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Category: startups

What have you tried?

What have you tried?

By and large, I've found one measure to be an indicator of whether I can work with a developer; whether professional or open source:  When they need help, they can answer the question: "What you have tried?" When you ask a technical question in a technical forum, providing information on what you've tried is a signal.  It's a way of saying "I'm not just looking for a solution, I've genuinely tried Read the article >>
Boulder Startup Week 2016

Boulder Startup Week 2016

Boulder Startup Week wrapped up a couple weeks ago. Boy, what a week! These were some of my favorite events. How to CTO The format of this event was 3-4 local CTOs interviewed by Miles Matthias. It was great to hear what some of the up & coming engineering leaders in Boulder are doing.  Audio of these talks will be posted on Exec Podcast. Building Virtual Reality From Boulder Startup Read the article >>
Where is the fire around this fire?

Where is the fire around this fire?

A few years ago, I was at a small bluegrass music festival in the mountains of Colorado.  Nestled in a ridge next to a winding river, you could see a square mile of tents during the day, and you could see the milky way after the sun went down.  Late at night, after the music had ended, the festival attendees would circle around campfires near their tents for warmth. Our camp was visible on a stretch Read the article >>
Agile A La Carte Menu

Agile A La Carte Menu

For my last few jobs, I've found myself spending a lot of time with stakeholders answering the following questions: When will X be shipped? Who is responsible for Y? Is A a priority above B? What could we be doing better? ... and various other manager-ey type things. In each gig, building a shared understanding of the teams workflow, iteration cycles, and development milestones Read the article >>
adblock-to-bitcoin: Publishers Wanted

adblock-to-bitcoin: Publishers Wanted

UPDATE 1/11/2016: Check out ad block to bitcoin's wordpress plugin and chrome extension. Dear Publisher, Yesterday, adblock-to-bitcoin was introduced to the world as the first purely open source, soup-to-nuts, solution for publishers to accepting micropayments.  The project was covered in Wired, the Daily Decrypt, and generated plenty of comments on Hacker News. Not bad for a project that Read the article >>
The Cold Outreach Litmus Test

The Cold Outreach Litmus Test

I am introducing the following litmus test to define what a good recruitment email looks like: Message is personalized (beyond first name). Sender mentions a common interest or connection. Sender clearly read my blog, or my github. Sender sounds like a human, not a corporate PR robot. Pitch is targeted towards plausible next steps in growth of my personal career (skills, experience level, Read the article >>
Recruiter Rebuttals: I dont have time to customize outreach

Recruiter Rebuttals: I dont have time to customize outreach

I push back on SPAM recruiter messages when I can.  The most common rebuttal I hear from recruiters is: "I don't have time to customize outreach" or "It would be too time consuming to customize outreach". Why it's nonsense: Let's do The Math Let's presume Recruiting is a full time job.  That means you have 40 hours a week * 60 minutes = 2,400 minutes each week. Let's liberally say a third is spent Read the article >>
What to say when a recruiter sends you a SPAM message

What to say when a recruiter sends you a SPAM message

I covered why you should stand up for yourself and other engineers when receiving a spam post from a recruiter here.  Here are some templates of what you can say to respond to a recruiters untargeted cold outreach: Template 1: Stop SPAMMING. NAME, I don't respond to spray & pray recruiter messages, and I'm not looking for work right now. You'd know that if you read my profile or customized Read the article >>
Recruitment is Good; Common Recruiter Tactics Are Bad.

Recruitment is Good; Common Recruiter Tactics Are Bad.

There truly is market value in helping folks find new careers.  Technical recruiters have the potential to be the grease in the wheel of the new economy, to help people achieve better, bigger, things with their skills;  To uplevel their salaries, to life them out of poverty.  And to help companies uplevel their teams and their products.   But if one separates the *tactics* from the *endgame* Read the article >>