Marvelution B.V., an Assendelft-based Company, Emerges as an Attractive Software Development Processes Optimization Destination

“The long-term vision for Marvelution is to have as much fun as possible by adding as many features that are built to a high-quality standard.”

Marvelution B.V. is a software development company. It develops software to optimize the software development processes, particularly focusing on the development of add-ons for Atlassian products.

The company grew out of open-source projects. In 2008, Mark Rekveld, founder, open-sourced his projects under the umbrella project Marvelution. With its open-source subprojects, this project quickly grew and became the foundation for Marvelution, the company.

Formally, Marvelution was established in 2015 and is currently based in Assendelft, The Netherlands.

Mark Rekveld, Founder of Marvelution B.V.: Interview Excerpt

Q. Can you take us through the company’s journey right from its beginning to the point where it unwaveringly stands today?

In 2007, after getting a bachelor’s degree in Informatics, I started working for a large consulting firm. I quickly realised that the interesting open source projects were not ever being used on projects I was on and that I was only learning older development methods. Therefore, I opted to learn what I wanted outside of working hours.

This quickly grew into a collection of small projects that needed a better place to manage and share them. That’s how Marvelution, the open-source project, was born. Under the open-source project umbrella, I developed multiple projects used by customers all over the world. During this period, I also needed to better integrate Hudson (now known as Jenkins) with Atlassian Jira. At the time, there was no real solution that checked all the boxes. Therefore, I opted to write my own integration, which is currently in its third instalment and used by over 3000 customers worldwide. Some of the other projects have not stood the test of time. Still, the Jenkins Integration did and was the foundation that allowed me to start Marvelution B.V. in 2015 to continue developing and supporting the open-source projects that were started in 2008 and stood the test of time.

Q. What motivated you to develop a dedicated platform to address the challenges faced in software development?

In 2007, I was using Atlassian Jira for project management and Hudson (now known as Jenkins) for continuous integration. The integration between the two was only done in the form of comments on issues, and this quickly led to issues where user comments were hard to distinguish between all the build related comments. Hence, I opted to implement a better solution to allow Jira users to get better insight from Jenkins build results.

Q. Explain your services in brief.

The Jenkins Integration for Jira app provides a best in-class integration between Jira and Jenkins, allowing Jira users like developers, release managers, QA engineers to quickly get the insight from build data they need to make informed decisions.

Q. Talking about development expectations and outcomes, how do you manage to optimize software development projects with unspecific requirements?

Take small steps; validate the outcome of a step before continuing with the next step. This way, it’s easier to adjust plans and expectations when changes are introduced.

Q. High-quality software development support services with an expensive price tag. Are your services budget-friendly? How can SMEs use your expertise?

I whether have a large number of small customers than one big one. Next to this I’m also not looking to sell Marvelution, or milk customers so I can retire early. To that end all Marvelution-produced products and services are priced so that businesses of all sizes can use them. At the same time, Marvelution applies discounts for renewals, education customers, open-source projects, and solution partners.

Q. What is the long-term strategic vision of your organization?

The long-term vision for Marvelution is not your topical vision. For me, it’s more important to have fun while working. As long as you have fun working, you will always produce more and of a higher quality. The long-term vision for Marvelution is to have as much fun as possible by adding as many features that are built to a high-quality standard. If growth is needed, then I will look into growing the company.

Q. Do you have any new services launching soon?

This year will see Jenkins Integration Automation for the Jira app come out of beta. It’s been in beta for about a year with zero bugs in the automation engine tested by over 300 customers. Therefore, it’s time to lift the beta flag as it’s ready for production use.

Mark Rekveld: A Reliable Entrepreneur

Mark Rekveld is the Founder of Marvelution. After finishing his bachelor’s degree in Informatics, Mark focused on Java software development. During his career, he developed a real passion for lean development and open-source software. So much so that he started sharing his hobby projects as open-source software, which founded the way for Marvelution B.V.

Next to his love for open-source development, Mark is also a big Google, Android, and Atlassian fanatic.

He has always had, and still has, an appetite to grow in knowledge and skills related to software development—the process of development, the development style, and solution architecture. Founding the company allowed Mark to share his knowledge with a bigger audience that he cherishes.

“The Jenkins Integration did and was the foundation that allowed me to start Marvelution B.V. in 2015 to continue developing and supporting the open-source projects that were started in 2008 and stood the test of time.”