Giving Thanks

Dec 21

Posted by Andrew Machado in Technology | Comments off

It’s been a long year. The last six months have been an incredible journey filled with setbacks, accomplishments and as of today fulfillment. As of today we are finally shipping the latest and a full rewrite of Open Home Pro into customers hands.

The purpose of this post is not about the app, but about the people that helped or inspired its being built.

Bert Toledo - without her we never wouldve started building ohp. She inspired it with her frustration and it turns out 14,999 others have her problem too. She’s my rock. Best girlfriend in the world.

Josh Elman - On September 11, 2010 Josh offered his initial feedback of my mvp product and I thought it was spot on. He talked a lot about focus and simplicity. I would find myself rereading this email a few times over the course of development.

Michael Dearing - When I met with MD he said one word that changed our design forever. Photos. Photos are everything in real estate and they are everything in our app.

Ryan Spoon - Ryan has always encouraged me to take the leap.  Without his advisement and resources we never wouldve shipped. God bless him.

Chris Smith - Chris really put OHP on the map by talking about how great it was for agents at Inman’s Agent Reboot conference held in major areas throughout 2011.

Egg Haus - Rob and his team were exceptional to work with.  We developed some really great methodologies throughout the app that we agreed our innovative and great for our user base.  The design work done in this app I’d argue is the strongest in the real estate industry. The landing pages look so good i’d hang them on my wall. Bravo.

Robert Malko - Robert barely exists online. He has no Twitter or Facebook profiles, but boy does he work his ass off.  He poured countless hours to help get this out the door, including 16 straight yesterday.

I had two great interns for a few weeks along the way. Sam and Kirk thanks for the help figuring out conversion numbers.

Chris Lim - Chris was instrumental in getting us enough funding to build towards our vision. His enthusiasm is his best quality.  He got me excited to keep pushing towards the finish line.

Angelo DiNardi - Angelo hadn’t done much iOS programming when he turned my original powerpoint slides into a functional app. He’s ridiculously solid and has one heck of a head of hair.

Steven, Tristan, Tyler, Can, Mona and rest of the artists formally known as Apture. Thank you for forcing me to build a better product. The polish that we put into every pixel really pays off for every user.

Last but not least mom, dad. I think nearly every phone call we’ve shared you two have asked how is it going. Not once did you ask when is it shipping?

thankyou


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Pushing all your chips in

Dec 10

Posted by Andrew Machado in Personal | Comments off

In Rounders if you haven’t seen it Matt Damon’s characters goes through quite a few swings at the poker table. To kick things off he loses everything after pushing all his chips in.

More recently you’ve seen it with the Los Angeles Angels signing both Albert Pujols and CJ Wilson. They are essentially betting the teams long term health financially on winning now. They think they have the right pieces in place combine with these two signings to take a run at the World Series.

This kind of tactic I always appreciate. It takes some real faith in your decision making to run the risk of losing everything (poker) or cripple your team financially to sign players for over 300+ million dollars combined. If you aren’t willing to bet the house on yourself and your gut feeling then why even play the game.

We constantly see friends and people who are complacent. They want to go into business for themselves or possibly change to a different company, but don’t. You hear things like “but what if” and “the risk is to high” when in fact I believe the risk is even greater if you don’t.

Your time on this planet is limited. Push yourself to make harder decisions and take greater risks.

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Opportunity Cost

Oct 30

Posted by Andrew Machado in Personal, Technology | Comments off

Over time I think we all make choices in our career that either pay off or don’t. Lately I’ve witnessed a few friends go through some bitterness about how things played out recently for them. I’ll be the first to line up in the bitterness line. Back in 2004 I sold my remaining shares in Apple Computer at $22 pre split to pay for my last year of college. That money now would be worth about 40x what I sold it for. Am I bitter, not particularly because it was a choice I made because in the long run I thought it would pay off.

I always ask myself a few questions when deciding to work at a company. Beyond salary and benefits will the team make me better? Is there something to learn from the people who run the company? My thinking here is if you are going to give up your time and opportunities to work elsewhere you absolutely should feel the team you will work with will make you better.

I look back at a few of these decisions often.

1. Working at Apture. The minute I met Tristan I said to myself this guy is going to make me better. He is going to push me to better examine interfaces and think that much more about building a better product. It turns out beyond that I learned a whole heck of a lot about the psychology of users and how you should make them “feel” while using your product.

2. Working with Steve Susko, Doug Moony, Jerry McDougal and Corey Fugman. When I interned on the Apple Merchandising team these guys really taught me how to negotiate and stand your ground when it comes to value. They turned the Apple Retail Stores into a high value/high margin machine. When you walk into a store and see particular items featured you’ll be damn sure most of them are paid for. Most importantly they taught me to have standards when it comes to what you’ll feature. I remember being in Jerry’s office when he asked me what I thought of a specific pair of headphones. Over the next five minutes he destroyed my opinion telling me the packaging is terrible, they look atrocious and the packaging would never let them stock them within a store. When you hear things like this you really start to realize how much thought goes into their stores and that its not all about the money.

I could’ve spent my Sundays watching football, but instead lived in excel building planograms for Apple’s Retail Stores because I knew in the end they would make me better.

In closing I always tell people worry less about the $. Think more about the who you’ll work with and the what you’ll learn. The $ will become a bi-product.

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What A CEO Can Learn From Tim Tebow

Oct 23

Posted by Andrew Machado in Technology | Comments off

He has one of the highest selling jerseys in the NFL, yet he is a backup Quarterback.  He won two National Championships in College, the Heisman and broke every single SEC record for a QB, yet he was only projected to be drafted in the third round.  Instead he was taken in the first round by the Denver Broncos.

1.  Work Harder Than Everyone Else

When they asked Tim how he stayed motivated while redoing his throwing motion to please NFL Scouts he simply stated “I ask myself everyday is there anyone out there working harder than I did today? Every day I assure myself No”.  Startups are a lot of work from planning, to vision, to fund raising, etc.  I view it almost as a war.  So strap on your helmet and bust your ass.

2.  Be Inspiring

Keeping your team motivated in the startup game is always a challenge.  As you’ll see from the clip below Tim makes sure to get everyone involved and excited about what they are going to be doing.  From the moment he hits the field the high fives, screaming and leadership is flowing.  If you inspire your team you’ll be able to keep them loyal when times are tough.

3.  Be Assertive

Nobody wants to work with a pushover. If you are the leader act like it.  In the clip below Tim walks right over to the sidelines and tells the coaching staff “There is only one person who carries the ball right here”.  A statement like that takes Gorilla Balls.  Sure enough he ran the ball into the end zone a few plays later.

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