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        <title>Healey Engineering: Making Start-ups Thrive</title>
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            <title><![CDATA[SparkSummit East]]></title>
            <pubDate>Feb 26, 2016 21:15:59</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/SparkSummit_East</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Apache Spark was first released in May of 2014. Originally developed in 2009 by Matei Zaharia at UC Berkeley, Spark has rapidly become the dominant cluster computing framework in the big data and machine learning revolution. Open source, easy to configure, and highly extensible, Spark has made data mining, language processing, and predictive analytics extremely fast and cheap, and a highly engaged and passionate fanbase (and business demand) has formed around it. To better inform that base, Databricks has organized a series of conferences that promote and discuss the Spark ecosystem, called SparkSummit. The latest such gathering took place in New York City from February 16-18, and the three-day event was a thrill-ride of information, exposition, and advertisement...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up People]]></title>
            <pubDate>Dec 23, 2015 21:46:03</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_People</link>
            <description><![CDATA[In 2014, I released a book, entitled Start-up Struggles, in which I discussed, at a high-level, common issues encountered during the growth and development of a technical start-up. Each chapter in the collection of essays highlighted a specific challenge: finding a co-founder, managing finances, managing equity, building the minimum viable product, hiring employees, finding advisors, preparing for scale, and more. No chapter went into significant depth, but rather tried to provide some basic analysis and options for each topic. In 2016, I plan to release the first in a series of follow-up books that will focus on many of these individual topics in greater detail. The first, entitled Start-up People...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Hook A New User]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jul 20, 2015 01:53:20</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Hook_A_New_User</link>
            <description><![CDATA[How long do you have to hook a new user? The human attention span fits into two distinct categories: transient attention and sustained attention. When you are cramming for an exam, investigating a new skill, or otherwise engaged in deep learning, you are engaged in sustained attention; this allows you to focus for extended periods of time so that you can absorb and analyze complex concepts. When in sustained attention, you have between five and twenty minutes before the mind requires a break. However, in transiet attention, the mind has only seconds (as little as 8 seconds according to some research) to respond to a stimulus. When you attempt to read a sign along a walking route, for example, you focus only briefly before losing interest...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Bet on Boston]]></title>
            <pubDate>May 31, 2015 23:37:28</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Bet_on_Boston</link>
            <description><![CDATA[For centuries, Boston has been a champion of higher education and academic achievement. In addition to the world-renown of Harvard and MIT, both sitting along the Charles River in Cambridge, the city hosts several top-tier institutions, including Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern University, Emerson, Tufts University; altogether, the Boston area holds over 50 institutions of higher learning, with notable specialists in art, music, technology, engineering, law, and science. Furthermore, the city is fed by an even greater number of institutions throughout the state and region, with a total of 114 in Massachusetts and 167 in all of southern New England, including 3 of the 8-member Ivy League conference (with a fourth, Dartmouth University, just north in New Hampshire)...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Try, Try, Try...]]></title>
            <pubDate>May 27, 2015 03:12:15</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Try-Try-Try</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Entrepreneurship is a painful, lonely, dangerous game. Most stories of outstanding success come coupled with stories of tremendous struggle, discomfort, and failure. Examples abound, from the bitter ouster of Steve Jobs from Apple in 1985, to the lawsuits and fury that came with Mark Zuckerberg&apos;s rise to fortune, to the years of obscurity for Ray Kroc before founding McDonalds in his 50&apos;s. Building a business is a task for the insane, and eventual success depends on relentless insanity. Be willing to adjust, to pivot, to change every parameter of the equation, but never quit. Try once, try again, try a thousand times...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[The Importance of Gathering]]></title>
            <pubDate>May 04, 2015 03:29:36</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/The_Importance_of_Gathering</link>
            <description><![CDATA[A start-up is a very fragile thing. It is sometimes remarkable how robust and persistant many large corporations appear, even amidst tremendous competition or a crumbling market, occasionally lumbering along for many years longer than expected. And yet the start-up, even when amidst a strong market that is lacking in meaningful competition, can seem to have the durability of an egg. I have watched many young companies built on great ideas by great founding teams crumble quickly, and it always bothers me...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[UI vs UX]]></title>
            <pubDate>Apr 07, 2015 02:06:15</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/UI_vs_UX</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Despite significant overlap, there are a few notable differences between user interface design (UI) and user experience architecture (UX) that require disparate skillsets. Creating a winning interface is from the field of industrial design, which focuses on creating a seemless and intuitive interaction at each contained point of human-machine interface. Creating an experience, meanwhile, is in the field of product development and customer psychology, focusing on user perception and emotional reaction. An experience expert will work with design, of course, but also with development and architecture, marketing, business, and product in order to craft a complete, coherent, and consistent touch anytime the customer is involved...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Learn or Perish]]></title>
