Let’s start from the beginning.
My name is Javier, and what I like the most in the world is to start projects, also known as entrepreneurship.
I could call this project “The Entrepreneur“, but it was already taken, and “The Starter” is also cool.
I have been postponing this activity for a long time due to many reasons that are not relevant now, but I have taken it up again now, and I thought it would be interesting to walk this path surrounded by people with the same interests as me. You.
I will share all my knowledge but above all my learning, I will teach you everything about entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, and technology. All this in small free weekly pills.
So… here we go!
Marketing
Don’t you have the money to invest in marketing?
Or maybe you prefer to spend that money on beers?
Don’t worry. Read.
Podcast interview
There are millions of active podcasts, many of them dedicated to interviews… it’s a trend on the Internet right now!
And you know what the biggest problem facing these types of podcasts is?
People to interview… They just can’t find them!
Look for podcasts in your industry or interest and offer them to interview you. It’s free!
Talk about yourself, your life’s journey to get here and now, your career, your project, your product, the lambos you’ve bought (or rented to take pictures, but shhh!), or your amazing cat. Whatever!
In exchange for giving them the interview they will give you access to a new audience through content that will always be available. And it’s free!
Move your ass now and start looking for them!
Development
You should know… I’m in love with Vercel.
She is not a girl. Not a boy. It’s a software company that’s changing the way websites are developed. It’s not Google, but I do see in this young company the same developer-focused spirit that Google had in its beginnings.
I don’t want to change the name of this newsletter to “Vercel Lovers“, but in my mind it sounds very good.
Well, let’s continue…
v0.dev by Vercel
Personally, I’m not a big fan of AI. In general I’m not a big fan of anything that is trumpeted as the new revolution that will change the world.
Internet portals were going to change the world.
Blockchain will change the world. Also NFTs.
And now it’s AI’s turn.
It does seem to me to be a step forward in something that in the future will change our lives. But at the moment I only see tools that are more or less useful to certain people. Which is not little.
The guys at Vercel have just released an alpha version of v0.dev, an AI tool that generates ReactJS code via a simple description. You can see a lot of examples on the home page.
A very interesting tool for ReactJS developers.
Especially for juniors, who can use it to speed up their learning.
Or to get crappy code into production if there is no one to control them. Like kitchen knives, it depends on who uses it and with what intentions.
It can also be very useful to prototype faster directly in ReactJS. Ask for a customer’s table, then copy and paste, and you’ve got it. And in TailwindCSS, the CSS framework for prototyping. Very appropriate.
And I have no doubt that it will be a tool that will evolve over time, as Vercel is accustomed to.
It is free for now, but only until they release a stable version.
Must read
Silicon Valley do it better
Gergely Orosz gives us a great article explaining how Silicon Valley companies get much more out of software engineers than other companies.
It’s long but worth it. Believe me, I don’t link to anything that isn’t worthwhile.
But for the lazy ones I’ll summarize it: “Silicon Valley-like companies think of engineers as value generators, and creative problem solvers. Traditional companies think of them as factory workers”.
- Autonomy for software engineers
- “Take this ticket and do what is asked” VS “we have a problem, solve it“.
- If engineers have more context and more leeway, they can come up with better solutions.
- Curious problem solvers, not mindless resources
- Silicon Valley (SV) companies see engineers as the highest paid because they are the best problem solvers in the company. Not just technical problems. So they involve them in the business as much as possible.
- Traditional companies squander that capability by relegating them to mere code writers, like labor in a factory.
- Internal data, code, and documentation transparency
- SV companies, in general, but not all, tend to be very transparent and share as much information as they can. Skyscanner or Uber provide metrics to engineers such as growth or revenue. This helps them to make better decisions.
- Traditional companies give requirement specifications to engineers and they take for granted that a higher mind knows why that should be done.
- Exposure to the business and to business metrics
- SV companies set a business objective, not a ticket. Like “to increase revenue by a predicted $10M/year by shipping ProjectX“. Therefore engineers interact and work hand in hand with other members of the company. With product managers, marketing, finance, or whomever is needed to accomplish the objective.
- In a traditional company, engineers do not usually interact with the rest of the business, but are limited to tickets. “You just write your code!“.
- Engineer-to-engineer comms over triangle-communication
- Traditional companies encourage hierarchical communication, engineers have to go through managers to communicate with engineers from other teams, wasting time and money.
- SV companies allow engineers to communicate directly with engineers from other teams.
- Investing in a less frustrating developer experience
- SV companies, by having engineers put the focus on solving problems, get the company to scale faster and easier. And at the same time they get engineers who focus on making other engineers work faster, and thus happier developers.
- Higher leverage –> higher {autonomy, pay}
- SV companies encourage engineers to present business ideas and implement them. In this way their salaries are quickly amortized. Many million-dollar ideas came from engineers, such as Facebook’s “Like” button, which allowed the company to add many more metrics that they then used to sell advertising.
Quote
We can’t guarantee success, we can do something better, we can deserve it.
David McCullough, in the book “The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For”
Did you like it?
Don’t complain, it’s free!
If you want to join the starters club give me your email and I’ll think about it:
If you want to invite me to a party, offer me a profitable business, give me money, or buy me beers… you can write me at hi@thestarter.blog.
Otherwise don’t bother, my time is worth gold. Or copper, it depends on the moment.