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Architecture is the Keystone [Data Architecture 1/3]

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We went through a very painful process, we lost time, the most expense resource on the planet.  We also lost some of our people, yet another extremely painful process.

But let me back-up a bit in the story.

When we started iSkoot there were three core tech challenges, creating a virtual audio driver, transporting the media in realtime to an IP-PBX and scaling the solution.  One of these things is not like the other.

Scaling the solution demanded that we pay attention to the architecture of the first two core-tech issues.  Architecture was the keystone to startups back then.  And when we said architecture we meant System & Software Architecture.

Today there has been a significant shift in the hi-tech world, systems and software have been replaced by data as the core value of a company and the keystone, that internally magic thing that binds all the elements into a whole.

At Blue dot we lived this shift.  Blue dot started in the age of System Architecture.  We utilized micro-services, dockers, pipelines, multiple types of databases and of course talented people.  Blue dot (then known as VATBox) successfully constructed a solution for VAT reclaim, first in class and as old school can be.  Because as we built our solution the world shifted.

We recognized that our data was the core asset.  So we started again, trying to retain as much as possible but in essence re-designing and rebuilding.  

This was a painful process, we lost time, the most expense resource on the planet.  We also lost some of our people, yet another extremely painful process.

So how can we minimize the pain?

How long does it take you to add a new feature?  Ok, now what does that look like over the life of a product or platform?  

Do you find that as the product evolves it is taking more and more time to add features?  Is it linear?  Each feature costs about the same as the previous?  

Or maybe just maybe you have a system where it is logarithmic, each feature is easier than the previous!

That is where you want to be, building value in such a way as to exponentially increase the total value of the company, runaway from the competition, each feature/element of the company should be progressively easier for you than the competition.

Is that your company?

Let me tell you why.







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