Building A Banquette

2024-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

Why am I building a banquette?

In August 2024, I left my role at Raptive to recover from burnout and take a career break in preparation for working on whatever’s next for me. I reflected on my experience leading up to that point, and found (among a variety of things) that what I lacked for a long time was the ability to enter a state of flow.

I had been there for three years since the acquisition and was thankful to work on a variety of fun projects with good people. However, my days gradually became divided into smaller and smaller units, with focus and stakeholders frequently shifting. I craved the hands-on work and the reward of being able to see progress and impact directly. The creative space to just build.

Also, last year we bought our first house. As an aside, it’s still unbelievable to me that we did it. I’ve lived in San Francisco for a decade, and for this whole time I assumed that something would push me out. I didn’t think that I’d ever be able to afford to stay here longer term, with the cost of (among a variety of things) housing. But, the acquisition allowed us to, which I am grateful for.

So, I’m in this new house, about to quit my job, wanting to work on a hands-on project that’ll give me regular states of flow and the ability to see progress. So I start reading more about woodworking as a skill that can maximize the value of this new space.

And there’s a specific space that would benefit from the attention: the breakfast nook. It’s a small room adjacent to the kitchen and dining room. It’s got big windows and beautiful afternoon light, even a little peek of the ocean. The problem is, it’s so small that most furniture is either too big or small.

The banquette vision

I felt that a custom piece of furniture would allow me to maximize the value of the space by allowing us to use every inch for our specific needs. Of course, eating breakfast is a need, but the more important use case for us is lounging around. Preferably with cat.

Pinterest has thousands of breakfast nooks, but none built to lounge on. There were a lot of reading nooks as well, but none built to eat breakfast at. So, I envisioned a mashup of a daybed with a breakfast nook bench while also integrating as much storage as possible.

The research and design

Although I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted online, I still found a lot of great inspiration:

Banquette with Fluted Timber Detail - Little Red Industries

I really liked how this one maximized storage using drawers underneath the seating area. And even cooler that they used pre-built flat pack cabinets.

@findmaggiemay Instagram - Banquette Build

Maggie May is a DIY influencer, and her banquette Instagram story was a particularly helpful video step-by-step that I found of creating a banquette. It went into how different tools were used to cut the pieces and there was enough detail in the videos to follow it as a step-by-step guide.

DIY Built-In Bench - Youtube

This video solidified my choice of using plywood sheets instead of 2x4 dimensional lumber to create the structure for my build. After watching this video, it was clear to me that using plywood was going to be my best option.

Watching these examples, I was able to reverse engineer / create a Sketchup design.

At this stage, I found this Steve Ramsey video on Sketchup basics to be what I needed to figure out how to model things in 3D.

From there, I used a free tool called CutList Optimizer to figure out how much plywood I would need, and how to cut it.

And with that list, I had what I needed to order a plywood delivery.

MacBeath Hardwood in Berkeley, which is one of the only places I found in the bay area that sells pre-finished cabinet grade plywood. I chose Maple because we liked the light color and it was the cheapest out of the different options. The nice thing about their store is that they cater to hobbyist woodworkers so their shop has a lot of specialty tools and finishes in addition to a robust selection of wood species.

The only other place I found that sells pre-finished plywood in the vicinity of San Francisco is Beronio Lumber. They have a smaller selection that would be relevant to a hobbyist as they cater more to building contractors doing general construction, but they do have some pre-finished options, and they’ll cut it down to fit in the car for free which is nice.

Materials

Total cost:

Construction

The project was essentially building 3 boxes and a backrest. Two of the boxes would have drawers, and one with a lift-top.

For cutting the wood, I used a Kreg Accu-Cut and circular saw to cut the 4’x8’ plywood panels roughly, then cut the pieces out more precisely on the table saw. I was surprised at how accurate of a cut can be made on a budget-grade contractor table saw. Something that really helped with all of the cuts was upgrading the blades on all of the saws to the “finish” grade blades that have more teeth. With these new, sharp blades, I was able to achieve mostly clean cuts without needing to tape or score the cuts.

For joining the wood together, I used a combination of pocket screws and confirmat screws. The pocket screws were chosen for their fast, easy, and reversible installation. The confirmat screws were for added strength. I also thought that confirmats were just an interesting fastener and wanted to try them out. They are less common in woodworking and more commonly found in flat pack furniture. It is a screw that also acts as a dowel for extra strength. I did not use any glue since I wanted to have the option to disassemble in the future of needed. Not sure when I’d need to, but I like having the option to hit “undo”.

One notable aspect of the build was that none of the boxes or backrest connect with each other. This sounds like a bad idea for a piece of furniture that’s meant to be “built-in”, but I found it helpful in a couple of ways. First, because each piece is built individually, it made it easy to do all of the work in the garage, and then move the components individually into the room, which kept the room clean. Second, thanks to the felt pads I added to the bottom, each piece is small and light enough to slide on the hardwood floor, which means it’s easy to access behind if needed, if I need to clean or something falls between the furniture and the wall. Having each part separate also made it so that I could be less precise with the dimensions of everything, especially since the cushions cover any gaps.

The Results

Learnings

The most common method isn’t always the best method for you - For example, the majority of DIY banquette guides follow the same path of using 2x4’s for the framing. For my use case, that would be the wrong choice as it would significantly hamper my ability to maximize storage, so I used plywood instead. I also found that most builds involved creating permanent joints with glue and lots of connection/integration points to the room (for example, removing trim, screwing every item to the studs), which I felt was unnecessary. I instead chose to use fasteners that can be easily removed and minimized attachment points to the wall. I trade strength for the ability to easily remove, move, or modifythe banquette in the future.
Get feedback early - Many improvements were made in the design stage that I only found because of feedback from my wife. For example, the build was originally going to be constructed as a single solid L-shaped object. As I was describing the assembly, she asked, “how are you going to move that up the stairs from the garage?” Which is when I realized that I could break it into 3 smaller pieces that are not joined together but sit next to each other. This made everything easier, from being able to work with smaller pieces of plywood to allowing for some wiggle room when putting the pieces together
It’s okay to be imprecise - Online woodworking hobbyists tend to be obsessed with precision. And there is a subculture within it that celebrate tools and methods of working with wood that achieve extreme precision. This is especially true for furniture making. Throughout this project, especially right before assembly, I was worried that due to my skills and tools that I would not be able to meet the precision requirements to make this project work. For example, the drawer slides officially allow for half a millimeter of “give” in order to slide smoothly. That’s not a lot of room for error when your cabinet is a couple of feet wide. However, I found that even though I was not squaring every edge, using imprecise hand power tools, that my drawers still slid in and out and things generally fit together. Of course, on close inspection, the imperfections are visible, but for the most part, it came out nicer looking than I thought it would.
The fun part is improvising - Although I used this project as an excuse to get a bunch of new tools, there were parts of this project where I had to improvise a solution based on what I had on hand. For example, the drawer pull cutouts were something where I used the drill bit that came with the cabinet hinge jig to carefully cut two large holes, which I then combined by using the jigsaw. Most of the videos I saw used a template and a router instead, but lacking the appropriate router bit, I just went for using the less precise method, and I was happy with the results.

