👋 Howdy to the 400 new legends who joined this week! You are now part of a 40,329 strong tribe outperforming the competition together.

LATEST POSTS 📚

If you’re new, not yet a subscriber, or just plain missed it, here are some of our recent editions.

🌱 Collection: How Do You Get The Best Out Of Yourself? A collection of thoughts from a collection of leaders.
🍿 Inboxed: Tech Partnership, Tech Poaching. A BTS look at one of the common elements that drives partnerships apart.
📝 Mastering The Founder Letter. A BTS on the collaboration and competition driving the tech industry. 🤝

PARTNERS 💫

HOUSEKEEPING 📨

I come bearing news. Three weeks or so ago, inside of our Mastering The Founder Letter piece, we spoke about a test we were about to run internally, with Athyna’s own founder letter. We were planning to run it against two standard landing pages we have had for some time now. I polled you the reader and only 35% of you thought it would actually improve conversions.

Well, it’s only a very small sample size of 3,000 visitors but the results are clear—the founder letter wins—and wins big.

Anyway, I thought I’d share that with you consider we did discuss we were going to run the test. I suggest you get out there and try it yourself because I have never heard of a founder letter not converting better than a traditional landing page.

Anyway, today’s interview is a banger. Jamie is an incredibly senior tech mind from strong pedigree and I personally learned a bunch from him. I think you will too. Enjoy! 

LEADER OF THE WEEK 🎙

Jamie Turner, CEO at Convex

Jamie is a co-founder and the CEO of Convex. Prior to Convex, Jamie was a Senior Engineering Director at Dropbox, leading the Business Platform and the Storage / Databases groups. Earlier in his tenure at Dropbox, Jamie was a Principal Engineer, launching several significant projects in synchronization and storage with his Convex co-founders James and Sujay. Over ten years before Dropbox, Jamie held leadership positions at several startups, most recently as the Head of Engineering at Bump, a former top-10 mobile app acquired by Google in 2013.

Jamie brings to Convex an enduring obsession with databases, networking, and protocols. Over the course of his career, he’s created dozens of related open-source projects, collectively with thousands of GitHub stars and heavy industry use.

Tell us about the problem you are trying to solve? Why this?

The problem we're trying to solve is that more and more people in the software industry are becoming full stack developers. This means they’re not just creating the front ends of applications—the parts users interact with—but also managing the back ends, which involves all the database work and stuff that runs on servers. The current tools weren’t really made for this; they were designed back when companies had dedicated back end specialists. But as the industry evolves, that's changing—full stack developers are taking over entire projects. Convex is our new platform built to empower these developers by making back end tasks super easy and intuitive, and it uses the languages they’re already writing and maintaining in their apps. So that’s what we’re all about.

What was the most challenging part of creating a new category or product?

The most challenging part is that no one is googling you. When you're bringing a new product to market, there's usually some 'hair on fire' need. It's the cliché that something's changed in the world and it’s driving everyone crazy, compelling customers—and in our case, developers—to change their behavior. And because we’ve created something kind of new, there isn’t a term that matches what everyone is looking for right now. So there’s a bit of work you need to do to convey value, to explain the use cases, and to demonstrate how it makes building smoother. But yeah, there’s no nicely boxed term that fits the preconception of what you are that people are currently searching for.

What channels have you used to try and tell this story?

Video is really big right now, so being in a video studio definitely helps. We're using our own video content and written blogs, along with collaborating with content creators who already have audiences so that’s been super effective in creating awareness among developers. In short, if it was one word, it'd be video. The way people are learning and discovering new technologies these days is changing—developers are increasingly turning to videos. For Convex, when we're pushing out a new idea, video is a primary way to get in front of them, showcase those ideas, and see if they get excited about it.

What is your main day to day job as CEO?

My role changes every quarter because this job is all about adapting to what's needed. We have specialists in-house for core roles, like engineers building the product, product managers strategizing, and marketing folks promoting it. Most of the time, I lean into whichever part of the company needs extra help or explore new frontiers.

As the company matures, we recognize new skills we need to develop. This means hiring people into those roles and eventually bringing in leaders for them. I often spend time on that frontier, figuring out what these new roles will look like for Convex. Right now, I’m focused on enhancing the developer experience, collaborating with the team on writing and content strategy. When I'm not handling typical CEO tasks like signing contracts and dealing with random requests, I enjoy brainstorming with the team, working to excel in this area for Convex.

What does your team look like? Who are your direct reports?

My two co-founders report to me; they're mainly focused on product engineering. The CTO and Sujay, our lead IC, is also Convex's chief scientist, so most of the big ideas in our code base are what I call 'Sujay-isms.' These folks report to me, along with the marketing and dev experience teams.

