Software Quality Today
Software Quality Today
From QA Tester to CEO, with Natalie Kaminski
Welcome to another episode of Software Quality Today! On today’s show, Dori welcomes Natalie Kaminski.
Amongst other things, they chat about Natalie’s path from QA Tester to CEO of a technology company, and how her background in QA shaped her approach to launching and running a software development company.
With more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry, Natalie is a dynamic and resourceful web and mobile technology entrepreneur. She is the CEO and founder of JetRockets, a custom software, web and mobile application development company.
She is also the co-founder of OneTribe, an HR management platform for hybrid and remote teams. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.
Follow Natalie on LinkedIn here and reach out to let her know you listened!
*Disclaimer: Podcast guest participated in the podcast as an individual subject matter expert and contributor. The views and opinions they share are not necessarily shared by their employer. Nor should any reference to specific products or services be interpreted as commercial endorsements by their current employer.
This is a production of ProcellaRX
podcasting from Alexandria, Virginia, just a few miles from Washington DC, where we all hope doing what is right the first time is everyone's top priority. This is software quality today presented by Purcell RX, a podcast about the trends and challenges of software quality testing and computerized system validation. And the people who are leading the way. Here interviews with special guests and news from customers and vendors. I'm your host Dori Gonzalez Acevedo and welcome to today's episode.
Jason Secola:Thanks for joining us for a new episode of software quality today. On today's show, Dory welcomes Natalie Kaminski. And amongst other things, they chat about Natalie's path from QA tester to CEO of a technology company and how her background and QA shaped her approach to launching and running a software development company. With more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry. Natalie is a dynamic and resourceful web and mobile technology entrepreneur. And she is the CEO and founder of jet rockets, a custom software web and mobile application development company. She's also the co founder of one tribe and HR management platform for hybrid and remote teams. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters. And now let's go ahead and jump into the show.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:All right, well, welcome Natalie to software quality today, it's so good to see you. Good to see you and be here. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. So um, as we you know, described in the bumper, or you are the co founder and CEO of jet rockets. And Natalie is also a member of chief and so I'm really excited to have you here today. I'd love to hear a little bit about your journey and how you came to running your own software development firm.
Natalie Kaminski:Yes, well, thank you. It's a bit of a long journey. So society now take you through it. I joined the tech, I've kind of fell into the tech industry back in 1998. It was part time because you know, we were on the precipice of the end of the world. If you remember, that's right.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. That was when I started my career too. So that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie Kaminski:And then, you know, it was so easy to get into tech. All you had to do was, you know, just apply for a job and claim you knew how to do something within tech, and you have a job, right? So I was a recent high school graduate, I just moved from Israel to the United States. I ended up in Minneapolis of all places. And I was desperate for a job that would pay me whatever minimum wage it was at that time, you know, and I was I met some people kind of closer to my age, and everyone was working within the IT, and they said, Okay, that sounds like it's a good place for me to go to. So let's let me try that and, and I, at first, I got a job as a programmer. And that was, you know, we can bypass that story. But for about six months, I was rewriting a database table from dealing with two digits to dealing with four digits. Now. At the end of that experience, I learned two things about myself. I was not a programmer. Good information. Yes. But I really got excited about tech. And I was like, Oh, my God, you know, you can use this amazing tools, you can write software that really solves real business issues, life issues can really make your life easier. And so I wanted to learn more. And
Unknown:I,
Natalie Kaminski:you know, came across this opportunity to try myself out as a QA, quality assurance tester. And I jumped on it. And I was fascinated with the field. You know, too many? Back then it sounded like, Oh, you were just not good enough of a programmer. That's why you went into testing. Yeah, but many
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:people say that that's intriguing to them to start,
Natalie Kaminski:like, but the truth of the matter, I was fascinated by the nuance, the details, the level of, you know, attention that you have to pay in order to do your job well. And so I joined a small company out in Minneapolis at that time, it was called SWAT solutions, which stood for software automation testing solution. And I was really, you know, I was I was really fortunate because the owner of the company, Steve Timmerman, thank you, Steve. Took really took a chance on me and He gave me this job, and he put me to work and to learn the skill really, to learn and he taught me very well, you know, I joined a project working for a company called guidance corporations, which they did pacemakers, you know, they made pacemakers and other I guess device says for healthcare devices, and I had to pass this very incredibly important piece of software. So to me, being part of the team, really knowing that I was contributing to a very important piece of, you know, this product, and I had to do my job super well, because I mean, life's, we're literally I'm aligned.
