Matt Duench

Matt is a product marketer that loves helping people solve complex identity-related challenges through technology. As the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Auth0, he is focused on helping companies deliver a customizable balance of convenience, security, and privacy to their end-users through identity.

Senior Director, Product Marketing

Learn how a low-code approach can help organizations save time and money on software development.

As [more customer interactions move online](https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/a-global-view-of-how-consumer-behavior-is-changing-amid-covid-19) post-2020, [a recent report from McKinsey](https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-pushed-companies-over-the-technology-tipping-point-and-transformed-business-forever) suggests that organizations must “recognize technology’s strategic importance as a critical component of the business, not just a source of cost efficiencies” if they haven’t already.

However, rapid digital transformation is easier said than done for most organizations, given most are [already struggling to find enough tech talent](https://www.daxx.com/blog/development-trends/software-developer-shortage-us). And it’s why more organizations are turning to low-code development to help them deliver the digital experiences their customers now demand.

Below is what executives need to know about low-code and how it can help them save time and money on software development.

## What Is Low-Code Development?

Low-code is an approach to software development that reduces the amount of custom coding required to build an application by incorporating drag-and-drop interfaces, process modeling, reusable code templates, and [software development kits](https://auth0.com/blog/what-is-an-sdk/) (SDKs) into the software development process.

Low-code platforms do not replace the job of a software developer but rather make app development faster by providing developers and non-developers with prebuilt sections of code they can assemble (either visually or in a traditional development environment) instead of hand-coding every line.

### Low-Code vs. No-Code

The terms “low-code” and “no-code” are often used interchangeably. But in practice, they’re two separate approaches to software development.

* **No-code development** eliminates the need for coding altogether by making the entire application design process a visual drag-and-drop experience. As a result, anyone can use a no-code platform to build an application or website. However, the accessibility of no-code development usually limits the functionality a user can build into their application based on the prebuilt capability of the editing environment.
* **Low-code development** also makes the development process more accessible to non-developers. But low-code platforms are still primarily designed for professional developers because they do not completely eliminate the need for coding skills. Low-code development platforms offer greater flexibility than no-code platforms, but they also require a higher technical aptitude to fully implement a functional application.

[Adalo](https://www.adalo.com/) is an example of a no-code platform because it allows anyone to build a mobile app by dragging and dropping elements inside its editing environment. But a platform like [Retool](https://retool.com/) is considered a low-code tool since it still requires developers to write custom code to build a functional internal business tool.

## The Benefits of Low-Code Development

Low-code development can save businesses [hundreds of development hours,](https://retool.com/blog/avo-story/) cut their development times [by 50-90%](https://www.redhat.com/cms/managed-files/mi-451-research-intelligent-process-automation-analyst-paper-f11434-201802.pdf) compared to developing an application from scratch with custom coding, and reduce their IT spends by [as much as 20%](https://www.appian.com/resources/nucleus-research-low-code-application-platforms-lcap-technology-value-matrix-2020/). As a result, it helps solve several common challenges that hinder digital transformation efforts for many organizations.

### Improved Agility

Low-code development shortens the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), which helps your organization respond to market or business changes faster than you’d be able to if your development team had to code everything from scratch.

Low-code also makes it easier to incorporate non-developers into the development process, which is something most highly agile businesses are good at, according to [PMI](https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/achieving-greater-agility-series/vital-role-culture-commitment.pdf?sc_lang_temp=en&utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&utm_term=&utm_content=). For example, since low-code software development is visual, a developer can [spin up a sample app](https://flows.auth0.com/) for business teams to evaluate much faster than they could with custom coding, which shortens the feedback loop and helps improve the finished product.

### Smaller Project Backlogs

Many enterprises have [project backlogs that cost them billions of dollars](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/low-code-platforms-help-with-project-backlogs-and-software-development-training/) in sales opportunities because they can’t find the right talent or software to address business opportunities fast enough. Low-code can help reduce costly backlogs because it helps your development team(s) [get more done](https://www.appian.com/resources/nucleus-research-low-code-application-platforms-lcap-technology-value-matrix-2020/) in less time.

### Increased Scalability

Low-code development turns application elements like user interfaces, integrations, and custom logic into visual building blocks that developers can reuse anywhere by dragging and dropping them into the design interface. Depending on the platform, a low-code approach often simplifies the work required to scale and maintain custom applications across an entire enterprise or for millions of customers, since a developer can build something once and implement it everywhere [in minutes](https://auth0.com/case-studies/cimpress/).