On the ops side—like finance—we have a head of finance who wears many hats, and a head of talent who is crucial in building out our team. These are the key people I work directly with and spend most of my time managing.

Explain your philosophy around leadership? How do you think about it?

It might sound cliché, but I'm definitely in the camp of giving people almost too much agency. I like to find folks who are going to drive themselves very hard to grow, and then I trust them and give them a lot of freedom to find their way. My control is usually getting in the trenches with them, doing it together, and learning together. I’m a big believer in agency, so my evaluations are more about whether I have the right person in the job rather than if they’re doing the right work. As a leader, if you're frequently feeling the need to override your team, then you might not have the right people in place. What I do is give them lots of freedom, act as a sounding board for their ideas, let them own their decisions, and together we learn what works and what doesn’t. As long as there is growth and we're continuously getting better, and the level of excellence is what Convex needs as we mature, I'm happy. That's how I view leadership.

I worked for a really great leader at Dropbox, Akhil Gupta. I learned a ton from him, which shaped a lot of my thoughts on giving agency. He showed me that leadership is more about psychology and understanding what people want, aligning that with what the organization needs. There’s very little that beats the experience of working for a great boss.

Books wise, I’ve read a lot, but many leadership books end up saying similar things through different stories or analogies. However, they do emphasize the importance of understanding human psychology and what motivates people, which is crucial for creating a place where talented people can thrive and feel rewarded

What has been a strong indicator of success for you?

A strong indicator of success for us? People—when people love the product and they're talking about it to others. Developers are our customers, and they can be pretty cynical, which I totally understand. They've been bombarded with marketing for the last decade as companies realized how influential and powerful they are in terms of buying power. So they are definitely fatigued by all that marketing.

What really shows we're succeeding is not just any day where more people are talking positively about us than the day before—it's when their word of mouth confirms that we've created something exceptional. That matters way more than anything we could say ourselves. If I could speed up one thing, it would be increasing how much people talk about Convex to their colleagues and other developers.

How do you set goals?

Running teams at larger organizations has taught me that goals need to be tailored to the level of ambiguity present in any organization or project. Convex, being a three-year-old Series A startup, has a considerable amount of ambiguity. This means our goals need short time horizons and must be flexible to allow for strategic adjustments as new information emerges. The most damaging goals are what you might call 'planning theater'—those that project false confidence about what will happen six months down the line, which can put us in a difficult position of potentially having to contradict ourselves later.

We aim for better work each week than the week before, which requires recognizing the realities we face. If our visibility only extends to the next three weeks, we focus on making those weeks count, knowing that halfway through, we'll need to start planning for the following period.

In terms of setting goals at a young company like ours, they should be time-bound and challenging but achievable. It's important not to fabricate expectations for the distant future when the landscape is uncertain. Goals should also be impactful and within our control. For instance, in a very young startup, saying we'll hit a million dollars in ARR next quarter might not be actionable on a daily basis. Instead, focusing on more immediate and manageable objectives, like increasing user engagement or acquiring GitHub stars, might be more effective. Realism is key—not just in the scope of our goals but also in understanding what we can directly influence at this stage of the company. Some things might be beyond our direct control now but could become manageable as we grow.

OUR BEST STUFF 🥑

Founders, investors & leaders in tech, that read Open Source CEO outperform their competition. These are our best tools.

Business is hard. We want to build the tools we wish we had. Check them out here.

How does your culture form? And what role do you play in sculpting that?

I think culture forms by modeling, but over the last ten years, my view has evolved to also emphasize being explicit about it. Modeling alone isn’t enough; you really need to write it down. We've talked about planning theater, but there's also a lot of process theater in small companies trying to mimic giants like Facebook. For instance, when you're just ten people, sophisticated performance management isn't crucial, but setting clear, written values early on is important. This is especially true when you're bringing in people you haven't worked with before. Those first hires really set the tone for the company's future.

To me, a founding team should clearly articulate their beliefs and how they intend to operate, including the trade-offs this involves. For example, my co-founder James often says that a value like 'be good' is too vague—if nobody would disagree with it, then it’s not a meaningful value.For us, it’s way better to define values that specify the trade-offs involved in our business and team dynamics. We're committed to certain behaviors, which might mean accepting certain consequences to uphold these values.

Another thing is that writing these values down is a must, and if leadership acts contrary to these values, it undermines everything. We tell our team to call us out if we're not consistent with our stated values. So by ensuring that our actions align with our words, and making our values explicit rather than implicit, we set the foundation for a strong, coherent culture. Over time, this leads to a sort of peer pressure to maintain these standards, which becomes the natural way we operate.

Detail your recruitment strategy. How do you hire All-Star talent?