Unknown:I was, you know, I
Natalie Kaminski:was super happy. And so fast forward, you know, I spent three to four years growing into the software development role. And I've learned, you know, I got, I got certified as a quality assurance engineer, I've learned blackbox, testing, white box testing automation, I've done everything you can, within the software development, testing. And then I naturally started to move into sort of business analysis, project management and other roles over the next 10 years. And after decades spent as a software development professional, I felt that I was ready to go out on my own, and kinda, you know, apply all the skills and see what else I could do. And I've always had this entrepreneurial streak to my personality, you know, I always wanted to be my own boss, you know, yes, sounds very romantic, right? Until you know what it entails exactly,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:all the gray hair that come with it, I'm adjusting to that. Yeah,
Natalie Kaminski:but the truth of the matter is, once you go over to that side, it's very difficult to go back. So you know, for the past 14 years, I've been a co founder and the CEO of a company called jet rockets. And we develop custom software, web and mobile applications. And we focus on helping companies large and small, with a specific niche, working with non tech founders, helping them launch their tech platforms, you know, make their dreams come true. And I truly believe that my background in software testing has really contributed to helping jet rocket stand, you know, create its own niche, and really be unique in the way and the type of service that we provide. That's, that's, that's my story. That's awesome. So
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:I think that what intrigues me most about the story, and how you've come to be now is in relationship to non tech founders, or non tech, you know, folks that want to do tech, but don't necessarily have that technical background. And I see that similarly, in, in life sciences, where we have quality people like me, you know, we quality's a general word, right. But from your background, software quality is very different than quality assurance or quality control and other realms and trying to relate or have conversation between those two kinds of roles can often be difficult and challenging and talking about cross talking with terminology with one another. And I wonder, how do you how do you handle that in terms of having these conversations with non technical folks about technical things? Yeah,
Natalie Kaminski:that's a that's a very interesting question. It takes, you know, it took us years to learn how to do it properly, right. And I think quality is all encompassing, right? And so the way we view quality is that quality control quality assurance has to start from the very first day like the day we get the lead the day we introduce ourselves to a potential client. Everything has to go through that filter of quality, right? Are we are we are we communicating clearly, because clear communication, especially when dealing with non tech founders is key, right? Because I don't want to make assumptions, I don't want to use terminology that they don't understand. And oftentimes, non tech founders, they feel a little bit self conscious about it. So they're not going to readily admit to not understanding what you're saying, which then leads to, you know, miscommunications and, you know, problems down the road. So you have to be very, very clear about communication, you have to be very clear about the expectations that our clients have, and how to manage those expectations and how to educate them along the way, using this filter of quality at all and every step of the way. Right. So, a jet rackets we've developed this sort of almost like repeatable process that we go through, right? We, we want to make sure that when we speak to potential clients, we want to make sure that they first and foremost know what is the problem that they're trying to solve, because many people try to get into startup world because it's sexy. It's exciting, you know, who doesn't want to call themselves a startup
Unknown:founder right? My friend.
Natalie Kaminski:And then the raise millions of dollars become a unicorn and you know, having great too often but but it's it's the story that the media tells. So it's very, you know, it's appealing to many people. And so we started, really the quality control. And that very first meeting, my first question is like, what, you know, tell me about your product. I'm interviewing clients as much as they're interviewing me. Right, right. I want to know that they thought this through, I want to know that they have a valid business idea, I want to know that they have a go to market strategy that they've already started thinking about, right,
Unknown:even before they are building. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because every step
Natalie Kaminski:of the way, has to be done with such meticulous detail and attention to quality, because, you know, it's oftentimes it's their life savings involved, right, the time, the resources they couldn't, you know, I don't want these clients to walk away disappointed with a feeling of, oh, you know, it's another software development company that took my money and didn't build what I wanted. And now I'm back to square one.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Right? So let's talk about that. What is the problem to solve? What are you solving? Right? Like, because that is ultimately what software does, right? It solves some problem, whether it's a business problem, a technical problem, it solves some gap, that, and that is why if someone wants to buy stuff, right, we have all these add ons and plugins and all this stuff to a lot of standard software out there. Right? It's all over the place. But each try to find its own unique, what added value am I bringing to the table? What is the problem that you're trying to solve? So So can you talk me through that? And how to help someone really define that statement? Or what are some of the pitfalls that you see when they try to do that or not do that? Well, and how can we help them?