            <pubDate>Mar 02, 2015 19:34:21</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Learn_or_Perish</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Technology, especially software engineering, is an ever-evolving industry and discipline. Somewhat unique, the software engineer is rarely a narrow specialist (and becoming so can imperil long-term career prospects). A programmer will have some areas of greater knowledge, of course, and the core principles of software and algorithm design are relatively static; however, languages and architecture trends are in constant flux and require the programmer to be vigilant, and in a constant state of learning...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Never Give Up! Maybe.]]></title>
            <pubDate>Feb 27, 2015 20:53:10</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Never_Give_Up-Maybe</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Never give up! Never surrender! Never... Imagine you own a lovely little start-up. It is based on a solid idea, and you have since refined the business model through the fires of customer, partner, and investor engagement. Your product is smooth and shiny, and you have slow but non-zero customer growth. You are expecting, as we all do, the coming hockey sticks of expansion, to have your brilliance catch fire and spread like weeds (that's a lot of metaphors). But sometimes, unfortunately, that growth never comes. Sometimes, even to the best ideas and shiniest products, customer acquisition remains slow; sometimes it even stops (or reverses). You will certainly do what you can to move forward: marketing efforts, social campaigns, conference attendance. But sometimes, even after years of effort, it just doesn't work.]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Distraction Blocking]]></title>
            <pubDate>Feb 20, 2015 21:12:19</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Distraction_Blocking</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The second most important priority of an engineering manager, just behind hiring, is to keep the engineer engineering, uninterrupted, for as long and often as possible. Those coding soldiers operating on the ground, writing code, testing code, and solving problems, need to be able to maintain absolute focus on the task at hand. Product meetings, strategy sessions, and business gatherings should be handled, as often as is possible, by the manager alone. Protect your infantry and they will do good work for you...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Fundraising: How Much?]]></title>
            <pubDate>Feb 03, 2015 19:56:40</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Fundraising-How_Much</link>
            <description><![CDATA[If there is one universal truth in all of technical entrepreneurship, it would surely be that your start-up will eventually need to seek investors. Technology is a unique industry; it is often remarkably easy and cheap to get a minimum-viable product developed and to attract some first adopters, but growth costs can quickly become outrageous as customer numbers zoom into the millions and development timelines become more aggressive and short. When the time comes to hunt down that seed round, it is important to consider exactly how much money you will need to succeed...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Women in Technology]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jan 22, 2015 17:09:56</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Women_In_Technology</link>
            <description><![CDATA[I have written on numerous occasions about the ongoing shortfall in quality technologists; unemployment in technology remains at staggering lows (just 2.7% as of Q1 2014), and can be downright comical in certain categories (such as the 1.1% for network architects). Companies in many notable tech hot-spots are having great difficulty filling open positions, which has caused salaries to be greatly pressured up (with Engineering and Computer Science graduates now boasting the highest starting salary of any degree program in the nation). The industry is now in desperate need of more engineers as the economy and job market continue to grow, and there has never been a better time to consider a career in technology; especially for women!]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Government and Innovation]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jan 15, 2015 21:02:56</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Government_and_Innovation</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Under the governance of the former (and late) Boston mayor, Thomas Menino, the city underwent a sustained expansion and fundamental culture shift over the course of several decades. As I have chronicled elsewhere, there was a time when Boston found itself suffering through the peak of a protracted slump; despite still being an academic powerhouse, the city population in the early 1980's had dramatically decreased from previous highs in the 1950's; crime was rampant, unemployment was nearing all-time highs, and housing vacancies hovered around 10%...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Design is Everything]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jan 12, 2015 15:15:15</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Design_is_Everything</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The first portable media player to be released commercially was developed in 1996 by AT&T; it was called the FlashPAC, and it played a proprietary media format called Perceptual Audio Coding. Just one year later, the first MP3 player hit the market from a company called SaeHan, vastly expanding the digital listening options of the consumer. In the years following that device, many dozens of media players flooded the market and everyone waited for the digital music era to arrive. Some of these players were big and expensive, while others were simple and cheap; whatever the consumer needed the consumer would have, it would seem, with one notable exception: usability and great design. As a child of that era, I vividly remember the awful execution of even the best devices; they were menu-filled, confusing, and ugly. The only metric that was ever advanced was storage capacity, and the digital era never blossomed as expected...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[A Case for Innovation]]></title>
