Chris Evans

Just the usual morning chat with your technical co-founder Ben 😆 Things are moving fast in SetSeed land, it’s crazy. Making it fun too, otherwise what’s the point eh. Especially with customer requests coming in fast, rapid development, testing Voyager, AWS, Azure etc all at once, migrations, stack scripts, multiple backup systems, cybersecurity etc etc. Awhile back I was actually afraid of success, as it felt uncontrollable. Guess what, in a way it is! But embracing the uncomfortable is crucial to growth. Be like the cicada; get a bit noisy and keep shedding the old you. P.S. SSL simulation is a nifty trick when preparing to migrate customers.

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It's been a while since our first launch at Product Hunt, this is our second launch but to be honest, I need to admit Commented is now more mature and more powerful than our first launch. We interviewed our users, listened to them and analyzed their needs profoundly. We are delighted and excited to serve those new features to you all. - Public commenting sessions - PDF and Image file commenting - Video capturing in Mobile SDKs - Inbox view - All comments view - Jira and Asana integrations - Annotation tool shapes and stroke colours & sizes - UX improvements - Performance enhancements - Slack two-way communication. - Many bug fixes. If you have time, please roast Commented, and share your good and bad thoughts about it. And please don't forget to upvote us from the link below if you enjoyed using Commented. Please reach out to us, if you need a discount or if you need a more specific use case, we will try our best to help you. Happy roasting and thanks in advance. https://lnkd.in/eAvzCC7P #collaboration #communication #publiccomments #commenttogether #buildinpublic #productivity #commenting #mobile

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You've just generated your SDK, and you're feeling good, but in the immortal words of Kobe Bryant, "Jobs not finished. SDK published? I don't think so. "Until it's published, your SDK is NOT done. Fortunately, with our recent release it's easier than ever to not only generate, but also publish your SDKs 🔥 on demand 🔥 and support the full breadth of semantic versioning including pre releases ! Changelog in the comments ! 👇 #sdks #packagemanagers

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If you’re an engineering leader, this report about the current state of tech has some great insights. It’s super fascinating to see what the current common themes are.

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Just trying out the newly released GOT (General OCR Theory) on Hugging Face Does anyone know any trick to improve the output quality? I just used the code on HuggingFace https://lnkd.in/eacHpGuX

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Want to watch me build an app in 30 minutes at SXSW London? 👀 Only joking… sort of. The way we code and build apps is changing FAST, and I think its super important that engineers are keeping up with the most up to date workflows and tools. Tools like Copilot and Cursor are making development faster, smarter, and more accessible than ever. At SXSW London, I want to show you how to harness these tools for your own projects. My hands-on talk will explore the AI transforming app development and what it means for the future of our industry. But I need your vote to make it happen. ➡️ Sign up for a SXSW voting account and hit the heart on my session page here: https://lnkd.in/eRmSSUnu

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Don't be afraid of the post-launch slump. It's super common to see a surge of activity right after a launch - whether it's your whole product, or a major new feature. Then... things die down. Maybe activity plummets, maybe it just stagnates. That's fine. A launch is bound to attract all kinds of people who are just window shopping. The key is to focus on who sticks around. What do they have in common? What feedback are they giving you? Then, it's time to get to work. Iterate on the product, streamline your marketing messaging. It may take a month or two. It'll feel scary. That's okay! Move as fast as you can, but carefully, and you'll soon find yourself on the other side of things, and starting to grow again. Pictured below: an approximation of a typical post-launch slump journey, inspired by stories shared with me by early-stage founders

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We’ve started ensemble / mob programming this week. It’s still early to measure the effects but as an XP-centric agile shop it was about time we embraced the practice. What I can say was that the mob caught a hard to notice bug in some code within 15 minutes. We call could easily see a solo developer missing such a subtle bug for hours. That alone seems worth it. Saying the word “agile” is easy, but being agile in practice is hard. We’ve tried SCRUM, SAFe, and Kanban—all with little gains in productivity before. For us XP seems to be the flavor that works in our org. We have lots of projects, disparate types of stakeholders, and a wide variety of backgrounds and skills. XP allows us a level of dynamism and knowledge sharing that works under those conditions. Will be reporting back on the results of the ensemble but it seems to be the last piece we needed to put into place. #agile #xp #extremeprogramming #agencylife #projectmanagement #softwareengineering #softwaredevelopment #software

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“This used to work, nothings changed so why is it now broken?” You tested a new feature of some software, found it worked as expected and approved it. Roll forward 12 months and now that same process is throwing an error?!? But nothings changed, it should work! This can be frustrating but even though there appears to have been no code changes it’s still likely something has actually changed within the environment, even if it wasn’t a conscious decision. Do you have more users than before, generating more data? Has the behaviour of users changed significantly? Is this an unusual task you’re trying to perform that differs slightly from the original test case? Has performance degraded on 3rd party APIs or services? Software runs in a dynamic environment which is why continuous testing and improvement is important. Yes, software should be built to scale but it’s also impractical (and unnecessary expensive) to pre-empt all possible scenarios when building every feature. Understand your immediate requirements, factor in reasonable growth targets and aim for this. Then monitor volume and process times and track error cases to understand when to review. #BespokeSoftware #SoftwareDevelopment #ContinuousImprovement

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A lot of software agencies charge a fortune for discovery workshops. At Cloud9devs, we charge a minimal fee – or even do them pro bono when the scope is small enough. Are we leaving money on the table? A lot of people seem to think so. They tell us time and again to up the price, saying that’ll make our prospects more engaged. But we haven’t budged. Wanna know why? Because more money ≠ more trust. Only more time = more trust: → Time spent discussing the project. → Time spent researching the project. → Time spent brainstorming the project. The way we see it, we’re investing in a long-term relationship. We want to make our prospects feel comfortable and show them what it’s like to work with us without the added time pressure or financial risk. If we succeed in that, the workshop will recoup itself anyway. Wanna know how we know this approach works? So far, 100% of the prospects we completed the discovery phase with ended up hiring us. That’s because we know what we’re talking about. And we know we can deliver. All we need is some time to prove it 😉 So make sure to follow us (Klemen, Romano, Nejc, Lovro) here on LinkedIn to learn more about our team and our work. We promise to make it worth your while.