Natalie Kaminski:Yes, I think that often, the biggest issue, and where people fail, the most, from my experience, and from the founders we've worked with
Unknown:is, you know, you identify a problem,
Natalie Kaminski:you see a problem that's happening in your daily life, right. And it could be work related. And oftentimes it is, I mean, most of the founders we're working with, they come out of, let's say, corporate world, you know, let's say maybe they've worked in the legal industry for many, many years. And they know the industry inside out. And for years, they've been using Excel spreadsheets to track their billable hours, whatever. And I'm just making this up, right. We're actually you know, what, maybe I shouldn't be making this up. Maybe let me tell you a real story using a real client. Yes, because, yeah. So we have a client, her name is Rachel West. And she's phenomenal. I love her very much. And her company is called Safari portal. So what Rachel wanted to do, and prior to founding Safari portal, Rachel was and still is an owner of a very boutique, high end Safari, travel agency. And during COVID, of course, when business was down, you know, unlike many of her competitors, Rachel decided to act. Right? And Rachel said, What is a problem that I can solve within my industry that could potentially set me up for success
Unknown:when this pandemic is over? And she came
Natalie Kaminski:up with this brilliant solution. You know, one of the problems of her industry was lack of a software product that allows you to put together beautiful, dynamic custom itineraries. I mean, remember, she sells very, you know, expensive trips, you want that experience to feel unique. Yeah, yeah, right. Yep. And, you know, most people in her industry have relied on, you know, Word and PDF files. That doesn't feel very unique to someone who's willing to pay 10s of 1000s of dollars to go on safari, right. So, you know, so Rachel came up with a solution. And the reason that she was so successful she is so successful in her business is because she was solving a real problem
Unknown:that she herself knew has existed on the market.
Natalie Kaminski:She tried many times to find the solution to that problem by using various products that are available on the market, and each time she failed. So inadvertently, through those activities, she had completed her market research. So she knew that nothing like this exists in the market. She knew all the advantages and the disadvantages of existing platforms.
Unknown:So she came to me with very clear problem solution statement.
Natalie Kaminski:She knew exactly who her target audience was going to be once a product was ready to go to market. it, and she knew exactly how she's going to sell it. She was set up for success, every step of the way.
Unknown:That is
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:really important when we, when I translate that right and how the pivoting happened and how the articulation and the research happen when I translate that to my vertical and life sciences and the audience that often listen to what we're talking about today. It's like drilling down into where and what is the most important in order to drive the biggest up, turn in? Whether market share drug purchase clinical trial efficacy, like all of those things, right. And it's, you know, there's so many things out on the market already, there's so many products out on the market. But the internal IP of some of the big life science companies and biotech companies, right, is where the real differentiator is for each and every one of them. And so, being able to pivot like that, and constantly evolve, is really hard for large organizations, I can imagine it'd be small for her given it's a small thing. How do we translate that to big organizations where the machines behind the behind the curtains, if you will, are much larger? Do you have any thoughts around that? I do.
Natalie Kaminski:And I think the key thought really, is to have each department or even each team within the department to function a little bit more like a startup, you know, to have that freedom to but but with the freedom comes and should come accountability, right? And Jeff rockets, we do have experience working with larger corporations as well. We had a few clients in the past and still have a few clients who would be considered, you know, large companies. And one thing that we see often times is that lack of accountability, because you know, working for a large corporation, you are a middle manager, yes, you have your projects, you have your deliverables, but your livelihood is not on the line, right? For the most part,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:and it's very interesting, it is super true, right? The urgency is not there, right, and the lack of moving up or down or momentum within the within the middle managers is often very, very hard to navigate. So you got to you got to push right. And so that is challenging, and why I try very hard to use some of the principles when when you talk like definition of done in terms of agile, right? And, you know, just as a general term, not necessarily in software development, but what is the what is done really well look like at the end? And what are we trying to accomplish? Right? And if we can try to hone in on that intentionality of where's the added value of what are we going to do on a day to day basis helps us able to pivot to right, because then you can take like, a couple different scenarios and say, Okay, well, this one's a lot more risky. This one, and we should focus over here versus there. Right. But if we're not able to pivot well, with a clear definition or a clear communication of why I suspect I know from my experience, that that's where often the derailment happens, right, because then there's too many balls in the air, and not enough focus on what really matters. Yeah,
Natalie Kaminski:I agree. And, you know, to your point, I mean, if you think about where all the innovation comes from, for the most part, it's small businesses, right? It's the small work, like, it's small companies, it's startups. And if you think back to like, let's say, when Airbnb became a thing, right, it was, you know, a couple of kids more or less, I'm not like some big Hilton corporation that came up with that particular innovation. Yeah. Because these large companies take, you know, I think it almost feels like they have a lot more on the one hand, they have a lot more to lose.
