Strategy, High Performance Teams, and Netflix Recommendations
June 1, 2020 by Andrew Cull & Mihai Frankfurt & Barnabas Pataki
We discussed many things in our weekly "AloneTogether" hangout. Here are some of our favorite resources, plus a couple of recommended
We hope you are well during this crazy time. Last week, we decided to start a weekly newsletter to share some of our experiences working with our clients during the pandemic.
Quote of the Week
We've been talking a lot about our culture and our experience with companies whose culture is based on constantly managing chaos - to the point that they create chaos to function. Edwin Lois Cole has a great quote on this topic, which is our quote of the week:
You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there. - Edwin Lois Cole
Locking Down a Very Clear Strategy
Our client discussions over the past few weeks have focused on locking down a very narrow strategy. As competition increases and prices drop, now is the time to be the absolute best solution for your very well-defined niche. It's also a time to review what's working and where capital allocation will produce the greatest return. For most clients, it means increasing operational efficiency to serve existing customers better while focusing on new customer acquisition solely in that niche where you can have a monopoly.
High-Performance Team Work
The Original Skunk Works by Nicolas Means on the Lead Developer YouTube Channel discusses the original skunk works at Lockheed Martin. It's an excellent example of how a high-performance team functions.
Maintaining Dignity During the HR Crisis
Some of our closest friends struggle to let great people go, especially in the restaurant business. Airbnb is downsizing 25% of its staff, and the message from co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky is an excellent example of setting expectations, honesty, transparency, and ensuring as much dignity as possible during these times.
#ALONETOGETHER
We've been having weekly #alonetogether Google Hangouts trading stories, books, shows, and ideas - talking about things other than work. We setup a Slack channel for the same thing, here is what we are talking about. I highly recommend it.
- The entire team is watching the BBC Series Killing Eve
- We are planning a competition with the Teenage Engineering OP-1 digital synthesizer once we can get them to everyone.
- Fender Play App is a cool way to learn guitar, and they are giving away the first 3-months free.
Current Projects
We've maintained the good fortune of working on challenging projects with clients we love. Here are a couple of interesting things our team is currently working on.
- Launched a data lake and front-end analytics platform to provide real-time, democratized data analytics across the company.
- We are at the tail end of a 2.5-year project building a custom ERP system from the ground up and currently building out a native payroll system as the last module before launch and a couple of open-source projects in the process.
- Launching a new brand and marketing strategy for a coaching company.
- Developing serverless functions to enable rapid process automation.
- Creating a strategy to enter a new market for a product company.
- Launching an international medical website with a headless CMS.
I hope you are well and safe; please feel free to send any thoughts or ideas.