            <pubDate>Dec 19, 2014 21:48:21</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/A_Case_for_Innovation</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Consider the case of Boston... Always a powerhouse of education, political influence, and finance, there was yet a time not long ago when the city found itself struggling. Between 1950 and 1980 there came a starting decline in population (from an impressive 801,444 in 1950 to a meager 562,994 in 1980). Affluent families that had long occupied the revolutionary city began to move into the suburbs. The city saw a rapid rise in crime, and those who remained had trouble finding work as the industrial economy of the northeast started to decline. By 1980, only 10% of the remaining population held a college degree, housing vacancies were near 10%, and the median income was steadily dropping...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Myth of Computer Literacy]]></title>
            <pubDate>Dec 16, 2014 17:43:04</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Myth_of_Computer_Literacy</link>
            <description><![CDATA[One of the biggest and terrible myths in this modern age is the belief that the current generation is more computer literate than any before it. While there is little doubt that the current generation does spend more time and energy using internet-enabled devices and other technology than any before it, that does not necessarily indicate literacy. Knowledge of basic use does not indicate deep understanding (much like driving a car does not indicate any mechanical depth), and not nearly enough is being done to encourage real knowledge in the field...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Together In Harmony]]></title>
            <pubDate>Nov 25, 2014 19:50:18</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Together_In_Harmony</link>
            <description><![CDATA[For as long as I have been working in technology and for start-ups, there has been an ongoing and surprisingly aggressive debate over the usefulness of conventional office space. Some people believe that a traditional setup is crucial to conducting effective business and fostering team cohesion, and some people believe that telecommuting can be just as effective at team building and business execution while also being more cost-efficient and providing an overall improvement in work-life quality...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Power]]></title>
            <pubDate>Oct 18, 2014 02:16:55</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Power</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Despite the occasional fame and glory, I&apos;d argue that the economic explosion and fundamental culture shift that has come from the internet start-up revolution, starting way back in the mid-90&apos;s and still going strong, is even now not given full due respect. While we may like to watch the occasional move or TV show about Silicon Valley or Facebook, the drumbeat of cultural understanding is still that big corporations are the kings and start-ups are merely cute. Start-ups are seen as outlandish, even childish, almost wistful in their ulta-modern urban offices dreaming about new ways to share photos. We tend to forget that start-up companies now account for an astonishing 3 million new jobs every year, and the 23 million small businesses currently operating in America represent 55% of all domestic jobs and 54% of all domestic sales. In fact, according to the SBA, larger corporations have been net job destroyers since 1990, cutting almost 4 million in total, while small businesses have been net job creators, adding 8 million...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Consult or Hire?]]></title>
            <pubDate>Oct 13, 2014 05:12:18</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Consult_or_Hire</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Maybe you&apos;re an innovator trying to develop a minimum viable product; or an entrepreneur looking to expand on the core team of your start-up; or the manager of a behemoth technical enterprise looking to spread operations overseas. Whichever of these you happen to be, there will inevitably come a time when you&apos;ll need to choose between a new full-time hire or a consultant. Whatever role needs filled, it can usually be occupied by either, as those who consult might at times work full-time, and vice versa, and there are benefits and detractors to both options. Making your decision will require careful analysis of current needs, future expectations, and market conditions to decide what you need...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[How Tech Companies Are Born]]></title>
            <pubDate>Sep 19, 2014 15:25:46</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/How_Tech_Companies_Are_Born</link>
            <description><![CDATA[At the beginning of this October, I will be releasing a book version of my thoughts on entrepreneurship, called Start-up Struggles: How Tech Companies Are Born. As the name implies, I will discuss a number of important pain-points (and ways to avoid them) that tend to swirl around the world of the technical start-up. This advice will be derived from my experience working with (and starting) a number of start-ups in the Boston-Metro area since 2005...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Paperwork]]></title>
            <pubDate>Sep 16, 2014 20:04:38</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Paperwork</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Do not forget the paperwork! A start-up is an emotional thing. From that first spark of inspiration, when the world faded away and you held forth your brilliance (hyperbole: detected), you have undoubtedly worked tirelessly on the mechanics of your newfound passion. It is important that you don't get so lost in the weeds, so focused on the details, that you forget to create a business! Business involve paperwork. I repeat: Do not forget the paperwork...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: The Next Thing]]></title>
            <pubDate>Sep 12, 2014 20:34:22</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_The_Next_Thing</link>
            <description><![CDATA[One of the most difficult moments in the life of an entrepreneur will come at the end of the mission: the company has been built, molded, grown, and expanded; you have staff and revenue and brand recognition; an exit has come, the company is public or purchased, and it now represents an oiled corporate machine. It is no longer your baby, your pet, your start-up. It is now bigger than you, beyond you, humming like a jet engine and flying with you. It is now time to move on to the next thing...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Design, Design, Design]]></title>
