The next meetup in our series Finding Product-Market Fit will take place in Berlin on June 28th. Once again, at the core of the evening will be lectures and workshops prepared and delivered by Boldare’s experts, followed by a networking event. Read on to find out how and why coming back to Berlin will make this meetup better, as well as who the first special guest of the evening will be.
There is more than one type of goal that your product teams typically work on. In 2020, the Scrum Guide started mentioning product goals on top of the well-known sprint goals. Why is it so important to distinguish between the two? Read on to find out.
On April 5th we organized an online live stream where our experts talked about product-market fit: what it is, how to measure it and what our favorite tools to achieve it are. Read on to learn what knowledge our experts were sharing this time, as well as how they answered our audience's most intriguing questions.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT still invokes a lot of emotions - both good and bad. Its benefits for businesses and private users go hand-in-hand with concerns about the privacy of sensitive data. If you are wondering if you should use this tool for your digital product, read on to learn what is ChatGPT’s current policy on handling data as well as what are our practices for working with this tool.
Writing code is just a fraction of what a developer does. To create a digital product that fulfills the highest industry standards you need people skilled in various tools and frameworks, and also communication. But there is more to it. In this article, you will learn what other qualities to look for when assembling your development team.
On March 21st around eighty guests gathered at Factory Berlin to meet with our specialists for lightning talks, workshops, and networking sessions. Read on to learn what they could learn there and what the atmosphere was like.
We have built a tool that will assess whether your digital product is ready to move on in its development. In other words, whether it’s ready to enter the product-market fit stage. The tool is called Product-Market Fit Survey and this article will tell you where the idea for it came from and why you should try it out.
very successful sports team needs an experienced coach. The same is true with product development teams that work in the Agile methodology. Here, an agile coach is an essential specialist who helps them be more efficient. Does it mean that only underperforming teams should have one? Read on to see what the agile coach role is and why it is necessary.
On February 23, at 2 pm [CET] we will stream our talk with Krzysztof Osiński, the Senior Vice President of Research & Development at DTIQ. He will talk about the different ways in which ChatGPT will change business worldwide. Read on to find out what you can learn by tuning in.
There are three aspects to our approach to business that our partners often ask about: radical transparency, self-organization, and holacracy. While each one of those could be the basis of a separate, successful business venture, we feel that the combination of the three creates the most suitable work environment for us. Read on to learn more about each of these ideas, their benefits, and how they influence the way we work.
On March 21st we will be sharing our practical knowledge in another installment of our Finding Product-Market Fit meetup series. This time, the meetup will take place in the very heart of Germany - Berlin. Read on to learn what you can expect from joining and how you can sign up.
We have formed a partnership with Factory Berlin, a place that connects specialists from different branches of business, be it tech, creative, or corporate. Read on to learn more about our new partner and how this union will make it easier to contact and meet us.
Inspired by our collaborations and projects with energy industry clients, we were interested in researching further and sharing our perspective on how to navigate the energy industry beyond 2022. To do so, we spoke to our clients and our product teams to see what trends they see forming in 2023. Read on to learn what conclusions we came to.
Hallway usability testing, also known as guerrilla testing, can greatly improve your digital product’s user experience. Read on to learn more about the topic.
“How to find new users & revenue streams for your digital products?” was a live meetup we hosted on the 14th of December. Our office in Amsterdam was the place where we shared our knowledge and experience in the product-market fit phase. Read on to find out how the meetup went, what questions people asked and what are our plans for follow-ups.
A/B testing can tell you a lot about the effectiveness of your ads, design, and copy, as well as your customers’ or users’ preferences. However, in order to conduct successful A/B tests, you must keep 11 important questions in mind. Read on to see what they are.
Every digital product we create is built with the Build-Measure-Learn cycle in mind. We add to our procedures any good practices that are missing and remove those that (for some reason) aren't working. In this article, we will tell you more about the way we prepare for building a product and what could happen if we tried to start development work without a product discovery workshop?
As a product owner, you are bound to work with Scrum teams that communicate with each other in their own “language” and their own subject matter. Have you ever wondered how Scrum masters keep their team members transparent, informed, and up-to-date with everything that is happening? In this article, we’re going to talk about communication in Scrum. You will learn about six proven and tested communication rules that Boldare’s Scrum teams follow.
On the 14th of December, we’ll be hosting an informal meetup in our Amsterdam office. We’ll be talking about different ways in which you can achieve product-market fit for your digital product. Read on to find out about the meetup’s agenda and different ways you can participate
Iteration reviews are an essential practice that can improve how your development teams work. Do you need a better way to establish goals, time frames and even budgets, with a focus on well-managed processes that produce high quality results every time? If the answer to at least one of these questions is “yes”, then you should read on to find out what iteration reviews can provide.
Growing your digital product isn’t a straight line. Sometimes, it can struggle to grow beyond its basic features and a few hundred users. In this article, we will tell you how to find the next revenue stream for your digital product, and how we contributed to the success of one of our clients.
If you’re involved in digital product development, you probably know what a minimum viable product is. But what about a minimum marketable product? What’s the difference? When is a minimum marketable product necessary, and where does it fit in your product development process? Read on to find out.
How do you know if your UX is any good?. One way to make sure is with UX benchmarking, a method of measuring the quality of user experience that your product is providing. Read on to find out what it is, how to perform it and what common pitfalls you should look out for.
If you’re building a digital product, how do you know if it has any value? This is what the process of finding proof of value is about. Read on to find out why checking your product’s likely value may be exactly the right thing to do for your project, and how to get started.
We’ve received another stellar 5-star review, this time from one of our clients who prefers to remain anonymous. It's an early-stage startup that has built a product addressing the misinformation crisis. Read on to see what this client appreciates the most about working with Boldare.
Developing a digital product is a good thing but it comes with a drawback. Multiple teams working independently can be difficult to coordinate. At the same time, you can discover your organization has technical gaps, perhaps skills that weren’t needed before. Our new service - the advisory board - was designed to answer those issues. Read on to find out how.
Design validation is crucial both in terms of understanding end users and achieving the business objectives. How to validate your project? Why do you need to do this at all and why is this so important? What is the difference between design verification and validation? To learn the answers to all these questions, read on.
The product owner (PO) is make-or-break for a digital product. In this series so far, we’ve talked about what meetings PO can attend and how they can be more effective in their job. In this article, we will take a step back and look into what it really means to be a product owner. Read on to find out what responsibilities this title carries and why Boldare’s product owners are people from the client's side.
Creating a prototype is a relatively quick and easy way to test out your digital product idea. As an initial phase of the software development life cycle, prototyping is something we do a lot at Boldare! But what are the best tools when it comes to designing and creating prototype products? We asked our designers to choose their favorites and while Figma was the most popular choice, Adobe XD, and Balsamiq also got a strong mention. Read on to find out why these are Boldare’s top three prototyping tools.
Apps, websites and other digital products tend to be more popular with users when they’re fun to use. Gamification in UX design engages users with a product by tapping into their sense of fun and competition. Read on for a definition of gamification, how it can benefit your product, and a list of the most common gamified elements in UX design.
Used as part of the product discovery process, an opportunity solutions tree is a tool that helps to map out the opportunities and plan experimental approaches to solutions. Read on to find out more about the opportunity solutions tree and how we use it at Boldare.
If you’re working on a new digital product, you want to ensure its functionality and quick, smooth operation. Google Lighthouse is one tool that comes in especially handy for both Progressive web apps (PWAs) and websites. Read on to see what Google Lighthouse is and how to use it to measure and improve your website's performance.
In the past, software was designed with desktop computing in mind, with mobile access seen as an extra or add-on. But these days, with almost 60% of web traffic worldwide being via a smartphone or other mobile device, designers and developers are increasingly taking a mobile-first approach. This article provides an overview of mobile-first design, what it is, the differences between mobile-first and responsive design, and the key elements of the mobile-first design process.
Your digital product’s user interface (UI) is critical to the product’s success. It is how the product communicates with users, and how users communicate with the product. Material Design is a Google-created system for UI design and development that incorporates the latest best practice design principles. Read on to find out what Material Design is, how it works, and how it benefits your product design process.
On the 8th of August, our landing page History of Collage received an Honorable Mention from the Awwwards team. This recognition is for achieving a high score in their user vote, as well as in the judges' vote. It’s our fourth consecutive recognition this year. Read on to find out how we managed to keep the winning streak going and what this recognition can mean for our future business partners.
DevOps engineers are a lot like bass guitar players: you can’t hear them, but every successful team should have one. They implement a methodology aimed at improving digital products and their development with a combination of tools, philosophies, and practices. In this article, we will tell you all about their involvement at the different stages of product development, including product release and troubleshooting.
In our experience, the best product owners are the ones that constantly implement new solutions and useful practices. In this article, we will talk about how to make the best use of the lean startup approach when developing digital products. Read on to find out how a lean startup approach can influence your daily work and the product you build.
Building award-winning websites is what we do on a daily basis. But this time, we set about creating one that was also educational, required minimal staff, and could be developed without coding. How did we do that and does self-organization support problem-solving? Read on to find out.
Testing has a great impact on the quality of software, especially once the product matures and the user base grows. Mutation testing helps teams assess and improve the effectiveness of the testing suite. Read on to learn how mutation testing works and when you should use it.
Continuing our ‘fancy acronym’ series (everything has to have one!) it’s time to take a look at three more sets of design principles: SOLID, CUPID and GRASP. Read on for an explanation of each one, why we use them, and how they could benefit your product development process.
Almost all digital products carry some form of UX debt. How much and how easy it is to ‘pay off’ will vary depending on the product. Read on to find out more about what UX debt is and how best to manage it.
In these climate-conscious times, being green is a good thing. Usually, we think about the environmental impact of building real estate or physical products, but digital development can be ‘green’ too. Software may not have a physical form but it can still have an impact on the world around it. This article offers an overview of green software development: what it is, why it’s important, and how developers can make their products more eco-friendly.
Building websites for Awwwards is a special playground for our designers. It’s a space for experiments that can later be used to develop better digital products for clients. Read on to find out how it helps us foster award-winning designers.
They say that the lightning doesn’t strike twice - yet, for us it’s happened three times. Our recent landing page, dedicated to pet owners, has won a prestigious Awwwards Honorable Mention. Plantarium is the third website in a row that has been recognized in this way. Read on to learn why this site is different from anything else we’ve done before.
Keep it simple, stupid (KISS), you aren’t gonna need it (YAGNI), and don’t repeat yourself (DRY) are some of the most powerful digital product design principles. They lay the foundations for best practices that developers use to build better products every day. In this article, we’ll explain each of these methods, including the explanation of why they’re important elements of a reliable development process.
Code quality plays an important role in developing solid software. While it’s ultimately intended to make sure an application works well for the end-users, it also impacts the communication and morale of the development team. One of the most effective ways to ensure the healthy state of the code is test-driven development.
Over the years, we had a few ongoing partnerships that lasted three years or more: sonnen, Takamol, PRISMA, and TeamAlert just to name a few. The thing about partnerships like these is that they tend to come with specific challenges due to their length. At Boldare, we’ve learned how to manage those challenges, or even better, how to prevent them. In this article, you will find exactly how we do that.
Before reaching out to us, some clients like to have a better idea of who we are and how we work. We are always happy to answer any questions that come our way, but for those of you that prefer reading about us first, we have prepared a list of frequently asked questions. Read on further to see if there’s anything here that you were wondering about!
Some clients ask us if product owners can attend our daily Scrum meetings. And while their care for their digital products is commendable, the answer to that question is not a simple matter of a yes or no. In this article, I asked our scrum masters for their thoughts on this idea - read on to find out what they had to say.
Holacracy is an amazing tool that enables companies to work in a more agile, adaptive and responsive manner. Boldare started transitioning to a holacracy in 2018 and by now has grown in every possible direction. But what we enjoy here at Boldare today wouldn’t be possible without a few hard lessons learned along the way. We asked our most experienced leaders to share their (sometimes quite painful!) learning - enjoy reading!
Considering search engine optimization as part of your design process is about thinking ahead. This article will look at the connection between SEO and digital design, highlighting the key factors to consider for a high-performing website.
Digital products are often made to fulfill a business need, whether it’s making a profit or improving brand awareness. Regardless of what that purpose is, there is one metric that you can hear people using: the return on investment which describes whether the investment was worthwhile. Depending on their nature, returns on investment can be soft, hard or social. What are they and how to calculate them? Read on to find out.
“Lean” and “Lean Startup” are often used interchangeably. However, while one refers to an approach to manufacturing or production, the other is more focused on customers and users. But is that all? Read on to find out the differences (and links) between the two.
We have recently told you about the Honorable Mention that we received for a landing page celebrating Very Peri. Now, just three weeks later, we’ve been recognized again. This time, for a page https://akzidenzgrotesk.pro/ dedicated to one of the most influential typefaces of all time: Akzidenz-Grotesk. Read on to find out what we included on the page and what our users appreciated the most.
We have received another 5-star review on Clutch. This time it came from Kaspien - the premier e-commerce services provider, based in Washington. What did Kaspien appreciate most? Read on to find out.
Boldare has received an honorable mention award for a website dedicated to a single color - Very Peri. It’s a blend of purple with a red undertone that was named the color of the year 2022. What makes it so special and who were the people that gave us this award? Read on to find out.
Is Agile a one-size-fits-all solution? Definitely not. In this article, we will look at pairing Agile with different types of digital products. Does an Agile mindset always lead to success? Are there any industries that are better off with the traditional approach? Read on to find out.
Code refactoring is a process of replacing a piece of a code with a new one - one that is easier to read, scale or maintain. Check how to do it properly!
The decision on how to approach product development can have a major impact on whether the resulting product will be successful or not. That is why it’s good to consider the benefits of the available models to see which one will suit your product best. In this article we will do just that and try to answer a single question: Is Agile more beneficial than waterfall?
Recently, our Co-CEO Anna Zarudzka met with Mariusz Chrapko - a man of many talents. Mariusz is a business consultant by day and a podcaster by night. Anna had the opportunity to talk with Mariusz about Agile, holacracy, self-organization, and everything that comes with it. Read on to find out if Anna would rather be a mythical Daedalus or Icarus, and why holacracy is a lot like crossing a street.
At Boldare we take every opportunity to improve. That is why we were thrilled when Louis Fouejieu - a Ph.D. student from Maryland took an interest in us. Louis wants to take a closer look at Boldare from a scientific perspective and analyze our organizational culture. Continue reading to find out more about his research.
There are times when you could be forgiven for thinking that the most relevant law in life is Murphy’s law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong. But far more applicable to the creation of digital platforms, apps and websites is Conway’s law. Read on to find out what Conway’s law is, how it applies to digital development, and how it can help you find the best development partner.
Scrum is a software development framework based on Agile. But it’s so much more than that. In this article, we will talk about Scrum in detail: its principles and core elements. Read on further to learn about Scrum’s terminology and find out how teams organize their work.
Here, at Boldare we are no strangers to prototyping. In fact, our recent client was in a position where building a prototype was necessary. How did we use a prototype to help our client decide if their product idea is worth pursuing? This article will tell you all about it.
Recently, our Co-CEO was interviewed by TechRound, a UK-based online tech magazine. TechRound is a platform for startups looking to gain exposure; it acts as their voice in the business world. They asked Anna Zarudzka, among a group of 35 experts, to share her predictions for the future of work in 2022. Read on to find out what she had to say.
2022 has just begun and we already have some good news. We have been named as one of the best product development companies in the world by a leading analytics hub in the web - Techreviewer.
Implmenting Agile can be challenging. What are the common pitfalls and how to avoid them? And how did we do it at Boldare? Read on to find out.
Leaseweb is a leading Dutch cloud-based services provider. Their portfolio includes, among other things, customized server solutions. Read the case story of how Boldare built an automatic installation system for this client and made their server services more customer friendly.
Ever wondered what a tech stack is or what the latest stack technology means for product development? Choosing the right technology and methods will determine if your digital product is safe, scalable and easy to develop. In this article, we’ll answer the question “What is a tech stack?” and tell you about the tech stack we use at Boldare.
