The Disaster Detective | Lodewijk Bogaards from StackState

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Lodewijk Bogaards 0:00
You better have a stealth mode or you know, it doesn’t make sense to come out with it immediately, unless you have a really clear process around it.

Alexander Ferguson 0:16
Welcome everyone to UpTech Report. This is our Founders Journey series. This is sponsored by TeraLeap. Learn how to leverage the power of video at teraleap.io. I’m excited to be joined again by my guests Lodewijk Bogaards, who’s based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, CTO and co founder of Stackstate, definitely check out part one of our discussion where he got to dive deep into stack state and the role that they’re playing in today’s interesting world where there’s so many technologies and if you’re having to manage the overall whether you’re Information Operations leader, or site reliability engineer, as they’re being called today, this is a powerful tool to see the entire topology, all of those technologies in one place. But now I want to hear more about your journey, Lodewijk, of how did you get to where you are today? And maybe a few lessons learned. But tell me more about your story, even before stack state as you get to where you are

Lodewijk Bogaards 1:11
Oh, and how far do you want to go?

Alexander Ferguson 1:14
I’ll leave it like, why did you get to technology in the first place?

Unknown Speaker 1:18
Well, my dad is a computer scientist. So that was, you know, there were always computers around the house. And even though I wanted to play games, he said, Well, you can play games, but you’re gonna do it on a PC. And I wanted, you know, a Nintendo. And then I wanted an Amiga, Commodore, and I never got these machines, you know. So when I wanted to play the games, had to actually configure config.cs and AutoExec. Bat, you know, to make sure that I had just enough high memory free, so that they could play that game. And then of course, at some point that became the more interesting part than actually playing games.

Alexander Ferguson 1:57
From there, you started to be an engineer at different I know, that’s kind of like how you let the stack state you were developing and seeing the problem inside it. Did you know you always wanted to run your own business, or was that just kind of happenstance in the end?

Unknown Speaker 2:16
No, I knew that. Yeah, it was actually interesting, because when I was in my, my previous job, I felt always a bit stuck. I had many ideas that I wanted to try, but I never really had time to try. It actually told in part one in that one of those ideas. I had an intern to try it. But of course, I wanted to do it myself. But you know, I was busy doing, you know, what was considered the important stuff. And my girlfriend at the time, she was actually working with students who were looking at their career path. And so she was working with me as well. And I said, Well, I would like to be a CTO of a very cool company. And that was, I actually set that as a goal for myself. And I thought, well, maybe in 10 years or so, get there. And about a year later, I was there. So

Alexander Ferguson 3:07
is a year later. So as soon as you set the law, I think I want to do this. And it was able to come into reality.

Unknown Speaker 3:15
I’m not a big believer of the law of attraction, and you know, the secrets and all that. But it didn’t, it didn’t turn out that way. So who knows.

Alexander Ferguson 3:24
So it was about five, coming up on six years ago that you started, if you could tell yourself one thing, if you knew one thing that you know, now, six years ago, what would that be?

Unknown Speaker 3:40
Become very obsessed with the particular use case that you’re trying to solve?

Alexander Ferguson 3:47
Can you expand on that for me of why that is the the one you chose?

Unknown Speaker 3:53
Well, you know, I’m an engineer, and I like I like, you know, science and mathematics. And you know, these kinds of topics. And it’s very easy to go off into an abstract world and, and fix abstract problems without actually going the extra mile to make a product and say, well, here’s a nice engine. And, you know, we’ve, it’s, it takes a lot to build a product and, you know, going that extra mile is completely worth it. And, and making sure that you actually saw the use case is the is the important part there. And so we, especially in the beginning, I’ve been too easy with that where, you know, here’s a thing that can solve all things. But you know, what is it that you’re actually trying to solve? And so, yeah, that’s been a mistake of mine.

Alexander Ferguson 4:45
In that development of the product itself, what lessons learn, would you say of being able to reduce the time to market being able to bring a product out and being able to say it’s ready and for sale?

Unknown Speaker 4:58
So the question is what What reduces the time to market?

Alexander Ferguson 5:02
Yeah, what lessons learned of being able to bring a product to market faster when you’re developing?

