to be able to be one person Million-Dollar team.

Does it mean I would never be part of one if I'm not lucky enough? I don't want to believe that. Do you?

The take on this section is that, don't put yourself down if you can't achieve something all by yourself. Find a team/companion to confront, share the workload, and enjoy the process together.

Even if you deliver the MVP and it is not successful, you definitely should have enjoyed the process, learned a lot, and made good buddies ready for the next adventure.

Quote: There are 2 options, either we all win or we all fail – but no one can remove the experience we gained till today

Get in touch

I currently have a full-time job as a Staff Engineer with 10 years of experience in the industry but I'm tingling to start an adventure outside my working hours with the determination to shift that as my full-time job.

If you are looking for opportunities like me and want to share ideas or listen to my ideas please get in touch.

It doesn't matter if you are a developer/designer / product manager I have plenty of ideas and I'm not scared of sharing them because building a Million-Dollar team is not easy.

Hopefully, with this article, I will be able to form one and I wish you can too.

Best regards!