Does a Startup Really Need DevOps?

You’ve probably heard startup entrepreneurs share their struggles and humbling experiences in the business world. While some may have overcome those moments of adversity and come out stronger, a good number end up failing. In fact, 90 percent of all startup companies in the United States are more likely to close shop within the first three years of operation.

What’s interesting is that most of these startups often fail due to hiring the wrong people, disharmony among team members, poor quality product or service, interrupted internal communication, not being customer-focused, and inability to deliver products on time.

One key practice can address all those causes of startup failure and more: DevOps. Modern software engineers rely on DevOps to grow. Here’s what you need to know:


Understanding DevOps

Simply put, DevOps is the convergence of a company’s development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) processes and/or teams to ensure faster delivery of value to customers. It’s a set of practices that breaks down barriers of collaboration and communication between developers and their IT operations counterparts, thereby streamlining workflows and propelling business innovation. Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, Adobe, Netflix, HP, and Facebook are some of the companies that are already nailing it with DevOps.

Many startup founders, particularly those running small and young companies are still stuck on whether or not they need to make the transition. The truth, however, is that startup companies small and large, young and old, are increasingly adopting DevOps and the proof of success is evident in their operations. Today, there are numerous DevOps online courses that make it easy for people in any role to become accustomed to its principles and practices.

DevOps Maximizes Startup’s Efficiency with Automation

One of the major challenges startups face is the budget and the last thing any founder would want is to have processes or staff for mundane, static, and repetitive tasks at different stages of the software development lifecycle. Along with its efforts to build a closer working relationship between the developers and operations teams, a core practice of DevOps is automated system configuration and standardized platforms to keep costs under check and maximize efficiency.

Increased Understanding of the Product

When startup companies adopt DevOps practices and tools, their development and operations departments no longer work in silos. Unlike in the traditional model where teams worked in isolation, and limited product information was shared across these teams, DevOps allows for increased understanding since all teams can access product information beyond their specific area of expertise.

Additionally, the fact that your teams are in constant communication with each other means there’s a single, shared view of the end-user. And as a result, the startup is able to envision new ideas and execute new products that deliver value to customers and support their journey. 

Enhanced Communication Among Teams

Startup companies that meticulously implement the DevOps culture tend to have a more collaborative and pleasant work environment. By breaking down barriers between and across teams, DevOps enhances communication and increases collaboration, ultimately improving work productivity and allowing employees to continuously learn from each other. 

DevOps Enhances Customer Lifeline Value

By enhancing collaboration and communication, DevOps enables startup companies to implement a continuous customer feedback loop of continuous development, improvement, testing, and deployment. This customer-centric approach ensures faster, better, more secure delivery of a company’s products and/or the necessary feature updates, enhancing customer satisfaction and customer lifeline value.

Continuous Monitoring

Continuous monitoring is one of the core practices of the DevOps model. Essentially, it’s an automated process by which startups not only monitor key relevant metrics but also detect compliance issues, bugs, or errors that arise in the production environment. Once these issues are detected, the teams work to resolve them in real-time while maintaining security and privacy.

This process helps monitor the operational performance of the software, track user behavior following a recent update, and improve transparency and visibility during each phase of the development pipeline. Plus, it ensures rapid incident response and reduces system downtime, cutting down on costly technical debt.

Increased Team Agility

If you’ve been working in the software development field for a while, you’ve probably heard development teams being described as unsupportive of operational needs and IT operations teams as slow and rigid. In some quotas, application developers are considered reckless whenever production issues arise during deployments.

These are some of the conflicts and generalizations that DevOps aims to address. By driving automation, cross-team collaboration, and continuous improvement, DevOps provides adequate flexibility and agility to an organization’s team. In today’s highly competitive business landscape, startups must move fast to adjust and change direction when needed.

The DevOps cultural shift encourages collaboration towards a single, shared goal, which makes it easier for teams to quickly adjust to changes in the market or make product alterations. Eventually, a startup is able to stay ahead of the competition.

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