Singularity.vc

Code Story interview with Noah Labhart

Had a wonderful interview with Noah Labhart [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ACoAAA4UdvABaHx0qYa4jVe8cgs73uL-LfrivoI] of Code Story [https://www.linkedin.com/company/code-story/]. We cover: 💥 The origin story of Blissfully [https://www.linkedin.com/company/blissfully/] 🏗️ How to think about and execute on building an MVP. 🗣️ The importance of early users

Who to Hire for your Startup

Here is a simple framework to evaluate candidates for your startup: are they fast, correct, and coach-able? Hire away! Anything less? Tread carefully, or not at all. This video represents day #9 and #10 of my 30 day maker challenge - In the span of 24 hours I scripted, shot,

Tools

The Zoom Glow Up Gradient

Cars, shoes, clothes, watches: trappings of a bygone era. In 2020, the quality of our signal is the signal. Here's a list of resources I've found to glow up your guise. Prices range from free to all-in. This post was inspired by various articles demonstrating photography-cameras

Blissfully Featured

From VC to IT: Blissfully's Origin Story

Alone in the dark I’m in a coffin-sized closet, alone in the corner of a dusty basement, sweating and staring at a blinking BIOS terminal. I'm being asked to pick a number between 1 and 4, and I can no longer hear the deafening server-fans over the

Engineering

Building Software is an MMO, Here is How You Play

Glory and loot aren’t found, but wrenched from evil claws by might, will, and strategy well applied. The greatest of boons come from the ultimate showdown: the boss fight, the most demanding test of a team’s skill and coordination. Your engineers battle big-baddies daily — but are they as

Blissfully

Blissfully Launches out of Early Access

Blissfully began with the vision of helping companies make the best technology choices, integrate them, and manage them. And there is no type of technology more pervasive than SaaS (software as a service). In fact, our data [https://www.blissfully.com/saas-trends/q3-2017-saas-explosion-creates-saas-chaos/] shows that the rate of paid-SaaS adoption

Blissfully

Wrangling SaaS, Blissfully

I apologize for my long-quiet. I stealthily moved to NYC (surprise!) and have been heads down for some time building “the new thing.” Return co-founder Ariel Diaz [https://medium.com/u/1ee2602c6a5c?source=post_page-----393f5075ac5a----------------------] & I uncovered an opportunity, raised a round from superlative investors (juicy details below), assembled

Begin with the End in Mind(fulness)

I’ve recently (re)taken up meditation. I used to share the misconception that meditation is about “clearing the mind.” That is, until I spent the first part of 2016 helping my friends re-build their awesome meditation app*. What I learned from my sudden deep-dive into the world of mindfulness

Startups

Wealth, Health, Work, and Weight

(originally published on Medium [https://medium.com/@aaronwhite/wealth-health-work-and-weight-522f97698892]) At the beginning of 2010, I bought a Withings Scale [http://amzn.to/1OSQF6X], which turned out to be pretty awesome, because now I have half-a-decade’s worth of weight and body-fat data to examine. I spent the majority of this

Pitching Featured

Four Stories about Storytelling

(originally posted on Medium) [https://medium.com/@aaronwhite/four-stories-about-storytelling-830225ecf55e] Or the story about Helen Keller, the Kudzu, Babe Ruth, David Copperfield, & Your Startup. The Power of Stories As a child I believed logical arguments were enough to convince anyone of anything. You just needed enough time to explain them

Psychology

Monsters from the Id

(originally published on Medium [https://medium.com/@aaronwhite/monsters-from-the-id-f36a70541e66]) The invisible made visible, a literal monster from the id. “Forbidden Planet”, 1956 Lurking behind our thin, rational facade is an impulsive demon. A demon that takes control of us, acts without thinking, and serves its own purposes regardless of the

Travel

Make Time Move Wrong

(originally posted on Medium [https://medium.com/@aaronwhite/make-time-move-wrong-77fb115a0994]) While thousands of tourists in Split, Croatia were enjoying Mediterranean bliss, a progressive 1100 were gathered to strengthen the tech-ecosystem of Southeastern Europe, and 1 person, this author, ended up learning a life-lesson on the nature of time itself. Shift Split

