That’s what we thought in 2012 when we started Pexip. Based on our experience of building physi- cal telepresence devices and dedicated server products, our goal was to build and sell a virtualised, distributed, videoconferencing system to big companies. A video equivalent of a telephone exchange. Because we would be delivering product to customers, not running a service in the cloud, we would have all the additional constraints which that brings.

This talk will examine our experiences during that twelve year journey from inception through stock market launch to maturity. It will also draw on my previous, less successful, forays into the startup world.

This is not a talk focusing on language choice or the benefits of one development methodology over another. We are going to look at some of problems involved in building a software product and try to arrive at a consistent approach to resolving them. We’ll discover that there were good reasons behind many of those annoying choices.

Even though we won’t all get, or want, the opportunity to start with a clean slate, taking that thought experiment into a mature product development group can provide insights and benefits.