Seattle Startup Life

Conenza has been growing pretty rapidly lately. We’re packed like sardines (ode to Radiohead) in our current office and I love it. Being able to just turn your head and talk to someone about a question is so easy and efficient. It’s the simple things that make working at a startup great: the small kitchens, the intimate walks to lunch (and the intimate walks straight back), the ability to work on all aspects of the product, and especially the smart people. You see, a startup is essentially made up of two things: a great idea and really smart people. The right mixture of the two ingredients transforms the hodgepodge of humans and concepts into a well run machine.

I love talking to people that make me re-think myself. It’s an exhilarating feeling.  I had two meetings today that really challenged me. The first included Andrew Smith, Katherine James Schuitemaker and I going over user-flows. We did a walk-through of how media would be used in the next version of the social network we’re building. Towards the end of the meeting, Katherine suggested something she was thinking about on her way back from a recent trip. Her idea was very simple yet extremely complex. Her question (or challenge?) to us was: how do you build a visual representation of user profiles – their professional trends, decisions, challenges, success-metrics, personal stories – and show it in a compelling way? I took it a step further in my head. Once you build something, how do you make it a product that users will find useful?  It took fundamental ideas that I overlooked and turned it on its head. Needless to say, I was stunned at how hard I was thinking about this problem. Sometimes the best conversations are the ones sitting around a table, deep in thought.

If you enjoy solving complex problems with simple solutions, drop me a line. We can use you at Conenza.

It’s been almost 2 months since I’ve left my post at crazy job Redfin and moved into my new digs at Conenza. The transition was an emotional and somewhat painful one; I felt like Zach graduating graduating from Bayside High. I was one of the early guys at Redfin and knew the company inside and out. I made it through 3 rounds of funding, 5 different offices (4 in Pioneer Square), an overhaul of multiple teams, several crazy real estate seasons and an endless amount of product/engineering challenges. The place was home.

So, many ask, why leave? Well, as with everything in life, all good things come to an end. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I felt that I contributed all I could to Redfin and needed a new challenge. I initially wanted to start another company, cashing in on the ideas I had stored in the back of my head for years. But the mortgage payments and bills put an end to that idea pretty quickly. The next best thing for me was to join a fledgling startup. During my two weeks of interviewing, I talked to so many smart people, it was scary. John Sangiovanni and his crew at Zumobi, Kevin Merritt and Matt Johnson running the uber-tight ship at Blist, Dan and Mike serving monster aces in mobile imaging business at Ontella, and so many more. In the end, I decided to take the job at Conenza. All in all, one of the hardest decisions of my life. And in the end, it wasn’t about the technology or the space or even the position, but what really felt right. It doesn’t hurt that the Conenza office is right across the street from Redfin’s as well.

Which leads me to the point behind my newly minted blog: I will probably never leave Pioneer Square. There are too many brains that bring me back here.