Arbor’s Post

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https://lnkd.in/ePyMpuK4 Curious story. The story opens with a focus on Airbnb, then takes a deeper dive into Jay Carney, ex Obama White House Press Secretary, ex Amazon Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs. So what? I couldn't help comparing Margaux MacColl's portrait of Carney with what I know (as just another member of the general public) about Nick Clegg, Meta's President of Global Affairs. Boil it down, will you? Despite his title, at least according to a recent story in The Telegraph, "Zuckerberg 'ignored Clegg for months' ... " MacCall paints a different picture for Carney & his alleged impact on Airbnb: Carney is calling the shots. Bottom line: Clegg actually held a decision-making political role in the UK. Carney, on the other hand, was a Press Secretary. My takeaway is the impact assessment hasn't as much to do with either Carney, or Clegg. The real comparison should focus on Brian Chesky vs Mark Zuckerberg. Like many folks I negotiated with during my employment career, I'm afraid Clegg has a helium balloon title. "President of Global Affairs" sounds good, but doesn't carry the real clout required to get something done. Carney, on the other hand, looks like Chesky has invested him with some real authority. Too bad for Nick Clegg & all the rest of us if the Telegraph story is reliable #ceo

Cofounder diaries, Q1 24: we thought Jan and Feb would be slow, like "can we even pay ourselves" slow, so we stacked our workloads with long term projects that will set us up for future scale and make the most of a slower season. Our first software build! A new product launch! Migrating and automating backend systems! Documentation to hand off parts of my role! And those are just MY projects -- multiply that by three (for our three founders) and you've got a sense of our planned Q1. But you know what they say about the best laid plans... January revenue is outpacing December, something none of us saw coming. A consumer biz that grows MoM from Dec to Jan with almost no paid marketing? What?! More-revenue-than-expected is an awesome problem to have. It's easier to pay our fractional CTO, for one. And the software platform we're building went from "we need this in May" to "we need this yesterday," so we have a surge of motivation, energy, and passion that we didn't quite feel before. On the other hand, we're facing the classic entrepreneurial tension of "run the business" versus "build the future." We must do both, and the former is taking up more space than anticipated. Every day is full of triage, ruthless prioritization, tradeoffs, and lots of communication on where we are and where we're going next. It's probably not for everyone, this roller coaster of a path, but it's for me. I'll take this over political maneuvers and ethical tradeoffs every day of the week. How's Q1 on your end?

James was cheating in an exam hall, but was caught. Why? The young man also copied the name of the person he was copying from along with the answers. What was the issue here? James copied the context, which was wrong. In Startup building, you can copy the method, but don't copy the context. How do I mean? AirBnb, Stripe, and OpenAI are doing fantastically well in Europe. If you're to replicate the exact solution in LATAM, you should not be ignorant of your context - where you are. What works in Europe might not fluidly work in LATAM. The cultures and consumer behaviors are different. For instance, Moniepoint capitalised on retail businesses and PoS. It's because that's what works better in Africa. When you are building, be obsessed with your users and build your product within their context. What you are building should be in consonance with their consumer behavior. Or else, you'd have issues with traction, and eventually slide down in revenues. I hope you learned something. Let's connect.👨🏾💻👍🏾

Here are some of my takeaways from being a fractional CTO (fCTO): 1. You are almost always inheriting a team. 2. Starting at the idea stage is heavenly bliss, yet a burning hell at the same time. 3. Managing the delivery of the app is your primary job in 0-1. Building and coaching the team to do it is technically your role, not building the app. 4. You should have the ability to fix engineering mistakes to ensure deliverability. If you have to use this skill, take it as a warning signal of an underperforming team 5. Working around the strengths (or weaknesses) of your team is important. 6. YOU should be the flexible one when choosing the tech stack if starting at the idea stage. 7. Optimize for what people are already good at. This increases chances of successfully delivering V1 8. Important: You are running a dev team, but you are not the dev team unless you are a team of one. 9. If starting as a team of one, do not build bespoke solutions using the core programming language. Use frameworks that have solid documentation future team members can reference. 10. I would not recommend taking on more than 2x clients at a time unless you have your own embedded team of senior devs you could call on at a moment’s notice 11. Your job is not to own their tech or their tech team like an agency model, but to help them build their own team and be their technical advocate and advisor. You are not the tech team, but you are on the founder’s team. 12. Bonus: this is a legitimate path to investing in companies using sweat equity instead of cash. You are almost always delivering more value than what a founder can pay you in cash so you should almost always have a stock agreement of some kind in place to help make it more fair for you. Sweat equity is one of the most fair and oldest paths to wealth building, because it is strictly performance based. If your partners win, you win too. Alternatively, this is a great way to cover some living expenses while building your own startup if you are a technical founder. You can optimize for short-term income or long-term equity. Please feel free to comment if this is useful or even if you disagree!