Unknown:And so
Natalie Kaminski:sometimes they are kind of like slow to move, and they don't want to undertake additional risks. When When, when, you know, that's that's part of the reason why I love working with our set of clients who are small just starting out startups.
Unknown:Oftentimes, they,
Natalie Kaminski:you know, wild, they have a lot to lose, they also don't have a choice, you know, if they raise
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:it, right, and then that really, you know, to your point of when, if larger companies broke this up into smaller groups, right, were there some independence in innovation and, you know, when we saw a trend a couple years ago, where, again, in the Big Pharma life science, there was small pockets of digital health Both in digital innovation and, and trying to get movement within the larger framework. And it's kind of like when you're scouting for new drug, right, and you're doing analyses on a bunch of different molecules, or target molecules, right, and you want to be able to cast that net wide enough to be able to get the next blockbuster, right. And we're talking about in the digital space, it's the same thing, right? But you need that space to innovate, right? And try some different stuff and do that market research, like and talk about, like, how is it going to translate? How is it going to make added value, and then be able to hone in on what's the ones to move forward in the pipeline? Right, essentially. And so what I'm seeing is that there's, while we have, you know, large life science companies making awesome products and great innovation from a drug person, but there's this underlying operational foundation that also needs to innovate as fast as possible. I know digital transformation is one of your passions, as well. And so I was wondering if you had any thoughts around what you're seeing in digital transformation today? And how we may be able
Unknown:to, to do better? Well, I
Natalie Kaminski:think, again, I think it all goes back to accountability and freedom to fail,
Unknown:I think.
Natalie Kaminski:Right? I mean, like, you can't expect people to innovate, if you don't allow for any level of mistakes to be made. Right.
Unknown:And so
Natalie Kaminski:and some companies, you know, let's say Google are better than that than others, right.
Unknown:But overall, I think,
Natalie Kaminski:especially when, you know, when you take into consideration, current market, or economic economic situation, right, in our country, and around the world, people are probably afraid to lose their jobs, right? People don't want to make mistakes, people prefer to maintain status quo, and be like, Okay, let me sit this one out, you know, hopefully, I can sit through whatever comes down must come up. So we should be okay, at some points.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Ride the wave and eventually come back. Yeah, yeah. But meanwhile, while you ride the wave, the ones that are really swimming outpace you so fast, right? And so it is calculated. And as you know, you know, I, as a CEO, and as your as the CEO, they were constantly looking at 234 steps ahead. And if we take that analogy to the small kind of pocket way of working within larger organizations, those leaders also taking that very, very far distant look of what are the trends, and I know, we even within chief, we talk a lot, and we've been doing a lot of work in internal meetings, right around AI and machine learning, and how is this impacting leaders? And what do we need to do in order to start preparing for and what are the risks around it? And what can we predict? And what can't we predict where we want to move forward in that, and at the same time, I think what you said around the ability and the culture of failure is super important. And related to your earlier comments around software quality assurance that nothing is bug free,
Natalie Kaminski:right? Nothing is bug free. And but that's okay. That reality, you know, we shouldn't be striving for perfection, you know, even being, you know, coming, coming out of QA. And having a very QA oriented mindset, I always say, we cannot strive for perfection. I mean, it's it's a well known fact that perfection is the killer of good, right. So we have to take calculated risks, we have to accept a certain level of failure is okay. And it's part of the progress if we don't make mistakes without grill, right? I mean, you think about kids, and before they learn to walk, they fall so many times, and they get up and continue running. Right. And that's, that's incredible. Like, this is all around us. But quickly, going back to sort of, you know,
Unknown:I really am
Natalie Kaminski:a big proponent and a big believer in small self managed teams. Right, and this is an I mean, I know,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:code for agile, let's just be clear, right? That is terminology that folks in the software world will talk about. But if you literally just say those words
Unknown:about Mr. Everything. Yeah, absolutely.
Natalie Kaminski:Right. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the way we run things and jet rockets is we for every project that we work on, we create a self manage team that comprises just have the team members that should be on the team. We don't try we don't have any middle management within jet rockets. I you know, and I understand that jet rockets is just a 65 person company, as opposed to some huge conglomerates of 1000s of 1000s employees. And of course, at certain point, you do require middle management.
Unknown:But there should be still an essence of, of in
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:touch, touch points and connectedness to that, right. And I suspect you, as the CEO, also have tendrils in there, right, while your teams are self sufficient and built to be self sufficient. It's not that you don't know what's going on.
