5 ms·

A case study in early-stage startup execution

110 points by luu 5y ago

drewcoo 5y ago
Why are all of these things written about the touchy-feely but none about execution? Engineering or sales or marketing or other execution. Also, there's a hefty amount of BS. Like "updating beliefs" and "don't do BS," which seem difficult to do and impossible to prove. It's almost as if people are trying to publish self-help material because it's profitable . . . Ok. I will join your cult . . . for money . . . what must I believe . . . now?
- bwilkins 5y ago
  I think the article assumes "all other things being equal" - so given an engineering (or sales, or marketing) capability equal to that of another business, these factors are what the author believes differentiate the business enough to be able to perform better, and especially in execution. And I don't think this stuff is BS; "updating beliefs" is important, as many business decisions are made based on a belief - especially if your product has not gone to market yet. "Updating beliefs" is also reflective of an openness to change, and being able to cope with being wrong at times - people find it hard to find out (or be told) that they are wrong - their ego is hurt, they fight back. "Don't do BS," specifically the documentation side of things, strikes a particular chord with me, as it's something that I've had to do recently, it goes against everything I know about writing software, so I am 100% happy to see it being spouted here! All of the points made in the document are about execution, but they're about executing as a business, and not a "how to make your engineers perform better" guide. That said, these practices will _probably_ have your engineers performing better anyway, but you'd need to dig into how each change affects the psychology of those doing following these practices in order to understand how/why.
mkl95 5y ago
Sounds like pretty standard agile to me, something most startups struggle with.
barry-cotter 5y ago
For anyone who read that and thought they might want to work there be aware they don’t hire SWEs with less than four years work experience[1]. Seniors only. They pay pretty well too. > For this role, depending on your experience and location, we offer a salary range of 138,400 -200,100 USD (or local equivalent), plus equity targeted to be worth 3-4x your salary. [1] They added a year in the last week. Standards are going up. https://www.wave.com/en/careers/ https://www.wave.com/en/careers/
- mkl95 5y ago
  I wish most sites were that fast.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  > You can work remotely from anywhere (between UTC -5 and +4) with reliable internet access. Not including all of the Bay Area is definitely an interesting choice…
  - yen223 5y ago
    This startup appears to be targeting African markets, so operating in Africa-friendly timezones make sense.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > Individuals seeking employment at Wave are considered without regards to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. > we will ensure that all applicants are treated fairly regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, marital status, sexual orientation, religion or belief. > ... > What is your ethnic identity? (check as many boxes as apply to you) > > What is your gender identity? (Select one) This is both weird and creepy.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    Weird, creepy, and, unfortunately, standard. You see, in order to justify that "Individuals seeking employment at Wave are considered without regards to [etc.]..." and that they "will ensure all applicants are treated fairly...", they need to keep track demographic statistics for applicants, candidates, and, ultimately, people who are hired. I hate filling those things out, too, but I wonder if I'm ultimately doing a disservice by not completing them.
jackblemming 5y ago
I don’t know about you, but I don’t enjoy working for companies where a major goal is “hustle hard, increase velocity, measure and optimize everything”. For what purpose? Making our bosses richer? Maybe taking 1/100th of the value created for ourselves? In my experience, really gifted people don’t put up with environments like this. But I guess you don’t want that in employees if you’re trying to setup a grind farm. And they usually win too, because they’re thinking far beyond “solve the problem in front of you”. While you’re making your tape player meet market KPIs, they’re inventing DVDs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- woadwarrior01 5y ago
  In my experience, really gifted people aren't very good at putting up with BigTech corporate BS either. If anything, the ambiguity of an early stage startup is a better environment for such people than the rigid shackles of corporate bureaucracy.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  > For what purpose? Making our bosses richer? Maybe taking 1/100th of the value created for ourselves? When Wave launched in Senegal, our average transfer would have cost 3-5x more if done via the largest existing mobile money system. Multiplied by our millions of monthly active users, that comes out to a savings of over $200 million every year, directly in our customers’ pockets, for them to spend on school fees, feeding their family, or whatever else is important to them. That’s not a small amount—in fact, it’s around 1% of Senegal’s GDP. Few things are more awesome than being able to measure your success in terms of noticeably increasing an entire country’s GDP. Working at Wave is an extremely effective way to improve the world https://www.wave.com/en/blog/world/ https://www.wave.com/en/blog/world/
- bwilkins 5y ago
simonhamp 5y ago
I'm all for the ideological sentiment behind this setup and approach. In many ways, this is 'the right way' when you're a small and close-knit team. And that's the major caveat: this really only works at the very early stages. In my experience (5 years at a startup that has gone from 30 to now 300 people) and with a heavy bent toward pragmatism, simply put, this doesn't scale. If growth of the team is imperative for growth of the business (which in most cases, it is), then the shape of the team will change and the culture of the business will evolve away from openness and flexibility out of necessity. You will get silos, whether you want them or not. If you know you want to scale, not prep'ing for that is akin to burying one's head in the proverbial sand. Be transparent, but configure for partitioning. Be flexible, but prepare to have some deadlines start to appear. Keep prioritisation as simple as possible, but assume that it will get more complex and you will need people who can/want to manage that. When you move from planning the next few sprints to strategising the next few years, you have to start anticipating problems before they arise across many fronts, not just the tech. It doesn't mean spending an inordinate amount of time and money on getting that TechCrunch article, but when knowing your runway ends in 6 months, it would be extremely shortsighted not to be laying the groundwork for an investment round by everyone just going heads-down on product development.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  The 3000 employee company I was at had more transparency than the 30 person company I was at. Almost anything can scale, with the right leadership and incentives. That part is exceedingly hard to get right. Generally I find from experience that the culture mirrors the leadership more than anything. A leader who cannot delegate, trust, or make decisions as a group builds silos, intentionally or unintentionally. Leaders who are humble, defer to others, trust but verify, and are open and transparent themselves are more than capable of building similar orgs. Be ever vigilant in eliminating cognitive dissonance, for it is the culture killer.
  - simonhamp 5y ago
    The reality being that there are very few people like this who can genuinely do this. Again, pragmatism
hacknews20 5y ago
This: “A manager can never ask an engineer to “work harder” or “work faster”, they can only reorder her priority list.”
bspear 5y ago
> all salary data is available internally That's pretty amazing, wonder if that applies to equity too. Most startups that are transparent about their metrics still don't share comp. If they did, I'm sure many people would be shocked at the variance: https://topstartups.io/startup-salary-equity-database/ https://topstartups.io/startup-salary-equity-database/ Wave, if you're reading this, keep it up! Some of these principles will unfortunately break under the strain of a bigger company but stay nimble as long as you can
faangiq 5y ago
Pure fluff. Nothing matters besides PMF.

