Technical Success Checklist

Preview

Everyone's measure of success is different.

A veteran founder, an experienced VC, a seasoned developer can all offer meaningful thoughts on what success looks like.

Wearing my developer hat, the following is a list of items I personally checklist for any project to feel confident the product can scale(in terms of technical development).

Business Development Requirements:

  • Legally incorporated company:
    • Legal incorporation is required to buy/create the correct type of developer account(more next).
  • Apple Developer Program(Organization):
    • Without this we cannot release many types of apps to the App Store(news, finance/fin-tech especially). Read more.
  • PlayStore Developer Account(Organization):
    • Android/Google has dittoed Apple's limitations in many cases including this.
  • Custom Domain for hosting privacy policy and choosing an app/bundle id which we're confident makes sense.

Technical Requirements:

  • Automated builds of APKs & IPAs using CI/CD best practices:
    • A commit/tag triggers an appropriate Github Action.
    • Signing keys & certs hosted in cloud(as opposed to on individual developer machines).
    • Bundles are versioned & build numbered in a consistent, meaningful & scalable way.
    • Bundles are distributed automatically(I prefer Firebase App Distribution).
  • Workflow/Project Management process documented/outlined:
    • The following are some tools we can use. Trello, Notion, Jira, Monday, Github Projects, ClickUp, Asana.
    • What's more important than the tools we use though is whether or not the stakeholders understand how to use it & the flow for adding items/features/requests/etc.
  • Automated Tests(basic/bare minimum):
    • Frameworks like React Native & Flutter promise "write once & run everywhere". However it's common that implementing a feature or fixing an issue for one platform produces silent errors on another/others. For example, a successful build/load of an app but a white/black/blank screen when the app is opened. Tools such as Appium, Maestro, Selenium can mitigate these problems.
  • Logs/Analytics/Reports:
    • Understanding what's going on is crucial for growth. Whether it's knowing which features have users the most engaged(keep focus firing!) or troubleshooting bugs that produce a frustrating user experience; tools such as Google Analytics & Sentry give us a North star to trek toward.

Tweet me @_primetimetran if you think I've missed anything.