Empire State Bike Tour

2022-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

See all the photos here

Introduction

One year ago, Stephen and I finished our Colorado High Country Bike Tour.

For 2022, Stephen wanted to sign up for the NYC triathlon and asked if I’d be interested. Of course I said yes. And given that they just opened the Empire State Trail, we decided to tack on a week long bike tour and make it our ride for 2022.

Our tours in the past have had unique challenges, but for this trip we decided to keep our bikes light and comfortable, staying in motels the whole way instead of camping. The trail itself was logistically simple, with many lodging and dining options, and lots of bail-out points with an Amtrak line running parallel, regular towns along the way.

Planning

To plan the route and itinerary, all we had to do was follow the Empire State Trail and modify it to fit our criteria:

a 5-day trip excluding travel days
60 miles a day
motels only

Here is the RideWithGPS route that I created for the trip:

And the itinerary:

Day	Date	End At	Mileage / Elevation	Accommodations
0	Monday, July 25,	Amsterdam	train ride from NYC	Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham Amsterdam
1	Tuesday, July 26,	Utica	64mi	Best Western Gateway Adirondack Inn
2	Wednesday, July 27,	Syracuse	66mi	Jefferson Clinton Suites
3	Thursday, July 28,	Newark	64mi	Newark Garden Hotel
4	Friday, July 29,	Brockport	59mi	Best Western Brockport Inn & Suites
5	Saturday, July 30,	Amherst	56mi	Sleep Inn
6	Sunday, July 31,	Amherst	sightseeing day	Sleep Inn
7	Monday, August 1,	Travel Home	fly home	Home

Day -1: NYC Triathlon

This isn’t a post about triathlons, but I’d be missing a big part of this trip if I didn’t at least jot down a few notes about it.

This was my first triathlon
My favorite part of this experience was learning to swim in the open water and practicing in San Francisco’s aquatic park
Triathlons are so much more complex than something like a marathon. There’s a lot of extra gear, transitioning between events, and complex pathways to navigate.
The bonus is that it’s like an exercise sampler and feels less grind-y

So the night before I wasn’t able to get any sleep, thinking about how little sleep I would be getting leading to not getting any sleep at all.

But a second wind of energy arrives as time comes to get ready to leave, 3am. In the Uber ride to the staging area, Monica and I watch with surprise all of the folks out and about in the streets. Post-midnight revelry spilling out, as clearly drunk groups of people in their 20’s stumble to their rides.

A lot of nervous energy as we make our way to the beginning of the event. Monica’s not allowed through the security checkpoint, so we split up at the fence and I make my way to where I’ve set up all of my gear.

Event coordinators make a last-minute announcement that they are going to make two major changes to the race due to the ongoing heat wave: no wetsuits for the swim, and the bike and run will be cut short (turning this from an olympic event into a sprint). Bummer, but better than being cancelled outright.

The swim through the Hudson is 1 mile, right off the shore of the Hudson River Waterfront Greenway. There’s a pier that juts out that enables gender and age segregated waves to enter in intervals, like a salmon run behind a stoplight.

I feel a moderate amount of panic in the first 10 minutes. Jumping into the water with a crowd of people, all jockeying for position, stressing out about keeping up and not falling too far behind. Luckily, I’m able to get into a rhythm and a slow hour and a few gulps of riverwater later, I’m out and jogging to the transition area to switch to bike gear.

The shorter bike and run are both scenic and much more comfortable/familiar compared to the swim.

Finishing is a relief, Monica and Fiona are awesome and meet us at the finish line, and just like that, we’re ready for our tour.

Day 0: Train to Amsterdam, NY

Feels great to get a full night’s rest after not being able to sleep the night before. In the morning Monica and I were greeted with Kobe (Stephen’s cat) meowing for breakfast.

After going through packing checklists twice, we drag the bikes down a narrow Brooklyn staircase to take the subway to REI. Stephen’s inner tubes have been popping on the regular (his mechanic blamed the tire, Covid era manufacturing defects) so we get the tire replaced and I last-minute shop for a replacement to the stock bottle cage that takes too much force to shove a bottle into.

On the way to the station, we have a literal shakeout ride. Generally, a shakeout ride is a ride you take before a longer bike tour to figure out what gear you need to bring and what you can leave behind. In this case it’s a newly not-fully-resurfaced 6th Ave which shakes my bike with such intensity that one of my panniers nicks a spoke with a twang and makes me realize that I need to mount my bags differently. Crisis averted.

At Penn Station I grab a Penn Sushi (yes this is the real name of the real old school train station sushi counter) and we board the train. It’s chaotic, but the conductors know what they’re doing.

It’s nice that the trains accommodate bikes but it’s harder to figure out than what I’m used to on Caltrain. Securing the bikes is not intuitive and requires the removal of the front wheel, hanging the frame by the rear wheel, and using a few supplied Velcro straps. There is a spot where the frame can be locked but then I realize that I brought a heavy U-lock but left the keys in Brooklyn. Regrets. But on a bike tour regrets are relative, and as long as it doesn’t end a trip, they are small.

Stephen and I have a relaxing chat on the train about work, life. We travel along a wide river surrounded by thick forest. Visually, nature looks mostly undisturbed, and when it is, it’s obvious and novel. Like the small island holding a crumbling shell castle-like brick mansion or a gleaming white modern suspension bridge.

Amsterdam station is simple, marked with a single sign standing over a worn flower planter. It’s delightful how you can step on from the center of the heart of the densest city in america and then step off onto what basically amounts to a gravel path in a forest.

We start biking to the hotel and we encounter our first challenge, we discover both proposed routes by Google maps are unbikeable, but we find a detour that takes us over a beautiful new pedestrian bridge.

The motel is new, and we aren’t the only bike tourists. Lisa at the front desk recommends a local guy to taxi us to the strip malls that are just out of biking range for dinner. We take a risk and set out for a Chinese buffet with an intriguing mix of reviews which both warn of food poisoning and praise the selection.

The restaurant surpasses our expectations, which admittedly are low, but lands this place in solidly good memory territory. Garlic green beans are crisp, the rice isn’t too dry, and their sweet glazed fried proteins taste exactly like we wanted them to. They even had a hibachi station where you hand the chef a plate of raw ingredients to stir-fry-steam like at a Mongolian bbq. All for $16 per person including (soft) drinks. Surprising for a place nestled in the corner between a big lots and a dollar store.

Evening spent watching Sicario.

“I thought it was relaxing, I’m glad that I got to catch up with you” - Stephen.

Day 1: Amsterdam to Utica

Start the morning with four pancakes produced with an automatic pancake maker. It works by simultaneously cooking the pancake and transporting it to the plate with two heated silicone conveyor belts that roll the plop of batter into a perfect pancake. All you have to do is wave your hand over the touch-less sensor. Wild.

We roll out onto the Empire State trail, and share how different it feels to be on a tour where we can actually chat and not have to worry about passing cars or complex routes. It almost feels like we are back on the train, riding side-by-side but now we happen to be pedaling.

It’s sorta cloudy which is nice, and the big trees surrounding the trail further shield the light. We discover a fallen tree on the path that we lug our bikes over and then secondarily discover the many mosquitos who have made the forest their home. Glad I got the bug spray!