110 points by luu 5y ago

Why are all of these things written about the touchy-feely but none about execution? Engineering or sales or marketing or other execution. Also, there's a hefty amount of BS. Like "updating beliefs" and "don't do BS," which seem difficult to do and impossible to prove. It's almost as if people are trying to publish self-help material because it's profitable . . . Ok. I will join your cult . . . for money . . . what must I believe . . . now?

bwilkins 5y ago
I think the article assumes "all other things being equal" - so given an engineering (or sales, or marketing) capability equal to that of another business, these factors are what the author believes differentiate the business enough to be able to perform better, and especially in execution. And I don't think this stuff is BS; "updating beliefs" is important, as many business decisions are made based on a belief - especially if your product has not gone to market yet. "Updating beliefs" is also reflective of an openness to change, and being able to cope with being wrong at times - people find it hard to find out (or be told) that they are wrong - their ego is hurt, they fight back. "Don't do BS," specifically the documentation side of things, strikes a particular chord with me, as it's something that I've had to do recently, it goes against everything I know about writing software, so I am 100% happy to see it being spouted here! All of the points made in the document are about execution, but they're about executing as a business, and not a "how to make your engineers perform better" guide. That said, these practices will _probably_ have your engineers performing better anyway, but you'd need to dig into how each change affects the psychology of those doing following these practices in order to understand how/why.

mkl95 5y ago

Sounds like pretty standard agile to me, something most startups struggle with.

barry-cotter 5y ago

For anyone who read that and thought they might want to work there be aware they don’t hire SWEs with less than four years work experience[1]. Seniors only. They pay pretty well too. > For this role, depending on your experience and location, we offer a salary range of 138,400 -200,100 USD (or local equivalent), plus equity targeted to be worth 3-4x your salary. [1] They added a year in the last week. Standards are going up. https://www.wave.com/en/careers/ https://www.wave.com/en/careers/

mkl95 5y ago
I wish most sites were that fast.
saagarjha 5y ago
> You can work remotely from anywhere (between UTC -5 and +4) with reliable internet access. Not including all of the Bay Area is definitely an interesting choice…
- yen223 5y ago
  This startup appears to be targeting African markets, so operating in Africa-friendly timezones make sense.
dmitriid 5y ago
> Individuals seeking employment at Wave are considered without regards to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. > we will ensure that all applicants are treated fairly regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, marital status, sexual orientation, religion or belief. > ... > What is your ethnic identity? (check as many boxes as apply to you) > > What is your gender identity? (Select one) This is both weird and creepy.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  Weird, creepy, and, unfortunately, standard. You see, in order to justify that "Individuals seeking employment at Wave are considered without regards to [etc.]..." and that they "will ensure all applicants are treated fairly...", they need to keep track demographic statistics for applicants, candidates, and, ultimately, people who are hired. I hate filling those things out, too, but I wonder if I'm ultimately doing a disservice by not completing them.