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I've spent the last couple of days really digging into the SIPS platform for Nectar Card data, and into the Clubcard equivalent (for a set report). Things I like vs. what I dislike - being able to edit a prior report - although it doesn't automatically update the time period so you have to do that - being able to download all the data - the number of rows/columns with no values in them - I wish these were suppressed - the visuals are ok - but don't seem to download perfectly, or are a picture which you can't edit - selecting products is relatively easy - although in SIPS, this is inconsistent if you purchase from a number of categories; in Tesco it took me a while to work out exactly what I was looking for and is a preselected list What I have enjoyed doing most is downloading everything into excel and then creating my own threads/stories based on what I am seeing. And this is something that I wholly believe you need a human being for - and an expert who knows what they are doing! You still need a human to: ✅ interpret things properly ✅ ask the follow on questions ✅ draw out the conclusions ✅ understand the impact ✅ make strong recommendations I do believe that these front ends with their interactive visuals are helpful to lighter data users, but for those of us comfortable with moving around data, give me the raw data downloads every time!

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This is a great way of thinking.

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Want to solve your clients’ biggest challenges? → start listening to them → ask them questions → solve their pain Our clients face significant challenges: - Finding reliable dev talent - Managing project timelines - Ensuring quality outcomes → So, we solved it for them. We offered: - pre-vetted agencies - rapid matches within 72 hours - ongoing support until they have selected the right fit agency → The goal is to make life easier for them. And that’s how any business is supposed to be done. Agree? 👍 if you agree  ♻️ repost to share with your network

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The biggest gripe I had with myself earlier in my career, was being just another engineer. Good perhaps, excellent even but still siloed. Pair that with my love for working at startups, I could feel that there’s more to the problem than moving from Fargate to EKS. And this is something that I have seen across the board. Even if the environment is welcoming and fosters collaboration, we as engineers feel most comfortable with code. Almost bound by a sacred oath to never visit the dark lands of product 😅 The key to change this is to understand you are not there to serve at the whims of jira tickets. You didn’t learn algorithms to be the fastest in the world at sorting. Your ability to breakdown problems and spot patterns extends beyond code. Your empathy for users and the larger problem makes you a better engineer! Certainly more employable, especially in an environment where coding prowess is no longer an edge. PS: I have found PostHog’s notes especially helpful. Terse, and to the point. I hope they help you as well.

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In case you missed it while prepping for Flag Day 🇺🇸 Happy State of Engineering Management Report Day happened this week! The annual thought leadership piece from Jellyfish has dropped. Hear from Engineering leaders, managers and frontline ICs .... we cover a range of topics that matter to great R&D leaders. Key Points: 1️⃣ Engineers are now strategic partners! 🙌 2️⃣ Burnout continues to be a challenge 😱 3️⃣ The talent shortage is spiking back up. 4️⃣ Many teams have embraced #AI 🧠 5️⃣ Others have legit concerns about AI ⁉ If #developerproductivity #genAI #engineeringexcellence are important to you .... have a read! (link in the Comments)

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How do you build large-scale recommendation systems whilst managing stakeholder expectations/buy-in? It's a common question. I spoke with Tetiana Torovets, Head of Data Science at QuintoAndar on the topic. Here’s where to start: ↳ Build a reliable measurement system. ↳ Start small and show results. ↳ There's no silver bullet. We also discussed recommendations as a whole, search AI assistants, experimentation, metrics and the future of AI in property tech (link below!).

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Three questions every non-technical founder should ask potential developers: - 'How will you make sure we're building the right thing?' - 'What happens when we need to pivot?' - 'How do we know if we're spending too much?' The answers tell you everything ... - Bad developers talk about technology. - Good developers talk about outcomes. - The best? They ask you questions back.

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Bootstrapping is ultimately harder in many ways than just going and borrowing money. But just speak to anyone that has gone down the funded route and not had a successful SaaS exit (99%) and you will get the truth... Better products are built through bootstrapping. 🚀

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Trust is vital for CEOs (and all leaders). It's more than being honest. It's about team morale and productivity. Done right, it boosts morale, productivity & goal achievement. ☑ The "Why" Behind Decisions Explaining reasons builds trust. 1. Be Transparent Ex: Share the company's direction openly. 2. Tell the Truth Even if it's not what they want to hear. 3. Communicate Regularly Keep the team updated on key decisions. 4. Show Vulnerability Admit mistakes and learn from them. 5. Be Consistent Follow through on your promises. ☑ Building Trust It requires ongoing effort. → High Morale Trust leads to a motivated team. Ex: Employees feel valued and engaged. → Improved Productivity A trusted team works harder and smarter. Ex: Projects are completed efficiently. → Goal Achievement Trust aligns team efforts towards common objectives. Ex: Meeting quarterly targets becomes easier. Master the art of trust-building. Transform your leadership. Boost your team's success. ♻ Repost and promote the culture of trust.

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