with OpenSource Software and Azure
MVP & startup
Francesco Fullone
ff@ideato.it / @fullo

I’m here because
I’m a OSS evangelist
I’m a PHP advocate
I’m a pragmatic entrepreneur
I was

Agenda
• Chapter 1 - Lean Startup & MVP
• Chapter 2 - Open Source
• Chapter 3 - Why Azure
• Chapter 4 - First hand experiences

Chapter 1

MV…what?
“The minimum viable product is
that version of a new product
which allows a team to collect the
maximum amount of validated
learning about customers with the
least effort”
by Eric Ries

It’s evolution, baby

Or like this

Reasons behind
Be able to test hypothesis with
minimal resources
Accelerate learning
Reduce wasted engineering time
Reach the customers ASAP

Test your hypothesis
• Interviews
• Landing Page
• Surveys
• Crowdfunding

Reduce wasted time
• Concierge
(Sir, how may I help thou?)
• Mage of OZ
(it’s you, but hidden behind
the curtains)
• Piecemeal
(someone else API ftw!)
engineering mostly.

A lot of MVPs
• Products
• Services
• Features

Pirate Metrics
Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Referral
Revenue

High-fidelity MVPs
You (may)
have to code
something

Chapter 2

Why OSS?
•it’s cheap (as for price)
•ready to be deployed
•a lot of ready-to-use resources
•available in the language you love

It’s not a new idea
Github, Wallmart, Facebook, Apple,
Google, Microsoft have relied on
OOS to accomplish new projects.

MVPs - ready to use
WordPress, Drupal or any other
CMSes with a rich interface and
big enough community could
be a valid solution for you.

MVPs - for hardcore devs
PHP Frameworks such as Symfony,
Laravel, etc with RAD tools
NODE.JS Frameworks and platforms to
rapid prototype like Eskimo/Igloo,
ExpressJS, etc.

But the most
important
reason is…

It lets you
concentrate on
important stuff:
“learning things”

Chapter 3
Why ?

Ready to deploy solution
Azure Website
one click install
of dozen applications
and stacks
Worker Roles
do not care about scaling
up, you’ll get a real SaaS
environment

Build & Manage complex stacks
•MongoDb
•MySQL
•Redis
•etc…
a lot of choices
with worker roles, one click install to deploy

Virtual Machines
do not forget the
old fashioned VM or
the new fancy
technologies

The ready to be used stuffto validate your MVP ideas

Git Deploy
deploy-from-branch feature

A/B Testing
an easy way to do feature tests on deployed instances

A/B testing on Azure
1. Create a new Azure Website and select a Standard hosting plan
2.Create a new Deployment Slot for each additional version of your site you want to
deploy (up to 5)
3.Build two or more different versions of your website using the language and tools
of your choice
4.Deploy the “primary” version of your site to your “primary” Azure Website, and
then deploy each additional version to a different named Deployment Slot
5.Use the Azure Portal to configure the Testing in Production feature, specifying
which percentage of users should go to the primary site and each deployment slot
when they browse to your site’s URL
6.Use Application Insights to measure the effectiveness of each version of the site.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tomholl/archive/2014/11/10/a-b-testing-with-azure-websites.aspx
a crash course

Application Insights
Get metrics and performances of
a real production environment
https://github.com/Microsoft/AppInsights-PHP
It’s opensource!

??
!?

Chapter 4
first-hand experiences

single static page MVP
Web role
MVP passed!

Node.JS worker role
Linux VM
MongoDB worker role
dismissed

Linux VM
Lamp stack
15k users

Screenfony
Azure website
WordPress + WooCommerce
pivoting

??
!?

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