Pitching

The Venture Narrative

Entrepreneurs who tell stories well can explain complex ideas, attract amazing talent, close customers, create partners, and raise financing with relative ease. Those that can’t struggle at every turn. Sometimes, the story is just too hard to tell - it may indicate a bad opportunity, one that is inherently

Heartbleed and the Fragile Physics of Software

One of the underlying principles of the Internet’s design is that of robustness and decentralization - large parts of our physical infrastructure might fail, and yet the packets will still flow. The great irony is that the fragility of the Internet comes from somewhere else entirely: the winner-take-all dynamics

Whiteboard or Die

I have a theory: “He who controls the whiteboard controls the conversation." There’s a certain level of implied command when you’re standing in front of the room putting your ideas into writing, or real-time editing the thoughts of others (no matter how subtlety) If you’re an

You're a Neuron, Upgrade Yourself

(Subtitle: buy the iPhone 5 or any other phone-upgrade you can afford) I have a pet theory I’ll share fully another day, but the gist of it is that as a knowledge worker, you’re a neuron in an emerging global organism (society), routing information and influencing other cells

$8M in Funding and a Lawsuit to Boot? Game on.

Nearly a year to the day we began, we’re ready to tell the story of one of the most broken yet important areas of education. boundlessinc [http://blog.boundless.com/post/20543499968/boundless-8-million-lawsuit]: > It’s been a hell of a year for Boundless Learning. We’ve raised $8

Computers Will Entertain Us to Death

Skyrim was released this winter, and players have already invested millions of hours in its single-player Nordic countryside. World of Warcraft boasts millions of years logged on its massively-multiplayer world of Azeroth. The human experience would claim billions of lifetimes spent in its omni-player reality, if it were to make

Want a Coffee? A Brief Guide for Neophytes

Some quick thoughts on what I’ve learned, and how I prefer to conduct coffee meetings. Here follow my guidelines for whoever wants to set up a java-jam: Why Meet At All? When reaching out to ask for a coffee meeting, be immensely specific with you want to meet, and

Developers: You are not a Language

Despite what recruiters think, despite what youmight think, you are not a language. Years of hacking have sharpened your mind, your instinct, your reasoning, until you no longer even see the code: you see the answer. You are a problem-crushing warrior, an architect of logic. So why filter your job

What Are You Afraid Of, It's Just Software

There has been a ton of interesting web-discussion recently. Has software failed us? Are we building skyscrapers or ever-higher piles of mud? I’m in the ‘mud’ camp, but I’ll share a secret with you: it doesn’t matter. It’s a question of intelligent design vs evolution. Unsurprisingly,

Making Sausage vs. Making Sayings

Recently, I tweeted how including video in a landing page increased conversions by 50%. A successful friend, whose advice I greatly respect, cautioned me that “only creating value matters”. Despite my respect, and surface-agreement, it’s necessary to point out that making sausage is what creates value, not quote-sharing. Creating

Symptoms of Startup Crunch Mode

Having trouble deciding if you’re in a Startup Crunch Mode? Victims usually suffer from any number of easily identifiable symptoms: * Buying H&M underwear-packs weekly to stay ‘afloat’ * Witnessing consecutive day-night transitions from your desk in a single standing * All food in your fridge is past its expiration

Scala, want to win? Here's what's missing:

Killer compiler errors. In my 10+ years experience w/ statically-typed functional programming, I can say without a doubt, the biggest impediment to both productivity and newbie-adoption is the utter OPAQUENESS of the compiler errors. When one decides to use a compiled language, you agree to argue with the computer in

10 Reasons You Should Work at a Startup Before Starting Your Company

10 Reasons You Should Work at a Startup Before Starting Your Company [http://greenhornconnect.com/blog/10-reasons-you-should-work-startup-starting-your-company] I was knee deep in writing a similar post, but Jason beat me to it. I think for a first-time entrepreneur who have NEVER lived the startup life, the most important risk to