### More Developer Time For Innovation

According to [a global study by Stripe](https://stripe.com/files/reports/the-developer-coefficient.pdf), nearly 75% of the average developer’s week is spent on maintenance and dealing with technical debt. Since low-code development helps simplify the work required to scale and maintain software, it reduces the burden of updating legacy systems and the accrual of technical debt in the first place.

As a result, low-code can free up developer time for higher-value projects, like finding ways to innovate for your employees (which helps reduce their need to find their own software solutions ([shadow IT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_IT))) or customers.

## Low-Code Development Use Cases

Low-code development is a broad term that covers a lot of different use cases. Although most commonly used via standalone platforms for application development, low-code tools can also be incorporated into platform-as-a-service (PaaS) or other software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to reduce the time developers need to build applications or integrate services into their business apps. Below are the most common places low-code can help you save time and money on development costs.

### Websites

Many website builders are both a no-code and a low-code environment. For example, [Webflow](https://webflow.com/no-code) allows a user to design a website without any coding at all. But it also[ offers the option](https://webflow.com/blog/webflow-custom-code-tips) to inject HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into a site to customize it beyond what its no-code environment allows.

### Internal Business Applications

Not only does low-code development free up developer time to build internal apps or dashboards for business users, but it also helps developers build and scale those internal software solutions more effectively. For example, low-code automation platforms (LCAPs) help organizations turn business processes and tasks into automated software workflows [faster than coding them from scratch](https://www.appian.com/).

### Customer-Facing Applications

Low-code platforms often reduce the amount of time required to bring a web application or mobile application to market, as well as help businesses incorporate end-user feedback to improve those applications [faster](https://www.mendix.com/customer-stories/suez/).

### Replatforming

Low-code PaaS solutions make it easier to replace or upgrade critical components of your legacy systems with cloud-based solutions rather than trying to code everything from scratch.

For example, Auth0 [Marketplace](https://marketplace.auth0.com/),[ Actions](https://auth0.com/docs/rules), [Universal Login editor](https://auth0.com/docs/universal-login/universal-login-page-customization), and [SDKs](https://auth0.com/docs/libraries) with sample code for many technology platforms all save developers [hundreds of hours](https://auth0.com/case-studies/gymshark/) required to implement user-friendly authentication features while ensuring compliance with important data security standards (for example, [HIPAA](https://auth0.com/learn/why-hipaa-compliance-is-vital-your-business/) or [ISO 27001](https://auth0.com/blog/what-is-iso-27001-2013-a-guide-for-businesses/)).

## Consider Making Low-Code a Part of Your Strategy

Low-code can reduce the need for custom coding and allow developers to focus more of their time on the things that make their products unique rather than common (but necessary) tasks like identity. 

It’s why we continue to invest in low-code development tools for Auth0’s platform: to ensure developers can integrate identity quickly and get back to high-value tasks that will help your business grow.

Learn more about how Auth0 designs for developer experience using low-code, no-code, and pro-code [here](https://auth0.com/blog/designing-for-devs-at-auth0/).

<include src="asides/AboutAuth0" />

What Is Low Code? How Low Code Can Speed Digital Transformation

diegopoza

System Engineer, geek, foodie, technology lover, speaker.

Sr Manager, Developer Advocacy

Diego Poza

Enable agile scalability with customer identity and access management (CIAM)

In the last few years, identity has become a familiar concept to business decision-makers seeking to fortify their security, unlock efficiency gains, and outpace competitors.

[Customer identity and access management (CIAM)](https://auth0.com/blog/what-is-ciam/) is a set of solutions built to help organizations balance convenience, privacy, and security for every type of user who needs access to their platform. At Auth0, we’ve heard from our customers that investing in third-party CIAM solutions can benefit the entire organization, especially by:

* Providing a seamless, secure customer experience
* Protecting against expensive data breaches
* Guiding compliance with data privacy laws
* Gathering customer data into a single source of truth
* Increasing the success of digital transformation projects

Another major advantage to CIAM is that centralizing customer identity helps you build more scalable solutions — and scalability is both a benefit of and a requirement for the advantages listed above. Simply put, CIAM gives you the tools you need to scale identity quickly.

