The 5-Minute Startup CTO #52
Reentry anxiety, Productivity tools, Contrarian thinking, API design
Hi there!
Welcome to the latest 5MSC, and this week’s top picks on People, Product, Process and Tech.
👭 People
With Covid-19 receding in many countries, and despite the growth in remote working, many employees will soon resume office-based work. Which is bound to be less straightforward than it seems.
Thankfully, there is plenty we can do to help employees deal with ‘reentry anxiety’. In short: focus on their wellbeing, communicate, act on health measures, train your leaders and offer flexibility.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fce015d31-14d1-48ee-a988-47d3a2bf8f38_1024x576.jpeg)
🥫Product
Next, a handy list of 25 productivity tools for Product Managers. From communication to email and automation, and more, it would be amiss not to make the best of these.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffeba5393-3f91-4d21-9275-802f0fd479eb_1400x776.png)
🔄 Process
How often do you purposefully steer away from ‘best practice’, and break the rules? And when you do so, is it with a clear reason in mind?
In the latest Nfx podcast, James Currier discusses contrarian thinking, including examples from Apple, PayPal, Yelp and Square.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6fd842e3-e765-4ed3-949c-9fc7fa41554b_1128x312.png)
⌨️ Tech
Lastly, REST APIs are a very well established standard by now, but it’s still nice to see this good set of design best practices, straight from the StackOverflow blog.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F91598505-f6e7-4712-b061-6c8883e98d12_1200x566.png)
Until next time, have a great week!
Fabrice
The 5-Minute Startup CTO: every Sunday, 3 top insights in 5 minutes for startup CTOs and Tech Leads. Hand-picked by Fabrice, a UK-based consulting CTO.