From a tech meetup to cofounding one of Perth's fastest growing development houses. Alex and John from Ninja Software have built a great company over the last 5 years.
On this episode of Weird Growth we chatted about Synthetic Biology, Agile Software Development vs Fixed Fee, proof of concept apps and building a passionate dev team. They also run tech society a great podcast we've linked below in the show notes go and check it out.
Entrepreneurial software development
https://www.ninjasoftware.com.au/
Opaque software development pricing and workflow
Start-ups, Government bodies, and businesses
(0:00) – Introduction
(3:09) – How Alex & John met: The benefit of expanding your network
(4:50) – The business Alex & John would start today if they were starting again: Synthetic Biology
(8:28) – The genesis of Ninja Software and ideal customer: Domain experts with a clear understanding of their solution
(13:33) – How Ninja assists customers with the commercialisation of products: Sharing the upside
(16:16) – Ninja’s software development process: Ideation, full design prototype (Adobe XD), and the benefit of fixed fee versus agile software development
(20:32) – What Alex & John wishes clients knew before they came for software development and why off-the-shelf or no-code solutions (Airtable, Bubble, Zapier) aren’t always scalable beyond a proof-of-concept
(24:21) – How Ninja establishes trust and builds their brand in the Western Australian tech community: Tech Society, The Game Changer Awards, Internships
(27:52) – What Ninja looks for in hires: Proof of capability, curiosity, and a desire to learn
(30:44) – Advice Alex & John would give to university students looking to get into the software development industry: Start building and follow your passion through goal-based learning
(33:40) – The importance of allocating resources to work on the business, not in the business
(35:03) – How Ninja identifies new product opportunities by asking what the future looks like
(36:25) – What the future holds for Ninja: Becoming Perth’s Atlassian
(38:35) – All companies will be technology companies in the future and Perth’s need to embrace technological innovation
(43:36) – How Ninja built an internal tool to improve employee wellbeing and provide a forum for honest feedback
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