Natalie Kaminski:Oh, I am. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I am, you know, still battling my control.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:So, yeah, so I often refer to myself as a recovering perfectionist, recovering control freak, right? Like, those things that when you become at a certain level of leadership, you really need to stop doing each and every day, it'd be a conscious effort to not do that. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Natalie Kaminski:So I have one, you know, admission to make is every morning with my morning coffee, one of my most favorite things to do is to read through every Slack channel, we haven't come for details, but I kind of scan through it, because I want to know, what's what's going on. And 99% of the time, you know, that gives me enough information, so that if a client were to call me up and wanted to chat about their progress, or about the project, I would know what to say. And I think it's important, you know, and that goes hand in hand with quality absolute, because when clients come to work with me, they, you know, I give them my word, I give them my reputation, you know, underline, I tell them, Look, I guarantee that we're going to do a good job for you, right. So I have to know what's going on. It doesn't mean that I have to participate in a daily operation and be tactical, absolutely not. I don't do any daily, you know, routine tasks or any such thing. But I do need to know enough to, to be able to be proactive to interject, if I think if I if I believe things aren't going the right way. And, you know, I used to interject a lot more often than I do now. Right? And I think it's, it's, it's evidence that one self managed teams do work. It just requires time for everyone to be okay with the accountability. You know, everyone loves freedom. But not everyone understands and realizes and is willing to accept the fact that freedom comes with accountability.
Unknown:Yeah, yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. How do you how do you get that? Because I think that, so that's one of my, I often referred to it as my quality tea, let's come have some trust, education and accountability. And if everyone can sign up for those three parts of the quality process, you know, and have common understanding around those three things. What are those things? And how do we instill them? The hardest, I think, is accountability. You know, trust builds over time you fit that's kind of gut instinct, you know, intuition folks can feel that or not, you can out often have them articulate that pretty well, education. It's, you know, trainings, it's, you know, involvement, those sorts of tangible things, but accountability, how do you define it? And what are some of the things and how do you put that into place?
Unknown:So I define
Natalie Kaminski:accountability very simply as being
Unknown:an adult, professional, and wanting to do your job. Well. That's so simple. I love it. You know,
Natalie Kaminski:and I definitely, you know, having the right people in the right seats helps.
Unknown:But do you think being
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:a small business owner influences that? Because I mean, you know, when we hire as a small business owner, right, when we hire, we really look for that as a characteristic of it. For me, at least, it's a fundamental, like, if, if I don't have folks that can fit that bill. Exactly. In the simplest terms, as you just said it,
Unknown:they don't fit within the organization. But how do you scan
Natalie Kaminski:for that during a course of, I don't know, a couple of interviews, right. It's very difficult because, yeah, I mean, it's one of the I think it's a universal struggle, right? So and it's almost always a shot in the dark. So you take a chance on the person that seems to be fitting the bill. What we do a jet rockets is you know, we tried to communicate our values and we have five values a jet rockets that really drive every single decision that we make around personnel, and not just personnel actually around everything that we do. And those values are results. And what it really means is, you know, yes, we need to produce results. And we need to be truthful. And we need to be, you know, on task, right? Then continuous improvement, which means that you constantly need to look for ways to do better. Right? Learn, expand your skill set, collaboration, which, again, very self explanatory, we want to make sure that you work well with the team. And not just your internal team, but you know, the clients team, right?