We start to see the Erie Canal, an engineering marvel even 200 years later. It’s hard to imagine that this entire stretch we are biking, hundreds of miles, is the same length as this artificial river that was dug up by people with only basic tools and mule-pulled carts.

We pass through our first small town, Canajoharie, and a sign says “tacos, left at light” and follow the directions. I am inspired by Stephen’s choice of Mountain Dew and get a can of grape Fanta for myself to accompany my taco salad, which does not come in a giant fried taco shell, which is what I would have preferred any other day besides this week when extra calories are to be celebrated.

We pass through an RV park and have a chat with an older couple who are from the area but moved to Florida and are just visiting. In general, folks are friendly, 9 out of 10 trail passersbys will return a wave.

About 15 miles from Utica, I start to bonk and luckily there’s a McDonald’s, 5 miles up ahead. I have a packet of electrolyte powder to tide me over. Gotta get more snacks for tomorrow.

We stumble on a local food truck gathering called “What The Truck!” and we stop for a soft serve cone. This is one of my favorite things about touring, is stumbling onto fun random things happening in remote places that you would never take the time to drive out to.

While watching the live music, we chat about small towns and how Stephen’s impressions of small towns differ from mine.

We are tired by the time we get to Utica, but not completely gassed and secretly homesick like in first days on previous bike tours. We celebrate by going to a nearby Italian restaurant and sharing a steak. I get a second dinner of a subway tuna sandwich (craving).

The TV doesn’t work at the Best Western but it’s probably for the best.

“Here’s what I would say. A lot easier than I thought. But I feel a lot more tired than I thought. Does that make sense?” - Stephen

Day 2: Utica to Syracuse

Start the morning with a half of a foot long subway sandwich that I hid in the fridge. Then, Hotcakes and McMuffins at McDonald’s across the street. A bus unloads a big group of military guys who join us for breakfast. Through the window we see an old lady feed a stray white cat peeking through the trees.

On the road, Stephen gets the first flat of the trip, thanks to a little thorn. It’s always a little stressful right after replacing a tube, its always possible that you missed the sharp thing or things that caused the puncture, which means another flat. Luckily we run into no issues, and even if we did, we each brought 3 tubes.

Today’s trail is more stone dust than asphalt. A stone dust trail is a trail of fine gravel, thinly layered and compacted on dirt. It is surprisingly rideable even on road tires and only increases resistance slightly. Everyday we pass by folks maintaining the trail. Cutting back the growth. Without constant maintenance the trail would disappear quickly.

On the trail today we see a small black kitten from afar. It runs into the bushes as we get closer and I wonder what kind of life it is living in the forest.

We go farther today before breaking for lunch, 40 miles instead of 20. Which means we eat lunch at around 2pm. We’re very ready for a break. On the corner is a Chinese restaurant with a faded picture menu above the counter. Afterward, Stephen asks that we stop going to Chinese restaurants for the rest of the trip.

As we wrap up riding, Stephen starts having some pain in his knee. Luckily we’re about to wrap up the day.

Syracuse is a bigger city so we decide to change it up and go see a movie.

On the way home, I make the unfortunate discovery that my seat in the Uber is soaked in piss. The driver is surprisingly nonchalant about this, and now this is one of my core memories about Syracuse. Stephen and I have a laugh about this later.

Thunderstorms are in the forecast for tomorrow, so we temper our expectations and get mentally ready to ride through some rain.

Day 3: Syracuse to Newark

In the morning we check the weather. There’s supposed to be a storm today. The continental breakfast is disappointing, but the weather schedule looks promising, we have at least 3 hours until the rain.

Heading out of Syracuse, we pass by large lake, then zig-zag our way over a freeway, through a fairgrounds, and finally make our way back onto a stone dust trail in the forest.

For lunch we make it to Weedsport and have hamburgers and hot dogs under a gazebo, anticipating the storm.

Soon it is raining cats and dogs. Luckily no thunder and lightning, and it passes in half an hour.

It’s humid now, and everything feels damp, but at least it’s a little cooler. I pop in my AirPods and tear a packet of pop tarts open with my teeth while rolling. It feels like a luxury.

We take a break at a gas station in Savannah. The sun is out and it’s hot now. We’re slowly getting worn out and by the last 10 miles we’re ready to finish the day.

While cooling down in the motel room, I see a taiyaki / ice cream place down the street. It is intriguing, especially given then town’s small population. We go and we each eat almost a pint of ice cream. We feel so good about it that we each write a 5 star Google review.

Dinner is prime rib at a local family restaurant and then we watch Total Recall. At dinner, we talk about our previous trips and how this one compares. We agree that this one might be lacking in epic vistas but it is better in the time we can spend catching up. On other trips we were too exhausted and focused on dodging traffic.

Total Recall on the TV before bed.

Day 4: Newark to Brockport

They have not one, or two, but three waffle makers at the motel breakfast and I make use of all of them. Stephen has a work call, but we are able to get on the road at a reasonable hour.

It’s cooler today and it’s all on-trail. No on-road sections.

We stop in Fairport for lunch at a Philly cheese steak spot after Stephen gets a new water bottle at a local bike shop. The menu is fun. In addition to cheesesteaks, they have cheesesteak hoagies and cheesesteak wraps. I get a cheesesteak salad.

Crossing the edge of Rochester, we start to share the path with groups of cyclists who are part of an organized tour along the Empire State trail. They are riding faster than we’re used to, which we use to our advantage by keeping pace with them. We end up keeping pace with a pontoon in the canal.

We stop at a gas station to take a break. They have cup noodle and hot water, so it becomes a noodle break.

Over KFC dinner, Stephen finds out that Amtrak cancelled his train back to NYC. A bit of scrambling, looking at car rental options, but there’s a flight back to the city with a reasonable price point which looks to be the best option.

We joke that it’s not an adventure until something unexpected happens, and even on this easy trip there’s a surprise that we have to plan around.

Top Gun Maverick on Stephen’s laptop before bed.

Day 5: Brockport to Buffalo

Our start today is later than usual because last night Stephen wanted to continue watching Tom Cruise movies so put on Collateral, which I fell asleep to.

Riding for multiple days means losing track of the day of the week, but it also means forgetting about all the other stressful stuff in work and life. On the road, it’s about time, mileage, food, water, weather, and your body. It’s life simplified, where progress is quantifiable and obstacles are physical.

That’s why the last day is bittersweet. Bitter because mentally, it’s a fantastic break from the norm, to reconnect with yourself and also rediscover novelty in the ordinary. Physically, it is demanding, but not beyond adaptation. Sweet because all of the comfortable parts of ordinary life are waiting at the end of the trip. Using your own bed and shower. Hanging out with your partner. Cooking a meal that you want to eat.

We eat lunch in a 50’s themed diner and get spaghetti and meatballs. The portions are small so we get a plate of ribs to share.

With just 20 miles to go for the day we stop at a Tim Hortons for a break.

Before getting to the hotel, we ride through a suburb that reminds Stephen of Monterrey Park where he grew up.

We finally get to the last hotel. Tired, but with enough energy to take a car to Niagara Falls before the sun sets. For the first time this trip we’re in a spot crowded with tourists.

Dinner at a hibachi restaurant.

The next day we do some sightseeing.

