A (Podular) Approach

OUR APPROACH

At Tanooki Labs we work in development pods and use Agile methodology to provide transparency. As a Tanooki Labs client you'll have access to your pod via email and a dedicated Slack Channel.

Each pod consists of:

Product CTO

1

Project Manager

1

Developers

1 - 3

Over the years we’ve developed a process that has proven to result in happy partners and happy developers. We know everyone hates meetings, but these are crucial to keeping your project on time and on budget.

The Daily Standup

Standups happen every day from kickoff through release. Quick, 15 minute check ins where the team aligns to ensure everyone knows what they are working on, along with an opportunity to clear out any “blocks” a developer might have on a user story.

Iteration Planning Meeting

The focus of this meeting is to specify requirements for the user stories the developers will be working on for the next week’s sprint. This is also an important meeting as it’s where we talk through each user story individually and ensure we have enough understanding to work on it, and then later deliver it as it is intended.

The Demo/Retro/RPM

The last meeting of the week is broken into 3 parts:

1. Demo
   A demonstration of the work done on the software in the previous sprint.
   
   
2. Retrospective (Retro)
   A time where all team members have the opportunity to talk openly about the project, identify positives and negatives, and build action items to enhance the team’s efficiency.
   
   
3. Release Planning Meeting (RPM)
   A chance to look at the project from a higher level and see how the work is being completed against the timeline.
   

The Tanooki Pledge

Things WE promise to do:

1. Treat your product as if it were our own, and think deeply about the product, it’s users, and your business.
   
   
2. Send Weekly Reports to keep you informed on progress and budget.
   
   
3. Attend Daily Standups to ensure developers have what they need and aren’t blocked.
   
   
4. Perform Weekly in-progress demos (Demo), retrospective process reviews (Retro), and iteration planning meetings (IPM) to gather your feedback and prime upcoming work.
   
   
5. Provide flexibility in features, scope, and timing based on your needs and feedback from early users, and input on how this may affect your budget.
   
   
6. Provide timely invoicing.
   
   
7. Always choose the right solution for the job, even if it means lower billable for us.
   
   
8. Be available via Slack/Email.
   
   

Things YOU promise to do:

1. Be present at Demo, Retros and IPMs.
   
   
2. Communicate with the team via Slack/Email.
   
   
3. If there is a product owner other than yourself or the key stakeholder, empower the product owner to make product choices and direct development work.
   
   
4. Work to ensure open communications with any additional partners.
   
   
5. Pay invoices on or before the due date.
   
   
6. If there needs to be a delay in payment, let us know ASAP, not after the payment is late.
   
   
7. Accept/Reject features in Pivotal in a timely manner to provide input and time for our team to to make appropriate changes
   
   

Life After MVP

Your product is launched! Now what?

At Tanooki we’re really great at helping entrepreneurs get from an idea to a product in the market. It’s a core capability we have honed since our founding, and one that we’ve used to launch over 150 startups with over $500M raised. Getting to a launched MVP or V1 is a tremendous feat for any entrepreneur and we’re extremely proud to be a part of it.

But what happens after that? A launched product isn’t where our process or our expertise stops.

The Tanooki Labs team has extensive experience in taking companies from their MVP to fully scaled applications supporting hundreds of thousands of users. Whether it’s a product that we were a part of since the beginning, or if it’s a company that we’re partnering with in the post-MVP phase, we are always happy to hop into a project to help the team and the product scale. Sometimes the initial launch isn’t able to scale elegantly, or perhaps a service you were relying on changed it’s API, or billing structure and no longer works for your product. The Tanooki team can jump in and help bring things back to the way it was while you were first envisioning your product.

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