Unknown:Transparency, super important
Natalie Kaminski:for us to be transparent, and to talk about issues as they arise and not try and hide things. But you know, for like I said, I'm okay with mistakes being made, what I'm not okay with is with mistakes being hidden. Right? Right. And I will always give it a second chance to person who made the mistake of came forward and said, Look, I messed up, I need help, right, I will never give a second chance to a person who made a mistake, tried to conceal it, and then ended up causing an even bigger issue. And the final, and probably the most important value is efficiency. And what I mean by efficiency is that, you know, especially in software development, there's always new technologies that everybody wants to try sexy, they're excited, you know, let us try AI, right, like whatever. But the jacks rockets, we believe that in order to develop or deliver results, and you know, have high quality and on time, really need to use reliable tools that we have worked with in the past many times, and they have proven them to be unreliable. And since, you know, stable, right. And so in our case, whenever there is any problem, any software related issue, and there's always more than one way to solve it, we always want to solve it, the easiest, the simplest, the most efficient way. Now, the reason I mentioned all those five values right now is because when you look at all those five values together, they lead to accountability. At least in my company, right? So if you collaborate, if you're transparent, if you produce results, if you, you know, constantly looking to improve yourself, and if you're trying to be as efficient as possible,
Unknown:you're accountable. Right. And
Natalie Kaminski:so that's, that's how we, you know, we that's the performance reviews that we do within the organization, the hiring, the firing, the, you know, award decisions are made based on these five values. And we, it's, you know, it's important to communicate those values, not just on your website, like many companies, for marketing, but actually to drive them deep into the hands of your employees. So we, you know, we're talking about this values of all times, we have our quarterly meetings where we remind everyone about the values, and we also bring specific examples. Let's say if, you know, if we have an unfortunate situation that we need to part ways, with an employee, which sometimes happens, we make sure to very clearly explained why, and what exact value that employee did not
Unknown:meet. Hmm. Interesting.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Do you This is extend to your customers as well? Yes. Because, you know, one of the things I've seen change pretty dramatically, in my opinion, since COVID, right? Is this over expectation and unrealistic, I should say, expectations from some customers these days in not only what they want, when they want it, how they want it,
Natalie Kaminski:how much of it they how
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:much they want, you know, how, you know, even though it may not be technically possible, they want in any way and free by the way, right? Not paid for. Right. So. So I that is bubbling up. And and I know from a workforce perspective, that adds a tremendous amount of additional mental burden on consultants. Right. And so I was wondering how you relate your understanding and how you like accountability, also to
Natalie Kaminski:Dory, what a timely question and issue you bring up. We actually just yesterday, we had a very lengthy conversation about this very topic with a colleague of mine. But yes, I absolutely agree with you, especially now in this you know, very economically unstable situation. We definitely you know, we want to make sure our clients are happy. I mean, don't get me wrong, we want to make sure our clients are happy in any economic situation. But now especially we cannot afford you know, any Any, any issues. So it's it's very difficult to, you know, this dance, you know, have make this dance and toe the line between keeping some boundaries with your client, but at the same time providing the best service possible. And so what I think, again, it goes back to quality, because I think that if the team is able to develop from the get go from the very first interaction with the client, if the team is able to develop open and honest and transparent relationship with the client, where the client really views themselves as the extension of the team, and the team as the extension of their business, that's where those things become less of an issue. Because, you know, we have situations where my team makes mistakes, of course, I mean, we're all humans, right? And we have very concrete examples where a client is okay with that, you know, mistake is being made for being open and transparent. And being saying, you know, what, we made the mistake, this is our plan to fix the mistake, this is what's happening right now, you know, and the client is typically, okay, no problem. I understand moving on. And unfortunately, we also had situations where, you know, we weren't successful at building this relationship. And so every little thing becomes a huge issue. And every little thing becomes a point of contention. And every little thing becomes, oh, I want more, I want more, give me more. And now, and, you know, now we're going back to that infamous circle of fast, high quality and cheap, right, you can only have to, correct, yeah. But it's a huge issue. And I think just honing in, at least Jeff rock is honing in on those values of open communication, focus on results, collaborative approach, continuous improvement, and really being as efficient as possible, helps us if not avoid, than minimize this unrealistic expectations and the desire to squeeze out as much as possible out of, you know, poor consultants. Yeah,
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a really is I think they having that you said toeing the line. And I think that's a really accurate sort of, you know, description of, and I net, and more recently, I'm thinking about it in terms of boundaries, right? Of, and relationships, right boundaries, and relationships and how that extends to the customer. And service provider, right? In, in this more complicated it tech world, right? We have more interdependence on multiple providers at the same time in order to even provide a single service. Right. And so
Unknown:that
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:complex web that we have created, while you know, it used to be like just in the supply chain, right? Where it has all these inputs, outputs, are they it now on top of that, you have all the complicated systems that are on top of that interconnected as well. And it's very hard for, for us as we go in and try to, to produce an understanding of a framework of where is your risks? Where Where do you need to spend focus on time where in your digital platform or computerized system is most vulnerable? Right? When there is so much input output and, and based on relationships, not just the digital technology underlying it, because at the end of the day, people still forget, have to remind them all the time, a SaaS product is great, but a SaaS product behind the scenes is a lot of people. Yep. You know, and that is what you're paying for when you pay for as a subscription model is actually a ton of people keeping the lights on in a variety of different ways. Some do that better than others more operationally efficient than others, and there are economies of scale. So you see different prices, depending on the scale of of of that efficiency, right? But it's, it's still, at the end of the day, a combination of technology and
Unknown:people together.
Natalie Kaminski:And people is still the most important factor, unfortunately. Or fortunately. I mean, you know, we all do business with people we like, right, and it goes it goes without saying I always I always say that. And funny again, it ties back to quality because, you know, it's so much it's easy to switch up and I always say this, it's easy to change a vendor. It's almost impossible to change a partner.
