A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools • Hacker News Board

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#211

Post by marcinzm » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #33

I am the CIO of a mostly remote, cybersecurity startup (50 FTEs). I balance between not single-threading all choices through me and not letting things get too out of hand. That means no one is every really happy. E.g., we use Uberconference for videoconferencing. We thoroughly looked at a bunch of others and chose UC for its functionality, price, and simplicity (every conference gets a simple phone number, no stupid…

>A few month later, sales went out and bought 10 mf’ing Zoom licenses without consulting anyone because some client hadn’t heard of UC and asked if it was the budget solution.

They have a point, the more things you need a client to do out of the ordinary the more friction you will get selling them. New UI for them to figure out, new permissions, etc. Depending on your business model as a startup that can be a bad thing.

It seems like you try to enforce a rigid structure but don't provide a quick process to changing or appending to that structure. So intelligent people work around your structure and you have no idea. Seen it at many companies. Generally tied to an inability or in-desire to delegate decision making. Which is different than letting people make decisions, rather it involves creating a structure under which they can make decisions.

Employees have the most view into what would make their job more efficient or engaging. You want them to think of optimizations and you want them to feel engaged enough to try and improve the business. If you don't listen then they will work around you rather than with you. Or just find another job.

Employees want something? Delegate to them the responsibility of building a business case and give them a structure on what that needs to look like. Then they can present it and the team can discuss. Make sure to say yes sometimes even if you think it's sub-optimal since otherwise they'll feel it's a pointless process.

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#212

Post by chdaniel » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

krilly wrote: post #208

bad_user wrote: post #151

IMO many people end up with a tool fetish, but some of these tools aren't worth it in a small startup: 1. You don't need Slack ($13 / month) as a two person startup — just do email and Skype 2. Notion ($16 / month) — this sounds like a glorified shared note taking app — just use Google Docs, or Dropbox Paper, or text files in a Dropbox folder 3. Sentry ($26 / month) — OK, this might be worth it, but if you have a hig…

Why is Discord always ignored in discussions of slack alternatives? It's literally a slack clone. Are you all just put off by the marketing or the fact that it's not exclusively used by 'professionals'?

Always wondered that myself. I can't "get it" since I'm not a Slack user (nor a Discord user), though I interacted with both

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#213

Post by AdrianB1 » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

notyourday wrote: post #175

AdrianB1 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but you are not a CIO, you just have a fancy meaningless title with no real correspondence to what it means. If the CFO decided to buy NetSuite without asking anyone, you care not CIO and he is acting as CEO because he can override you with no consequences. Just saying.

That's not entirely accurate, if not to say that's completely inaccurate. Contrary to what people might think, companies are not ran as military with the CEO being a commander-in-chief. In most of the companies, members of the C-suite have a certain or total autonomy to make any decisions that they want as long as it is somewhat within their domain. The conflicts between them are resolved via negotiation and horse tr…

I cannot tell how is each company organized, but I am working in a $250 billion company and I had the occasion a few years ago to find out in detail how this works when our CIO had to approve some IT purchase and there were some technical problems with the authorization system: our CFO does not have the authority to sign or approve any IT contract and nobody in the company will ever execute the payment. We are not organized as military, but each of us have spending limits (from $10,000 the lowest to a few hundred millions $ for CxO) and we cannot override that. Yes, we had people that bought stuff in their spending authority but not in their domain authority (that is much harder to limit in a system) and they were fired every time it happened.

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#214

Post by tvanantwerp » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

AdrianB1 wrote: post #131

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #33

I am the CIO of a mostly remote, cybersecurity startup (50 FTEs). I balance between not single-threading all choices through me and not letting things get too out of hand. That means no one is every really happy. E.g., we use Uberconference for videoconferencing. We thoroughly looked at a bunch of others and chose UC for its functionality, price, and simplicity (every conference gets a simple phone number, no stupid…

Sorry, but you are not a CIO, you just have a fancy meaningless title with no real correspondence to what it means. If the CFO decided to buy NetSuite without asking anyone, you care not CIO and he is acting as CEO because he can override you with no consequences. Just saying.

If this line of argument is true, then a quick glance at r/talesfromtechsupport makes me think there's no such thing as a CIO.

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#215

Post by enumjorge » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

davidjgraph wrote: post #44

From the other side (vendor perspective) we see this SaaS fatigue a lot. We have a free, open source, unlimited use product that has a very good, commercial, alternative. What we hear in calls is that there are just too many SaaS tools in the company and the monthly cost (or security review of all tools) ends up with the management saying "pick your top 5,10,15 most important" and drop the rest. The GSuites, Slacks,…

I’m assuming you’re talking about draw.io. What’s your business model?