            <pubDate>Sep 11, 2014 19:13:42</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Design-Design-Design</link>
            <description><![CDATA[If you were alive in the early days of the internet explosion, with the dot-com bust still a ways off and the market gathering steam, then you will remember the abysmal standard of usability and design that was acceptable. Websites would garner millions of dollars in venture capital, and companies would even go public, with website designs that could today be architected by a toddler. In the interest of fairness, it is worth mentioning that a lot of this visual horror was not the fault of the companies; rather, it was the result of the capabilities of the browser and the average connections speeds of the home. Today, the standard has been greatly elevated. Poor design is no longer acceptable. Usability is paramount for success. Consumers have very low tolerance for a difficult experience, and will make their displeasure known. If you want to succeed in technology, no matter what market you are serving, you need to invest (at least a little) in design and experience...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Incubators]]></title>
            <pubDate>Sep 08, 2014 20:10:37</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Incubators</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Contrary to popular understanding, the start-up is not at all a unique thing. Hundreds of thousands of new businesses start-up in the United States every year (to complement the hundreds of thousands of businesses that shut down every year). In fact, the Small Business Administration estimates that there are over 28 million small business in the United States with at least one employee (and another 22 million self-employment businesses) at any given time. That is a staggering number of ventures arriving and departing every year, all of which are (or were) vying for the attention and money of the consumer in various markets and locations. The American economy is, thankfully, enormous and able to support many of these ventures - and globalization has made the potential market for technical businesses even larger. However, the market is still finite, and it will always be a challenge to stand out from the crowd and make some noise...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Equity and Debt]]></title>
            <pubDate>Sep 05, 2014 19:38:43</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Equity_and_Debt</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The most precious thing to an experienced entrepreneur will be their equity. They will guard that treasure jealously and aggressively, fending off many investors, employees, friends, and family like a hungry dog with a bone. Conversely, the most common mistake of an inexperienced entrepreneur is to be reckless with their equity, using it broadly and often in lieu of salary and benefits. It has been said that one of the first indications of a first-time founder can be for a seed investor to find a cap table with more than five entries; meanwhile, a battle-hardened veteran can sometimes be a little too protective and rigid with potential financiers and original team members...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Exit]]></title>
            <pubDate>Sep 03, 2014 20:17:59</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Exit</link>
            <description><![CDATA[You have spent years toiling in a closet-sized office, taking home a meager salary in return for a ninety-hour work week; you've knocked on every door, window, and wall looking for new clients and customers, and you've utterly exhausted your network in search of financing, mentorship, and growth potential; you've finally realized some success, your company is making money, and you have investors. Eventually, the blessed day should arrive when an opportunity to exit will present itself. Whether you choose to go public, merge with another company, or are acquired, the end-goal of every start-up is to reach this point of prosperity. It is what all the blood, sweat, and tears has been leading toward...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Market Basket MBA]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 30, 2014 23:20:25</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Market_Basket_MBA</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Last year, New England bore witness to a brand-new MBA case study. A multi-billion dollar private business, DeMoulas Super Markets, found itself in crisis as workers began protesting and customers began boycotting. Weeks dragged into months, and profits spiraled down to near zero. Shelves and parking lots were empty, and public perception of the brand (which had previously been excellent) was greatly suffering. And what was the reason for this corporate disaster...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Hard Work]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 25, 2014 18:55:19</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Hard_Work</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Have you ever taken a leisurely late-night stroll through a city during the week, perhaps after a dinner with friends or family? Next time you do, take a look at the buildings on the horizon and see if you can count the number of offices that are still brightly lit and filled with people; I will bet good money that you can find at least a handful. And amongst that collection of dedicated workers, I am certain that at least a few of them are founders burning the candle at both ends. The lifeless, eternally-working founder is practically a cliche these days, and it has somehow embedded itself into the fabric of what it means to be an entrepreneur. I have met countless men and women from the start-up world who believe, deep in their souls, that if they are not at the office then they are falling behind. Well, I am here to shout from whatever hilltop I have available to me: Don't do that!]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Process]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 22, 2014 18:47:18</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Process</link>
