MVP & Startup, with OpenSource Software and Microsoft Azure

with OpenSource Software and AzureMVP & startup

Francesco Fullone ff@ideato.it / @fullo

I’m here becauseI’m a OSS evangelist I’m a PHP advocate I’m a pragmatic entrepreneur I was

Agenda

• Chapter 1 - Lean Startup & MVP

• Chapter 2 - Open Source

• Chapter 3 - Why Azure

• Chapter 4 - First hand experiences

Chapter 1

MV…what?

“The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort”

by Eric Ries

It’s evolution, baby

Or like this

Reasons behind

Be able to test hypothesis with minimal resources

Accelerate learning

Reduce wasted engineering time

Reach the customers ASAP

Test your hypothesis

• Interviews

• Landing Page

• Surveys

• Crowdfunding

Reduce wasted time

• Concierge (Sir, how may I help thou?)

• Mage of OZ (it’s you, but hidden behind the curtains)

• Piecemeal (someone else API ftw!)

engineering mostly.

A lot of MVPs

• Products

• Services

• Features

Pirate MetricsAcquisition

Activation

Retention

Referral

Revenue

High-fidelity MVPs

You (may)

have to code

something

Chapter 2

Why OSS?•it’s cheap (as for price) •ready to be deployed •a lot of ready-to-use resources •available in the language you love

It’s not a new ideaGithub, Wallmart, Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft have relied on OOS to accomplish new projects.

MVPs - ready to useWordPress, Drupal or any other CMSes with a rich interface and big enough community could be a valid solution for you.

MVPs - for hardcore devs

PHP Frameworks such as Symfony, Laravel, etc with RAD tools

NODE.JS Frameworks and platforms to rapid prototype like Eskimo/Igloo, ExpressJS, etc.

But the most important

reason is…

It lets you concentrate on

important stuff: “learning things”

Chapter 3

Why ?

Ready to deploy solutionAzure Website one click install of dozen applications and stacks

Worker Roles do not care about scaling up, you’ll get a real SaaS environment

Build & Manage complex stacks

•MongoDb •MySQL •Redis •etc…

a lot of choices

with worker roles, one click install to deploy

Virtual Machinesdo not forget the old fashioned VM or the new fancy technologies

The ready to be used stuffto validate your MVP ideas

Git Deploydeploy-from-branch feature

A/B Testingan easy way to do feature tests on deployed instances

A/B testing on Azure

1. Create a new Azure Website and select a Standard hosting plan

2. Create a new Deployment Slot for each additional version of your site you want to

deploy (up to 5)

3.Build two or more different versions of your website using the language and tools

of your choice

4. Deploy the “primary” version of your site to your “primary” Azure Website, and

then deploy each additional version to a different named Deployment Slot

5. Use the Azure Portal to configure the Testing in Production feature, specifying

which percentage of users should go to the primary site and each deployment slot

when they browse to your site’s URL

6. Use Application Insights to measure the effectiveness of each version of the site.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tomholl/archive/2014/11/10/a-b-testing-with-azure-websites.aspx

a crash course

Application InsightsGet metrics and performances of a real production environment

https://github.com/Microsoft/AppInsights-PHP

It’s opensource!

? ?!?

Chapter 4

first-hand experiences

single static page MVP Web role

MVP passed!

Node.JS worker role Linux VM MongoDB worker role

dismissed

Linux VM Lamp stack

15k users

Screenfony

Azure website WordPress + WooCommerce

pivoting

? ?!?

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