![The Business Value of Scalability](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/BXZTiwu81LfqqP7O3yEmj/a66340c22f87e48739da621e7e46cdf6/02_B_power.jpg)

## The Business Value of Scalability

Scalability refers to a system’s ability to increase its capacity and functionality based on the evolving demands of its users. Your industry may be volatile, but scalable software allows your platform to remain stable in the face of infrastructure changes, updates, overhauls, and resource reductions/additions.

Laggard legacy systems are inflexible and resource-intensive to maintain, which for many companies is reason enough to prioritize digital transformation. Critically, legacy systems also fall short of modern scaling demand and user expectations. 

In contrast, building scalable solutions helps your organization increase predictability; trim maintenance and upgrade costs; and become more agile, so you can meet customers’ dynamic demands.

> Scalable software also shortens time-to-value. Your teams will bring products to market more quickly and deliver more value to your customers if they don’t have to worry about scaling your identity solution.

### Increase reliability

Scalable software systems increase reliability, so you can avoid outages and maintain continuous uptime. The ability to provide a smooth, consistent customer experience even in the face of demand spikes is a key competitive advantage enabled by CIAM. When circumstances like a major news broadcast or a big sporting event cause your platform to be flooded with requests, you don’t want to experience lags or outages. The bottom line: Lack of scalability leads to reduced reliability, which can drive users to another service. 

### Protect against data breaches

A scalable identity solution helps protect customer data from breaches and exposures that can occur as your organization scales. [A 2020 IBM-Ponemon study](https://www.ibm.com/security/data-breach) found that data breaches cost an average of $3.86 million per incident globally, with the number rising to $8.64 million on average in the United States. Breach-related costs include actual fines and reputation erosion that can lead to customers shifting to competing brands.

<include src="TweetQuote" quoteText="With CIAM, you can offer your customers the convenience of rapid authentication without introducing security vulnerabilities that make you more susceptible to a data breach." />

### Be ready for mergers and acquisitions

If you want to enhance your appeal as an acquisition target, or if you’re evaluating other companies to acquire, a solid CIAM strategy is critical. [Implementing CIAM before a merger or acquisition](https://auth0.com/blog/why-iam-is-essential-to-m-a-and-replatforming/) can prevent you from spending months integrating applications struggling to reconcile a high volume of user data, exposing security vulnerabilities, or introducing friction that drives customers away. 

CIAM goes a long way toward minimizing the disruption of M&A activity: before, during, and after integration. Managing post-M&A integration in-house is a difficult, time-consuming job that keeps your developers from devoting their full attention to your core solutions — which is more important than ever when you need to mitigate churn. [As Auth0 customer Cimpress discovered](https://auth0.com/case-studies/cimpress/), the right approach to customer identity management allows you to connect companies with divergent systems to your platform quickly and easily.

## How Does CIAM Enable Scalable Identity?

Identity touches every function of your business. Typically, organizations have to manage identity for different types of users: customers, employees, and enterprise partners. Each user type has different requirements for your platform depending on how they use it. CIAM not only helps you provide the right balance of convenience, privacy, and security to each type of user; it also gives you superior insight and a single source of truth to drive better strategic decision-making. 

### Give customers the frictionless experience they want

When a seamless customer experience is your first priority, scalability is an absolute requirement. And with customer-facing applications, ease of experience is everything. If your CIAM solution doesn’t scale, your users will abandon you for another service.

As a customer, you’ve probably experienced this impatience. If you’re trying to order dinner and your first-choice food delivery platform is overwhelmed and experiencing lags, you’ll switch over to another platform — and that platform might be your first choice from then on.

CIAM also allows companies to unify their login experience across apps, creating a consistent experience that benefits both user and brand. UK-based conditioning company [Gymshark](https://auth0.com/case-studies/gymshark/), an Auth0 customer, is a great example of how CIAM enables an exceptionally smooth, secure login experience across platforms. Gymshark needed a universal login solution that could authenticate customers across 15 different online stores and mobile apps. With Auth0, they’re able to manage access for 250,000 monthly users while securing their platform against [credential stuffing attacks](https://auth0.com/resources/whitepapers/credential-stuffing-attacks) and other threats to the login box.

### Cultivate customer trust with strong security

Your customers trust you to keep their personal information private; to be transparent and responsible with how you collect, store, and use their data; and to comply with regulations designed to protect customer privacy. CIAM enables you to uphold this trust as your solution scales, and your integration ecosystem expands.

