The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Growth Aaron Quint / @aq / QCon - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Growth Aaron Quint / @aq / QCon - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Growth Aaron Quint / @aq / QCon NY 2015 #sincewebeinhonest What follows is a true story, from an individuals perspective In 2015 > 1M receivers every week Revenue in the 10s of $M > 110

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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Growth

Aaron Quint / @aq / QCon NY 2015

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What follows is a true story, from an individual’s perspective

#sincewebeinhonest

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In 2015

  • > 1M receivers every week
  • Revenue in the 10s of $M
  • > 110 Employees, > 40 Dev/Ops
  • Office across 2 floors in FiDi
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In 2009

  • 0 Receivers Weekly
  • $0 Revenue
  • 4 Full Time Employees, 1 Full time dev + a

number of consultants (including myself)

  • Using a set of 4 free (windowless)

cubicles in one of our investors offices (which happened to be a women’s lingerie co)

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3 Full-Time Devs, 0 Ops, 11 total Employees

I became CTO March 2010

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Good begets Great Bad begets Ugly

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So many features, so little time

In the beginning it was all about :shipping:

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Good Thing #1: Creeds

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Started as an oral tradition, turned into a written guide

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We all live with the choices we all make

Fixing > Complaining

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Roadies > Rock stars

Helping > Winning

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Push for a balance of quality and quantity

Working > Perfect

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Win in pieces, not all at once

Small changes > Big refactors

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The only best practice is that best practices change

Understandable Working Code == Best Practice

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agile deployment, focus on end-users

#=> getting things done and constantly improving

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But very necessary

Hiring was a painful and stressful process

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Find people who could work in as many places as possible, and were OK with uncertainty

We tried to grow cautiously

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Good Thing #2: Interns!

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Ah, the boundless ambition and energy

  • f youth!
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Started with 2 Dev Interns Grew to ~10 each summer

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Good Thing #3: Mentorship

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I like to think that I helped

Over 5 years I got to watch individuals grow

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Good devs know they can always improve

Individual growth is key to group growth

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Not my first rodeo, but I’m not a grizzled commando either

We were all [relative] noobs

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We were open to criticism.

We knew as a team that we were probably doing a lot of bad things

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Good Thing #4: Self-awareness

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Sourced from peers, managers, team

Biannual Performance Reviews

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Not afraid to make changes to make our process better

Continuous Process Delivery

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But we were constantly aware of what wasn’t working.

This is not to say that we did a great job implementing change

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Great Thing #1: Mentorship as a Tree

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3rd and now 4th Generation Mentors

Each one Teach one

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Great Thing #2: Open Feedback Loop

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Meaningful feedback -> Meaningful Progress

Changes came from reviews and turned into action

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Great Thing #3: Big Shippin’

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Create Tool, PAPER, iOS Apps

Countless impactful features that improved our bottom line

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What is really?

Not all rosy

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And making changes sometimes means redirection

Moving fast means making changes

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Bad Thing #1: Top-Down Track Correction

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Also dangerous, people get hurt

More People = More intentions = Harder to shift focus

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From written reviews/1-1s

Collecting feedback into themes

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(or lack there of)

A theme emerges: Transparency

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Bad Thing #2: Misunderstanding Transparency

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Who needs to know what?

MGMT team was initially hesitant

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Which garnered respect, but not necessarily motivation/better work

My understanding/method was to try to be open and upfront

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You can be “open” but if your message isn't clear, it’s not going to help

Transparency actually necessitates clarity

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Transparency is about intention not action

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Goals are good

But we tried to set goals through metrics

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Bad Thing #3: Metrics in the wrong direction

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Take it in stride?

What happens when you set an arbitrary and potentially unrealistic goal and Fail?

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The list keeps growing!

Maybe you feel like you didn't get enough done

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Bad Thing #4: Hiring under duress

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Do they? Define desperate

Desperate times need Desperate measures

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Ugly Thing #1: Bad, Destructive Hires

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It means the wrong people for the wrong situation.

That doesn't even mean bad developers

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Huge expense of time and energy

Desperate to “Make it work”

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Ugly Thing #2: Burnout

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This brings us to my story

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There’s a new CTO I’m now Chief Scientist

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Life, babies, balance, etc.

I stepped down for a many reasons that won’t fit into a single talk

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And all are working to address the bad and ugly

Paperless Post is in amazing hands right now

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Please do so!

Learning and sharing what you’ve learned is crucial

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CatskillsConf.com Oct 23-25, 2015

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Aaron Quint @aq quirkey.com/hireme github.com/quirkey beatsryetypes.com catskillsconf.com

THANKS!