🌌 Git, GraphQL, Getro
Efficient Agile, Q&A w/ Nick Frost, some tech stuff we're watching and more.
Happy Friday. Here’s our take on this week’s tech trends, the goings-on of Practicum and some other things to round out your week—
Rodney McGee, Practicum Mentor and CTO of Provider Pool shared workflow, git and agile tips + tricks with the entire Practicum Community. Our main takeaways include:
Create a “business wiki” - database of knowledge and resources related to the project in one place (google sites is a good start)
Separate Trello board into “swimlanes” such as backlog, ready for work, in development, etc.
Ensure PM is on the same page as the development team; oftentimes the business-end of the product will differ from the engineer’s perspective
Practicum Spotlight w/ Nikki Mehrjerdian:
Nikki is a Digital Media grad student at Georgia Tech and the UX Designer of our project with LanguageX.
“I have a background in journalism and I spent some time working in the media industry and sharing stories from around the world. My curiosity for creating connections with how humans interact with the world combined with my interest in technology is what led me to the world of UX design.
This summer, I have the exciting opportunity of working alongside a talented team to build an MVP. It’s a unique opportunity to have a front-row seat to bringing a vision to life, creating a product for our users alongside a dev team and founder. As a product designer, my focus is on creating products that address the user’s needs. Before actually designing anything, I spend a significant amount of time reviewing user stories and needs. As a designer, it’s important to do general research about the business landscape to fully understand the problem we are trying to solve. While visual design helps create credibility and desirability in the product, usability and effectiveness are at the core and that’s what I strive to create during each sprint.
After graduation, I hope to continue working as a designer for a startup or a tech company to help create products that make users’ lives a bit easier. For now, though, I’m excited to continue working with and learning alongside my awesome LanguageX team to create a meaningful product by the end of this summer.”
Q&A w/ Nick Frost:
Nick is an entrepreneur and newsletter enthusiast, with a track record growing early companies. Previously, he served 5 years in the U.S. Navy, caught the bug with StartupList (Acquired by Mattermark) and worked with Mattermark and test.ai in various roles.
How did your military experience shape who you are today?
“My military experience opened up a world of possibility and, in general, the world to me. I grew up in town of 200 people in Missouri and, even though I’d traveled to ~25 States, I’d never left the country. Being 18 and getting stationed for six months in Rota, Spain on my first deployment was very eye-opening. I got to see how people lived in Europe and was lucky enough to visit Italy, Portugal, and Gibraltar. After two more deployments, six months in Guam and eight months in Afghanistan, I’d learned a lot about connecting with people from different backgrounds and cultures, how to perform under immense pressure, and that grit is a trait I have. Serving those 5 years taught me a lot of valuable lessons, too many to describe here, but overall, I think the mix of regimented process, steady growth in leadership, and “always be learning” mindset, gave me the foundation I needed for the path I’m on personally and professionally.”
What's the biggest challenge you faced in breaking into startups/entrepreneurship?
“My biggest challenge breaking into startups and entrepreneurship was that I started building my first startup from my tent while deployed in Afghanistan. It was daunting to not really have a clue what the startup world actually was back in 2010 and at the same time having an intense curiosity and passion to figure it out. It must have been serendipity or luck that I’d found popular tech blogs to give me the idea to feature early-stage startups on my Tumblr page (at the time), StartupList. Soon after, I read a blog post I found on Hacker News that ended up with me bringing on a co-founder to build a real website. The learning curve of going from diesel mechanic in the Navy to co-founder of an incorporated web startup was pretty steep. All of this began in my last year of the Navy after I’d learned a lot of the foundational lessons I mentioned before, so at least I knew some things about the value of process, leadership, and perseverance. It took me nearly 2 years to get my first paying job in tech, but all of the struggles to get to that point were worth it.”
What's something exciting you're working on right now?
“Almost 10 years later, I’m excited to be working on Getro.org, a community-driven, pro-bono project to help laid-off tech workers get introduced to hiring managers at companies still hiring in this economic environment. We’ve been building this project for the past two months and have over 580 companies on board with nearly 900 people signed up looking for jobs. It’s been a great experience to learn more about the hiring process for both sides of the market all while working with a talented team building something from the ground up. We’ve seen students to people with many years of experience and people from diverse backgrounds joining to find their next opportunity. The mission of getting people back to work in a community-driven way is exciting to be a part of.”
*Thanks Nick for your service, taking the time to chat with us and for sharing your story. Check out Getro if you get the chance, we love the mission!
Tech Trends & Startups we’re watching:
Email substitutes with Slack Connect and Hey
Broadband internet demand off the charts as COVID-19 keeps people at home
BOS ☁️ (Seed) - flexible cloud infrastructure, DevOps and starter code
RallyRd 💱 (Series A) - buying & selling equity shares in collectible assets
Algorithmia 👩🏾💻 (Series B) - platform to scale ML portfolio across an organization
Intro to Investing 💰 :
Making the leap from a savings account to a brokerage account can be intimidating. However, with savings rates at all-time lows, opening an account with any one of the various brokerage platforms (TD, E-Trade, Robinhood, etc.) is an easy way to start making more money with your paychecks. You don’t have to be a stock market genius to find returns, it can be as simple as stowing your money away in a mutual fund. With all the volatility and uncertainty dominating the current market landscape, the safest bet may very well be the market itself (roughly captured through mutual fund performance) or in other asset classes like bonds, real estate, etc. With an annualized return of around 8-10%, funds mirroring the broader market represent a solid return for those willing to make the move from a lower-yielding savings account. Here are a few resources to get started:
NoCode Tools of the Week:
Carrd - free, fully-responsive one-page websites
Sharetribe - scalable marketplace building
Svachat - Spain-based NoCode chatbot implementation
8base - Serverless, automated GraphQL Backend-as-a-service (DevOps free)
Our Light Bulbs 💡:
-Autonomous driving - Amazon acquires self-driving startup Zoox
-"How Much Equity Do You Give Up in a Series A Round?” (SaaStr Article)
-The Portal feat. Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital on “The Mind Financing The Future”
-What’s Next by Jordan Gonen - interesting links that help you think about the future
-Jess Li’s Medium post on “Product, Team Building and Fundraising” Post-COVID
Things of the week: Matchbox Rockets and Machine Learning
Can’t find any fireworks for the 4th of July? Make your own with this DIY Matchbox Rocket Kit:
Learn while playing video games this weekend with while True: learn(), a mobile and PC game where you learn the day-to-day of a machine learning engineer through visual programming, adventures with your genius cat and solving riddles.
If you missed last week’s newsletter, find it here!
Hi! 👋 Thanks for reading The Void. We’re Zach and Jack, Partners @ Practicum and Students @ WashU + Georgetown. Leave some feedback, check us out on LinkedIn or contact us!