Learnings and Observations

Should have left the bike lock at home

I did not learn my lessons from my previous trip and brought my U-lock and cable “just in case”. I rediscovered a lock’s uselessness and was forced to haul it regretfully all the way to Buffalo.

Official empire state trail map is useless

The official map that New York State sends you for the empire state trail is more of a promotional brochure and was essentially useless compared to a typical ACA map. It lacks information on elevation, points of interest, distance, and road condition. For this trip, bring your own GPX file or Ride With GPS map.

Dedicated trails make it way easier to talk

This was the first trip where Stephen and I could ride side-by-side for long periods (without worrying about traffic). This was a game-changer for our ability to chat and make this trip a social experience on top of a typical bike adventure.

How we Grew Topic - Retrospective (2019-2021)

2021-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

Our company, Topic, was recently acquired by CafeMedia. How did we get here?

TL;DR

👋 Sold previous company (tintup.com) in late 2018
🤝 Decided to bootstrap next venture with TINT cofounder, Nik
😕 Spent 2019 building an SEO A/B testing product that failed to get traction (Apparatus)
🤔 Pivoted to a content optimization product (usetopic.com)
📈 Grew business to 250+ customers over course of next 2 years
🙌 Acquired by CafeMedia in September 2021

The past three years have been a blur, I haven’t taken the time to do as much documenting as I used to do, either in my notebook or on the blog. So in the next few paragraphs I aim to catch up on lost time and summarize what’s been going on for friends and family in the present and for myself in the future.

So let’s get in the time machine and zap ourselves back to 2019…

Started from the top, now we’re at the bottom

In August 2018 we sold TINT to Filestack. For the three months after acquisition we focused on training their team to take over our business. After that, we were all on our own for the first time. No company and no team. Officially back to square one.

Just like we wanted, we were starting new journeys. Tim started a deserved break from the myriad of burdens involved in being the CEO of a plateauing SaaS business. And Nik and I, somewhat shielded from those burdens and with the energy to continue the startup momentum, started considering our next moves.

Nik and I had informal conversations about what we’d be working on next. I think the two big ones were some sort of HR/Ops software like Rippling or an SEO tool of some sort for content marketers. Below is a slide deck that I made in October describing my thoughts on a potential opportunity in the content marketing space:

“Thoughts on SEO and Content Marketing”, Oct 2018

We ended up picking SEO/Content Marketing and going down that path first. The logic being that it’s an adjacent space to social media marketing (to avoid any potential non-compete issues) where we could leverage our familiarity of the customers and personas. And where we could leverage the knowledge we gained while growing TINT with SEO to provide value to others.

A year of experimentation

We started things off simple. Extending the “advisorship” period with Filestack, we continued to do SEO consulting for them with the goal of learning pain points we could tackle. They referred us to other companies within the Scaleworks portfolio, we sought out consulting clients via our own networks, and soon we had enough consulting work to need to meet up everyday to work.

The consulting consisted designing and conducting optimization experiments on clients’ existing content libraries, and reporting back on the success/failure of these experiments. The good thing was that we could reliably increase organic traffic with our bag of tricks. The bad thing was that reporting the numbers and writing content for these experiments was taking forever. But the bad thing was actually a good thing because the whole point was to feel the pain and then solve it with software.

Our first stab at productizing this pain was Apparatus: an SEO A/B testing solution to make reporting to these clients easier. By integrating with Google Search Console and analyzing the data with a statistics library called Causal Impact, we could say whether the traffic gains on a group of pages was because of our hard work.

We thought it was a great idea because it would:

Enable SEO’s to run more experiments, which would lead to more growth.
Also help them look good for their bosses at the same time via the statistical analysis. Which in turn would help them get more buy-in to run more experiments.

We spent a lot of time developing this product. We re-built the Google Search Console interface and added more features, built infrastructure to ingest enterprise-size traffic/keyword data, and even started building advanced tools to be able to make scalable changes to pages via CDN edge workers through our platform.

Below is a video demo of the product we spent a year creating:

Demo of Apparatus A/B Testing Tool

And we spent a lot of time developing relationships. We worked our network and took many, many coffee meetings with SEO’s at lots of big and small companies in the city. Companies like EventBrite, Hired, Williams Sonoma, OpenDoor, CreditKarma. A few of them experimented with what we built and a handful even paid us for it!

Things seemed to be going reasonably well. Nik and I even took a trip to Mexico City to brainstorm and hack on new ideas.

But after a year’s work, we were starting to hit a wall. The biggest challenges we faced were that:

SEO experts at larger companies had their own bespoke internal tools or processes that overlapped with Apparatus. And they were hesitant to drop years of work invested into those tools and switch to a nascent startup.
SEO experts at smaller companies had more pressing priorities, the SEO equivalent of five-alarm fires, and either didn’t have enough pages to optimize, or the optimizations wouldn’t have yielded results as big as solving those fires.

Our target persona looked like it was companies that were sophisticated enough to have a growth marketer on their team, with enough bandwidth for constant experimentation, who had not yet built out the infrastructure needed for them to do their work efficiently. And as we took more meetings, we started to see that target persona shrink in size and get further away.

With no plans for distribution, we started to pull away from Apparatus and go back to the drawing board to consider other ideas.

The pivot: content optimization

For us the drawing board consisted of our consulting experience and thinking back to parts of what we were doing and automating those tasks. If automating the reporting wasn’t going to work, how about automating the content optimization?

To optimize our clients’ content, we were doing a variety of things, including title/description modification, improving the above-the-fold experience, but most importantly adding additional content to make the articles more comprehensive. The latter was what took forever, actually figuring out what was missing from the article based on all of the other articles on the page.

So, we decided to tackle that next. Our goal was to build a prototype of a product that could speed up that process and see if we could build something that our clients could use themselves, cutting ourselves out of the process.

In contrast to SEO A/B testing market, we discovered that there was significant activity in the space. The largest being MarketMuse, a company that started as a smaller tool, took funding, and grew to service enterprise-level clients. As MarketMuse started moving upmarket, others like Clearscope, Surfer, and Frase were picking up the mid and smaller markets. All were growing rapidly. This excited us, because it validated a demand we had been starved of for a year.

A rising tide was lifting all the boats, and we wanted to build a seaworthy vessel.

We hungrily hashed out our first prototype, meant just for our consulting clients. Admittedly, it was largely an amalgamation of our favorite parts of the other tools, with a few improvements sprinkled in.

As we tested with initial users, we got valuable feedback that helped us chart the product development direction we needed to differentiate our tool from the pack.

Looking back, do I regret wasting a year on a failed product? Yeah, of course. But there were some good things that came out of it. We were able to transition a few of our Apparatus customers to become our first Topic customers. Nik and I brushed up on our technical skills which had atrophied during our time as managers. And most importantly, it helped us get out of our shells and more comfortable pitching and selling.

Hustling for initial traction

With a new product and a new target persona, we set to work drumming up business. From experience, I know that this is a time where it’s a lot of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. My personal philosophy is that rapid experimentation is superior to attempting to come up with a perfect master plan.

So throw we did.

(As an aside, I want to give a shoutout to Jordan Crawford, our growth advisor. He was our sounding board for almost all of the initiatives listed below. The energy he brought to our meetings helped us push through these most challenging times where seemingly nothing was working. Also, shoutout to Yuriy Yarovoy, our second growth advisor)

What didn’t work for us?