            <description><![CDATA[The start-up world is a technology religion, and process is the devil. Young companies pride themselves on their free-wheelin' attitude: no set hours, no meetings, no code reviews, no QA, everyone working individually in harmony and unison toward a common cause! This faithful adherence to nothing is often reinforced through early success, as a process-free environment can yield impressive results when the team is very small and composed mostly of founding members. If you put three or four competent and ambitious people in a small room, you will be amazed at how quickly they can achieve; however, when that team grows to ten, twenty, or thirty people, and they are working on a code base twice the size and spread between triple the clients, you are going to suddenly discover the love and beauty of a good process...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: The New CEO]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 21, 2014 15:32:11</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_The_New_CEO</link>
            <description><![CDATA[If you someday find yourself in possession of a start-up experiencing serious success (and revenue), then it is very likely that you will also someday find yourself reconsidering your role within your own company. While there may be a handful of notable ventures that did manage to retain a single CEO from start-up to exit (Groupon was a popular example prior to the ousting of Andrew Mason), they should be regarded as the exceptions rather than the rule. The odds are quite high that you will eventually have to strip yourself of the coveted title of CEO and find somewhere else to direct your talents. Unless you happen to be a business titan and are confident in the steadfast maintenance of your top-level leadership, I highly recommend you start mentally preparing yourself for this process, as it can be surprisingly devastating to the soul of a founder...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Firing]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 18, 2014 20:15:03</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Firing</link>
            <description><![CDATA[There is one topic in all the business world, at every level, size and structure, from managers to executives, to founders and Presidents, that seemingly no one wants to talk about, yet all eventually partake. It is the proverbial elephant in the room, the emperor without clothes, the fictional redrafting of reality that keeps the office world running smooth. The tragedy of this deliberate ignorance, however, is that it has generated many generations of leadership failure and employee malcontent, as well as ruined the early days of many start-up founders; failures that could be solved through some simple conversation and compassion. The topic I am referencing, and would like to carefully discuss, is of course the occasional (and unfortunate) need to fire someone...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Plans and Pitches]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 15, 2014 16:34:29</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Plans_and_Pitches</link>
            <description><![CDATA[One of the most unfortunate and uncomfortable stories I've heard in my entrepreneurial conversations came from from a young founder out of the midwest. Strapped for cash but ambitious and motivated, this would-be entrepreneur paid nearly $5,000 to have a "professionally designed" business plan created. This founder believed that such an expense was critical to fundraising, and that they would be unable to do the required and complicated work themselves. I almost felt like a brute as I explained that this was a completely unnecessary expense, that business plan creation services are essentially scams designed to prey on the passions of young and inexperienced business owners, and that they absolutely could have done all the work themselves. In order to hopefully help others avoid such a mistake, I will give this summation it's own paragraph: Never pay for a business plan or pitch deck...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Bootstrapping]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 13, 2014 17:04:51</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Bootstrapping</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Large open spaces atop towering skyscrapers with floor-to-ceiling windows; elegant paintings and avant-garde desks and zany layouts; free-flowing wine and beer; free MacBooks and raging parties set in Las Vegas; SUV's and ping-pong... The media (and the late 90's) have exaggerated and glamorized the start-up world to the point of absurdity, focusing only on the largest and most gradiose images from a diverse and non-contiguous industry. The reality is that the vast majority of start-ups, even successful start-ups, for much of their existence will function on very little (or no) money. To succeed, the best entrepreneurs will learn the virtue of running a business on fumes and forcing it to succeed anyway. We call this bootstrapping...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Technical Co-Founder]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 11, 2014 20:41:54</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Technical_Co-Founder</link>
            <description><![CDATA[There is probably no time that this is more critical, stressful, and dangerous than when a non-technical founder is looking to hire the very first technologist. Expanding a team has an elegant simplicity to it, using established tactics for identifying compatible new hires. But it's rarely easy to get that first engineer in the door unless you already own a deep and broad professional network to engage. When alone or in a room with a white board, it is easy and exciting to engineer a product, to layout the workflow, to imagine your customers at play. But when it is time to put that idea to code, you'll need to dip into your pockets (or your equity cap table) and seek out an adventurous engineer to be the technical co-founder...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Pivot]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 08, 2014 20:12:21</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Pivot</link>
