Author Archives: affronti

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About affronti

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It’s tempting to take the quick wins early on. But there’s nothing sweeter than winning that first true, unaffiliated deal. It took us 15 months. Yes, 15 months. The rigor and measurement they put us through made us go back to the drawing board again and again, but because of that, our technology works better, and each deal after that was easier to win.

Excellent article by the CEO of LatticeEngines about the importance of finding early customers outside of the Valley, helping to validate your product using more “real world” users (i.e. not early adopters).

http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/28/why-its-critical-to-find-early-customers-outside-of-silicon-valley/

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In some respects, it’s a little like taking the red pill and getting ejected from the Matrix. Everything you do in a startup makes a difference. No longer are you surrounded by a safety blanket world where you’re a small cog in a large machine.

“5 Reasons You Should Work At A Startup At Least Once” via TechCrunch.

I don’t see working at an early-stage technology company as “better” than working at a big company, but it is definitely very different.

One of my favorite parts (besides working so close to the product) is being able to shape the culture at a very fundamental level. Early in Klink’s life I ran a Team Values workshop to create our ten “Leadership Principles”. It was wonderful (and scary) to create our values from scratch.

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High performers hold themselves and others accountable not only for results but the methods to achieve those results. The end does not necessarily justify the means with these people.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140921122602-27554839-5-things-high-performers-and-leaders-do-exceptionally-well

Concise but accurate summary of what we can all do to be better leaders. 

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If you have a big meeting coming where you need to impress, it might be worth your while to spend a couple of minutes practicing power postures beforehand. OK, it’ll probably feel pretty silly, but science says it will boost your confidence

“Power Poses” via Inc.com

I’m a big fan of power poses and usually do a few of them before major speaking events or critical meetings with execs. You every try them?

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The Salesforce formula only works when your marketplace offers a clear, unobstructed glide path. When the market dictates that you navigate around “The Big Four” — Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple — in a commoditized market, you must adopt a radically different approach.

“It’s the end of the road for freemium cloud services” via VentureBeat

This analysis can be mapped to any industry where this a dominant set of companies. As Klink expands to work with strategic partners in the PBX space, I see a similar situation in the UCaaS (unified communication as a service) space as the author does with basic cloud storage. Instead of using a strictly freemium model, Klink is focused on providing clear, demonstrable value over a set of workflows that will make us both valuable to individual users and incredibly sticky within an organization.

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In the early days of LearnVest, von Tobel put everything involving her business before her own health and needs. A lifestyle that’s based on little sleep, long workdays of drinking nothing but coffee, and forgetting to squeeze in doctors visits obviously isn’t sustainable for the long term. Now that von Tobel has been running a business for four years, she says she goes to the gym almost everyday and stays healthy.

“Advice for startups from LearnVest founder Alex Tobel” via Business Insider.

Maintaining a healthy and somewhat-balanced lifestyle while working at an early-stage company is hard. I use my calendar to make sure I block off time for crossfit, date nights, and spending time with my family. It never feels like enough time, but by regularly blocking off time and only cancelling if it’s absolutely necessary, I find I can maintain the energy needed to put in the time at the office.

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The evils of too much sitting include body aches, pains and fatigue, but a new study suggests that 30-minute stints of standing at work may relieve aching backs without harming

8+ years without a chair in my office and loving it. The first six months are the hardest (read = tiring), but after that it’s such a welcomed break to sitting in meetings.

Stints of standing while working may reduce back pain

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We’ve all had them: bosses and managers who make our work lives terrible and couldn’t manage a stack of paper clips, let alone a team of employees. I’ve written about the traits that make for bad

I still remember many of the lessons my first manager at Microsoft, Aaron, taught me during our first tour of duty together in Office. The one I remember the most? Having him stop by on a casual “drive by” during the day to say thanks for something small, like a successful meeting, a solid email, or kudos for helping out a co-worker.  

Never underestimate the power of simply saying “Thanks, nice work.”

10 Signs You Have (Or Are) A Great Boss

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After a year of this, one day, one of my partners came in and told us some really disturbing news about her life situation, and suddenly, things kind of clicked. It was apparent that we might be her only positive daily interaction, and that the extra attention, especially that when she had a complaint, really might have meant a lot to her personally, giving her some modicum of control in her life and also a feeling of importance. We’d never let our service waver, and we were very glad.

Great article on Business Insider, “What Baristas Think of Your Coffee Orders.”

I am always impressed by the consistently high bar of the baristas’ professionalism and amicability at the SoHo Starbucks I go to every morning. I also give them a ton of credit when they don’t jump the counter and shake the person in front of me they decide to pay for their $5 latte in pennies when the line is out the door at 8:50am. 

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“Product strategy is the last frontier for software-as-a-service,” CEO/founder Bismarck Lepe said. Much of the feedback used in product development, he added, is still being tracked in spreadsheets…

One of the scariest stats I learned working in Microsoft Office early on was how little of the actual features in apps like Word or Outlook that people actually used – it’s less than 10% for the average (non-power) user! Features like the Office Ribbon have helped tremendously with that. I’m curious to give Wizeline a shot and see if it helps us here at Klink. 

Wizeline, with a fresh $6.7M, wants to create a ‘corporate brain’ to boost product dev