founders Creating an Open Source Culture Armory is commercializing the open source project Spinnaker, making it a "COSS" company. As Joseph Jacks puts it: COSS companies are fundamentally different from all other kinds of companies. Why? They create value
founders Counteracting the HiPPO problem with a Roundabout culture. There's a really interesting comment thread happening over in Hacker News right now, about a decision Gitlab made (and then reversed) to require users to accept telemetry in their offering without any option
founders Creating Magical Human Experiences, with Magic I was recently introduced to Magic, a virtual personal assistant, by Mike Chen, the CEO at a recent founder retreat. I'd signed up for Magic a month before on the recommendation of a
B2B Execs and Managers: An Engineer's perspective on Roundabout Culture Last night, I was in a Lyft with Brandon, one of Armory's engineers. For the past few months, Armory has had a very strong focus on creating a "Roundabout" vs. "Stoplight" culture. I
finance Should I take seed money from a large VC fund? A founder recently emailed me: Would love to pick your brain about this if you have a few minutes to spare. Let me know if you have 15 minutes to chat on the
founders Creating a Roundabout Culture As Armory continues to scale, we're crafting a "Roundabout, not Stoplight" culture because of Conway's law: I spend my days interacting with Global 2,000 CIOs who are trying to figure out how
Self DROdio .Readme Here's a primer on how to work with me effectively. Reading this will help you ramp up on my work style faster. I'd also very much like to read your "ReadMe" if we
B2B Powering the Third Industrial Revolution (aka Why I Go to Work Every Day) The benefit of being a founder is that you can dream outlandish things, and nobody's around to stop you. Now that Armory has grown up a bit, I'd like to share the outlandish
founders How Many Golf Balls Fit in a Bath Tub? I like to do a little exercise when I give a talk (like the one above), which is to ask the room how many golf balls fit in a bath tub. Not because
founders A great way to interview consumers I've never tried this myself, but I've heard it works extremely well -- and in fact, I'd love for someone to try this and then post a comment on this blog (ideally w/
founders Instrumenting a Startup: The Tools & Services We're Using to Start Armory When Isaac, Ben and I started Armory late last year, I found a lot has changed since starting my last startup, Socialize, in 2008. There's a suite of new tools available to instrument
founders The Forest vs. The Trees: A Story About Focus I'm going to share a story about the forest vs. the trees. But it's not the story you're expecting to hear. My last blog post was about Doing Less, Better, which is my
founders Do Less, Better There's a great article in the NYTimes about Slack, a new startup that the Valley is buzzing about. Slack is a business messaging & collaboration app, and it's really, really good. The reporter
founders Marketing Your Startup by Giving Out Stock Options This new startup, Jet.com, is looking to be the Costco of the web, and to undercut Amazon's prices by an average of 10%. They won't focus on speedy 2 day "prime" delivery.
founders Need vs. Want Just a quick post to share a decision making pro-tip that I shared with a few people this week. Anytime I need to consider a number of criteria to make a decision on
founders High Fives and Arash's Story At a recent DFJ venture capital conference, I heard the story of Arash Bayatmakou. He fell from a 3rd story balcony a few years ago and landed on his neck, paralyzing him from
founders Negotiation Pro Tip: Creating An Obligation I'm going to share one of my most powerful negotiating techniques. The funny thing is that up until a year ago, I didn't even realize this was a technique -- I thought everyone
founders Zuck in 2005: No plans for world domination, but the product/market fit to get there. I absolutely love this video of Zuck talking about Facebook back in 2005. If I had been in that room, I wouldn't have been able to guess that Facebook would become a $180+
founders How Are You Spending Your 700,800 Hours? "Time is what we want most, but what we use worst." - William PennTime is our most precious asset, and none of us know how much of it we have left. It's ironic,
founders My Favorite Quotes 1 Have a vision. Be demanding ... by Colin Powell 2 Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier ... by Colin Powell 3 You don't know what you can get away with until you try ... by