This time last year I was completely oblivious to the fact I was setting myself up for a hellish Autumn. In yesterday's edition of Trifecta, Matthew Briggs said something about that really struck a chord: "Partnership is a marathon, not a sprint, so pace yourself and make what you do count." The exact same thing can be said about BD and business owning. In May/June last year, I was sprinting towards the summer break, overflowing with work and without a care in the (business) world. I returned in September fresh-faced to zero work lined up and immediately headed into panic mode. BD in the legal world is a long game; it can take 3-6 months for me to convert a new client, so the pace I was operating at felt like lightspeed if I was going to stay afloat. It also felt (and is) unsustainable and burnout-inducing. This is a much-needed reminder: if you pace your BD, you will always have a pipeline to fall back on. With 6 weeks left before summer (hopefully) kicks in, if you haven't already, ask yourself: where is my work coming from later in the year? Not sure? Send those emails, get back in contact, chase down those leads, make those calls, do your follow-ups. #bdforlawyers #businessdevelopment

The phrase ‘development muscle’ is thrown around a lot in the world of tech. Hodfords’ Founding Partner, GAVIN ADAM, has perhaps taken that too literally! Gimmicks aside, know this: if you need reliable, cost-efficient, high-quality software development, look no further than Hodfords. We’re your UK-based partner with a global team of hand-picked talent. You can enjoy the reduced costs of offshoring, for projects of any scope or size, with zero compromise on quality. That’s what development muscle means to us. Follow the link to find out more 👇 #softwaredevelopment #softwaredev

This is something that's been bothering me lately. 😤 A lot of folks these days just don't have that sense of ownership over their work.  They let themselves become victims, defined by work struggles, instead of taking control and facing challenges head-on. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash anyone here. At Stripe, I was fortunate to work with Claire Hughes Johnson who helped us better understand this concept. The unique analogy addressed by her in this video raises an important point. When things go wrong You see kids trying to cover up their mistakes by building stories You see people in sports trying to blame weather and equipment  You see drivers blaming accidents on bad roads instead of acknowledging risky driving habits. Similarly, as professionals, we face challenges and setbacks, but how we respond can make or break our success. - Acknowledge the situation  - Take ownership - Learn from the experience  - Outline steps to resolve the problem Because at the end of the day, You are not a victim of your circumstances. Rather, you might be one for how you deal with your problems.

Great synopsis and a map of how to make a successful and fulfilling career.

As I reflect on last week at #MRCVegas I think WOW! What a great week. A few things that stand out to me, they are: - I was incredibly proud to see Lauren Sickles, Dominick Yin and Raymond Lee take to the stage on behalf of Stripe. They were all amazing. - The sharing between #merchants and #solutionproviders to help the #merchantcommunity remains rock solid. - The MRC | Merchant Risk Council had it's HIGHEST ever attendance. Congrats to the leadership of #MRC #CEO Julie Fergerson, CPFPP and the entire MRC #superstar team. - So many of us have attended several MRC #conferences and the networking opportunity remains a key part to the conference for those that have known others for years and for the first time attendees. - Public speaking I feel is getting better and better from all the presenters - Well done to everyone who put their hand up to speak, share and help the merchant community learn. Lastly, so many photos were taken last week but this one for me is just another example of the power of relationships! Sam Anson (Sony PlayStation), Tim Russo (Navan), Mark Walick (Google) and Stuart Dwyer (Microsoft). #event #conference #learning #sharing #networking #bestpractices #relationships #relationshipbuilding #friends #vegas #MRCBarcelona24 #stripe #stripes