THE AGILITYFEAT BLOG
At AgilityFeat, we are more than just designers and coders. We are also thought leaders. Our team has spoken at conferences around the US, Europe, and Latin America. We were early leaders in applying agile methodologies to nearshore software development in Latin America. We shared these lessons in this blog through 2015. These days, we blog mainly about our other passion, WebRTC. Find us at https://webrtc.ventures/blog/.
How specialization has been good for us and our customers
When AgilityFeat first started doing software development in Costa Rica, I would tell people that we could build anything. Mobile apps? You got it. Web applications? Sure, why not! .NET outsourcing? Sure, I've managed .NET teams before,...
8 things I learned at RailsConf 2013
Last week I was in Portland Oregon for RailsConf 2013. Portland is a great city with beautiful views of mountains that us East Coasters dream of, unusually good weather (last week anyways), and a very entertaining soccer team. But none...
Simple business lessons from Cinco de Mayo, mint juleps and chinese food
Simple business lessons from Cinco de Mayo, mint juleps and chinese food Eric Ries defines a startup as “a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty”. Here at AgilityFeat, we...
So you want to create a Google Glass application
If you are like me, you have a sixth sense that tells you that when a new market is about to appear, or a new way to interact with your customers is about to appear, you should be the first one to provide a solution in that new arena. You...
Lean Start-up, now what?
Back in November we sat down with Tony Cappeart, COO and Co-Founder at Contactually to talk about how they are applying Lean Startup methodologies to build their business. We talked about how Lean Startup had guided their product design,...
Free agile/startup advice using soHelpful.me
Do you have a question about agile, scrum, kanban, lean startups, or maybe just how the heck did I start a business in Costa Rica? I'm making myself available for some free consulting advice this week and next, and I'd be happy to give...
Google Glass Hackathon at San José, Costa Rica
Last week Google Glass Mirror API was released causing huge waves of blog posts and opinions about the much anticipated Google Glass hardware. Google Glass has a huge potential. Nobody still knows if it would bring the revolution it...
Setting up a cadence on your agile team
I'd like to share with you a common cadence that we are using on agile teams that I coach, and also on many of AgilityFeat's development teams with our clients. For an agile team to get into a solid rhythm of work, they need to have a set...
Building a portfolio of Lean Startups
For those watching technology trends, it's no surprise that people are talking about startups and their role in the new economy. Regardless of whether you believe startups help or hurt the economy, there's little argument that the future...
MyChoresApp launched by AgilityFeat commandos
Two of AgilityFeat's code commandos have launched a great new mobile app for managing chores with your children. My kids are going to try it out as part of the beta program, and if my kids can get excited about chores then yours can too!...
Three things I learned on a work-cation..
Last weekend, I traveled to San José, Costa Rica to meet with the Agility Feat team. As usual, the trip to Costa Rica was absolutely amazing even though there were no beaches nor rain forests on the itinerary. This time, we used the...
Learning to accept simplicity
Recently I was in a meeting with one of our clients at AgilityFeat. The project lead at the client made a simple, but very powerful statement as we presented an assessment and proposal. “One of our challenges is that we need to learn to...
7 tips for Services Startups
Early in 2013, I was sitting on a beach in Costa Rica with the AgilityFeat team. Also with me was an author and visionary we hired to come work with our team for a couple days. That visionary was Patrick Vlaskovits, co-author of “The Lean...
Coding Across America
Last year I blogged about how my friend Matt Makai is starting a 5 month journey to blog and code his way around the US. I'm excited for Matt that this journey has begun! You can follow him at CodingAcrossAmerica.com, and on Twitter....
Feb 28: News from the Startup Front
How's your year going? Ours has been crazy-busy. That means we haven't blogged as much as we'd like over the last month, but nonetheless we've got some important and hard-learned lessons to share with you. We've just gone through a period...
7 tips for when the going gets tough
Not every project is going to run smoothly, even in the best of teams. We have a great team here at AgilityFeat, and we’re very selective when choosing our customers, so our projects tend to be very successful. But every team is going to...
4 ways Perfection is killing you
Whether you are a bleeding edge startup or a large corporation running agile teams, here are four ways that you may be abusing agile concepts and letting perfection kill your chances of success. Product Owner Perfection In an agile team,...
Improving our Sprint Zero process
Project on-boarding is key to success Step two is always a question mark. It’s one of my favorite meme’s on the internet. Some joker on a message board will say they have a great idea, and their business plan usually goes something like...
Jan 28: News from the Startup Front
In our first “news from the startup front” of 2013, our code commandos have a lot of great stories to share with you - and more coming! We've done interviews with 3 great lean startups (Twilio, LaunchBit, and Change.org), so please join...
A #LeanStartup interview with LaunchBit’s Elizabeth Yin
AgilityFeat recently held a great event in Costa Rica called DareToBeLean, where we invited entrepreneurs to join us on the beach for workshops on lean startups and agility. As we were planning that event in the fall of 2012, I looked at...
Lean Sales and Marketing tips from 6 DC Lean Startups
My background is technical, not in sales. But as a lean entrepreneur, I have to wear my sales and marketing hat more than I wear my programmer hat these days. So I was excited when I could make it to this month’s DC Lean Startup Circle....
Lean Entrepreneurs, Surfing, and Costa Rica
"Wave coming, wave coming ... paddle! paddle! paddle! Now stand up! Stand up! GET UP!" I can still hear the voice of my surf instructor, and those lessons provide a great parallel to the growth of my company and yours. Surfing and...
How Change.org fit Agile Engineering in with Lean Startups
How do you convince engineers that it’s okay to build quick experiments, and deploy code that you will probably throw away? How do you convince rigorous engineers that it’s actually more efficient to work in a lean startup style? That is...
Video of “Just Deploy It!” from #LeanStartup Conference
The Ignite talks at the Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco in December were a lot of fun, both as an attendee and as a speaker. Below is the video of my talk on "Just Deploy It!". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEsk8Nfwfck In my...
A #leanstartup and #agile tour of @Twilio
Who’s ever heard of a telecom lean startup? That’s sort of what Twilio is, and it’s a pretty cool company and interesting case study. When I attended the LeanStartup.co conference in San Francisco recently, one of the parts I was most...