I remember barely getting the job (interviews are not my jam), joining the team, and on my first day hearing the first thing they wanted to build: a high-fidelity prototype to show investors (I think. My memory of things is not 100%). 2/
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I was shown the mockups and the timeline, then told them “I can’t do any other onboarding stuff. I have to start building this right now or we won’t make it by the time you fly out to the bay area.” That more or less set the tone for the next 8-9 months. 3/
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I had never worked harder on a product than I did the Stamped mobile app.
@rmstein,@bartjstein, and@kevinpalms pulled together phenomenal design, product, and backend engineering talent and I wanted the app to be fast, stable, and pixel perfect. 4/Prikaži ovu nit -
And this app was HARD. The team really pushed me in a lot of ways. Note that this was during iOS 4/5. Almost every control was custom, we were rendering a lot at once which made it more challenging to keep 60fps. We were pushing the boundaries. 5/
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For instance, this view has a lot going on and was really hard to maintain 60fps scrolling on. Custom fonts, compositing of the stamp with the text, stacked profile images with drop shadows that expanded out on tap. EVERY part of the app had challenges like this. 6/pic.twitter.com/pfAfAo9IQc
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I worked weekends. I stopped working out. My relationships suffered. I don’t remember the number of hours I worked to be honest. I was going to will this thing into existence if it killed me. We launched v1 after about four months I think. 7/
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I remember having a rash on my forehead from the stress. I lost a lot of weight. I didn’t treat my body well at all. By the time we launched v1 I was completely burned out. 8/
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And sadly, the app didn’t gain the traction we needed. I got the team through a 1.1 launch after the new year but was so burned out that when I was told we were going to start over from scratch, I simply couldn’t do it. 9/
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All in all I was there less than a year. The founders were gracious for my hard work and didn’t impose the options cliff (I was able to have 1/4 of my options vest). We hugged it out and I left. I have no hard feelings toward anyone. 10/
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A bit later the team got acquired by Yahoo. I made very little from the sale, but that’s okay. The product didn’t achieve product-market fit and an acquisition was the soft landing that people hope for in that scenario. 11/
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This experience shaped my world view about startups in a lot of ways. Employees don’t get enough equity, taking on a non-founder role pre-seed is too risky, great design will not save you, etc. I overcompensated my views based on my experience. Sound familiar? 12/
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But what if Stamped had become a wild success? That world view would have been completely different. I would likely be extolling the virtues of working yourself ragged in order to be successful. Because confirmation bias, of course. 13/
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Rest is important. Balance is important. Relationships are important. Being passionate is important. Knowing whether you’re grinding too hard is important. Knowing WHY you’re working hard and regularly evaluating your motivations is critical. 14/
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My views on startups have changed a lot over the years as I’ve seen failure and success at different levels (mostly seeing others succeed and examining how :). I still have a lot to learn but it’s a gray area that evolves almost every day for me. 15/
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How much you work is an intensely personal decision. Don’t let others, whether it be your employer or people on Twitter, tell you how much is good enough. Only you can know that. Don’t blindly follow advice of those with their own biases. Make your own informed choices. 16/
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