mattwatsonkc.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

I have a new product idea almost everyday. What's the secret? Talking to other people. You don't have all the ideas or problems. Go talk to other business people and professionals and learn about their problems. Maybe you can solve them.

submitted 6 hours ago • 0 comments

What big companies do is an anti-pattern for almost everything in startups. Risk aversion Hierarchy of decisions Process and bureaucracy Perfect planning In a startup, you want to optimize for speed of value delivery to the customer.

submitted 10 hours ago • 0 comments

Pull requests are highly overused. I told one of my teams to stop using them today. It's a startup. We don't even have a product in production!! Why slow down with PRs? Move fast and break things. What big companies do is an anti-pattern for almost everything in startups.

submitted 15 hours ago • 0 comments

Zoom didn't invent video calling. They weren't even close to being first. But they built a $21B company by getting the timing right. Google wasn't the first search engine. Facebook wasn't the first social network. iPhone wasn't the first smartphone. The key is knowing WHEN to enter. ⬇️

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Modern development teams don't need someone to track if work is done. Jira can do that. Your standup can do that. Your team can self-organize.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

A project solves one problem for one company. A product solves one problem for many companies. This simple distinction changed how I think about software development. Here's what most people miss ⬇️

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Sifting through all the job applications is a very real problem. Does anyone have any tips for how to best do this? (Besides using a dev agency or staffing agency)

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

You know what's worse than picking the wrong tech stack? Taking three months to pick any tech stack at all. I get it. I've been the CTO making these decisions. The pressure to make the "right" technical choice is intense.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Every technical leader eventually hits this wall: Your stable products need perfect reliability. Your new initiatives need rapid innovation. And you have to do both at the same time. It's like trying to drive a car with one foot on the brake and one on the gas. The reality? ⬇️

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

If you have never been in a data center are you really a software engineer? I haven't been in one in 15 years. I don't miss driving to the data center.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

A backlog is the list of shit you will never do. A roadmap is the list of shit you promise others. A status update is the list of shit you actually did. Figure this out, and you get promoted with more shit. 💩

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

You want every architecture decision to be perfect. Every PR to meet your standards. Every feature to be built "the right way." But being a brilliant architect isn't enough.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

A car costs 10x more than a horse and 20x more than a motorcycle. Maybe we are doing this wrong.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Check out this hockey stick growth!! 📈 If you aren't listening to the Product Driven podcast, you should check it out! Every week we discuss bringing a product driven mindset to every step of the product development process.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Most of the startups I have invested in either built the right thing the wrong way or built the wrong thing the right way. Getting both right is rarer than you would think.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

The best thing about being a software engineer is being able to get yourself lost in writing code and solving problems. Forget the world. Forget everything. Or maybe my ADHD hyperfocus loves it.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Our model is simple: Give talented developers meaningful work Treat them with respect Create an environment where they can thrive No micromanagement No treating them like second-class employees Just professionals doing what they do best

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

We shouldn't call it artificial intelligence. We should call it enhanced intelligence. It's really making all of us more intelligent.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

The new "cheap" iPhone 16e is $599. A Moto G costs $109. Both take pictures and let you doom scroll TikTok. Why pay $500 more?

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

The best part of being successful is getting to decide who you want to do business with.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

He is omnipotent He is all knowing His is all powerful He lives in the cloud He makes miracles Are we talking about AI or God?

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

I killed my first company's growth without realizing it. Every technical decision needed my approval. Every architecture choice needed my review. Every deployment required my sign-off. I thought I was maintaining quality. I was actually creating the biggest bottleneck: me.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Senior software engineers are the most valuable asset on the planet now. Since AI has replaced junior engineers, we won't get anymore senior engineers. 🧐

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

It depends. That is the answer if you work in software engineering. Ironically, it does not depend on the question.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

The most valuable technical leaders aren't the ones who know the most about technology. They're the ones who can explain why that technology matters.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

No document, no matter how detailed, can replace meaningful conversation. Why? Because documentation captures decisions. But great software comes from the discussions that lead to those decisions. Your engineers don't just need to know WHAT to build. They need to understand:

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

If you let software engineers decide what work to do, they will work on things to make their life easier. You will get more frameworks, more infrastructure, more tests, two clouds, and a new JavaScript framework. They should be focused on making their customers' lives easier.

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Most engineers don't lack ideas - they lack the confidence to voice them. The best technical solutions often die in silence because engineers don't feel safe challenging assumptions. Here's what most leaders get wrong:

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Multiple people told me Stripe sucks and don't use it for SaaS subscriptions. What else should we use?

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

Code commits do not measure productivity or the impact of your work. It's like measuring construction work by how many nails were used. How excited were your customers about what you shipped? Measure that instead.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments