The Year I Discovered My Life is More Important Than My Startup

“They just fired me” The words caught in her throat and reverberated oddly into my brain. I could feel the moment starting to warp into some sort of shakespearian ‘lesson’ I was supposed to latch onto and spit out at my junior employees years into the future; and yet I simply stared staunchly back into that statements twisted face in denial. Standing before me was one of my best friends who I had recruited a year earlier to be a linchpin in a company I helped co-found....

September 24, 2014 · 7 min · 1431 words · Matt

Two Questions That Will Make You A Better Leader

To me a highly effective leader is someone who leads from the back. Like a good user interface an effective leader frames the problem, points their employees in the right direction, and then gets out of the way. If a leader has surrounded themselves with the right people (aka people smarter than themselves), getting out of the way allows your organization to fully unleash their collective creativity on a problem and grow closer together as a unit....

January 27, 2014 · 2 min · 227 words · Matt

Never Lose Sight Of What Really Matters

I stumbled across this post from my old (and now defunct) tumblr account today. It is dated June 23, 2012, right after I graduated from Stanford to begin working on the startup I will be leaving on August 30, 2013. As I take some steps away from the shore and safety of the bay area I think it’s appropriate to repost. -———————————————————- Tomorrow marks a beginning for my current fledgling startup....

August 20, 2013 · 2 min · 321 words · Matt

Leaving My Baby - A Journey Into The Abyss

I helped co-found a startup a little under two years ago while I was finishing my senior year of college. There were highs, lows and everything in between. I have journeyed deep into the bowels of iOS, gained some hard won operations wisdom, and improved as a programmer. I have found myself in many a pitch presentation, demos, and customers front offices. All in all it’s been a good ride. I’m leaving for reasons I do not wish to write about extensively on the internet, but it boils down to being unhappy with some management decisions that I cannot agree with....

August 14, 2013 · 2 min · 416 words · Matt

Provide Opportunities For Users to Evangelize Your Product

In a pitch meeting with Dave Whorton of Tugboat Ventures a few weeks ago he said something that struck a chord with me as an entrepreneur.  Give people the opportunity to evangelize your product. He went on to give a few examples of products that do it well: Nest The Nest Thermostat is a thermostat that uses machine learning to save energy (and money) on your energy bills, but Nest also has an iPhone app that lets you control your thermostat remotely....

December 6, 2012 · 2 min · 274 words · Matt