Data privacy laws like [GDPR](https://auth0.com/docs/compliance/gdpr), [CPRA](https://auth0.com/blog/cpra-passed-what-s-changing-in-ccpa-2-0/), and [APPI](https://auth0.com/resources/whitepapers/amended-appi) require companies to understand how third-party providers manage the collection, use, and storage of data in their systems. CIAM solutions help guide compliance with these regulations, so you don’t lose sleep over non-compliance fines or expensive data breaches.

Implementing CIAM shows customers that you are literally invested in ensuring their privacy and security. Similarly, essential [certifications](https://auth0.com/docs/compliance) like HIPAA, CSA STAR, and ISO 27001/27018 also signify to customers and regulators that you’re not just claiming a strong security posture; you’re undergoing regular, rigorous security checks by an expert third party.

### Accelerate time-to-market and solve for future problems

Implementing CIAM lets your developers focus on supporting your core solutions instead of also having to manage identity in-house. As a result, you’ll bring products to market faster and deliver more value to your customers.

At Auth0, we recommend that companies make decisions around CIAM based not on where their business _is_, but on where they want it to be. You need identity management capable of scaling to meet future business needs, not just the pain points you encounter today. Where do you want your business to be in five years? How will that drive your scalability needs? Think strategically about your desired future state. If you get overly focused on the pain points you’re encountering right now; you may be inviting incompatibility and tech debt into your business infrastructure.

![Manage Identity Complexity with CIAM](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/5jPq4nBdhF6cZtBAJYb2xM/2cafa607686a3a828b43b9d3161cdd8d/02_C_power.jpg)

## Manage Identity Complexity with CIAM

Since identity touches every aspect of your business, the functionality and scalability of your identity solution will tend to match the functionality and scalability of your organization as a whole. With CIAM, you can deliver the secure, frictionless experience your customers expect as you scale and integrate your ecosystem. That’s why many of our customers have opted to manage the complexity of identity with CIAM.

To learn more about how CIAM can help you reach your milestones, [get in touch](https://auth0.com/contact-us) with the experts at Auth0.

<include src="asides/AboutAuth0" />

How to Scale Quickly with Identity

df6c864847fba9687d962cb80b482764?size=200 avatar

df6c864847fba9687d962cb80b482764?size=200

Martin Gontovnikas, a.k.a Gonto, is a software engineer at heart who moved to the ‘dark side’ and became VP of Marketing at Auth0. He considers himself lucky to have found a way to combine his two passions and apply his engineering thinking model to marketing.<br/><br/> Gonto’s analytical thinking is a huge driver of his data-driven approach to marketing strategy and experimental design. He is based in the Bay area, and in his spare time, can be found eating gourmet food at the best new restaurants, visiting every local brewery he can find, or traveling the globe in search of new experiences.

Former SVP of Marketing and Growth at Auth0

Martin Gontovnikas

You're not going to outspend or out-muscle big corporations, but you can stay a step ahead of them by being agile.



Have you ever seen a building constructed?

It's a long series of stages. The entire building is planned by an architect, then a foundation is laid, then a frame is built. This kind of process, where one stage cannot begin until the previous one is complete, is called the waterfall methodology. It's great for buildings, but it's terrible for software.

A piece of software is a project that's never truly finished. Even after it's released, individual features and updates are constantly rolled out.

If software was built like skyscrapers, big companies would be able to pour resources into super projects and release them faster than startups with limited resources.

But it's not like that. Startups stay competitive by using their limited resources in *smarter *ways than big companies. One of the most powerful frameworks for doing so is the [agile methodology](http://www.agilemanifesto.org/). 

Agile startups employ small teams, each focused on delivering iterations quickly. They don't wait eight months to develop and release an all-inclusive piece of software. They release a minimum viable product and improve it feature-by-feature, listening closely to their users and the market along the way.

## What Does An Agile Company Look Like?

The most common agile framework, the one used by Microsoft, Amazon, Spotify, and most other large tech companies, is called Scrum.

Developers are broken up into small teams known as scrums. Each scrum takes ownership of a very specific piece of the software. The scrum then builds features in quick iteration cycles called sprints. 

In its simplest form, the scrum framework has three key components.

### 1. The product backlog

The product backlog is where the ideas come from. It's a list of features to be implemented and is put together by the **product owner**, the stakeholder in the software. 

