Startups & Engineering
A collection of posts about building and scaling technical startups, drawing from my experiences as both a founder and technical leader. These articles cover everything from engineering methodologies to team building and technical decision making.
The Efficiency Trap: When Optimization Kills Growth
August 1, 2025
Tags:efficiency, growth, startups, operations, strategy
How the post-2022 obsession with operational efficiency is creating a generation of companies that are profitable but can't grow - and what to do about it.
The Passive Resistance Problem: When Good Employees Go Quiet
July 30, 2025
Tags:management, leadership, team-dynamics, performance, startups
How to recognize and address the subtle but devastating pattern when long-term employees comply with directives but stop delivering meaningful results.
Integrated Venture Engineering: Building Profitable Ventures by Design
July 25, 2025
Tags:innovation, startups, systems-engineering, venture-development, entrepreneurship, cornell
How Cornell's IVE framework applies systems engineering principles to venture creation, treating profitability as an engineering requirement from day one.
The Three Pillars of Product Success: Why Good Ideas Still Fail
July 21, 2025
Tags:innovation, product-development, startups, technology
Why products need to be technically feasible, perceived as valuable, and actually valuable to succeed - and what happens when any piece is missing.
The Speed-Quality Paradox: When Fast Decisions Kill Startups
July 17, 2025
Tags:decision-making, startups, leadership, strategy, execution
Navigating the tension between making decisions quickly and making them well-understanding when speed matters most and when quality can't be compromised
Data-Driven Decisions vs. Data-Justified Decisions
July 11, 2025
Tags:business-intelligence, data-analysis, decision-making, startups
The difference between using data to discover truth and using data to support conclusions you've already reached, and why most companies get this backwards.
Build-Measure-Learn: Faster Decisions, Smarter Products
May 1, 2025
Tags:decision-making, leadership, product-development, startups, strategy
Explore Lean Startup's Build-Measure-Learn cycle. Learn how this feedback loop (MVP -> Metrics -> Pivot/Persevere) revolutionizes product development.
Finding Your World-Class Niche
April 16, 2025
Tags:business, startups, strategy
Align your unique skills, passion, and market needs to find your world-class niche. Discover how focus creates unmatched value and advantage.
Exploring EOS: A Guide to the Entrepreneurial Operating System
February 8, 2025
Tags:business, eos, management, startups
Explore the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and its six key components: vision, people, data, issues, process, and traction. EOS helps businesses thrive.
The Art of Design in Technical Startups
June 15, 2024
Tags:communication, design, startups, strategy
Examining how design influences communication and success in tech companies, from customer touchpoints to brand perception and product development.
The Invisible Hand of Startup Culture
May 15, 2024
Tags:culture, leadership, management, startups, team-building
An in-depth exploration of how company culture shapes interactions, role boundaries, and trust in technical startups, influencing success and growth.
Decision Making Under Uncertainty: Lessons from Practice
April 15, 2024
Tags:decision-making, mathematics, startups, strategy
Explore decision-making under uncertainty using concepts beyond expected value, like the St. Petersburg Paradox and cost of exploration in startups.
Science vs. Engineering in Startups: A Tale of Two Methodologies
March 15, 2024
Tags:engineering, methodology, project-management, startups
Examining how scientific and engineering methodologies intersect in tech startups, and why traditional project management approaches need rethinking.
Startup Structure and Information Flow
January 18, 2024
Tags:communication, management, startups
Framework for structure & info flow in early-stage startups. Understand core roles (Eng, Sales, Mgmt, Product) & managing the science vs. engineering divide.
Investment: Cambrium Bio
September 27, 2022
Angel investment review: Cambrium Bio. Exploring their synthetic biology platform for sustainable luxury materials and alignment with my investment thesis.
Reflecting on 2018: A Year of Growth and Transitions
December 25, 2018
Reflecting on 2018. Predikto''s acquisition by United Technologies, the winding down of PedalWrencher, and the continued growth of Category Encoders.
Exit Interviews in Startups
May 5, 2016
Tags:culture, management, startups
Exit interviews are crucial for startups. Discover methods to gather honest feedback, identify systemic issues, and enhance retention from departing employees.
Building an Engineering Team Around Ownership
April 28, 2016
Tags:engineering-management, leadership, startups, team-building
Clear ownership, not just cross-functional talent, defines high-performing engineering teams. Learn how role boundaries prevent micromanagement & build respect.
Journalism and the Perfect Pitch Deck
February 15, 2016
Tags:entrepreneurship, startups, venture-capital
How the principles of journalism can be applied to create more effective startup pitch decks, using the 5 W's and 1 H framework.
Market-Product fit vs Product-Market fit
December 28, 2015
Tags:entrepreneurship, startups
An exploration of the differences between market-product fit and product-market fit, and how to determine which path is right for your startup.
CyberLaunch: An Accelerator for Machine Learning Companies
December 8, 2015
Tags:atlanta, data-science, machine-learning, startups
Explore CyberLaunch, Atlanta's accelerator for machine learning and info security startups, its program details, and its impact on the local startup ecosystem.
Solving Inherent Stickiness in SaaS: The Power of Convexity
November 2, 2014
Explore how SaaS products achieve true stickiness through convexity and integrated offerings, creating competitive advantages beyond exit barriers.