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#216

Post by swarnie_ » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

krilly wrote: post #208

bad_user wrote: post #151

IMO many people end up with a tool fetish, but some of these tools aren't worth it in a small startup: 1. You don't need Slack ($13 / month) as a two person startup — just do email and Skype 2. Notion ($16 / month) — this sounds like a glorified shared note taking app — just use Google Docs, or Dropbox Paper, or text files in a Dropbox folder 3. Sentry ($26 / month) — OK, this might be worth it, but if you have a hig…

Why is Discord always ignored in discussions of slack alternatives? It's literally a slack clone. Are you all just put off by the marketing or the fact that it's not exclusively used by 'professionals'?

Negative stigma?

I personally don't use it because everywhere I've seen it previously is in gaming/twitch communities.

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#217

Post by chiefalchemist » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #151

IMO many people end up with a tool fetish, but some of these tools aren't worth it in a small startup: 1. You don't need Slack ($13 / month) as a two person startup — just do email and Skype 2. Notion ($16 / month) — this sounds like a glorified shared note taking app — just use Google Docs, or Dropbox Paper, or text files in a Dropbox folder 3. Sentry ($26 / month) — OK, this might be worth it, but if you have a hig…

I agree. All those tools support more roles that two people could reasonably cover. Might they need some of these tools eventually? Of course - once there two or more additional team members.

As it is, they need a tool for keeping track of all these tools.

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#218

Post by Frost1x » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:03 PM UTC

noir_lord wrote: post #49

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #33

I am the CIO of a mostly remote, cybersecurity startup (50 FTEs). I balance between not single-threading all choices through me and not letting things get too out of hand. That means no one is every really happy. E.g., we use Uberconference for videoconferencing. We thoroughly looked at a bunch of others and chose UC for its functionality, price, and simplicity (every conference gets a simple phone number, no stupid…

I hear you, I work for a large manufacturing company as a lead engineer (household name in the UK) and this complete lack of agreement between teams on how to do things results in a colossal amount of churn/wastage between "new shiny" and "already working". Lots of "Lets move X to Y" which never gets completed then someone addes "Z" and now you have 3 ways of doing basically everything. Worse is our documentation (wh…

I've worked with both sides of this argument and I find that "new shiny" is a perpetual problem. Anyone that proposes new shiny should be responsible of showing trade offs, integration feasibility, impact, etc.

I'm not against new technology but so many people want to adopt new technology X just for the sake of it being new technology X. I see this on developer teams I work with every day and it makes me want to gouge my eyes out sometimes, especially when I end up being forced to use their nonsensical choice of new technology X which makes my life harder.

Part of the problem I believe is that everyone is focusing on their own self-interest. Many developers for the most part don't care much about the business interests/growth. They're already looking for their next higher paying gig and want paid training in technology X at their current gig. Since many businesses provide little concern for long term talent retition, loyalty or investing in professional development that falls outside their business adopted technology preview, I completely understand the developers choosing themselves over the business. At the same time, going overboard shoots yourself in the foot because it strangles the business in the process.

There certainly needs to be a balance and a lot could be gained by giving developers freetime and resources for continued professional development.

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#219

Post by ddevault » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

My two-person startup only uses one SaaS - Twilio, to send Prometheus alarms to my phone, which costs just a few cents at this volume. We use Freenode IRC instead of Slack, but that barely counts. For meetings we set up a Mumble instance, which is the most reliable setup I've tried. All of our infrastructure is on owned hardware, colocated. For taking notes I use text files.

More to the point of what these folks are using: Mixpanel, Fullstory, Hubspot, SalesQL, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator are unethical and you should not use them. It's not "growth hacking", it's spam. You are a spammer. Drift is annoying, no one likes your chat widget. Seems to me like these guys are drinking the kool-aid pretty hard.

Re: A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

#220

Post by gugagore » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

krilly wrote: post #208

bad_user wrote: post #151

IMO many people end up with a tool fetish, but some of these tools aren't worth it in a small startup: 1. You don't need Slack ($13 / month) as a two person startup — just do email and Skype 2. Notion ($16 / month) — this sounds like a glorified shared note taking app — just use Google Docs, or Dropbox Paper, or text files in a Dropbox folder 3. Sentry ($26 / month) — OK, this might be worth it, but if you have a hig…

Why is Discord always ignored in discussions of slack alternatives? It's literally a slack clone. Are you all just put off by the marketing or the fact that it's not exclusively used by 'professionals'?

Is it still required to have a phone to sign up for discord? That's what puts me off.