Product Habits - Overcoming phone addiction

Overcoming Phone Addiction

Phone addiction is real. I've seen the shift to dependence over the past decade, and it's concerning to watch. I fall into the trap of checking my smartphone too often at times, and I'm making a conscious effort to put it away while I'm doing deep work or spending time with friends and family. If you want to be more conscious about your phone use this year, here are some helpful solutions (along with the research behind them) you can try. I highly recommend pairing this with Cal Newport's book, Digital Minimalism. 

What I've Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

Joel Goldberg has worked in the software engineering for over four decades and recently decided to retire. He shared six of the big ideas from his career, and it's a testament to the power of basic fundamentals. The two that I'll be thinking about the most are: being aware of the curse of knowledge and making solutions as simple as possible. Here is the full list of Joel's short and sweet lessons. 

The Crazy Story Behind the Founder Who Now Runs a $70M ARR Bootstrapped Business

I recently listened to an episode of NPR's How I Built This podcast featuring Tope Awotona, the founder of Calendly. This is one of the best founder stories I've heard in a while. Tope emigrated from Nigeria to the US for college, and quickly set out to become a tech entrepreneur. In 2013, he cashed in his 401(k) to build Calendly, and it almost didn't survive more than once. Fast forward to today: The business does $70M ARR having raised very little capital early on. Here's an inspiring tweet thread about his journey. And if you want to listen to the full NPR interview, you can check it out here. 

Your Startup Needs Product Reviews

This is an important tweet thread by Andy Johns abut the importance of doing product reviews for each major product initiative, especially if your company is bigger than 50 people. The recommended format: Keep it to a maximum of 45 minutes, repeat every week or every other week, focus on show-and-tell of the latest prototype, and carve out time to discuss risks and decisions to make. If your team isn't already doing product reviews, this thread makes a succinct case for the importance of starting now. 

How to Measure Technical Debt

Most of the people reading this are familiar with the term "technical debt." It's near impossible to build a startup—especially if you're bootstrapping—without acquiring at least a little bit of it. But how do you actually measure it? This piece dives into how you can assess the cost of technical debt, its impact on developer productivity, and the long-tail risks of taking it on. It's a thoughtful read that will help you make more sense of the somewhat amorphous concept.

21 Smart Google SEO Tips for 2021

SEO is something that never goes away and everyone has to pay attention to. Best practices tend to shift over time, so I thought this was a useful read about how to approach SEO strategy thoughtfully in 2021. It dives into everything from meta descriptions and breadcrumb optimization, to topic clusters and dynamic sitemaps. Even working on a handful of these will make a huge difference. 

Persistence and Predictability of SaaS Growth

"Most of the time, growth rates only decline, but do so in a way that is on average fairly predictable." One report shows, after looking at data from 21 SaaS companies, that the growth rate in any given year is between 80-85% the growth rate of the previous year, which we can refer to as "growth persistence." This is an interesting way to think about growth over time, and might be something to plan for—especially if you're answering to investors.

How to Stop Endless Discussions

The two common ways people make business decisions are: (1) taking action, failing fast, and learning quickly, or (2) trying to get everyone's approval before implementing something. Both have their downfalls, and I agree with the author of this article: It's important to find a middle ground between taking action and getting people's feedback. Here is a process that might help you stop endless discussions at your company. 

• Starting a business issn't right for everyone. 95% of folks are better off getting a job. 
• Chasing your passion is a bad idea. 
• Giving up is often the best choice there is. 
• Working hard isn't going to get you ahead