tag:waxman.me,2014:/feedMichael Waxman2014-03-12T09:13:19-07:00Michael Waxmanhttp://waxman.memichael.e.waxman@gmail.comSvbtle.comtag:waxman.me,2014:Post/30-days-of-inbox-zero-how-i-did-it2014-03-12T09:13:19-07:002014-03-12T09:13:19-07:0030 Days of Inbox Zero. How I Did it.<p>I get on the order of several hundred e-mails a day. For the past 40 days, I’ve hit #inboxzero every, single day with relatively minimal effort. I’d say on average I spend less than an hour a day tending to e-mail. As recently as two months ago I had thousands of unread e-mails in my inbox. As I write this, I have zero. Here’s how I did it.</p>
<ul>
<li>This widely circulated <a href="http://klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-how-to-use-gmail-more">system for using G-mail</a> from <a href="http://twitter.com/andreasklinger">Andreas Klinger</a> was the tipping point. It takes about 15 minutes to set up, and gives you a thoughtful, efficient system for plowing through your inbox. The system itself is great, but I found that just having a system at all made it a lot easier to dive in to a full inbox.</li>
<li>I use <a href="https://www.sanebox.com/signup/5839b73b8f">Sanebox</a> to automatically filter out lower priority e-mails. I find it’s easier to train, more transparent, and more accurate than G-mail’s built-in priority inbox algorithms.</li>
<li>I use <a href="http://unroll.me">Unroll.me</a>, plus eager manual unsubscribes, to remove myself from almost all newsletters, minus a handful I deeply care about. While filters are nice, the best solution is prevention.</li>
<li>I use <a href="https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6594?hl=en">G-mail keyboard shortcuts</a> to increase my efficiency while in G-mail. Learn them. They’re simple and extremely helpful.</li>
<li>Lastly, I set up roughly 20 manual G-mail filters to triage frequent mail sources that I want records of, but never want in my inbox (e.g. certain reports, shipping confirmations for online shopping, etc.)</li>
</ul>
<p>One more essential, but indirect tool has been the habit-forming psychology of “<a href="http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret">not breaking the chain</a>” of reaching inbox zero. Once you hit a few days in a row, the loss aversion of not breaking the chain becomes a powerful motivator to keep going. About 30 days in I started using the <a href="http://lift.do">iPhone app, Lift</a>, which was designed for this exact purpose. (By the way, other active streaks that I owe to this approach include 22 days in a row of walking more than 10,000 steps, tracked on a FitBit, and 30 days in a row of writing in a gratitude journal).</p>
<p>The only downside of this journey has been, at times, I’ve become overly focused on hitting inbox zero, to the extent that it’s distracted from me from more important uses of my time. That said, I’m trying to institute three new practices to curb this:</p>
<ul>
<li>Only check e-mail twice per day</li>
<li>Remove email from my phone (and iPad), completely</li>
<li>Have a method for writing emails (on both my phone and computer) without checking them. I find that a common way I’m sucked into responding to emails is when I open up G-mail to compose a trivial one (e.g. “Are we still on for lunch tomorrow?”), but then I notice 5 e-mails sitting in my inbox, and before I know it 30 minutes have gone by. On my iPhone I’m using the app <a href="http://agiletortoise.com/drafts/">Draft</a> and on my computer I’m using an Alfred Workflow.</li>
</ul>
<p>So far, I’ve found it very hard to limit my e-mail checking to twice per day, but removing email from my phone has certainly helped. For urgent communication, I can still be reached by phone, SMS, or HipChat. </p>
<p>Tackling e-mail has been a hard, but rewarding challenge. It’s made me a better founder, a better manager, and even a better friend. </p>
<p>Please share your e-mail hacks with me in the discussion over on <a href="http://waxman.me/30-days-of-inbox-zero-how-i-did-it">Hacker News</a> or on Twitter - I’m <a href="http://twitter.com/wxmn">@wxmn</a>.</p>
<p>After you take back control of your inbox, you should use that newfound extra time to have fun and be more interesting by <a href="https://www.joingrouper.com/drink/macallan-with-michael-w">going on a Grouper</a> :)</p>
tag:waxman.me,2014:Post/the-secret-to-hiring-a-designer2012-09-10T09:41:00-07:002012-09-10T09:41:00-07:00The secret to hiring a designer<p>We just rebranded and redesigned <a href="https://www.joingrouper.com">the entire Grouper site</a> in about 3 weeks. We came in under budget, perfectly on time, and the results exceeded our expectations. It couldn’t have gone any better.</p>
