The 5-Minute Startup CTO #77

Lessons on people management, Testing your startup idea, Measuring productivity, Chrome extensions

Hi there,

After a bit of a break, the 5MSC newsletter is back, with 4 weekly tips for Startup CTOs and Technical Leads.

So here are this week’s tips:

👭 People

First, a good thread from Rob Khazzam straight from the trenches: lessons learnt on people management during 3 years at Uber.

Rob Khazzam @rkhazzam

Lots of threads covering startup growth, angel investing, etc. Very little is shared here on people mgnmt - one of the hardest + most frustrating aspects of leadership. I went from zero experience to hiring / managing >75 people in the span of 36 mos. Here's what I learned 👇

🥫 Product

How to test your startup idea, in 10 easy-to-follow steps. Nice little write-up from Jim Semick of ProductPlan.

🔄 Process

A good take on measuring Engineering Productivity, by Antoine Boulanger.

Rather than tracking low-level approximations of output, or not measuring anything at all, focus on measuring what slows down or even blocks your teams. I’d also argue for high-level measurement of the impact of projects, but this makes a lot of sense.

⌨️ Tech

From the X-Team, 25 useful chrome extensions for developers. Well worth going through that shortlist as you’ll likely find a few good ones you hadn’t heard of.

Until next time, have a great week!

Fabrice

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The 5-Minute Startup CTO: every Sunday, 4 top insights in 5 minutes for startup CTOs and Tech Leads. Hand-picked by Fabrice.