Software Lead Weekly
Issue #443, 21st May 2021
This Week's Favorite
True Product Market Fit Is a Minimum Viable Company
9 minutes read.
"Seeing a product as merely a bundle of features disregards the inherent blockers your product must bypass to succeed. Your product is an entire customer experience, and successful companies view it as such." -- Insightful post by Ann Miura-Ko on the building blocks you should pay attention to when building a company.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
9 minutes read.
"Seeing a product as merely a bundle of features disregards the inherent blockers your product must bypass to succeed. Your product is an entire customer experience, and successful companies view it as such." -- Insightful post by Ann Miura-Ko on the building blocks you should pay attention to when building a company.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Culture
When You Create Multiple Test Accounts for Your SaaS
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face, even in this difficult time.
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Share it via Twitter or email.
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face, even in this difficult time.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Hiring vs Nurturing Managers
4 minutes read.
While you can play with the ratio João Alves suggests, it's helpful to see how he analyzes it - hiring for experience to reduce the learning curve can be more critical when it comes to humans (vs. building systems or business domain). What would you do as a CTO or VP Eng? Why?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
While you can play with the ratio João Alves suggests, it's helpful to see how he analyzes it - hiring for experience to reduce the learning curve can be more critical when it comes to humans (vs. building systems or business domain). What would you do as a CTO or VP Eng? Why?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Optimizing Bugs Fix Policy
5 minutes read.
We often fear bugs in production. This is obvious as we reduce our customers' value, interfering in their success and usage of the product. Handled well though (low MTTD and MTTR), you can leverage that to build a stronger relationship with your customers. You show them you care. You show that you listen. You show them that you're quick to handle that and gather feedback to learn how they've noticed it so you can build better alerts for the future. David Cohen shares how you can approach it effectively.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
We often fear bugs in production. This is obvious as we reduce our customers' value, interfering in their success and usage of the product. Handled well though (low MTTD and MTTR), you can leverage that to build a stronger relationship with your customers. You show them you care. You show that you listen. You show them that you're quick to handle that and gather feedback to learn how they've noticed it so you can build better alerts for the future. David Cohen shares how you can approach it effectively.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Building Products at Stripe: Go Deep, Move Fast, and Build Multi-Decade Abstractions
8 minutes read.
"We talk a lot about building multi-decade abstractions. I personally like to think 10 to 30 years to get out of the three- to five-year mode, but generally here people do say “multi-decade” a lot. Patrick and John and the entire leadership team are clear that this is a long-term bet and that we’re still very early. That long time horizon comes from the top, and it’s in the culture. And my sense is it’s been like that at Stripe since day one." -- Stripe is a fascinating company with probably two of the best founders in the world. As it's still a relatively new company (late 2011), you can learn from it and pick up practices or ideas to bring your team and company.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
8 minutes read.
"We talk a lot about building multi-decade abstractions. I personally like to think 10 to 30 years to get out of the three- to five-year mode, but generally here people do say “multi-decade” a lot. Patrick and John and the entire leadership team are clear that this is a long-term bet and that we’re still very early. That long time horizon comes from the top, and it’s in the culture. And my sense is it’s been like that at Stripe since day one." -- Stripe is a fascinating company with probably two of the best founders in the world. As it's still a relatively new company (late 2011), you can learn from it and pick up practices or ideas to bring your team and company.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Peopleware
Leading Engineers When You Aren't One Yourself
5 minutes read.
Being a good manager is about providing value. Helping humans form into a team that works well together and delivers sustainably. Sarah Milstein offers a few interesting perspectives for how to help your team: "You don’t need coding skills to identify this losing pattern and suggest other ways your teams can approach their work."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
Being a good manager is about providing value. Helping humans form into a team that works well together and delivers sustainably. Sarah Milstein offers a few interesting perspectives for how to help your team: "You don’t need coding skills to identify this losing pattern and suggest other ways your teams can approach their work."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
The Day You Became a Clearer Thinker, You... (Thread)
4 minutes read.
As always, Shreyas Doshi delivers thoughtful and unique insights and resources for you to improve the way you think and articulate your vision. I'm coming back to this thread and reading it every few days (via Anki) to memorize some of the concepts, trying to ingrain them into the way I analyze different situations.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
As always, Shreyas Doshi delivers thoughtful and unique insights and resources for you to improve the way you think and articulate your vision. I'm coming back to this thread and reading it every few days (via Anki) to memorize some of the concepts, trying to ingrain them into the way I analyze different situations.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
My Favourite Tyler Cowen Posts and Ideas
5 minutes read.
I've been listening to Tyler Cowen's podcast for years. It's one of my favorites. Daniel Frank will offer a few takeaways and articles to start with if you're not familiar with Tyler's work.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
I've been listening to Tyler Cowen's podcast for years. It's one of my favorites. Daniel Frank will offer a few takeaways and articles to start with if you're not familiar with Tyler's work.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Inspiring Tweets
@ekosz1: Life Hack: Make your Okta password a positive affirmation. That way IT will force you to repeat it to yourself 3-5 times a day
@DavidSacks: Founder/Go-to-Market Fit: If primary GTM is bottom-up, founder needs to be great at product. If primary GTM is inbound, founder needs to be great at marketing. If primary GTM is outbound, founder needs to be great at sales.
- Oren
P.S. Can you share this email? I'd love for more people to experiment and improve their company's culture.
P.S. Can you share this email? I'd love for more people to experiment and improve their company's culture.