This post is about my values that I defined long time ago and some tweaks I want to add as I think things through.

It is long and rambly post, you can find conclusion near the end.

In the past

For a very long time mission of Dakic OnLine was to “create better business online using innovation” or specifically

“Creating Better Business in Economy of Ideas”

I tried my best to uphold those values, mostly by trying to offer innovative solutions and using latest technology to give our clients an edge.

In some other way, I failed to do some really more substantial impact on business climate and innovation.

Few times we were close, PersistentPenny and Zelio were really good ways to support smaller businesses but I didn’t follow through to fully make them reality.

Yes I was on top of technology, businesses got to use Rails even before it was cool. Stakeholders were laughing at using methodology Extreme Programming and Agile. Along the way there were some interesting solutions that allowed people to break grounds that they would not otherwise.

We also spearheaded PWAs, a Progressive WebApps, an alternative to mobile app development. So instead of building web app, IOS and Android, huge hassle with appstores etc. you just build a single responsive app that has most of features as mobile apps, and if it gets traction, we can then develop native apps.

I think this last one saved one startup a ton of money. It still didn’t help them in the end because their problem was never software.

I also made sure that people who work for us are treated nicely and paid well and on time, even if we were not.

So that is how I worked in the past.

How good were we?

There is nothing wrong with this approach.

One thing that was always bothering me, we didn’t create any products that made small businesses and others genuinely work better and get some insane value from us. There were some products for marketing we did but kind of didn’t really went all in with those, but that is as close to creating something that would genuinely improve business online, which was my goal.

My goal was to use innovation and technlogy to improve doing business online.

By my own measures, this failed, I just don’t feel I accomplished what I wanted to do.

Few times we were really close to do just that but somehow we didn’t, things fizzled out.

What didn’t work

I don’t think innovation how I imagined it worked or maybe it was just how implemented it.

I had methodology which would create wires, prototype, high figelity mvp, then mvp.

I had really hard time getting clients to finance this even though it was in their interest not to waste money on development they ultimately don’t need. They were just wasting money and then scrambled when they are short on funds to cut features or future work.

What do I want to do now

I had recently talked with EvilInsuranceCorp (not their real name) to work for them. I saw this as opportunity to improve on experience patients have when are reviewing coverage and how their payments are going through. That didn’t go through and it was for the better.

I read article today that they have AI alghoritm to deny coverage to people based on some profit factors, not really if patient needs that coverage. There was sad story of elderly people being denied coverage and using all their hard earned savings to cover for life saving treatment.

Not really ‘A Force For Good’ like I want to see myself.

This got me thinking. This “Better Business OnLine” didn’t really work for a long time already, nor it made me happy.

What I really always wanted is to be “A Force For Good”, even if this drove some people crazy.

So I thought about what I really like and how I want to work. I came up with following mission and have some idea how to go about it.

“Making People Lives Better Through Innovation And Technology”

From businesses, I would like to focus on individual people and work on what makes their lives better and how I can improve their experience of living.

This can be a startup founder, but it can be a consumer as well.

I thought about doing something for developers, but… that is tricky and I never wanted to be just focused on developers.

So I will be focused on individual happines and accomplishment first.

I think my focus on businesses was mostly influenced by people online who said it is hard to do consumer apps and there is way more value to be provided for small and medium business.

I want to work with people first. Maybe this is influence of me doing Design Systems and Design Thinking, to be so people focused, but I think I always was interested in how people are using software I was involved in making.

Conclusion

From now on:

“Making People Lives Better Through Innovation And Technology”

it might sound mundane but it is what I genuinely want to do.