I scout for a handful of investors in Silicon Valley. One of my jobs is to cut through the noise and surface the gems. Every so often, someone sends me a blurb that s crisp, compelling, and makes me want to learn more. When that happens, I usually take a meeting and sometimes even make intros.
That said, most blurbs I see aren t great. Founders are flying blind because no one s willing to be brutally honest with them. Let s fix that.
We're drowning in dashboards. Impressions, click-throughs, followers, reach, saves, shares but not all things are equal. Telling, is there a metric you're meant to be keen on, yet in actuality, you're not? Maybe you: Don't care about likes but are ridiculously fixated on replies Track shares but never take the time to check reach Are concerned about DMs only because that's where the magic happens We're building a social tool on the social web and taking a lot of time deliberating about what's truly important, and what just looks good on a chart. Would be great to hear your own opinion regarding what you're paying attention to (and what you're not).
In most parts of the world, Easter is being celebrated right now, honestly, not really.
Today, I was invited to a weekly meeting despite the holiday. I had forgotten one fact: Orthodox countries celebrate Easter a week later. (and countries in the Far East simply don t have this holiday at all.)
This is actually a broader topic, because every country celebrates holidays differently, and with many teams being international, some kind of synchronisation is necessary the question is: how?
There s no standup, no manager, no deadlines that matter to anyone else. Once, I went three weeks without shipping anything and literally couldn t remember where my days went.
How it got fixed: Two other solo founders and me have a three-line message each Monday. This is what I shipped, this is what I m shipping, and this is where I m stuck. No meetings, no theatrics. We ve been doing it for fourteen months now.
I ve realized I am far more likely to stick with a new tool if I can test it out on my phone first. Whenever a setup requires me to open my laptop, log into a browser, and configure everything from a desk, there is a good chance I will put it off and forget it exists entirely. Mobile testing just fits better into small pockets of free time throughout the day.
The problem is that a lot of products still feel like they were built desktop-first, treating the mobile app as a stripped-down afterthought. When the phone experience feels clunky or limited, I lose interest quickly, even if the tool itself is solid.
Does mobile access change whether you actually end up using a new tool? Where do you normally test things out for the first time?
I've read a lot of conflicting views on this ... I'd love some advice.
We're about to relaunch our news platform ... which has been locked behind an "invite code" for a few months in ~beta state ... and we'd like to create some buzz!!..