jackblemming 5y ago

I don’t know about you, but I don’t enjoy working for companies where a major goal is “hustle hard, increase velocity, measure and optimize everything”. For what purpose? Making our bosses richer? Maybe taking 1/100th of the value created for ourselves? In my experience, really gifted people don’t put up with environments like this. But I guess you don’t want that in employees if you’re trying to setup a grind farm. And they usually win too, because they’re thinking far beyond “solve the problem in front of you”. While you’re making your tape player meet market KPIs, they’re inventing DVDs.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
woadwarrior01 5y ago
In my experience, really gifted people aren't very good at putting up with BigTech corporate BS either. If anything, the ambiguity of an early stage startup is a better environment for such people than the rigid shackles of corporate bureaucracy.
barry-cotter 5y ago
> For what purpose? Making our bosses richer? Maybe taking 1/100th of the value created for ourselves? When Wave launched in Senegal, our average transfer would have cost 3-5x more if done via the largest existing mobile money system. Multiplied by our millions of monthly active users, that comes out to a savings of over $200 million every year, directly in our customers’ pockets, for them to spend on school fees, feeding their family, or whatever else is important to them. That’s not a small amount—in fact, it’s around 1% of Senegal’s GDP. Few things are more awesome than being able to measure your success in terms of noticeably increasing an entire country’s GDP. Working at Wave is an extremely effective way to improve the world https://www.wave.com/en/blog/world/ https://www.wave.com/en/blog/world/
bwilkins 5y ago

simonhamp 5y ago

I'm all for the ideological sentiment behind this setup and approach. In many ways, this is 'the right way' when you're a small and close-knit team. And that's the major caveat: this really only works at the very early stages. In my experience (5 years at a startup that has gone from 30 to now 300 people) and with a heavy bent toward pragmatism, simply put, this doesn't scale. If growth of the team is imperative for growth of the business (which in most cases, it is), then the shape of the team will change and the culture of the business will evolve away from openness and flexibility out of necessity. You will get silos, whether you want them or not. If you know you want to scale, not prep'ing for that is akin to burying one's head in the proverbial sand. Be transparent, but configure for partitioning. Be flexible, but prepare to have some deadlines start to appear. Keep prioritisation as simple as possible, but assume that it will get more complex and you will need people who can/want to manage that. When you move from planning the next few sprints to strategising the next few years, you have to start anticipating problems before they arise across many fronts, not just the tech. It doesn't mean spending an inordinate amount of time and money on getting that TechCrunch article, but when knowing your runway ends in 6 months, it would be extremely shortsighted not to be laying the groundwork for an investment round by everyone just going heads-down on product development.

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
The 3000 employee company I was at had more transparency than the 30 person company I was at. Almost anything can scale, with the right leadership and incentives. That part is exceedingly hard to get right. Generally I find from experience that the culture mirrors the leadership more than anything. A leader who cannot delegate, trust, or make decisions as a group builds silos, intentionally or unintentionally. Leaders who are humble, defer to others, trust but verify, and are open and transparent themselves are more than capable of building similar orgs. Be ever vigilant in eliminating cognitive dissonance, for it is the culture killer.
- simonhamp 5y ago
  The reality being that there are very few people like this who can genuinely do this. Again, pragmatism

hacknews20 5y ago

This: “A manager can never ask an engineer to “work harder” or “work faster”, they can only reorder her priority list.”

bspear 5y ago

> all salary data is available internally That's pretty amazing, wonder if that applies to equity too. Most startups that are transparent about their metrics still don't share comp. If they did, I'm sure many people would be shocked at the variance: https://topstartups.io/startup-salary-equity-database/ https://topstartups.io/startup-salary-equity-database/ Wave, if you're reading this, keep it up! Some of these principles will unfortunately break under the strain of a bigger company but stay nimble as long as you can

faangiq 5y ago

Pure fluff. Nothing matters besides PMF.