The problem
When I joined a software business as fractional CTO, development had continued for around a year, but no customers had used the service. The founder had repeatedly been told it would be ready soon and needed the technical confidence to challenge the plan.
What I did
I persuaded the founder to start by improving and digitising the underlying process. The existing approach was too complex for an initial release, so we made the difficult decision to start again with a simpler solution.
I focused the development team on the core customer journey and agreed a longer-term roadmap with the founder, shareholders and board. Fortnightly delivery cycles each had a clear purpose, with user feedback guiding improvements.
The result
Real customers were using the live service within my first three months. The team continued to improve it through feedback and further releases.
The lesson
The business later ran out of funding. Although we had delivered a useful live service, we could not recover the time and money already spent before I became involved.
The experience reinforced why plans need to be challenged while there is still time and investment available to change direction, simplify the first release and get something useful into customers’ hands.
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