User Guide, Redux

A few years ago, I posted my User Guide. The concept of "User Guide" is pretty straightforward - what should people know about me so that they can engage with me most effectively in practice? At the time, Modulate was still fairly young, and the User Guide format reflected that. I think I correctly described … Continue reading User Guide, Redux →

You are graded on speed

When taking an exam, it's not enough just to get the right answer. You have to get there within the time allotted. You are graded on speed. Every second of every day is a resource that you can't get back - and in the meantime the world is changing around you, making your previous progress … Continue reading You are graded on speed →

How to protect a castle

Every investor loves asking about a company’s moat. The basic idea is straightforward - what makes you unique, such that another company won’t ultimately eat your lunch by replacing - or even just imitating - your product? In speaking with other founders and with investors, I've heard (and, admittedly, given at some points) many bad … Continue reading How to protect a castle →

Dating a founder

If you had told me in high school that I would ever dare try to give dating advice to anybody, I not only would have laughed you out of the room, but would have grown terrified at the prospect I might, in the future, become so very out of touch with my limitations as to … Continue reading Dating a founder →

The limits of the ‘rational’ founder

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a strong preference for explicit, formal logic over vague intuition or tradition. The mantra is fairly simple. If you can't explain something clearly and logically, you don't truly understand it. It you don't understand it, you can't make accurate predictions about the real world using it. And … Continue reading The limits of the ‘rational’ founder →

How to write company policies

Imagine a world where companies had no employees, but instead utilized only ideal programmable robots. If you wanted these robots to, say, interact with each other in an optimal way, you would write formal policies - also known as code. That code would have to outline every single possible situation the robots might find themselves … Continue reading How to write company policies →

Uncommon Advice for Aspiring Founders

There’s loads of advice out there for aspiring founders, with much of it repeated ad nauseum. Don’t get distracted. Ship early and often. Read the Hard Thing About Hard Things. You know, the standard stuff. The problem is that reading this advice rarely causes it to truly sink in. There’s a big difference between knowing … Continue reading Uncommon Advice for Aspiring Founders →

Politics, Culture, and Compassion

With the turbulent U.S. election coming up, there's been a lot of discussion around the ways that companies should, or shouldn't involve themselves in various aspects of politics. Some companies have come out declaring that they want to steer clear of politics entirely, largely to backlash, as abstaining is generally understood to be a vote … Continue reading Politics, Culture, and Compassion →

Building a culture of respect

It's at this point common wisdom, at least within the tech startup community, that diversity is not only good but necessary to be successful. As a founder myself, I can say this is true on a number of levels. The most obvious is that it is crucial to have a wide range of perspectives - … Continue reading Building a culture of respect →

Early Advice 1: Solutions in Need of Problems

The single most common piece of advice I’ve heard about startups is to make sure that you’re solving a real, meaningful problem for someone. It’s easy to think of something cool but useless; much more valuable to think of something mundane but genuinely impactful. This is good advice. But the problem is, it’s really hard … Continue reading Early Advice 1: Solutions in Need of Problems →