The product owner differs from a product manager in that product managers are [customer facing](http://blog.aha.io/the-product-manager-vs-product-owner/), whereas product owners interact internally with the development team.

The product owner decides which features take priority in the product backlog. The features are usually listed as **user stories**. User stories are hypothetical scenarios that follow this format:

* “As a Facebook user, I would like Social Authentication in order to simplify my login.”
* “As a FinTech developer, I'd like two-factor authentication to keep my customers safe.”

![Backlog](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/4MXpUqOwICk0NXQMUYb9B0/0b7e517530cbd285df14f8a2eaca27bb/backlog)

*source: [Microsoft][1]*

User stories are left intentionally vague in order to give the scrum greater freedom in developing the feature.

Ideas are taken from the product backlog and turned into a list of objectives called the **sprint backlog**, which the scrum then executes on with a process called **the sprint**.

### 2. The Sprint

Being agile means accomplishing small, focused goals at light speed. A sprint is a short iteration cycle, typically no more than a few weeks, in which the scrum develops and deploys a particular feature. The scrum is supported and coached throughout the sprint by a member of the team called the **scrum master**. 

Despite their imperial sounding title, scrum masters are not project leaders. Their role is purely supportive. A scrum master should always be a member of the team who is a great facilitator, not a manager. They have to be on the ground with the team, not higher up the food chain.

The scrum sets daily goals for themselves, beginning with a [daily stand-up](http://blog.idonethis.com/ultimate-guide-remote-standups/) where they answer three questions:

1. What did you do yesterday?
2. What will you do today?
3. Are there any impediments in your way?

The scrum master's job is to make sure impediments are cleared.

The product owner sets the features up, and the scrum master helps the scrum knock them down. However, the scrum master gets no say in the priority of the product backlog, and the product owner is not allowed to input changes when a sprint is in progress.

It's like a fireworks display. Once you light the fuse, you don't start messing with how the fireworks were set up.

Once a sprint is over, however, the product owner manages a wholescale reflection on how it went.

### 3. Sprint Retrospective

After the sprint is over, the product owner gets to decide whether or not the new features should be deployed. The scrum reflects on the sprint and makes plans to improve the next one. The results of the sprint are recorded in the **sprint burn down chart**.

The sprint burn down chart maps the number of sprints completed against the amount of work left in the product backlog. Each new feature has its difficulty measured in **story points**. 

It might seem arbitrary, but measuring the difficulty of implementing features is critical to measuring your team's progress. It's a way to make sure each sprint gets more efficient, while keeping the greater project in perspective.

![Release Burndown Chart](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/7uTVSLggrqA1UskUfyt9c0/e87a965e36a30a80d9c1bcb7480869a5/release-burndown-chart)

The scrum's greatest asset is its fluidity. Any member can take on any task, and the entire team can react and reorganize themselves depending on what obstacles arise in the sprint. A key aspect of this is the sprint retrospective, wherein they can make the changes necessary to improve the next sprint before it even starts.

![Agile Scrum Methodology](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/qs6WoNnnIy0FSxDmnFyuX/6d8c5e38d31435b840ba800eaa916227/agile-scrum-methodology)

## Agile Will Fail Your Team At First, And That's Good

As organization coach Matt LeMay [says](https://medium.com/on-human-centric-systems/product-management-in-two-steps-eea9b2147fa3#.x13mu09v9), “There is no perfect product development process for any company — let alone for **every company**. But to find a process that works well, an organization must take two seemingly contradictory steps: follow the rules to the letter, and change the rules without fear.”

 When you're **first** implementing agile, you cannot afford to fiddle with the process.

One of the great strengths of agile is its ability to engage every member of the team and keep them accountable. The entire structure of the scrum gives team members ownership of their piece of the project, and holds them accountable for the results.


In order for the scrum to work, you need to first implement every rule and process without alteration. This is something a lot of companies get wrong. They try to tailor it to their teams by changing things right away. But it's only by experiencing the raw, default processes that you can start to really bend Agile to your will.

### The Struggles of Time Boxing

For example, in the scrum framework, everything happens according to definite timelines. A sprint has a start and end date, [daily stand-ups](http://blog.idonethis.com/ultimate-guide-remote-standups/) are rigidly structured, and all meetings have hard time limits.