Unknown Speaker 5:09
Well, I think that, in our case, we should have brought it, we should have not focused on bringing it to market that fast. And then we would have brought it to market faster. Because what we actually set out to do was a very hard thing. So we said that, you know, we need to have a graph that actually can deal with time in a very efficient way. So let’s build a version graph database. And those are, these are very hard problems. I mean, there’s companies that just do only death. And they spent, you know, years and years on that. And we actually did that while trying to go to market straight from the beginning. And I think we should have kept kind of stealth mode for much longer, until we really felt comfortable that now we have something that we can go to market with, then we should have gone instead of actually trying to go too fast. So yeah, and that’s it. I understand. It’s contradictory. It seems contradictory with what I just said. But both of these things are, are very important.

Alexander Ferguson 6:21
So being able to come to market faster actually means to develop a little bit slower. So you know, what actually is being solved and the problem that it’s that it’s meeting, and not gonna bite off too much.

Unknown Speaker 6:34
Yeah, because otherwise, if you go too fast, and you go out, and you give a user something, now it’s out there. So you have to maintain backwards compatibility. And, you know, if you’ve got it becomes a redesigned to redo it, you know, and then the time to change it is much longer. And sometimes I knew at that time, also, like, it’s not ready. But you know, we were in this incredible push to just bring this to market bring this to market, bring this to market. And I believe that if you would have said that, no, let’s just stay in stealth mode for about two years, which is, you know, if I look back now, two years would have been really good periods, we would have been much stronger the moment that we actually came product.

Alexander Ferguson 7:24
Now being able to accomplish any of this, it’s powerful and helpful to have a good co founder. How did you and Mark meet? And how did that happen?

Unknown Speaker 7:35
Well, we met on the job. So I didn’t know him before. He was a consultant at Kedia, which is a consultancy company company in the Netherlands, and also worldwide, actually. Yeah, so that’s, that’s it, actually.

Alexander Ferguson 7:52
How did you know that? You’re, you made the decision to say this would be a good guy to partner up with and start a company.

Unknown Speaker 8:01
Yeah, I don’t think actually ever made that decision, I think, I think, assessing happened. It’s, yeah, just the well, it was the the excitement’s for what we were building, and the problem that we were tackling kind of the size and scope of it. And I think that that’s what drives us both. And we’re very, very, super different people, like, we couldn’t be much more different, you know? Like, I’m a, I’m a vegan, he’s a meat eater. You know, it’s like that kind of, yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, but at this at the same time, we get along very, very nicely. But we’re, and I think, also, some of the strength of the of the company comes from the fact that, that were so different.

Alexander Ferguson 8:45
They complement each other, what very well, now, when you were beginning, what point did you bring in funding to be able to make that happen early on? Or how long did you bootstrap?

Unknown Speaker 8:56
Yeah, that was very, very early on. Because sibiya consultancy company that you worked for actually invested in us. And we saw that they said that, well, we actually pitched it to them. And we were like, well, if they don’t want it, we’re going to get money somewhere else, we suppose you know, we’re going to do this no matter what, you know, so but the first bits to them. And they said, Well, you know, you know, talk to these guys. And if they like it, then try and see if you can get some customers even before and if you can actually prove you can get customers then then it’s probably a good idea. And so we did a couple of sales calls and within no time we had we have customers so that’s also where this this this kind of the problem of not having a stealth mode game from we have customers from day one. You know, all we had was like a bunch of kind of lines of codes. Not very far from a product you know, and now all of a sudden you have customers

Alexander Ferguson 9:57
and pros and cons there have effectively Funded because people are ready to give you money, if you could solve it. So that means you have funding through that or can even get more funding. But it’s you said the other side of it is you, then you’re developing a product faster. And you may not actually want to go all that far rather, you’re not really honing in on where the problem you want to solve.

Unknown Speaker 10:20
I guess also, it matters, you know how complex product you’re building, like, you’re, if you’re going to build the next operating system to defeat Microsoft at their own game or something like that. Microsoft and Apple, you know, you better have a stealth mode or, you know, it doesn’t make sense to come out with it immediately. Unless you have a really clear process around it. But trying to actually become cash positive on a few lines of code doesn’t make any sense. So you’re, then you’re going to spend a bunch of time doing the wrong the wrong things. You know,

Alexander Ferguson 10:59
I’ve used seeing competitors that come up, and how have you kind of managed that as far as product development?

