I visited Seattle for just the second time ever last week! I didn’t have much time to plan out or map spots as it was a last-minute work trip (coast to coast just one week after my move 🥲), but was quite fun! Some random thoughts:
Work (I was there for work, visiting and building with a customer for an upcoming launch): Retool has traditionally sold to high-growth tech companies. Until just a few months ago, 9/10 of our largest customers (by spend) were tech-forward companies (think most of the tech startups that bloat TechCrunch).
The onsite was a real onsite, in a warehouse, rebuilding a flow for an extremely manual, operational-intensive procedure. We built out the majority of an order-processing app in Retool, replacing nearly unusable (15+ seconds to even load) software paired with manual steps the 100s of daily orders. We made significant headway on the app and expect to have the app in production within a few weeks.
Why this is this exciting to me:
I watched the workflow take place in the warehouse. I saw the legacy tools they were using and the lack of well-designed, utility software to help these folks with their already tireless jobs. We’re close to the finish line (pending a few backend integrations), but it’s truly exciting to see (and build) what really could materially shift not just the day-to-day of the 100s of workers, but the general efficiency of a business processing of such a large scale operation. I know this is just one of many, many, many larger, legacy companies reliant on antiquated processes and tech. As this word spreads, I expect waves as similar companies follow suit.
personal: Most of the days were spent in the office, but I thoroughly enjoyed my very short, and closely proximate, time outside the office.
I stayed at the Citizen M in Southlake, which was one of fewer hotels I would share with others to try (I don’t have much preference otherwise).
I hate to use the word edgy, but the place had edge. The rooms were fairly small (yet high-tech - all controlled through an iPad), but the lobby and surrounding spaces were beautiful.
On Thursday evening I had that entire back room to myself for multiple undisturbed hours.
The gym was quaint but beautiful, and it had the outlines of a basketball court on it, further pulling me to play again in Brooklyn 🙂
Food
pretty good
I had little time to actually explore beyond one run on the Waterfront (no Pike Place or original Starbucks visit), so little value here otherwise 🙂.