This concept is called **time boxing**, and it is fundamental to the scrum framework. However, when you first transition to time boxing, there will be struggles. Some team members will dominate too much meeting time, and things that need to be addressed won't be brought up. It will be frustrating, and then, it will get better.

Team members will understand the need for reorganizing the meeting structure, and they will be bought into the new process. Even if you can see this pain-point coming, the team needs to experience it to know *why* they're restructuring their meetings.

![Stick to the timebox](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/3Iq3eRGsRfWRCU0dc8szOq/bfc68586a05282249586303f51f23067/stick-to-the-timebox)

### Finding a Definition of Done

Another key agile value is transparency. The scrum system depends on everyone being self-motivated and autonomous, and so it is a massive disadvantage if individual team members don't have a complete picture of what work is left to be done.

Before every sprint, the scrum needs to come together and define what “done” looks like for this sprint. This sounds simple, but it is one of the most common pain points for companies new to agile.

 If a new problem arises that falls outside of your sprint goals, you cannot switch gears and work on it. Nothing outside the sprint gets worked on during the sprint. Seeing fires and not being able to put them out is a living nightmare to developers.

Before you start employing a system for handling these fires, you have to let your team suffer through them. They have to fully understand the value of the sprint by executing it over and over again before you tweak the system to fit your needs.

## How Agile Lets You Compete With Google

Your only chance as a startup is to be too fast for your competition. Mega-companies like Google will always have more resources than you. The only way to win is to stay a step ahead.

<include src="TweetQuote" quoteText="Mega-companies like Google will always have more resources than you. The only way to win is to stay a step ahead."/>

Spotify is probably the best example of this. The music streaming service posted revenues in excess of [$2 billion](http://www.statista.com/statistics/244990/spotifys-revenue-and-net-income/) between 2009 and 2015, which by any standard constitutes a success. However, their competition includes Google Play Music, Amazon's Prime Music, and Apple's iTunes Radio—meaning they're fighting three of the most profitable companies in the world.

All three of these companies have seemingly infinite resources. Google, for example, has [15,000 developers](http://labs.openviewpartners.com/agile-done-right-agile-gone-wrong/) developing one single branch of code. Spotify only has around [1,600](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify) employees total.

![Music Services](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/2yh7JCciW2CYrW5fHj9HBJ/b6bcfad6e2306acda136d3e6ff5b95b5/music-services)

Spotify breaks their employees up into squads, and each is given ownership of a particular long-term project like “Make Spotify the best place to find new music.” or “Create the best a/b testing system for Spotify.”

Each squad has what is called an **agile mentor**. The agile mentor decides what system is best for the squad to implement. Maybe it's a scrum sprint, but maybe it's a different agile framework all together. 

In practice this means that there is very little standardization when it comes to tools and processes. While Google might deploy thousands of developers to improve a product, every single feature of Spotify is constantly being improved by a lightweight squad using the fastest tools and processes for the job.

The analogy Spotify uses to describe this is that of a jazz band. Every team is like a musician—focused on their own parts and playing different instruments, but always aware of the greater song.

![Spotify Squads](https://images.ctfassets.net/23aumh6u8s0i/6orlxFCvoSKL2iFiM9HZmA/78f45166e4b1b614062584cc3ca77a4d/spotify-squads)

*source: [Spotify](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpsn3WaI_4k)*

Spotify's success has catapulted them to the same Goliath-like status as many of the companies they used to compete with. Now it's up to new companies to disrupt the market and move faster than Spotify.

Spotify isn't making it easy, as they've recently upped their speed, deploying code multiple times per sprint. But if a startup is going to do it, they're going to have to be agile.

## Want To Disrupt An Industry? Disrupt Yourself First

The outstanding speed of development in the tech world is what makes disruption possible. New technologies are constantly emerging that let companies access new markets and serve existing customers better.

But for startups, disruption is a double-edged sword. We're always on the brink of a new technology, and the same technology that was cutting edge when you first launched might be antiquated in a year. 

To sustain your growth, you need to constantly be starting from scratch, introducing new tools and processes that disrupt your existing setup. This is what agile *is all about*. At the end of each sprint, you get to reflect and hit the reset button on your entire process to make it better.

It's not just about iterating new features, it's about creating new procedures so that your product *and* team are constantly improving—keeping you one step ahead of the rest of the world. 

[1]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd380682(v=vs.100).aspx



"agile"