🍲 Announcing Startup Soup: A Pragmatic Take on Startup Operations
Come find me at my new Substack!
Hi there and thank you for subscribing to the Fractional COO.
I apologize for the radio silence for the past several months. Right as I kicked off this newsletter, I had to get hip surgery—my third in four years. Unfortunately, recovering from a hip surgery and parenting a toddler is not easy. Many things fell by the wayside—including this newsletter.
As I emerged from recovery, I got to chatting with a dear friend, Jean Hsu, who shares my interest in effective company operations and my focus on stage-appropriate solutions. Jean’s an experienced engineering leader in startups and talented writer—you can find her incredibly thoughtful musings over at Tech and Tea.
Over many voice memos and text messages, Jean and I got to discussing startup operations—meaning the day-to-day practices of getting work done like team meetings, planning, goal setting in addition to the brass tacks of payroll and benefits.
We learned that we both see a common pitfall for startups. On the one hand, they completely deprioritize operations, leading to messes and late nights across the team. And on the other, they totally over-engineer operations where they do everything from first principles, which steals time and energy from other areas of the business.
We felt—and feel—like there is a better path that balances having some investment while not investing too much. Finding the minimum viable level of operations leads to a better functioning team that still has capacity to focus on the primary goals of the business. Plus, it’s just more fun to work at a well-run company and team while getting to have impact in your daily job.
Given our shared approach (and deep friendship), Jean and I have decided to combine forces and kick off a newsletter called Startup Soup. We believe in working hard when it matters, focusing on strategic efforts that make a real difference, and that there is a middle ground between chaos and over-engineered operations. Our newsletter will share tactical tips and guides on how to use this approach in your early to mid stage startup. And yes, occasionally, we’ll share soup recipes too.
As this news newsletter mirrors much of what I had hoped to achieve with the Fractional COO, I’ll be sunsetting this newsletter in favor of focusing my efforts on Startup Soup.
I hope you’ll join me there! ♥️