Cold Outreach: We spent months attempting various clever ways of creating an outreach campaign that included all the best practices. Highly segmented lead lists, adding value in every email, automated connections on LinkedIn. But in the end we weren’t able to make it work. We just weren’t skilled enough to make our outreach stand out and get leads to act.

Paid Social: We created campaigns for LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. A few campaigns may have paid for themselves, in particular a re-marketing campaign on LinkedIn. But ultimately this was not a channel that stuck.

What worked for us?

Reddit: In the very, very beginning when one or two qualified leads a week would have made a difference for us, there was one reddit post that helped us start our flywheel. It was a post asking for alternatives to a competitor. We asked our advisor to write his experiences with our software on it, which got the attention of the OP, when then tried our software, switched to it, and edited the post to mention us.

SEO and Competitor Content: The paid search helped us discover which keywords to build organic content around. In parallel, we built backlinks via all sorts of methods, from guest posting, working with agencies, and building a free table of contents tool that had a small backlink credit to us.

Free Tools: And speaking of tools, we were able to build a few unique tools that served as backlink magnets as well as lead generators. This is one of the best examples of us “using our strengths” because as a product-focused founding team it was easy (and fun) to build these simple tools compared to our competitors who either were too busy doing more important things or did not have the skills to invest in this area.

What was essential for us?

A Great Product

Our product was always a foundational part of our growth. We had a couple of patterns that helped us keep iterating and keep the feedback loop tight.

The first was a 2 week follow-up call to review the customer’s experience and see how our product could be improved. This all-purpose meeting was product/marketing research and case study interview rolled into one. If they had a bad experience, their subjective experience helped us fix points of friction. If they had a great experience, we could take notes and turn their story into a testimonial, review, or case study. And no matter what, them describing in their own words the problems that their product was solving for them helped shape our marketing language.

The second was an in-app chat that we designed to look and feel differently than the typical default “Intercom” style chat widget. It has a dedicated spot in the navigation and hovering over shows our faces. In addition, I’d encourage users to use this button at the end of demo calls and let them know they’d be getting personal service from me or my cofounder. These little touches encouraged our customers to start valuable conversations with us.

Customer stories, reviews, case studies

This is where our experience at TINT came in. At TINT our mission was to help businesses tell authentic stories through their customers. We spent a lot of time helping them surface testimonials through social and knew the power of real success stories from trustworthy sources.

The 2-week follow up call allowed us to collect these stories on an ongoing basis and I worked to turn them into marketing assets of all shapes and sizes. With the customer’s permission, the calls were recorded and transcribed using Descript, which I would then highlight for eventual use on the marketing site.

Video intro to product

Pretty early on, I worked to add videos of myself within the marketing and product to educate leads about our product and customers on how to use the product. I’m pretty proud of our use of video and although I can’t measure it, I believe it had significant positive impact on our growth.

Topic Explainer Video

How did the videos help? They allowed us to:

Differentiate from Competitors

SaaS companies are a dime a dozen, especially in MarTech there are thousands. And in especially competitive niches like SEO it’s especially important to find ways to stand out. One way is to put your face out there in a video. Making a live-action video of yourself explaining the product has multiple barriers that keep it from being commonplace. You need to be comfortable in front of a camera, have a decent background and lighting, know how to use video editing software, speak fluent english, etc. So when people see a video there’s an extra level of legitimacy that casts a positive light on your product and company.

Build Relationships

The videos give me a head start on demo calls because they’ve already seen me and heard me. People want to buy from people they trust, and establishing the relationship through multiple interactions allows them to see that this isn’t just a fly-by-night faceless software company. They realize that by subscribing, they not only get a great product but also a great team to help them use it.

Improve Retention

Videos make great educational assets to use in onboarding drip emails and within the product. Any software, no matter how simple, can benefit from a video explaining how to best use it. Even if customers are using it the right way, they can get value in getting validation that they’re not missing anything important. Customers must reach the point at which the value “clicks” for them or else they’ll leave. Videos help get more of them there.

A quick shoutout here to a personal marketing video hero, Patrick McGrane over at SpyFu. I love his product marketing and user education videos. They’re a wonderful combo of being both succinct, but also so full of personality. If you’re looking to get inspired, check out the Spyfu Support Center.

A few growth lessons learned

Focus on strengths, not weaknesses

A pattern emerged in the kinds of marketing activities that yielded the greatest benefit. Most of the ones that involved engineering and design did better than the ones that involved sales. Our free tools were a great success whereas our cold email campaigns completely flopped. We’re just much better at building tools than we are at writing cold email pitches. If I had to go back and do everything over again, I’d feel less guilty about not focusing on things that I knew weren’t our team’s personal strengths.

Design, brand, and polish matters

Cheap tools are a dime-a-dozen but polished tools are much rarer. My guess is that it’s because it takes a certain level of technical skill to achieve the last 20% of polish and the vast majority of people with that skill level are typically working prestigious, high-paying jobs at reputable companies.

It’s important to aspire to and (at least partially) achieve a high level of polish on the marketing and product. Why? Because the most valuable category of customer cares about this. One way to understand the market is to categorize customers on a spectrum of value-consciousness. On one end are customers that value the cheapest tool, and on the other side are those that value the best quality tool. There are tradeoffs to focusing on one type of customer vs the other, but I personally prefer going after quality-conscious customers because they typically get more value out of the tool over a longer period of time. That means higher contract values, less churn.

Slow, somewhat steady growth

All of the above efforts eventually and incrementally created the growth that we needed to jumpstart the business.

From the start of 2020 to mid 2021, we went from being largely unsure of what we were doing to feeling genuinely proud about what we’ve built. I wouldn’t say that there was a pivotal moment where we hit product-market fit. It was a gradual ease into higher and higher degrees of fitting. A steady progression as we added features here, trimmed features there, grew our legitimacy, and got more positive comments from users.

It was at this stage in the business that I got to experience two fun things that I had previously seen from my TINT journey: evangelists and copycats.

Evangelists

Once you build something that’s meaningfully useful, there’s a point when a few customers take it upon themselves to help you succeed. I can only speculate as to their motivations, but every single one of them comes from a place of generosity. We wouldn’t have been able to make progress without them.

They were our partners in helping shape our product and understand our target audience as a whole.

And they took it upon themselves to share our product to their networks.

In exchange, we did our best to prioritize their needs and wants in the product. To be available for them and share our knowledge when we could.

For me, this is one of the most rewarding parts of the experience: Working with groups like this, people who are invested enough as users of the product to actually spend valuable hours of their time to help you shape it.

Copycats

Another thing that happens when you’ve built something that’s meaningfully useful is seeing the emergence of copycats.

I have no moral opposition to teams that take inspiration from other products, even when initially the inspiration may be close to identical (obviously as long as no laws are broken and work is done in good faith). Because everyone starts somewhere. And competition is how better products are made.

The best teams quickly find ways to differentiate anyway given the necessary pace of innovation in marketing technology.

I found it flattering when the first copycats of our product started appearing. The one that stands out the most to me was Postspace, mainly because of their very similar About Us page. In an odd way I felt connected to them, as if their founders were in a parallel universe doing the same things we were.

