September 2021 Summaries

The "build vs buy" debate is crucial for founders and engineering leaders when deciding whether to develop non-core components like Single Sign On (SSO) or Directory Sync in-house, or purchase existing solutions. Key considerations include the learning curve for engineers, opportunity costs of diverting resources from core product development, ability to keep up with customer demands for new identity providers, long-term maintenance requirements, and availability of support when faced with technical challenges. WorkOS is an example of a solution that can be purchased if in-house development seems unfeasible or too resource-intensive.

This tutorial explains how to configure and validate WorkOS webhooks from a development machine using ngrok's secure, public URLs. Ngrok is a tool that exposes local servers behind NATs and firewalls to the public internet over secure tunnels. It allows users to run personal cloud services from home, test websites without deploying, and build and run webhook consumers on their development machine. The tutorial demonstrates how to set up ngrok for consuming WorkOS webhooks by creating a secure public URL with ngrok, creating a WorkOS webhook, building a route in the application to accept webhooks, and testing the configuration.

SP-initiated Single Sign On (SSO) and IdP-initiated authentication are two methods of user authentication in the context of a Software as a Service (SaaS) application. In SP-initiated SSO, users initiate the authentication process by clicking on a login button within the application, which then sends an authentication request to the Identity Provider via the browser. This method is commonly used for consumer-facing apps and is the most common form of SSO for new WorkOS customers becoming Enterprise Ready. In IdP-initiated authentication, users first log into their Identity Provider and can then access various Service Providers by clicking on a button or link. Integrating SSO with WorkOS allows businesses to offer both SP-initiated and IdP-initiated authentication flows to their SaaS customers.

The article discusses when it is a good time for product-led growth companies to start preparing for enterprise sales, which involves different needs than individual users such as authentication, user lifecycle management, and security and compliance. It mentions that the best companies recognize the impact of enterprise sales on their businesses and have been selling to enterprises faster. The article also provides examples of companies that started getting Enterprise Ready at various stages of their growth. It emphasizes that the cost of time is often greater than the cost of money when it comes to delaying enterprise sales, as it could lead to lost revenue opportunities in the future and open doors for competitors.

The Engineering team at WorkOS uses asynchronous communication through writing in Threads to make product decisions and maintain transparency. They aim for asynchronous communication to save time from meetings, ensure transparent decision-making, and leave a record for future reference. They propose guidelines on when to create a Thread, where to create it, requesting responses, what to include in a Thread, conveying status, coming to decisions, handling disagreements, and completing Threads. The team uses emojis to indicate the status of a proposal and follows different decision-making processes for irreversible and reversible decisions. They also encourage thoughtful disagreement and scheduling calls if needed.