            <description><![CDATA[One of the most painful moments in the life of a founder will be when they realize that their brilliant idea, the original reason for the existence of their start-up, the vision that they had fought and sweat and bled and cried so valiantly in defense of, is untenable and in need of revision. Entrepreneurs are passionate people; they may exude a veneer of professionalism, but underneath that business exterior lies the soul of a hobbyist and a fanatic. To pour such love and affection into a venture only to find that your original hypothesis is hopelessly flawed can be psychologically crippling. The saloons of America are filled with anxious founders trying to drink their way to a resolution. But I say, fear not! The best companies are champions of change; the best founders learn to swim with the current; the greatest successes often birth from failure. When you find yourself pitted against a failing concept, put on the brakes and try to pivot...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Marketing]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 06, 2014 19:21:25</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Marketing</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Marketing will often represent the last thoughts of a start-up, or worse. There has developed an unconscious sentiment of sexiness around the missing marketing strategy. When expressed, the argument against is that any well-built product will succeed on it's social virality alone; if the masses won't share it, then the failure is in the product. Unfortunately, this line of thinking can cripple high-quality ventures that might have otherwise succeeded. The dark, terrible reality is that social momentum is a complex beast that is difficult to predict (and even more difficult to engineer) and impossible to initiate without assistance. The web is vast wasteland with limited natural discoverability, and if you don't put yourself in front of as many eyes as possible, then you won&apos;t find much organic growth....]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: The Idea]]></title>
            <pubDate>Aug 04, 2014 17:30:11</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_The_Idea</link>
            <description><![CDATA[It is very common for those with technical or managerial skills to espouse an interest in entrepreneurship. The purported benefits of owning one's own company are vast and ingrained: freedom from the corporate infrastructure, a flexible schedule, a rounded and directed life, a cause for the caring heart, and the possibility of riches. This interest has gained even greater traction and fervor in recent years as many post-bubble internet ventures have begun seeing colossal and public success (and the multitude of failures have gone tragically unreported). With amazing consistently, nearly every time one of these companies goes public or is acquired, bathing the founding team and investors in wealth, I hear people repeat: I could have done that! It is the recitation of the greatest fallacy, as old as the world itself, that the best idea is what wins...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Never Forget the API]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jul 31, 2014 19:37:04</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Never_Forget_the_API</link>
            <description><![CDATA[In the world of MVC web development, there exists a relatively clear understanding of what constitutes quality architecture. The specific technologies at the edges of each node can flex and change (and often do), but the topology and interactions are fundamentally consistent. Whether it is PHP, Ruby, C++, or JavaScript at the core, each component has it's part to play in ensuring maximum stability, extensibility, flexibility, and load tolerance. One particularly important node in this overly simplistic diagram that I want to spend some effort further defending as necessary is highlighted below: the API...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Fundraising]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jul 28, 2014 19:13:23</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Fundraising</link>
            <description><![CDATA[For a good long while, I had no intention of ever writing this article; there are a thousand-million articles in every conceivable medium that discuss the issue of start-up financing, and not one has been able to offer any remarkable new insight not yet covered extensively by others (and this will be no exception). However, the number one question that I still hear from every entrepreneur is: How do I raise money for my business? It would seem that no matter how aggressively and regularly this is written about, there are always still a sizable number of people who haven't heard the news. Thus, it is with a heavy heart and a sense of nostalgia that I write today about how to (maybe, possibly) secure financing for your venture...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: MVP]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jul 25, 2014 18:53:36</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_MVP</link>
            <description><![CDATA[So, you have a great idea for a new venture; that's awesome! Next you'll have to identify the market opportunity and craft your business plan, recruit an early team (likely out of your friends and colleagues), and start to plan your strategy. The time will quickly come when you must begin to develop the minimum viable version of your product to put in front of early adopters and solicit for feedback. You start developing, beginning with nothing, weaving your great idea into existence! Before you know it, the idea is usable (somewhat); you can register new accounts and login, see the basic features, and have a rough notion of branding. It's not perfect by any means, but it is starting to come together and is functionally usable...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Team]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jul 18, 2014 20:20:37</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Team</link>
            <description><![CDATA[I have written on several occasions about the importance of careful hiring as a means of building a stellar technology department, and I promise not to rehash the same themes. I do, however, want to spend a little time talking about an element of departmental construction that comes with the hiring process: team organization and growth. I spoke briefly about the subject in a previous piece on the struggles of scaling a company, but I will offer my wider perspective on how best to realize a thriving technical team through all stages of growth. In my experience, there are five distinct phases of organizational development that a technical start-up will go through (assuming they are successful)...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Culture]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jul 11, 2014 19:38:30</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Culture</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Start-up Culture is a phrase that appears to hold a surprisingly public and universal understanding. Even for those who have yet to work within one, or will never work within one, almost anyone can outline the stereotypical characteristics: 1. Fun, youthful, quirky, and motivated personnel, 2. An open, modern working space and a comfortable atmosphere, 3. No dress code, shallow processes, and a crazy founder, 4. Really long working hours, and a high-stress environment, 5. Relatively low base pay, yet exceptional equity and benefits, 6. Free coffee, snacks, and (of course) alcohol, 7. Foosball...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Creating Technologists]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jul 08, 2014 17:45:18</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Creating_Technologists</link>
