Daily Snapshot
This post is a summary of activities goBalto goes through as we quickly try to achieve “Product-to-Market Fit“. Most of the day is spent making sure the team is focused on PMF activities, while messaging the goBalto mantra to the outside world. Today I:
- Woke up early totally refreshed because I got 6 hours sleep last night.
- Picked up a cup of Pikesplace Roast from Starbucks.
- Boarded Caltrain for 40 minute ride into SOMA. Begin reading/responding to priority emails on my Ipad2 during the commute.
- Walk in office and say good morning to Susa (Director of Product Management). She’s usually the first one in.
- Boot up my Macbook Pro and start blaring the “Thievery Corporation” channel through Pandora Radio.
- Munched on a toasted Noah’s bagel leftover from our weekly Bagel Monday treat.
- Tweet numerous articles or topics of interest via @goBalto.
- Conduct daily stand up with team, sometimes followed by a weekly iteration planning to map out development stories for the week.
- Participate in a morning usability call with a demanding early-adopter clinical study manager
- Sent out an email to whole company. Article was about the merits of leveraging digital signatures and cloud can generate significant time and cost savings. Makes me reconsider feature priorities and elevating functionality in the product development queue.
- Met with engineers and user interaction designers to mediate differences in implementing features (getting these folks aligned is an ongoing exercise). If anyone has any ideas on how to manage this, please do share.
- Read an article on @Rock_Health in Tech Crunch. RH is a seed incubator applying Web2.0 to healthcare. Schedule meet up. These guys rock!
- Received an awesome supportive email from a LinkedIn connection who attended our product unveiling. Made me feel pumped up.
- Grabbed lunch at Tadich Grill. A staple of the financial district.
- Reviewed some mockups of a new document widget we’re planning to implement next week.
- Had a meeting with our compliance officer to review SOPs for CFR Part 11 compliance.
- Got an email from a recruiter, offering her services to identify Ruby on Rail candidates.
- Went out for coffee with an investor. Fund raising never ends.
- Got a text message from Eddie (Marketing Manager) saying that the demo video was uploaded to YouTube.
- Had a quick call with Director of Sales to get updated on whitepaper submission to peer reviewed journal The Monitor and status of sales funnel.
- Began reviewing patent application submitted by our intellectual property attorneys for our study startup management workflow solution.
- Started drafting a blog article on a day in the life of a silicon valley startup.
- Participated in the 2nd usability call of the day. Testing the document widget. Amazing how differently participants view the exact same user interface. Truly insightful. Not always positive.
- Called the missus to see what’s up and let her know what time I’m heading home.
- Wrote a recommendation for a colleague on LinkedIn.
- Did one final review of the monthly newsletter and made some minor edits.
- Put the finishing touches on this blog article and publish on The Chromosome.
- Responded to an email from an angel investor. He had questions pertaining to our funding strategy. What a surprise.
- Exited office. Most folks leave by 6pm. I’m a big believer that long hours doesn’t equate to productive workforce.
- Caught the Muni to Caltrain. It’s SF Giants baseball season, so the trains are packed.
- Napped part of the ride home (when I can grab a seat).
- Rinse and repeat.
- UPDATE: Our whitepaper on “Reinventing Clinical Study Startup 2.0″ was accepted to be published by The Monitor in their June 2011 issue. Nice.
I think a big part of my job is simply syncing everyone up. Just making sure the team is on the same page and we’re working towards the same goals. Because customer driven priorities shift so quickly, we map out the product vision at a high level, but only point out feature stories on a weekly basis. The volatility can unhinge some folks. That’s why startups isn’t for everybody.