Bigger deals, pilots

As the product started fitting better with the market, the conversations around it gradually changed within our target market. Below is a screenshot comparing how our tool was seen in early 2020 vs early 2021:

This shift was the tipping point to start to see larger deals and pilots with enterprise-sized companies. In order for larger organizations to take a risk on your team and technology you need to be vetted, and the decision-makers need to have heard your name from various trusted sources.

Offers, deals, selling the company

There are two oft-repeated pieces of advice regarding selling a company:

The best time to sell is when you don’t want or need to.
Companies are bought, not sold.

The advice rang true as out of the blue we found ourselves with a few inbound deals to consider.

Neither of us wanted to sell the company, it was growing, we enjoyed working with our customers, it gave us a generous amount of flexibility, and a satisfying amount of ownership. This was paradoxically what led to a strong position at the negotiating table. In our heads we were willing to walk away from an offer, but were also curious about where we could take the negotiations.

After we had reached the terms of a deal, we found ourselves looking back on the situation and feeling that “the stars had aligned”. As in, we were the beneficiaries of dumb cosmic luck. Especially given our previous TINT experience where we had to actively seek out buyers in the final year of the business.

However, in reality this result was the outcome of a series of actions we took many months before when we were crafting our product. Yes, there was some luck involved, but we would not have been able to seize on the opportunity had it not been for all of the trial and error, failed experiments, and dead ends.

That being said I’d do a few things differently next time to make this more likely to happen. Most importantly, the experience highlighted the value of setting up partnerships and pilots with potential acquirers. That is to say companies where 1+1=3. Large companies in adjacent spaces where they or their customers could benefit from the product. In any given space there might only be a handful, but they’re worth reaching out to in order to start a relationship.

Our mistake was that we did not feel comfortable reaching out to these big companies because we felt like we needed more credibility and felt the pressure of needing to send the “perfect” email, so much so that we never took action. It wasn’t until we had validation from the inbound deals in hand that we actually started reaching out. This time feeling no pressure, we wrote casually and were surprised to get responses. Of course having a deal in hand was a big a factor in getting these responses, but next time I want to get over imposter syndrome and just do it.

One of the downsides of the sale is that we’ll be sunsetting the external product and in 3 months time requiring our existing customers to offboard. We’re truly grateful for their support over the years and it’s hard to walk away from them. We’ll do our best to make the transition as easy as possible, but this will certainly cause additional work for them.

What’s next

One of the most exciting parts of the deal with CafeMedia is the chance to make a bigger impact.

Hundreds of customers use our tool everyday to optimize thousands of articles. But CafeMedia has an order of magnitude more customers and content. By tapping into their business, we can bring our technology to the widest possible audience.

Their (and now our) mission is to allow everyone to earn a living through their content. Nik and I will be spending the next few years helping them make that happen. In the short term, they’ve already integrated Topic into their product. The next steps are to tailor Topic to fit their specific customer base, independent publishers and bloggers.

It’s been a wild journey to get to this point, but the work is just starting.

Colorado High Country Bike Tour

2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

See all the photos here

Introduction

Two years ago, Stephen and I finished our Grand Canyon Connector Bike Tour.

Riding on a wave of enthusiasm, we started thinking about what’s next. Now that we beat the heat, what would push us even harder?

But just as we started getting into planning mode in early 2020, COVID hit. We were forced to hit pause and wait. The question still bugged us though: What comes next?

Scrolling through the ACA tour catalog, we eventually found our match: Colorado’s Classic High Country.

Planning

To plan the route and itinerary, we took an existing guided ACA tour and modified it to fit our criteria:

an 8-day trip excluding travel days
60 miles a day
a mix of camping and motels

In the end, we did modify the route further by trimming down day 5 and skipping day 6 due to an interstate closed by a mudslide. Here is the RideWithGPS route that I created for the trip:

And the itinerary:

Day	Date	End At	Mileage / Elevation	Accommodations	Notes
0	Fri, Aug 6	Home -> Frisco		Motel - Snowshoe Motel	Stephen and Ryo land in DEN and take a shuttle to Frisco.
1	Sat, Aug 7	Hot Sulphur Springs	60 mi +1966 ft / -2732 ft	Motel - Hot Sulphur Springs Resort	Resort comes with access to their 19 pools of hot spring water.
2	Sun, Aug 8	Walden	61 mi +2882 ft / -2412 ft	Motel - Antlers Inn	Only mid-route services for this day is 40 miles in at Rand.
3	Mon, Aug 9	Steamboat Springs	63 mi +2801 ft / -4055 ft	Camping - KOA Steamboat Springs	No mid-route services on this day. Bike shops available at Steamboat Springs.
4	Tue, Aug 10	State Bridge	63 mi +3500 ft / -3352 ft	Camping - Rancho Del Rio	A few mid-route services at Oak Creek, Philippsburg, and Yampa.
5	Wed, Aug 11	Glenwood Springs	60 mi +2021 ft / -3186 ft	Camping - Ami's Acres	A mudslide has closed I-70 between Gypsum and Glenwood Springs. Alternate route is Cottonwood Pass, but does not look bicycle friendly.
6	Thu, Aug 12	Aspen	41 mi +2205 ft / -52 ft	Motel - Mountain Chalet	Consistent climb up to Aspen.
7	Fri, Aug 13	Leadville	55 mi +5265 ft / -3662 ft	Camping - Sugar Loafin'	Biggest climb of the trip: Independence Pass. Wake up early to avoid traffic.
8	Sat, Aug 14	Frisco	34 mi +1927 ft / -2471 ft	Motel - Snowshoe Motel	Shorter final ride back to start of loop.
9	Sun, Aug 15	Frisco -> Home			Take the shuttle back to DEN in the morning, fly home.

Due to how desolate parts of the route are, we also purchased a bicycle roadside assistance plan offered by Better World Club. For a pretty reasonable annual price, they offer roadside assistance on any road in America.

Stephen and I both shipped our bikes from local bike shops to a shop in Frisco, Rebel Sports.

Gear

Luckily, I had most of the necessities for a tour like this from a previous tour. Overall, I would say that I slightly over-packed for this trip. if I had to do this trip again, I would bring fewer socks and skip the bike lock. Here’s what I took:

Clothing

hiking sandals (Keen Newport)
3 pairs padded bike shorts
3 underwear
9 regular pairs socks
hybrid regular / swim shorts
padded cycling gloves
warm outer layer
3 long sleeve cycling jerseys
1 cotton shirt
ear mitts
sunglasses
rain jacket
sleeping mask

Toiletries

body wash
sunscreen
toothpaste / toothbrush
first aid kit
wet wipes
paper towels
lip balm

Cookware

jetboil
spork
backpacking meals

Bike Tools

air pump / patch kit
3 extra tubes
tire levers
multitool
bike lock / tire cable

Utility

cash
handlebar bag
Grand Canyon Connector ACA map
26800mAh power bank
charging cords
water storage bag / water bottles
wireless headphones
rearview mirror
bike lights
mini inflator (for sleeping mat)
headlamp

A few of these were new additions:

Lezyne Micro Floor Drive Pump

We discovered from the last tour we were losing ~30 PSI a day, which led to noticeably increased rolling resistance over time. This led to us regularly checking for places where we could top up our pressure. Not sure whether the root cause was the added weight, something with our tubes, or temperature/elevation changes, but this pump eliminates the problem by enabling floor pump levels of pressure anywhere.

