Erez Druk grew up in Israel, but has been in the Bay Area for many years. He has a common theme in his life of obsessing over his current thing. In the 4th grade it was the saxophone, and later on it was being Israel's board game champion, and then - he became obsessed with startups. Outside of tech, he is married and expecting his first child. He's into exercising, reading and coffee. His favorite is going to a coffee shop with his wife, and having a cappuccino and a pastry - but at home, he leans towards his aeropress.

Eight years ago, Erez met his wife who was heading into medical school. He got to see first hand how folks in the healthcare system work, and how hard their jobs are. After wrapping up his prior startup, he started down the path of building a solution that improved the lives of these clinicians.

This is the creation story of Freed.

Sponsors

• Vention
• CodeCrafters helps you become a better engineer by building real-world, production-grade projects. Learn hands-on by creating your own Git, Redis, HTTP server, SQLite, or DNS server from scratch. Sign up for free today using this link and enjoy 40% off.
• Full Scale
• Paddle.com
• Sema Software
• PropelAuth
• Postman
• Meilisearch

Links

• https://www.getfreed.ai/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/drukerez/

Today, we are another episode in our series, sponsored by our good friends at Railsware. Railsware is a leading product studio with two main focuses - services and products. They have created amazing products like Mailtrap, Coupler and TitanApps, while also partnering with teams like Calendly and Bright Bytes. They deliver amazing products, and have happy customers to prove it.

In this series, we are digging into the company's methods around product engineering and development. In particular, we will cover relevant topics to not only highlight their expertise, but to educate you on industry trends alongside their experience.

In today's episode, we are talking again with Sergiy Korolov, Co-CEO of Railsware and Co-founder of Mailtrap. In my conversation with Sergiy, we dive into how Railsware delivers value - not just features - by following their BRIDGeS framework, enabling their team to focus on value delivery.

Questions:

• Railsware is proud of its product development approaches, so let’s pave the way to our topic through one of your prominent cases. In its early days, Calendly reached out to you to deliver their product – with a tight budget and a large set of requirements. You’ve said earlier that several of those initial expected features remained unfulfilled. This leads me to the question: to you, what's the difference between shipping features and delivering value, and why do so many product teams get this wrong?
• You’ve been working on several client products, as well as on Railsware’s own. How do you identify what "value" actually means for different stakeholders?
• Railsware is known for its BRIDGeS framework, a useful tool to bring the team on the same page and set the product process straight. Can you walk us through the BRIDGeS framework and how it helps teams focus on value delivery?
• What role does user research and validation play in the BRIDGeS approach?
• Can you share a specific example where applying BRIDGeS helped a team pivot from building the wrong features to delivering real value?
• What's the biggest challenge teams face when transitioning from feature delivery to value delivery?

Links

• https://railsware.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiykorolov/
• https://railsware.com/bridges-framework/
• https://mailtrap.io/

Mrinal Wadhwa grew up in India with a Dad in the Armed Forces, so he moved around a lot. His mother was a teacher for 40+ years, and greatly influenced his love for teaching. In addition to this, he grew up loving to build things. He was introduced to computers and the internet by his cousin - and at that point he was hooked. Outside of tech, he is married and enjoys attending concerts in the Bay Area. He plays pool, very seriously. In fact, he is the guy carrying the little bag into a party with his own pool stick.

Mrinal is one of the minds behind Okham, a popular open source Rust toolkit to build secure communications between applications. Late last year, he observed people desiring to build the layer between agent communications... and decided to build something to do it the right way.

This is the creation story of Autonomy.

Sponsors

• Vention
• CodeCrafters helps you become a better engineer by building real-world, production-grade projects. Learn hands-on by creating your own Git, Redis, HTTP server, SQLite, or DNS server from scratch. Sign up for free today using this link and enjoy 40% off.
• Full Scale
• Paddle.com
• Sema Software
• PropelAuth
• Postman
• Meilisearch

Links

• https://autonomy.computer/
• https://docs.ockam.io/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrinalwadhwa/