Rhyming years and changing gears what long term building taught us

Speaker Marco Slaviero Track Other Type Keynote talk Abstract Modern startups are largely built for exits. Funding models, hype cycles and attention spans have all coalesced around 3 to 5 year timeframes. Building a product with such short expectations affects the way a company operates, and by extension, affects virtually every decision in the product. There is another approach. Thinkst Canary has intentionally rejected external funding through our existence. For over a decade, we've focused hard on one product (or two if you really squint). This has taught us lessons about product-building, and guided company culture in unexpected ways. We've learned to celebrate legacy code, obsess over company-culture, and fixate on customer love. Each year is different, but there are parallels in the trials and tribulations from our past. In this talk I'll share these experiences, offer a view on how it's worked for us, and argue that exits don't need to be the end goal. ========================== Sponsors of PyCon Africa 2025 ========================== Platinum sponsor: Valkey: https://valkey.io/ Regional Diamond: Thinkst Canary: https://thinkst.com/ Amazon Web Services (AWS): https://aws.amazon.com/developer/ Gold Sponsors: Apify: https://apify.com/ Canonical: https://www.canonical.com/ Regional Gold: NICIS: https://www.nicis.ac.za/ Silver Sponsor: Google: https://google.com/ Regional Silver: Cyber Mint: https://www.cyber-mint.com/ Bronze Sponsor: Caktus Group: https://www.caktusgroup.com/ Regional Bronze: Prelude.Tech: https://prelude.tech/ Afrolabs: https://afrolabs.co.za/ CoderLevelUp: https://coderlevelup.org/ Contributing Sponsors: Lincoln Loop: https://lincolnloop.com/ Django Software Foundation: https://www.djangoproject.com/foundat... DEFNA: https://www.defna.org/ Black Python Devs: https://blackpythondevs.com/ Naughty Bean Coffee: https://www.naughtybean.coffee/ Zyelabs: https://zyelabs.net/ Asuer: https://asuer.co.za/ Wrend Holdings: https://wrendholdings.com/