Unknown:Yeah, I like
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Personally, I've gotten undergo lots of different changes in the last couple of years. And it's made, you know, my life very complicated. And at the same time you're spot on, right, because you've also established, you know, for an industry, regardless of which one you're talking about, there's expectations out there, there are norms out there that that folks have been accustomed to, and want to experience because there's, you know, so and so company has been doing it x, y for in this sort of way for and then you have these the new entry into the into the sphere. And do they do it the same way? No, right. But they might, they might have a better product, but they do it in a different way. Or, you know, and it comes ties back to what is the quality of what they're actually saying that they're delivering or not delivering? Or what can you do or not do with that piece of software or that system? Right. I think it has gotten more complicated. And the what I, you know, I know, we've talked to, I think you've been in on some of the calls within chief around the AI and machine learning stuff. It's it's, you know, really trying to take that first level mental burden
Unknown:off of
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:the people that we're talking about right now, right, that are doing the work on a daily basis? And what can we automate and get to it to a point where then that kind of first level, like, if you think about it in the sport model, right, that first level stuff is just automated for you, right? And so that you can get to the deeper level, you know, relationship questions, deep level of like, what does it really mean refining those user stories, understanding what the definition of done, like getting to the richness of all of that, while we can put aside some of the more routine or standard,
Unknown:common
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:ways of doing things that should be universal, and some level at least again, back to your definition of candidate for professional, right? Like, or is that professional kind of thing. And we're not someone talking about coming right out of school?
Natalie Kaminski:Right? And because it's, you know, it's all based on experience, and we have to then teach this, like, you can't learn School How to deal with an upset client, because if they don't teach that, and it's not something you can learn from books, right. I mean, school is very important. Don't get me wrong, but you know, you I, I personally have been making hiring decisions for jet rockets, I don't care about the education level of a person. That's, that's, that's the last thing I actually care about.
Unknown:What do you look for?
Natalie Kaminski:cultural fit, most of the foremost, I truly believe that any technical skill, skill can be taught. And we have proven over and over and over again,
Unknown:you know, our best our
Natalie Kaminski:team, or a players within our team, our people who joined us 567 years ago, coming out of whatever coming out of universities at times, sometimes just out of nowhere, very little experience, but lots of fire, eagerness to work, eagerness to do good job, and actually really that that quality that, you know, people who do what they really want to do, are not capable of not doing a good job. Yeah, because they take a lot of pride in their work. Yeah, I love that. I so that's what I'm looking for, you know, I want them to look, I always say, you know, when, when, when jet rockets was founded. The whole idea behind this was to build a company that I along with my co founders, ourselves, would want to work for, if we ever were employees. So it's like, you know, what kind of company out of a building company and where we want to work. And so, it has always been about, you know, work life balance, about quality, about excitement about taking on challenging work.
Unknown:And so it's very important
Natalie Kaminski:for us to find the right cultural fit. And, you know, sometimes we're successful, other times we're not, and because it's very, very difficult to scan and kind of, to really understand the person based on just a few interactions through through zoom most of the time nowadays, right? So, yes, we've been toying around with various personality tests, but honestly, they doesn't work for us because even within my leadership team, we're also different, right?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Well, one of the things is interesting, as you're sharing, I, you know, I'm reflecting on it's
Unknown:often
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:so you know, whether or not we're being evaluated to be, you know, brought on as a service provider, right, like, Do you have experience in x? Right, you know, and there's often this criteria of, you know, regulations or this or that, that that one wants to make sure that you've experienced them. But actually how you've described jet rocks in an my underlying philosophy as well, right? If you can learn and continue to question and do that critical thinking, well, it doesn't matter, the what of what you're building, or what the business use case or the vertical that you're in, right, because it's those skills that you're, you're articulating that are the critical part of a team function on, we can find out all that information, we can do all that said, like it, you know, that just to your point of view, you can learn all that tech stuff, right? But it's how to apply that and, and how to make meaning of it in to ultimately solve the problem that you're trying to solve. So at the end of the day, it's it's
Unknown:problem solving. Absolutely. And you know, what, it's also it's, it's this desire to be good
Natalie Kaminski:at what you do. That is something inherent, and it's personal. And it's part of, you know,
Unknown:it's part of a person's nature.
Natalie Kaminski:And not everyone is like that, and that's okay. You know, we essentially at Jet rockets, we have several we hire for most of the time we hire for either engineering, project management or QA. So those are the three main roles that we have.
