Zvi Band

Author: Zvi

  • The Next Social Platform

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    What’s next for me After moving on from the company I founded in 2011 and sold in 2019, I’ve been actively building a new venture that has been tumbling around in my head for years. I’ve spent the better part of the past two years especially navigating the concept idea maze, researching, and engaging in…

  • Writing The Next Social Platform Won’t Be Individualistic

    Writing The Next Social Platform Won’t Be Individualistic

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    A few months ago, I wrote an essay that was published on Medium, The Next Social Platform Won’t Be Individualistic. If you haven’t read it yet, you should (no offense to my posts here, but it’s 10X better than any blog post I’ve written so far). There are two meta points about the article that…

  • The Insane Value of Small Talk

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    As I’ve dug more and more into how we build relationships online and off, the topic of small talk keeps coming up. It’s pretty easy to beat up on small talk – the weather, traffic, weekend plans – as mindless dribble between people who really want depth. Our muscle of relationship-building is atrophying, leaving us…

  • What I’ve Learned about Opinionated Software

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    Any piece of software represents the opinions of the organization that produced it. As I look back on the journey I’ve had in engineering, product, and leadership, I’ve come to accept that many products – my own portfolio included – would benefit from being more opinionated. Inherently some opinions are always present – the mere…

  • 👋🏽 Here for the first time?

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    Read this first.

  • Maker → Manager → Maker

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    I started off my career as a software developer, my main measurement of output being the product of hours in a text editor. Even as I took on management and leadership roles in the early years, writing code was still a substantial portion of my day. But as Contactually took off, I needed to have…

  • Mentally Preparing for a Sale

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    Most every founder keeps the exit scenarios and potential windfall tumbling around in the back of their minds during the journey of building and scaling a venture. The volume increases as possibilities (real or not) present themselves – a competitor gets acquired, meeting with a corporate development arm, random neurons firing, etc. I was fortunate…

  • I Hired an Accountability Coach

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    Thursday nights are usually my most stressful, as I’m dreading my call the next morning. I was recently talking to a friend of mine, a coach to some of the top professionals in their field. He noted that most of his job is about holding an individual accountable to their own expectations. I’ve long felt…

  • More Human

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    Zvi
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    We built Contactually initially to solve a relatively simple problem. While it’s, for many, an important aspect of growing their business and career – keeping track of and staying in touch with key relationships is not an easy task. We were fortunate to yield significant results there, measured not only in the user testimonials about…

  • From Catastrophe to Opportunity

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    Building on The Age of Belonging David Brooks called it out as clearly as I’ve seen it – “the rampant individualism of our current culture is a catastrophe.” A catastrophe is a powerful word – conjuring images of a town in the American heartland, completely shredded in the aftermath of a tornado. Except the damage…