Building on my last post, merging our team and culture into another’s has served as a contrasting agent, gifting the ability to understand more intentional culture design. Beyond ownership, one core value I hold near and dear to my heart is transparency. I’ve long held the belief that it’s not just better (on a variety of measures), it’s just easier to have no filter in...
One of the unexpected gifts of selling Contactually has been the opportunity to have an outsiders’ view of the culture we created. While much of our team and what we valued has remained through the acquisition, the acclimation to a new set of cultural tenets and associated rituals has served as a contrasting agent. What was so “good” about what we built, and what do I want to...
[This is a meta post, summing up a plethora of research I’ve been doing to form this thesis. The thinking, therefore, represents larger trends and not any one article I can link to. I plan on publishing as many resources as possible in the near future, as soon as it’s not a 50 page Notion document.] We’re entering an age of belonging, where one of the most important tenets of...
Imagine if you were known for the worst thing you’ve ever done. Normally I have a half-decent idea on how to capture and share an experience. But walking through the prison yard on our way back to the creature comfort-laden world we’re used to, the sole topic was our inability to properly communicate the preceding eight hours. The opening line to this post, which also opened our day...
This past February marked one year post-acquisition, which serves as an important milestone for all involved – legally and culturally. Once the acquisition closed, our minds were set on one singular goal – be a successful acquisition. With the failure rate of M&A being, shockingly, somewhere between 70-90%, we were determined to be in the 10-30%. A year in, all indicators point to...
This is not medical advice. As always, YMMV, consult with a health professional, and take care of yourself. I woke up on January 1st, 2019 with a very different feeling than I had on previous New Years’ Day. While I’m normally a sucker for the “fresh slate” opportunity that a new calendar year often elicits, my year was all but clear. With our second child on the way, a...
Since the beginning of my career, I’ve been reliant on paper pads to track my daily to-dos. I quickly settled a pretty consistent process. Using the same 5×8 narrow-ruled notepad, I’d start off each day with a fresh page and list of what I needed to do that day – copying over uncompleted tasks from previous days, and adding to-dos as they came up in meetings. I also split...
If I’m asked to provide my input on a topic a number of times, that serves as a signal that it’s probably worth writing about. I’m continually asked by other founders what my experience with ______ accelerator/incubator, and what my opinion on their value in general. In case you aren’t familiar with the space – these serve as programs for companies – usually in...
The best way I learn is by doing the work. To that end, doing a look-back on experience is the best way to capture learnings for future use. I’ve long framed the journey with Contactually as business school – to that end, following the acquisition, the post-mortem on 7.5 years was almost sacred to me. One of the interesting trends that came out of doing a peer review with our co...
“True friends are not mirrors where we can always see ourselves reflected in a positive light.” – Shannon L. Alder It’s interesting to watch the meteoric rise of social media over the past ~15 years, serve as witness to the negative consequences of society’s intoxication with the current instances, and stand here in 2019 at the precipice of a potentially major transformation...