Unknown Speaker 11:06
Oh, yeah, sure, we have seen some competitors come up. But they were bought, actually. And then they kind of tapered off I guess, like, so like, you get bought by big, big old enterprise. And then they run these companies in the ground, somehow, the founders are not interested anymore, they leave. And while it’s interesting technology, but didn’t make it. And I believe we had the discussion not too long ago, like who are our competitors. And of course, we can name a whole list of vendors that we meet when we do b2c and compete for RFIs. But we essentially don’t have competitors in the strategy that we we are applying. So

Alexander Ferguson 11:57
from your, from the way you’re approaching the problem, no one else is approaching it that way. If anything, then it’s just a marketing and sales concern of how to make sure that it comes across and communicated that it’s a different approach. And it’s apples to oranges.

Unknown Speaker 12:14
Yeah, it’s very hard. And indeed, like the apples to oranges, I actually had that discussion last week, I even use that analogy. So even googling the different types of apples and so on. But it’s, it’s, it’s, that’s a big challenge. Yeah. How to market that, when we do when we, when you get to time to explain it to people, they understand it pretty quickly. But to give it to them in a one liner, like you have, it takes seven seconds to lose a customer. But it also takes seven seconds to explain the product apparently. And so try and explain stack state in seven seconds is a says it’s a heart heart problem. And it’s a lot easier if you can say, well, it’s like this and this and this. But you know, if you’re not like this in this in this, then you’re gonna have to use you know, longer sentences. And then people’s attention spans are short show breathing,

Alexander Ferguson 13:11
as all are the also the your, your original focus on area has definitely been in Europe, but you’re been expanding, and now to the United States and elsewhere. There’s unique challenges in that of culture and being able to in communication, anything you can share for another company who is looking at doing the same thing that you can provide any insight?

Unknown Speaker 13:39
Um, well, two things I would say that we met us challenges in the US one is the competition is much fiercer. And as a, as a European company, it’s pretty hard. If you’re not there, all, you know, you’re dealing with competition, and they’re just around the corner. And you’re, you know, and especially now in these days, when it’s COVID. It’s, it’s, it’s not very easy for me to travel to, to the US. So that’s been, that’s been a tough challenge. And the other thing is the scale. So, where, you know, we’re talking to banks here in the Netherlands, and, you know, banks are large systems, but if you’re talking to, say Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan or something, then you know, their smallest business units is, you know, can be can be a medium sized bank in the Netherlands, you know, so that’s, that’s another type of challenge and it’s, it’s also you have to know at what point you really ready to take on such a Goliath, you can be too early, spend a whole bunch of time trying to, you know, as David tried to fight with Goliath, but you have to know what size you are and what you can what you’re able to handle

Alexander Ferguson 15:00
that very note, I mean, building a business on on gulyas is both good and bad. And any recommendations or insights you can share for others who are looking at whether going for mid market to enterprise or gulyas. Just any other insights you can share on that?

Unknown Speaker 15:20
Well, if I would do it again, I wouldn’t start with a solution that’s really best suited for gulyas. Me, that’s a very, that’s a very tough road to take. We took that road, and we only got so far, because what we actually came up with actually works. So. But it’s still it’s still a very tough road that day. So I would, you know, if, you know, in my next startup, which for sure is going to come around at some point, I’d like to not start with, with the gulyas. Because those can be you know, it’s it’s very frustrating when you’re a small young company, lots of energy, lots of goodwill, lots of people who are willing to work 24 hours, and then you have to deal with some guy who is, you know, unwilling to just change a firewall rule so that you can reach that API, you know, so no, I did not do it again. But, you know, nevertheless, it’s, it’s, it’s well worth the journey.

Alexander Ferguson 16:27
For you, growing as CTO and as a leader, any books, audiobooks, podcasts, blogs that you would recommend that you have found interesting, and would suggest others to look at?

