Confessions of a programmer
I have been taking design very seriously the last few months. I mean, really seriously. I’m starting to think design first, code second. Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger have written a great piece on how to cheat on design.
I don’t think it’s cheating at all, but the title certainly get’s more people to click through.
I’ve been struggling with my communication with my co-workers for several months now. It seems I am always in one of two states. I am either bugging people on Slack, or I am the one being bugged. Slack did replace email for us, but it created a whole new problem in its place.
Eric Barnes seems to have the same problem. I love that his company has Slack free hours, and I think I’ve going to implement that in my company. I want people to get work done, as well as communicate their work. Unfortunately for some, the latter sometimes overrides the former.
Roy Halladay was one of the greatest pitchers I ever got to see. For almost a decade he was the absolute best pitcher in baseball.
Doc Halladay was also one of my idols. First for his tireless work ethic and demeanor. Second for his absolute skill on the field. Third for what an amazing overall human being he was.
Many people have written about Roy Halladay this past week. I wanted to share my favourite, which is from Ian Hunter of Blue Jay Hunter. Ian writes more from a fan’s perspective, which is exactly how I experienced Halladay’s tenure.
RIP Roy Halladay
I’ve been seeing an increasing number of founders discussing metrics like users, conversion rate, MRR (monthly recurring revenue). Missing from these metrics is profitability. A business’s goal is to make a profit. You may run the business for lifestyle reasons, financial reasons. However, if your business is not turning a profit, you won’t be in business for very long.
Some large startups like Shopify can survive for years without turning a profit (they still haven’t yet). Eventually even Shopify must turn a profit, or the company will inevitably fail. Justin Jackson has done a great quick presentation here to show you why profitability matters, and how to calculate your profitability percentage.
If you work for the rewards, the rewards will not be good. If you do good work, the rewards will be good.