Productive Conflict Improves Team Potential, But Getting There Can Be Tricky This is the first of a two article series on developing a startup culture that drives healthy decision making excellence. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” -Peter Drucker Agreement Isn’t a Prerequisite for a Great Relationship I am blessed to have great friends: people I can trust to have my back, no matter what. One of my best friends…

Evolve your focus on skills potential in recruiting and change the odds against Big Tech in the war for talent Main Idea Startups must grow to survive but candidates with the shiniest resumes are getting scooped up by the firms with the shiniest logos. Meanwhile tech companies often pass up non-traditional candidates that have untapped potential. …

Part 2 of Democratizing Operational Excellence: Developing Competitive Advantage in Software Forecasting Please read Part 1 for context. Estimation, Capacity, Sizings, and Forecasting You need to look back to see forward. Estimates → capacity → sizing prediction → forecast → [iterate] An estimation is an analysis of past actuals data that attempts to state the true nature of the team’s capacity. By looking at the statistics of…

Leveraging data-driven frameworks and diversity of opinion to plan and deliver more reliably Main Ideas Gain high quality release forecasts and improved team ownership by shifting the locus of control in release date creation. …

“We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.” ― Richard P. Feynman Questions to Answer About Research at Startups Long-term research has great potential to improve the success of startups. But it can be defocusing and an inefficient use of scarce resources. How do you…

Strategic Risk Management at Startups “If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.” ― Cormac McCarthy Do you know your risk tolerance? Try taking a hike on one of the most dangerous trails in North America. Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park is notorious…

What a Zero-to-One Startup can Learn from Tesla’s Model 3 Production Hell I’m helping build a zero-to-one fin-tech startup. We must create our vision, organization, industry knowledge, business processes, technology platforms, and products — from scratch. We’re under pressure to deliver fast. In order to deliver fast, we are first forming a culture of learning. A learning organization prioritizes advancing from a…

Part Two: Should Your Platform Become an MSP? — Read Part 1 to get a solid overview of the criteria for being a multisided platform. Here are a few considerations as you consider your software platform strategy. Do you intend to maintain each side of the platform continuously, forever? Once you set up a marketplace that creates transaction opportunity…

Social Capital and Productive Social Networks — Social capital is the combination of a person’s reputation and the access to resources their reputation provides. Within the context of social content collaboration platforms (a type of multi-sided platform), social capital is the reward for contributing content that is deemed useful by other users. Social capital is a tremendous…