<p>We owe much of this to a single piece of brilliant advice we received a few months ago, which applies equally well to hiring a designer part-time or full-time.</p>
<p>I was chatting with Aaron Epstein and Darius Monsef (aka Bubs), the founders of <a href="http://creativemarket.com">Creative Market</a> and <a href="http://colorlovers.com">Color Lovers</a> — both awesome, designer-focused sites. I figured if anyone would have pro tips about working with designers it’d be them. They didn’t disappoint and delivered this gem:</p>
<blockquote class="short">
<p>Make sure you like the designer’s style so much that you would trust them to create a design for you without any input.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you try to force a designer into a style that’s not their own it’s often slow and painful; if they’re working in their own favorite style it’s usually smooth sailing.</p>
<hr>
<p>I spent hours and hours sifting through hundreds of Dribbble profiles looking for styles that I loved as-is. I settled on an awesome 22 year-old designer from LA named <a href="http://kylemillercreative.com/">Kyle Miller</a>. </p>
<p>We knew we wanted to do something retro to echo our product itself, which is all about getting back to what matters — your relationships with friends, old and new, in the real world. Kyle’s take on mid-century modern is simply brilliant and is perfect for Grouper with little or no changes.</p>
<p>Working together was a breeze. Since I liked and trusted his taste so much, the revisions were few in number and usually concrete rather than creative in a nature. The small number of revisions let us work much faster than we could have otherwise. Not only did we come in perfectly on time and under budget, but we were even able to expand the scope of the project to include additional designs and even new t-shirts. </p>
<p>I’m particularly thankful about the T-shirts in light of my <a href="http://waxman.me/why-to-wear-the-same-clothes-every-day">previous post</a>. They’ll be available soon at <a href="https://www.joingrouper.com/swag">joingrouper.com/swag</a>.</p>
tag:waxman.me,2014:Post/why-to-wear-the-same-clothes-every-day2012-09-07T11:35:00-07:002012-09-07T11:35:00-07:00Why I wear the same shirt every day<p>I rep a <a href="http://joingrouper.com">Grouper</a> t-shirt every, single day. <em>(Fortunately, I have a few).</em></p>
<p>There are two reasons why I do this:</p>
<blockquote class="short">
<ol>
<li> <strong><em>I don’t have to think about what to wear.</em></strong>
</li>
<li><strong><em>Free advertising.</em></strong></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>The first reason I stole from Steve Jobs. His iconic outfit is often misunderstood. He wore that famous black mock turtleneck, Levi’s, and New Balances not to make a fashion statement, but almost for the complete opposite reason: so he didn’t have to think about what to wear. Apple is a tremendously focused company and it stemmed from a leader who tuned out all distractions, even ones as trivial as getting dressed. </p>
<p>The second reason was inspired by Larry and Sergey. An early Google investor told me that they wore their Google t-shirts every day in the early years. “Free advertising,” they explained.</p>
<p>Startups are hard. Every little bit helps.</p>
tag:waxman.me,2014:Post/when-they-have-to-change-the-rules2012-07-10T10:06:00-07:002012-07-10T10:06:00-07:00When they have to change the rules<p>Many tech companies are trying to “disrupt” existing industries, but few actually do. There is, however, one unmistakable sign of real disruption: when the incumbents try to change the rules.</p>
<p>Uber, the outstanding on-demand car service, has ascended to this rare status. The taxicab industry/mafia has long felt threatened by Uber (<a href="http://www.quora.com/Uber-1/Why-did-UberCab-change-their-name-to-Uber">even forcing them to drop their original name of UberCab</a>). Earlier today the local government in Washington DC voted on legislation specifically designed to thwart Uber’s new product, UberX – a hybrid fleet that offers lower prices than Uber’s standard black cars. The cab lobby <a href="http://blog.uber.com/2012/07/09/strike-down-the-minimum-fare/">attempted to push through a “minimum fare”</a> that was blatantly designed to protect them from competition with UberX, and would without question hurt consumers. </p>
<p>Airbnb is <a href="http://betabeat.com/2011/05/airbnb-takes-manhattan-with-2k-bookings-a-night-but-many-listings-may-be-illegal/">waging a similar battle</a> with the hotel industry. The Hyatts and Hiltons of the world have good reason to feel threatened, too: Airbnb has more than 100,000 active listings, which is more rooms than most global hotel chains.</p>