            <description><![CDATA[In compliment to a post that I wrote just under two weeks ago (wherein I espouse the often misunderstood value of a good technologist, and the compensation that they are capable of demanding), I wanted to follow up with a general plea to the youth of the world: Pursue technical careers! In addition to a general science crisis in which students are insufficiently prepared for or pursuing STEM programs, there is a further specific crisis in the field of computing that is even greater than the whole. Of the projected 8.654 million jobs by 2018 in science and technology, a full 71% of them are expected to be in computing (representing 6.144 million jobs), with opportunities existing in nearly every American state (and around the world)! Yet despite this booming market...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Introducing: CentralAPI and CentralBuilder]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jul 01, 2014 19:14:53</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Introducing_CentralAPI_and_CentralBuilder</link>
            <description><![CDATA[I just recently released two new projects into the open source ecosystem, and I am now ready and willing to receive your criticism and/or hate mail! They are lovingly called CentralAPI and CentralBuilder, and they are designed to work together. CentralAPI is a web-based service that allows you to easily collect, organize, and build security infrastructure around existing services without having to do any new development. Catalogue your current collection of services with a simple web form (assigning usage criteria, throttling, and other factors to it), and then use that service by calling it through the CentralAPI factory...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[The Ruling Technologists]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jun 25, 2014 17:42:01</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/The_Ruling_Technologists</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Hiring for technology is difficult and costly, but well worth it. This is a reality that needs to to be recognized by hiring managers throughout the world. Still today (albeit less frequently than in prior years) I stumble upon many job postings that are terribly undersold and poorly presented, and left to rot on the market for weeks, months, or even years. These companies are usually seeking too much talent for too little compensation with too onerous an interview process, and high-quality engineers are not in a position to need to put up with such demands. When these roles are finally fulfilled, they will be occupied by subpar talent, dragging down company productivity and output quality to save just a little in staffing expenses. It's a shame...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Architecting]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jun 19, 2014 19:37:26</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Architecting</link>
            <description><![CDATA[As a technology start-up begins to grow and scale, one of the most common points of pain and contention will be in finding the right balance between speed to deployment and architecting for the future. The first product out the door is usually (and probably should be) a little clunky. You don't want to waste valuable time and energy working in a vacuum. There are some narrow exceptions, but it is almost always better to release fast and early. You have to publish. You have to get something in front of the people! You need some precious feedback! The world is teeming with failed ventures that spent months and years in development hell trying to get the first version to perfection. You want to fail quickly, take criticism, and retool where needed quickly and efficiently. You should, of course, invest enough in time and thought to avoid needing a complete rewrite in the future (take care of the basics, build a good foundation; the fundamentals of development haven't changed much), but don't be too picky...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Musk Delivers (again)]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jun 17, 2014 19:26:34</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Musk_Delivers-Again</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Elon Musk has long been a visionary, the champion of the modern technology culture. At 28 years old, he sold his first technical start-up, called Zip2, for $341 million to Compaq (of which he saw a $22 million payout) and has used those earnings to launch a series of impressive and successful ventures: PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and SolarCity. Each of these companies has been revolutionary in their own category, and each has an ambitious social mission; and each has been incredibly successful, and he remains highly visible in two still today. Given his insane work ethic, his desire to change the world for the better, and his seemingly insatiable appetite for challenging problems, it is no wonder that he has been recognized as a flesh-and-blood Tony Stark...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Advisors]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jun 11, 2014 20:26:25</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Advisors</link>
            <description><![CDATA[One of the most important and difficult early moves for a new technical start-up is to secure quality advisors in order to help shape the growth of the venture. Unless you are a seasoned serial entrepreneur with several successful exits under your belt, you will need significant guidance as you navigate the dangerous waters of the entrepreneurial world. While an advisor certainly won't gaurantee you any amount of success, a good stable of mentors can be a vital calm amidst a roiling storm. And they can be critical to raising funds, too!]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Start-up Struggles: Scaling]]></title>
            <pubDate>Mar 26, 2014 17:43:46</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Start-up_Struggles_Scaling</link>