Our recruitment strategy starts with relying on our network and referrals because they usually provide a better signal. It’s more efficient, saving us time, though it doesn't always mean we're getting the absolute best candidates. The idea is that you might not always hit the highs, but you can trust the lows because you’re working with people you’ve known before.

After we get past sourcing, we focus on practices specific to startups and unique to Convex. For example, when hiring engineers, we try to make the interview feel like a real workday. The people doing the interviews are the kind of folks we want more of, so it's crucial they feel genuinely excited about working with the candidate. We create scenarios where the interviewer and interviewee collaborate, simulating actual work to see if the candidate is not only technically adept but also inspiring and engaging.

Another key part of our strategy is assessing how candidates handle ambiguity, which is crucial for startups. Some amazing engineers and fantastic coworkers might not be the best fit for a startup if they prefer problems that are clear and well-defined, where they can be sure they did the right thing at the end of the day. Startups often operate in a gray area, launching projects without knowing if they'll matter. So, we try to find people who thrive on ambiguity and find it exciting, not terrifying.

What was the most unexpected part of the process raising from a16z?

It was pretty easy, though things aren’t as simple now as they were back in 2021. The key part of our Series A raise with a16z was that during our seed round, we built relationships with people. It wasn’t just about going out and pitching—some teams are out there knocking on every door, hoping for anyone to call them back. They finally get a hit product, and then all the VCs wonder why they missed it.

For us, we forged relationships with general partners at different firms, which helped create mutual confidence rather than a roadshow where you're just meeting people and pitching your product. With a16z, and particularly Martin, who’s on our board, we had regular conversations about the business. By the time we were ready to make a deal, he already knew a lot about us, which made the process smoother. Yes, we still had to go through paperwork and terms, but the hard part—building trust and valuing the relationship—was already done. Both sides felt confident about working together, so it made things easier.

We’re in a similar situation now, where we maintain regular contact with the folks from our seed round and Series A. I don’t just reach out to investors when we need money—I talk to some of them all the time. This ongoing dialogue about our progress and capital position makes fundraising feel more natural and leads to a healthier working relationship

If there was one thing that you wish you knew earlier in the business what would that be?

This is probably weird, but to me it's the classic conceit that CEOs find themselves in: you really have to trust your instincts. A lot of times, we wasted time because we followed conventional wisdom or advice that didn't resonate with us. We felt like we should be responsible and give it a try, even if we didn’t fully believe in it. Eventually, when we looked back, we realized that maybe we should have just done what we originally thought.

Through my experience and from talking with other founders, I’ve learned there's no single plan that works for everyone. Every company and market is different, and things change every few years—the game, the tools, the leverage, the financing—everything shifts. So there's no playbook that’s guaranteed to work. You're the one who's constantly thinking about your company, so you have to trust your instincts. That doesn't mean ignoring others, but if you don't truly believe in the strategy you're about to implement, it's probably not going to work.

All the books you read and the stories you hear are useful data, but you'll end up needing to work from first principles. Every challenge is unique, and if you don't feel an intuitive conviction in your plan, you might be trying to execute someone else’s plan and deflecting responsibility by saying, 'Well, we did what we were supposed to.' That would be my advice to myself: trust your gut and be willing to take the risk on your own strategy.

Is there anything I should have asked you? Something you do uniquely well?

At Convex, I think we really excel at maintaining integrity with our product. Our top value is 'be worthy of trust,' which we actually borrowed from Dropbox. This applies to how we treat each other internally and how we interact with our customers. Developers can be pretty skeptical about marketing so our approach is to make the best product we can, be upfront about what it does, and hope it succeeds on its own merits.

To achieve this, we have to be genuinely uncynical in our work. If we’re cynical with each other, it’s hard to be honest with our customers. There’s always the temptation to oversell a product, but then customers will eventually be disappointed when it doesn’t live up to the hype.

So, it takes patience and trust within the team to focus on long-term success rather than quick wins. This requires a strong cultural commitment to clear out any cynicism in how we work and how we relate to our customers. In today’s world, it can be challenging because skepticism is everywhere. But as a team, we’re committed to really meaning what we say. We believe we can build a good company and a product that creates an honest relationship with our customers.

I’m not sure if that means we do anything uniquely well, but we definitely try. We are very principled and consistent about maintaining that integrity.

And that's it! You can also follow Jamie on LinkedIn and Twitter, and check out Convex on their website to learn more!

BRAIN FOOD 🧠

Read a great piece by PostHog recently. It’s all about the impact of nailing your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Figuring this out can transform how your startup syncs up with the market. This isn't just a small detail—it's massive because your ICP affects everything from your product to your sales approach.

If you’re in the thick of building or growing your startup, getting a grip on your ICP could be just what you need. Totally worth the read!

TWEET OF THE WEEK 🐣 

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP 🥳