Unknown:And, of course, the
Natalie Kaminski:wild requirements are kind of the expectations are slightly different across the board. There is this overarching requirement that I want people who are self starters, I want people who are willing to, you know, suggest ideas, I want people who are not afraid to make mistakes, that's important. I want people who at the same time care for the quality of their work. You know, if you're a PM, if you're a QA if you're an engineer, I want you to take pride in your work, because if you don't, then this is not the right place for you.
Unknown:So what does it look like when
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:jet rockets when when folks don't agree?
Natalie Kaminski:They don't agree. Oh, give me like an argument within the team or something?
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Yeah. What does that level?
Natalie Kaminski:I believe? Well, it depends, right? We oftentimes have screaming nachos, you know, not. But that's good. Like the way I think it's like, when people are passionate, and people want to get their point across, and people really want to make sure that they're being heard. And of course, I'm exaggerating a bit when I say Yes, pretty matches. But yeah, we often have very passionate, fiery discussions. But at the end of the day, we don't leave the room until we all come to a solution. Now, of course, compromises not always possible, right? Because sometimes somebody has to make a decision, right? And that's why would you have, you know, people who are, I guess, you know, every team, the way we build our teams, every team has a project manager, whose job really is to coordinate with the client and coordinate the team activities, and to make sure everything is done on time and on budget. And according to plan, we typically have a tech lead someone who will be the tiebreaker. In such cases, you know, someone who will listen to all the sides and be like, okay, you know, what, if we all cannot come to an agreement, I'm going to make a decision. So, and the process, you know, we run on us, I don't know if you're familiar with us. And so you know, we have all these level 10 meetings, and then issue ideas, solution processes, etc. So we really learn as we go. But I gotta say that as we grow as a company, as we grow as individuals, we become become better and better
Unknown:at it. So it's experience. Right? Yeah. So
Natalie Kaminski:to earlier point, it's not something they can teach us in school. It's a cure
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:now. Exactly. And what you've also described is, while we were talking earlier around boundaries between customers and and your service provider within the team, you've also established clear roles and responsibilities and boundaries and what those hats look like, right? Yeah. What Yeah, people are coming on
Natalie Kaminski:for. Absolutely. So you know, we, we have a number of team members who are more experienced and who have more skills and more knowledge than others. And we make it absolutely clear that these people's virtual doors are always open for any discussion. We actually have several Slack channels dedicated to education and can experience share and knowledge sharing and We encourage people to ask questions and to engage others, even outside of the project. So that's why I always say to our clients, you know, one of the benefits of working with us is even, you may have a small team assigned to your project. But in fact, you're the, you know, the knowledge of everyone on the
Unknown:team. Right? Yeah. So that's great. Yeah, it's, um, what do you think
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:is the next steps for jet rockets as you guys are looking forward?
Unknown:Yeah, well, we
Natalie Kaminski:want to continue and grow. Our goal really, is to help, as many non tech founders launch their tech platforms as we can. And we are taking on certain, you know, we're beginning we're starting to engage in certain activities around that, for instance, we are about to publish our ebook, on launching a tech platform as a non tech. As a first time non tech founder. We also have several initiatives that will be announced shortly regarding a new thing called Jr. ventures. And by the way, this is the first time I mentioned that I'm out in public. Okay, well, it's going to be a semi venture studio, that we're going to launch within jet rocket. So that's exciting. And our first cohort will be focused on female founders. Awesome.
Unknown:I love that. That's perfect.
Natalie Kaminski:Well, you know, that couldn't be a whole separate topic for a podcast. But yes, female founders, especially not in tech, female founders have a whole other set of problems to worry about when it comes to launching,
Unknown:you know, a tech startup. Yeah. Yeah.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Well, that sounds wonderful. And I'm really excited for you, as you're continuing to grow there. And bringing a perspective today that I think is really important
Unknown:to everyone. And that
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:quality is by design from the very, very beginning, right? And if we all could do that, like what better products in general that we could have if if it wasn't seen as a as a overburden or something that should be done after the fact. But yet, embrace from the very, very beginning. So
Unknown:thanks for that. Natalie. Thank you for the opportunity. I
Natalie Kaminski:really enjoyed that conversation.
Dori Gonzalez-Acevedo:Absolutely. We'll have you back again another time. Yes, looking forward to All right. Thanks for listening to software equality today. If you like what you just heard, we hope you pass along our web address for seller x.co to your friends and colleagues. And please leave us a positive review on iTunes. Be sure to check out our previous podcasts and check us out on LinkedIn at reseller X. Join us next time for another edition of software quality today.
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