<p>It reminds me of the legacy of basketball great Wilt Chamberlain, whose unprecedented dominance as one of the league’s first athletic “big men” (he was 7'1") <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamberlain#Rule_changes">directly resulted in numerous rule changes to try to blunt his advantage</a>. He still managed to score 100 points in a game (still a record) and win 2 championships. </p>
<p>While these legal battles may be expensive and frustrating for the startups that face them, ultimately they are <strong>an overwhelmingly positive sign: that you’re so damn good, the existing players can’t compete without changing the rules.</strong> Like Wilt, Uber and Airbnb will win, because their products are just so much better than the competition. Pesky rules changes can’t stand in their way.</p>
<p>Congrats to Uber on <a href="http://dcist.com/2012/07/cheh_shelves_uber_amendment_after_b.php">prevailing today</a> – fortunately the anti-Uber amendment was removed. And to all the other nascent startups out there: may you be so successful that your incumbents try to change the rules for you too.</p>
tag:waxman.me,2014:Post/its-a-long-life-in-the-small-valley2012-06-28T14:32:00-07:002012-06-28T14:32:00-07:00It's a long life in the small Valley<p>I moved to Silicon Valley when I was 19 to embark on my first startup. I knew nothing and virtually nobody except for my co-founder.</p>
<p>It was 2006 and it wasn’t as easy to learn the ropes back then. This was before much of today’s startup infrastructure existed. There was no Hacker News or Github or Twitter or AngelList or Stack Overflow. This was before EC2 and the iPhone, when Myspace still had ten times more users than Facebook. Y Combinator was just getting started.</p>
<p>We raised some money and assembled an amazing team, but struggled as a company. Good people came and went, and as the ship was sinking many people jumped off before we went totally under in the summer of 2008. At our peak we had 25 full-time employees and ultimately had to let go everyone who remained.</p>
<hr>
<p>One thing that stays with me is the way in which people carried themselves on the way down. Most were gracious and respectful, but a few were not. Some quit, some were fired, some left sooner versus later, others held on to the very end.</p>
<p>I tried to treat everyone with the utmost respect, because this is how I was raised. I was by no means perfect, but on the whole I’m proud of the way that I handled myself. And I’m glad that I did. </p>
<p>For all I knew I wasn’t ever going to see any of these people again, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I have since run into almost all of my former colleagues in the wildly small social circles of the tech world.</p>
<p>Our lead engineer, Nathan left on great terms to work on his next project, which became <a href="http://www.airbnb.com/founding-team">Airbnb</a>. My former co-founder Daniel became the first employee of a YC startup that was later <a href="http://etherpad.com/">acquired by Google</a>. One of our VP’s, Halle stayed on until the bitter end before going on to found a non-profit, graduate from HBS, and start the successful health care incubator <a href="http://rockhealth.com">Rock Health</a>. Three engineers started Y Combinator companies and three more started other venture-backed projects.</p>
<p><strong>I even ended up pitching one of our former interns who now works at a top-tier VC.</strong></p>
<hr>
<p>Sometimes in the chaotic trenches of a startup people make bad decisions. Your company seems like the only thing in the world and you’re willing to do anything to ensure its survival. You’re stressed and overworked. It can be a recipe for disaster. </p>
<p>Unfortunately a few of these episodes have played out on Hacker News and Twitter over the past few days (which, frankly, is what compelled me to jot down these thoughts). It’s tough to watch.</p>
<p>You chastise a departing employee, or refuse to pay a contractor, or fire off an angry email, or get into a nasty feud with your co-founder, or worse. At the time it might feel pragmatic or cathartic, but it’s a horribly bad idea, because, in the language of Game Theory, the startup world is a repeated game. It’s never worth maximizing this round at the expense of all future rounds.</p>
<p>You’re going to have to face these people again. And statistically this isn’t going to be your last startup. Keep that in mind. </p>
<p><strong>There’s a relatively thick line between being resourceful and being a dick. Don’t cross it.</strong></p>
<hr>
<p>You should always treat people with respect, first and foremost because this is how fellow human beings deserve to be treated. But you should also remember that it’s a long life in the small valley.</p>