Unknown Speaker 16:44
Hmm. Well, I like to listen to Lex Friedman. He has a very interesting podcast and interesting people on a show. Like cosmic skeptic, as well, he’s a very interesting, very interesting, philosophical character from the UK, smart, smart guy. Well, you know, I’m, I’m a bit of a Buddhist slash, you know, not that I’m really into, into anything supernatural, but I like meditation a lot. So Thich Nhat tan, all paths, white clouds is very nice. And also, Herman has this book, you know, Siddhartha, those books? That those are the kinds of things that I enjoy. Yeah.

Alexander Ferguson 17:38
Or last question I have for you guys is what kind of tech innovations do you predict we will see, in the near term, the next year or two and long term, 510 years from now.

Unknown Speaker 17:55
All the long term, I, I’m very interested in independent type theory. And I think that we’re going to see much more of that. And that’s a bit of a programming language and booziest. And there’s a programming language called EDS, or address, or you know, what the correct pronunciation is. And that’s a programming language that includes dependent types, what it makes possible is for you to have a formal mathematical proof of the program that you’re writing. So what we are doing now in software engineering, is you build some software, and then you write a whole bunch of different tests on that software, but those tests are not proving that it works under all conditions, it just proves that you know, if you feed it a and b, it will produce C. But you know, if you feed it B and A, you know, then you also have to provide that. So while in mathematics, you say, okay, it has to commute. And then it always commutes not just for AMB and BNA but for anything. And I like I like those. I think that’s, that’s the future of software engineering. And combine that with AI, I think there’s a lot to be done there. Because once you get to types that are so specific, and programs that are so solid that once it compiles, it actually will never break. It becomes also less possible to even write the wrong code. And what you can see, for example, in a language like EA, this is where you’ve written all these proofs. And now you set up the function signature of your of the function that you’re going to write. And you can actually press a hotkey and the code is actually generated because at that point, there’s so there’s so few options of what you could actually do what is correct to do, that the code actually automatically rolls out And for me, it’s very interesting when you overlap that with what, you know, the kind of the latest in AI is and look at, you know, transformer model based models like GPT. Three, combine that with the dependent types, I think we’re going to be seeing some of that. And computers programming themselves. Of course, this is the first step to artificial general intelligence. So very interesting stuff.

Alexander Ferguson 20:29
And if anything, the immediate use cases is just much faster development, is that what that future base basically means is the build write code faster and build things faster?

Unknown Speaker 20:38
Well, Buck free codes basically, might not be, you know, in the end, you’ll be faster. Right now, the state of the art is there that if you want to write such code that is guaranteed to be bug free. You know, it’s, there’s some caveats there. And we know what does it mean bug free, but, you know, just for sake of arguments, to say, well, I’m going to write some code that is guaranteed to be bug free, you can write, let’s say, you know, 1000 lines of code, then you have to write maybe 10,000 lines of proofs. And, you know, those proofs are also much harder to write. So that’s going to cost you a lot, okay, have NASA quality software. And so right now, the state of the art is not there yet that it is pragmatic to actually do it that way. But it’s going to come there, this this, this, this time to actually provide those formal proofs is going to come down over time. And in time, we’re going to see software that is perfect, in the sense that it’s mathematically proven and completely reducible back to the axioms that we have set in the on which we can build the entire foundation of mathematics. And so yeah, that’s, that’s very exciting.

Alexander Ferguson 22:03
I love love to hear a sitios excitements for you, it’s kind of this is a quiet excitement that seems to be like this, this is gonna be really cool. And everyone who’s not into technology is like, probably doesn’t understand the impact of it. But it’s there, for sure. Yeah, thank you. much, Lodewijk for sharing both your prediction of where we’re headed, as well as the insights and lessons learned that you’ve had over these years. For those that want to learn more about stack state, make sure you go check out part one to hear our first part of the interview, or go to Stackstate.com to get a demo and see how their their product works. Thanks again for joining us everyone. Our sponsor for today’s episode is thoroughly if your company wants to learn how to better leverage the power of video. To increase sales and marketing results, head over to TeraLeap.io and learn about the new product customer stories. Thanks, everyone, and we’ll see you next time. That concludes the audio version of this episode. To see the original and more visit our UpTech Report YouTube channel. If you know a tech company, we should interview you can nominate them at UpTech report.com. Or if you just prefer to listen, make sure you’re subscribed to this series on Apple podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcasting app.