Mini Inflator for Sleeping Mats

After years of ending the day with the dizzying ritual of blowing the sleeping mats the old fashioned way, this small luxury will do it for us with the press of a button.

Helmet Visor and Mirror

After some searching, it looked like the Da Brim Visor and EVT Mirror are the most popular niche brands. Previously I’ve used a Take-a-Look mirror which is mounted on the glasses instead of helmet. To keep the Take-a-Look mirror from slowly weighing the glasses off of my face, I added a glasses retainer strap, but that led to chafing behind my ears, so this time I took taking a helmet-mounted approach.

Knockoff Jetboil

I’ve used a cheaper backpacking camp stove for a long time which required 7-10 minutes to get water to boil. Now we can have hot water in 2 minutes and not worry about running out of fuel.

Day 0: Flight to Denver, Shuttle to Frisco

After many days of planning and packing, I’m finally at the airport ready to fly to Denver.

Last year, Stephen and I decided to cancel our annual bike tour due to COVID, but not this year. Vaxxed and ready to hit the road, we planned a weeklong loop in the mountains of Colorado.

The big challenge last tour was heat. This time, it’s altitude. Starting at 9k feet in Dillon and eventually climbing to 12k feet at Independence Pass, the available oxygen almost halves compared to sea level (20.9% to 13.2%).

Right before boarding the plane, I discover that part of the route, interstate 70 between state bridge and glenwood springs is impassable due to a mudslide. One alternative is a windy local road, Cottonwood Pass. It’s described as a “secret, unsafe shortcut”. A local news station describes it below:

It’s something we’ll have to plan around, but since it impacts day 5, I decide we can improvise when we get closer to the day and we get a better understanding of the conditions and our ability to meet them.

I meet Stephen at the airport and chat while we wait for the shuttle to take us to Frisco. The van ride is uneventful but it’s our first transition to the thinner air. We feel our ears pop as we drive through tunnels and up a gradual incline.

Day 1: Frisco to Hot Sulphur Springs

In the night my sleep is interrupted by dreams that take place in our hotel room. In one, another guest enters our room by mistake and is frightened and runs out.

We pick up our bikes from Rebel bikes, take some photos in downtown Frisco, a cute tourist street, and head out on adventure. But not quite. We go to Walmart, REI, City Market, and finally McDonalds and by the time we know it, it’s noon and we’re just heading out of town.

The air is hazy from smoke, but the thin air makes a bigger impact. It’s subtle but constant. Everything is just slightly harder. There was no single point where we had a headache or felt nauseous but we could tell that we were running out of energy faster.

The route was overall downhill today. 60 miles mostly on single lane roads with lots of traffic.

I get a flat on what I thought were impenetrable tires. A sharp metal shard of the perfect length to penetrate a tire did it in. We patched it, but should’ve just replaced the tube because the patch kept leaking.

In patching my tire, we broke a tire lever but luckily we’re saved by a bike shop in Kremming. While resting at a Mexican restaurant I went to see if I could get an extra set, the store appeared dark and closed but there was a small sign that said “by appt, call xxx-xxxx”. I called and a big dog ran up and an old man who said “young man what can I do for you” sold me the levers.

I notice that here people stop to ask if you need anything if you are fixing your bike on the side of a middle of nowhere road.

For the last 10 miles I have to continuously choose between stopping to pump up my slowly deflating patched tire and get eaten by mosquitos or continue arduously pedaling on a mostly flat tire.

I feel incredibly relieved when we finally got to Hot Sulphur Springs just as it was getting dark. Although the ride today was mostly downhill, it was surprisingly strenuous. I get a certain feeling, and one that I’ve had before at around mile 2-3 of a marathon. This regretful feeling of “What did I get myself into?” It always passes but I can’t help feeling it in the moment.

The motel allows us to indulge in the town’s namesake 19 pools of hot water. A relaxing end to the day.

Day 2: Hot Sulphur Springs to Walden

Again, I have some trouble getting a full nights sleep. We head out at 9am, looking for a place in town for breakfast and not finding any so eating a few bars and starting our way out to Walden.

The haze is thinner today, and it feels like we are more acclimated to both the elevation and the idea of cycling all day. The first half of the ride is a climb that reaches a point on the continental divide.

We ride along a scenic mountain stream. All around us are peaks littered with trees defoliated by wildfire. Evidence of last weeks mudslides are on the side of the road. Tired and hungry, we stop halfway to make a backpacking meal. We pledge to make breakfast a priority moving forward.

After a considerable descent, we are out of the forest and now are on the plains. Reaching Rand, we are relieved to sit at the one restaurant, the Rand Yacht Club and enjoy a pitcher of ice water and big plates of steak and chicken tenders. I was quite impressed with the meal, especially given the remoteness of the town.

20 final miles to Walden. Mostly flat, gently rolling roads cutting through big green pastures make for easy riding compared to earlier in the day. Herds of cows stand at attention and stare at us as we pass.

In Walden, I go to the coin op laundry in town, the building is a bit rickety but the machines work. I look outside the window and wonder how I ended up in the small town laundromat. We stay at the Antler’s Inn, which is done up in all sorts of taxidermy decorations in a hunters cabin style.

Day 3: Walden to Steamboat Springs

First restful sleep of the trip for me. I wake up feeling refreshed and ready. I have two giant pancakes for breakfast. We do a little bit of bike troubleshooting, Stephen’s rack is coming loose due to part of the frame’s thread being stripped. I notice that my wheel has a slight wobble. It appears that my hub is loose. We resolve to make it to the next town before the bike shops close.

After getting snacks at the gas station, we head out into the open plains. It’s hotter today with less haze to cover the sun, but more scenic. We pass sporadic ranch homes. Some dilapidated and some grand. The occasional oil Derrick. We share the two laned road with an minivans of families, biker gangs, horse trailer carrying pickups, and the occasional half-house on a semi (oversized load).

Part of the way Stephen’s rack comes off again and we pull out to a grassy patch to troubleshoot. Very luckily Stephen brought a couple backups for the screw in various lengths and we are able to secure the rack to the frame. Preparation paying off.

Not long after stopping to make the repair, we stop on a gravel patch beside the road to make refuel ourselves with some Cup Noodle.

Next challenge is a 3 mile climb along a busy highway. Lots of fast moving traffic but the road alternates between wide medians and an extra lane, making it do-able.

We pose in front of our second sign marking the continental divide, Rabbit Ears Pass. It seems like this tour is all about criss crossing the divide much to the detriment of our legs. But we are rewarded with a 7 mile 7% decline with fantastic views of the land and lake below. We’re flying down the road, I try to pump the brakes occasionally to avoid going too fast but at some point I accept the risk and ride fast to allow myself to get to the bottom in reasonable time. We’re lucky that the road is clear of debris.

Hands are tired from seizing the handlebars, but thrilled by the speed. Morale boosted we hurry to steamboat springs. More cars as we get closer to civilization. Get to the bike shop right before they close and they confirm that they can fix it tomorrow!

We indulge in a fancy Italian restaurant for dinner. The pasta is luxurious and readily absorbed.

