Author: Jeff Francis

If you’ve ever worked on a software project that felt like it was spiraling out of control, you’re not alone. 2/3 of digital product development efforts fail… so how do you become that 1 in 3? Product failures and development missteps are all too common… but the good news? They... Read More

Imagine a world where every platform you use, every service you consume, just… slowly degrades over time. It gets worse, little by little, until it’s almost unusable before you realize what happened. But it’s not a hypothetical… it’s the digital world we live in right now. Welcome to the Rot... Read More

Stepping into a new engineering VP role is equal parts exhilarating and daunting. It’s like being handed the keys to a high-performance race car… that’s sputtering along the highway at 80mph instead of the 180mph it’s capable of. Your challenge? Make an immediate impact, rescue floundering projects, and prove that... Read More

When you’re building software products, your tool stack can make or break your process. And process, ladies and gentlemen, makes or breaks timelines (and just as importantly, budgets). Over the last 15+, we’ve worked with hundreds of startups and enterprise product teams, and one thing is always clear — having... Read More

How many $50MM exits have you read about in the mainstream business press? Even regional business publications don’t highlight what I’d call huge wins enough. You read about unicorns. If you’re not taking on hundreds of millions in funding and exiting / IPO’ing for billions, you’re seemingly forgotten. That dynamic... Read More

If you’re a founder (or considering becoming one), you’ve probably heard the advice: build to scale. Hire the right people, delegate tasks, and free yourself up to focus on the big picture. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this advice (no one expects you to carry the weight of your company... Read More

As a software founder, one of the most critical moments you’ll face is trying to secure software startup funding. Whether you’re a startup or growth-stage company, raising capital is very often a pivotal part of your business growth. Having worked on over 200 innovative software products in the last 15... Read More

Perfection is the enemy of good. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s a cliche for a reason — this one is true. For our purposes, if you’re a software startup founder (or the head of engineering in an enterprise software company), you’re probably all-too-familiar with the constant tug-of-war between... Read More

When you’re an early-stage software startup, making your first in-house hire can feel like a pivotal moment… because it is one! We get this question allll the time: “Help! Who should my first in-house hire be?! And that’s for good reason; there’s a lot on the line — product vision,... Read More

If you lead engineering or software development within your enterprise, you know that you walk a shaky tightrope between maintaining your existing systems and pushing forward with new innovations. Balancing technical debt and new feature development is no easy feat — sure, you have to service technical debt, but you... Read More