            <description><![CDATA[If you have ever enjoyed a stint at a successful technology start-up, you will undoubtedly have many interesting tales of growth and pain, from working in a basement closet with only close friends, all the way to landing that fifth major client and moving into that fourth office space. Having myself worked in three such adventures, I can attest that the path to greatness is strange, difficult, and curiously predictable. The nuance of the travel is always unique to each venture, but the primary issue is always the same: how to scale! And this is nearly always a human-specific problem...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Talking About Hiring]]></title>
            <pubDate>Sep 23, 2013 15:01:07</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Talking_About_Hiring</link>
            <description><![CDATA[I recently gave a talk on my opinions and experiences regarding hiring best practices (with a focus on hiring for start-up companies) at Northeast PHP Conference 2013 (August 18, 2013), and the video has just been made public! Check it out below...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Standards, Fear Not]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jul 03, 2013 17:45:48</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Standards_Fear_Not</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Writing code is like writing a book: The entire work should be logical, have a rythmic flow, and be understandable to the common reader. When particularly complex chunks of prose arise, they must be explained in the footnotes  (comments). And for the sake of any time-constrained readers, there should be a summary explanation that is external to the total work (documentation). Unfortunately, this pattern is very rarely followed; the amount of terrible literature that pollutes the technology world is staggering. For every well-built chunk of code, there are dozens of poorly constructed, illogically organized and grammatically invalid applications (most of which are being actively used by customers right now). This is particularly troubling for any new developer...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Hire Right, Worry Less]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jun 27, 2013 19:31:10</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Hire-Right_Worry-Less</link>
            <description><![CDATA[I truly believe, from the very depths of my soul, that the most important thing that any manager can do is hire, and hire well. A team that is composed of motivated and complimentary talent is a team that will produce efficiently and consistently, and require minimal guidance. I have personally observed so much (easily preventable) turnoff from only poor hiring practices, and it saddens me. A bad hire is one of those few management acts that is universally bad at every level; it's bad for the engineer, bad for the manager, bad for the company and bad for the product. No one is happy when a manager does a poor job evaluating a candidate, and so it must be given the greatest focus...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[The Great Scourge]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jun 18, 2013 15:52:29</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/The_Great_Scourage</link>
            <description><![CDATA[A recurring problem that I have encountered in nearly all of my professional life is the scourge of the unfocused meeting. I find this issue so prevalent, in fact, that I can think of no company, past or present, that has not suffered from it in some form or another. And it is a particularly insidious problem specifically because it so often manifests cautiously in the normal, taking an ideal and tearing it apart slowly through a lack of direction and purpose. Even something as theoretically focused as a morning stand-up can, with little warning, morph into endless bickering without the proper application of a scrum master...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Management is Dead]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jun 14, 2013 18:18:30</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Management_Is_Dead</link>
            <description><![CDATA[A good team is an ensemble cast, composed of various individuals with an array of strengths and weaknesses, all of whom are fully capable of making calm, intelligent decisions that will benefit the company, the current project and themselves. It is for this reason that any good team will inevitably be helmed by a leader who does remarkably little leading, confident to let the team self-govern and flourish. With a group well picked, well organized and properly segmented, having each participant in a position to play to their strengths and feel empowered to question and make honest mistakes, the leader can focus on the task of orchestrating the grand mission...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[A Love of Solo Development]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jun 11, 2013 19:09:09</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/A_Love_of_Solo_Development</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Software engineers are rarely given their due credit in popular circles. Artists by any objective standard, they are to the digital world what an architect is to the physical; a melding of math and beauty to create great benefit. I have watched many an engineer toil in glee at the prospect of crafting a solution that in practice is only marginally improved over the standard of the day - but improved still! It is because of these creatures of code that our society has seen such rapid and elegant advancement in technology (and the rise of the technical supercompany). And while any engineer will undoubtedly agree that some measure of project management is key, an overabundance of management can, in contradiction to the intent, stiffle creativity and set back the intentions of the best and brightest...]]></description>
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            <title><![CDATA[Why Agile?]]></title>
            <pubDate>Jun 05, 2013 15:55:15</pubDate>
            <link>https://www.healeyengineering.com/thoughts/Why_Agile</link>
            <description><![CDATA[Software development, like any good religion of math, is regularly divided on the most effective approach; how can we best box, categorize, accommodate and shorten the cycles of code release? Over the years, many methods have been employed, tested, modified and then tested again, including prototyping, team development, incremental development, waterfall, spiral, RAD, and Agile. Each method has a good share of evangelists and atheists, and all developers and managers have their horrors and heaven-sent tales that they are ready to tell at the simplest provocation...]]></description>
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