
Six Degrees of YC Separation - kmack
https://medium.com/@kyle_mack/6-degrees-of-yc-separation-562be3a852c9
======
ryanmercer
Probably more accurately titled "Bay Area Tech is a Small World After All"

TLDR: Chekr Director of Solutions, formerly Director of Strategic Sales (and
first business hire), starts client on-boarding company (nice idea, streamline
a lot to minimize hand-holding).

~~~
tlb
I find that the mechanisms that make the tech world small are interesting in
themselves. Graphs are made small (in the graph-theory sense of the shortest
distance between typical nodes) by adding connections.

This anecdote about how some particular connections were formed and later led
to real opportunities seems like a good example of how things often happen in
the Bay Area tech world.

Perhaps someday there’ll be a general theory of how opportunities are created,
but in the meantime if you want to learn how things happen, there are only
anecdotes to learn from.

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kamac
> Hiring people that have a track record of taking projects from inception to
> delivery and who actively seek out projects to own is critical

Doesn't that regard the first few early hires (who'd take some form of
senior/management positions later on)? For me a person who delivers projects
means somebody who's very involved in the process; somebody that calls
significant decisions about the product.

Should all hires be like that? Isn't being able to execute the tasks you're
assigned enough?

~~~
lbotos
> Should all hires be like that? Isn't being able to execute the tasks you're
> assigned enough?

If you manage to build an org where everyone is a self-starter who takes on
projects from ideation to delivery repeatedly you work in a crazy awesome env.
There are some people that are really good at getting work done, but if you
don't give them a clearly defined task, they will flounder.

When you are in startup land, most of what you are doing is undefined. You
need someone who is really good at saying "is this working? Should I keep
doing this? How do we do this better?" Over and over and over again until you
find product market fit and aren't burning through cash.

If you are running an enterprise mature SaaS product a lot of those variables
are solved (but possibly could be optimized). The majority of people don't
need to be solving for profitability. In startupland of 10 employees or less,
almost everyone should.

It's the same logic that a "startup founder" may not make the best "enterprise
CEO". An "early hire" may not make the best "gear in a 300 person machine".

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> You need someone who is really good at saying "is this working? Should I
> keep doing this? How do we do this better?"

And sometimes you need someone who is really good at saying "let's just get
this done." Diversity is a good thing on any team, even in a startup.

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freedomben
What exactly is meant by "commits" that you talk about in 1:1 and meetings? Is
that more like "commitments" or "git commits". The former I agree, the latter
I think is in many cases a terrible measure of productivity, because it
discourages activities that don't directly lead to code, such as pairing with
your junior, or helping a customer, or providing mentorship for others, etc.
Remember you'll get what you measure.

~~~
kmack
"Commitments", not "git commits". For revenue teams, this could be signing a
contract, scheduling a certain number of meetings, drafting a blog post, etc.
Similar parallels for any team within a company. The key is being able to
break larger projects into manageable weekly commitments that are specific and
measurable.

~~~
thrownthrow
Did you use the word in error or is this another example of the trend of
start-ups using verbs to replace nouns?

~~~
jjtheblunt
I so agree with the ridiculousness of this behavior. When people talk of an
"ask" meaning "request" i cringe at the embarrassment of their need to be
jargon-cool rather than individuals.

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btrautsc
Nice Kyle!

congrats and good luck!

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jadbox
I thought that since this author's startup is sorta a 'reddit for politics',
I'll plug my own startup (currently self-funded) which is a
'chatroulette/duolingo for politics':
[https://dinnertable.chat/](https://dinnertable.chat/)

~~~
microcolonel
Cool, seems like it'd attract exactly the people who don't need it though. ;-
)

I'll sign up I think!

Edit: While I was signing up, I tried copying the verification code from the
email, and it copied with the period from the email, so when I pasted it into
the site it didn't work. Maybe put a zero-width space in there (U+200B) or
ditch the period altogether. ;- )

Edit 2: The "start login" page didn't work the first time around. In the
console I saw a 404 status on something. When I refreshed, it redirected me to
the right page though.

Give that signup and sign in flow a good test, I was almost ready to call it
quits after trying a couple times!

Edit 3: The countdown clock is jumping around a bit. Turns out the font for
the numbers (Montserrat) is proportional, and does not support OpenType
tabular number variants (in CSS you select these with: { font-variant-numeric:
tabular-nums; }), so the countdown clock tends to jump each time a second
passes and it is updated. Maybe nitpicky but it bothers me.

~~~
jadbox
Update: thanks again for all the suggestions! Here's what I've done...

re Edit) removed the period, hopefully that helps

re Edit 2) fixed the 404 issue: was a rare bug

User flow) I've now added Guest Pass login which will improve user flow in
areas. I'm curious what exactly are some of the flow issues you hit more
specifically. __

re Edit 3) I switched to a monospaced font for the timer :)

 __EDIT #A: I 've made the "signup/login" banner button to navigate to the
registration page (with option to see login) instead of the login page by
default. This should a much better flow as most users clicking the button will
be those registering. Thanks for the tip!

~~~
jadbox
Another update: I've made the "signup/login" banner button to navigate to the
registration page (with option to see login) instead of the login page by
default. This should a much better flow as most users clicking the button will
be those registering. Thanks for the tip!

