How to Build a Culture That Drives Good Products with Greg Van Berkel

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12 / 10 / 2021

Play Time

44 min

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Speakers

Greg Van Berkel

How to Build a Culture That Drives Good Products

Entrepreneurs who are on a limited budget have excellent opportunities to build world-class front-end experiences.

The front-end journey is going to change…

-how we speak to our technology

-how we move around it

-how we leverage data to create a customer experience

But where do the backend and full-stack developments fit in? Is it better to have a general understanding of the entire development or specialize instead?

To Build a Good Product, You Need a Team

Entrepreneurs who are on a limited budget have excellent opportunities to build world-class front-end experiences. The frontend journey is going to change how we speak to our technology, how we move around it, and how we leverage data to create a customer experience.
In this episode, we interview Greg Van Berkel, CEO at Code Collective and Head of Software Development and Technology at the Renati Group, about entrepreneurship and how company culture strongly relates to a product, whether frontend, backend, or full-stack.

Join us as we discuss:
- How Greg grew his company internally in the first few years
- How full stack allows an engineer to own a feature
- The relationship between sales pitches and developer interest
- Building a collaborative culture among team members and among competitors

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan
Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber

Key Insights

How full stack allows an engineer to own a feature

Imagine two bakers who work together on cakes: one bakes the cake and the other frosts it. By delegating responsibility to two people limits the importance and responsibility each can feel towards the completion of the cake. If one baker both baked and frosted the cake, they would feel more importance and value towards the completed project. The same is true for full stack development compared to frontend and backend development. “The most important thing around software is this feeling that you've done something important that's actually made a difference.” — Greg Van Berkel

Building a collaborative culture among team members and among competitors

After a wake-up call in his mid-twenties, Greg realized how essential collaboration is to building amazing projects. Reflecting that sentiment within his team at Code Collective, it has created a culture where members feel fulfilled. “Something I believe around building good product is you need a team so you're not building something in isolation.” — Greg Van Berkel Being able to pull different perspectives and edit a product due to the close relationships within the team is a huge advantage to providing the amazing products that Greg aims for.

Episode Highlights

“Something I believe around building good product is you need a team so you're not building something in isolation.” — Greg Van Berkel
“Front end technology and how we interact with technology is going to change. Front end is going to branch out into how we speak to our technology and how we move around it.” — Greg Van Berkel
“Where our risks lie, even greater than losing a customer, is in being disconnected from how people are building technology today because it moves so quickly.” — Greg Van Berkel