Now

It’s little surprise that life moves a few ticks faster in NYC. It’s hard to pinpoint why, though the indicators are obvious - a greater density of friends within such close proximity, a boundless plethora of new (experiences, restaurants, sights) within a stone's throw, and a more pronounced ‘hustle-culture’ (make more spend more!). I’ve found it harder to prioritize activities that felt more natural in the past - face-timing my family, setting time to write, and getting lost in online rabbit holes. I don’t think these feelings are entirely unique, though it’s become an apparent reality in the last 3+ months.

With that, New York is a wondrous spectacle of novel sights and feelings. I don’t think I’ll get over the skyline views, three bridges within walking distance, and the unending buzz.

Trying

To make better espresso (& martinis). Fortunately, my roommate invested in a Breville and was gifted a bougie grinder, resulting in a stark rise in my caffeine intake and increased snobbiness regarding shitty coffee. Turns out - beans, grind size, pressure, and accurate bean volume are indeed important! And that there are quite a few shops that overcharge for sub-par coffee.

Favorite spot’s been Devoción (where Margot Robbie was spotted just a day after I went???).

Doing

Back into running. I continued to run consistently when I first moved to NY (had a sublet right next to Prospect Park while finding our full-time spot), but just a few weeks in experienced more acute and prolonged knee pain. I first felt it in my left knee after a long run after which the same pain hit my right. My doctor mentioned a classic case of IT Band Syndrome (common for runners, especially those with a taller build). I began stretching more regularly, though not having access to one of the more cathartic activities in my life was difficult in a new city.

Anyways, stretches and rest seemed to do the trick. I hit seven miles in the last month and ten this past weekend. I ran across two/three lower Manhattan bridges for the first time, which I’m sure will become a routine. Stunning views and looking forward to the half in a few months.

Reading

Words that Matter. Consumer social, especially in the content space, is notoriously difficult. That said, I do believe the content to be some of the most resonant and important when well-curated. There’s a sea of clickbait out there with the barrier to internet entry so low. But finding that sweet spot that inspires and entertains is all the more special.

There are some wonderful links shared by some wonderful people, and I highly recommend giving them a read.

Space to Operate

I plan to write a longer piece on this sometime soon, though thought I’d start by putting down early thoughts here.

I joined Retool’s professional services (PS) arm a few months ago, a transition that induced a significant deal of uncertainty. I’ve now held four distinct titles at Retool, and while all are closely related and aligned, each is fundamentally bespoke. The move to PS somewhat felt like a move back into my past role in consulting, which I had intentionally opted out of just a few years ago.

That said, it’s quickly proven to be one of the better decisions of the past few years. I joined on the ground floor of the function, meaning we’re building the plane as we fly. My time as a Deployed Engineer has served as a necessary prerequisite to the work we’re doing - informing the issues and gaps in how customers use the product, their willingness to pay for add-ons and services, and the do/don’ts when scaling. We’ve been chugging away at all tenets of the org - determining our core customer offerings, stepwise activities within an offering, milestones to track, and selling motion and narrative. We’ve undergone considerable change in the team and company in the last few years, imbuing a somewhat consistent mental toll. It made it harder to feel I was operating in the right space. Much of the original team I started with left, the role I joined changed, and many larger hiring and operational adjustments were retracted or shifted.

I shared many of these uncertainties with my manager during our last team offsite, including feelings of recent urges to start something of my own, pursue business school, or move to a product role in the near term. His advice was accurate and apt - we’re building the function from scratch, and while the role might not have been where I expected a few years back, it would allow for building this small business within a business, from scratch: the offerings (product), the selling motion, marketing, pricing, enablement, execution, and scaling. There are still areas to index on - e.g. being the core liaison for offerings touching specific areas of the product (e.g. platform configuration or app building services). With that framing, the role has become much broader, and quite fulfilling.

My focus has been primarily on our Quickstart program - the fastest way for customers to get up and running with Retool. I found this particularly appealing for a few reasons:

• It allows for full ownership: It’s me and a colleague defining the program - what we want to offer, how we want to sell it, what the handoff process looks like, and what activities need to be run. The role has always been autonomous, but I feel like this allows for fuller control with our ‘hands-on keyboard’ approach (compared to the Deployed Engineering role, largely consultative)
• it seems to be the highest velocity way of gathering product feedback. We expect most new committed customers to go through our Quickstart program, in which we’ll oversee/advise on deployment and initial application launch. By staying even closer to these two very pivotal moments in the Retool lifecycle, we’ll be able to pull out all the gaps, difficulties, and potential product improvements. Plus, I’ve gotten to build more robust tooling in Retool, exposing some of the builder challenges that we must empathize deeply with.

A bit long-winded, but as I’m continuing to explore my career options and experiment, the broader learning seems to be - it takes time to navigate functions, spaces, areas, and companies to find a space to operate well. Many standard roles will continue to exist - Account Executives, Product Marketers, Software Engineers. But there is a beauty in the space between those - connecting lines between roles and playing the generalist in the less defined areas of operation.

I love finding flow states, and while many of my days are in and out of meetings, it’s allowed a bit more flow in and out of work.

Puppy

My sister’s cutie pie pup!