Get to the KOA and efficiently set up the tent, summoning our experience from our original pacific coast ride.

Feel a little homesick, missing being around Monica and Spice at the apartment but talking with Stephen in the tent made me feel better.

Day 4: Steamboat Springs to Rancho Del Rio

Get up a little earlier so that we can get to the bike shop when they open. Before we leave, the dad from a Chinese family camping next to us approaches. He is curious about the bikes, we chat and learn that he’s from Maryland and is doing a cross-country summer road trip while his kids are off of school. He insists that we take a few extra peaches they’ve packed as snacks.

We get breakfast at a local 50’s themed diner. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it as a kid, but with all of the context of what the 50’s was like for minorities (ethnic and cultural) in America, it adds an amusing edge to the decor. Next to the bathroom there’s a sign: “Hippies use the back door, no exceptions”

The bike shop guy reconstructs my rear hub. It’s not perfect due to damage it’s sustained from wear-and-tear but it’s much less wobbly and the mechanic assures me that the part is unlikely to suddenly, catastrophically fail. Particularly important as any sort of mechanical failure during a descent would be a disaster.

We head out of town a bit late. Stop by Oak Creek for lunch. Keep going, the road opens up into pastures with endless rows of hay in repeating geometric shapes.

And a rock formation marked with a sign, “Finger Rock”.

The final town before State Bridge / Rancho Del Rio is Toponas. According to Wikipedia the population in 2017 was estimated to be 26 people, “all in ages ranging from 55 years upwards”. We stop by their general store, but upon opening the door we realize that all of the products are in disarray as if the store’s been hit by a hurricane. It’s strange and we high tail it out of town.

When we reach State Bridge we are elated, with only 4 more miles along the river to go, we feel like we’re practically finished with the day’s riding. Unfortunately, the last 4 miles are comprised of painfully steep inclines that I failed to anticipate. We struggle, but eventually make it to Rancho Del Rio, our destination for tonight.

Unfortunately it seems that the general store and restaurant have closed early with no employees of the campsite on site. We chat with a few other visitors staying in the cabin to ask about food options. Sadly there are none, and we can’t find showers either. We sit on the picnic tables with the sun going down, contemplating the reality that tonight we’ll have neither clean bodies or sated stomachs.

Mentally at our lowest, the cabin visitors wave us over. They’ve made ham sandwiches for us in little plastic baggies, accompanied by granola bars, donuts, and canned guava juices. We are wildly grateful for their gesture and we learn the value of kindness.

Tonight in the tent we are sticky from sunscreen and road grit, but grateful.

Day 5: Rancho Del Rio to Glenwood Springs

Cold night and I am again thankful I decided to bring Monica’s warmer sleeping bag. Stephen is not able to get good sleep and leaves the tent in the early morning to hang out near the wifi area.

The on-site food truck opens at 9am and we get chorizo burritos and discuss our plans. We need to find a way to get to Glenwood Springs given the interstate being closed. The best plan we come up with is renting a car, and we call every company at the Eagle Airport and after many rejections, Hertz comes through so we book a pricey but worth it one day reservation to help take us from gypsum to Glenwood and then to Aspen.

Relieved to have a plan, we leave at around 11am. Stephen is fatigued from a lack of sleep and shower and the start of the ride is aggressive with many steep climbs and few descents. It’s hotter today and we are doubly sweaty. This side of the mountains is noticeably drier and scrubbier.

Many breaks taken in gravel outcroppings to catch our breath while hunched over handlebars, letting semis pass. Very little median but most vehicles give us room. It gets a little dicey when it’s 2 semis coming in opposite directions.

After about an hour of climbing we finally reach the top and cash in the potential energy for 5 free miles. No medians but having a mirror means I can take up the lane when there’s no traffic coming up behind me.

At the bottom of the hill we refill our water and get asked for directions by an old lady looking for something to eat. We mention we are from San Francisco and she says she once worked at the SF Zoo.

Reach a bike path and ride along the river, passing fly fisher men and women and dogs. When we start seeing buildings we search and find a Taco Bell to recarb and rehydrate. Realizing we only have an hour before Hertz closes we race to the airport and are lucky to be handed the keys to a Toyota 4Runner that can swallow up our bikes, bags, and selves.

First priority: Drive to a gas station to get Icees.

Second priority: Take the “unsafe” detour over cottonwood pass.

The pass is marked by soldiers next to humvees directing traffic. Thin, windy roads and continuous fast paced traffic assure us that paying for a car rental was absolutely the right choice.

Check into the campsite, hit a diner for dinner. Take a niiiiice warm shower. 2 days of grime dissolve into a pleasant nights sleep.

Day 6: Glenwood Springs to Aspen

I wake up with an idea: to use the remaining time on the rental car to shuttle our gear to Leadville so that we can climb Independence Pass free of extra weight.

So over eggs at Glenwood Springs, we start looking at driving distances and making a call to confirm that we can drop our bags off at the campsite. It looks possible, so we head back over Cottonwood Pass and drive for 3 hours to Leadville.

Drop off the bags, and we start to feel crunched for time. Apple Maps takes us down a forest road that eventually becomes loose gravel. After some point we realize that it’s not a good idea to continue so we turn around to head back and switch to Google Maps. Our new route heads over Independence Pass but we decide to take it because we need to return the car in time.

Driving over the pass is daunting. The scale and duration of the climb ahead of us makes us alternate between nervously laughter and silence.

We make it to the car return in time, assemble our bikes, check into Mountain Chalet, do a little exploring of Aspen and mentally prepare for tomorrow’s big ride.

We talk to the local bike mechanic, Scottie, as he fills up our tires. We ask him about tips about the ride and at first he is dismissive but once we tell him about our tour, we gain his respect and he tells us to start as early as possible, wishing us luck.

Day 7: Aspen to Leadville

Today is the day of the final and biggest climb of the trip. We have trouble sleeping, I wake up every hour and check my watch to see how close we are to 5:30am. At 5 I notice Stephen is on his phone in bed so I get up and we eat a quick breakfast, prep ourselves and are on the road in the dim light of dawn.

Without the sun beating down on us and with little traffic we make consistent progress. Mentally, I’m saving my energy for the final climb when the road opens up. We slowly pass by landmarks that we noted on the drive yesterday. A stoplight directing traffic along a one lane section. A campground named “Difficult”. The gate used to close the road in the winter.

With no gear and a week of acclimation, we’re able to steadily climb, taking no breaks. And as we round the corner to see the valley below it’s clear that this climb is more manageable than we thought.

As we get closer to the top, people in their cars honk and give us the thumbs up. And at the very top, tourists ask us if we really started from the bottom. We do a photo session with the Independence Pass sign. It takes a couple of tries to figure out how to best hold the bikes above our heads.

We eat some celebratory muffins we got in Aspen the previous evening and then enjoy the spectacular descent.

Halfway down we stop at a turnout and notice a hiker walking up the road. He says he’s been hiking 30 days so far, we share that we’ve been biking for a week. We wish each other luck. Strangers bonded by adventures in the outdoors, happy to be exploring.

At the bottom we stop to eat burritos at Twin Lakes.

Later, there’s a thunderstorm ahead of us but luckily it just misses us.

It’s a tiring 30 miles to Leadville but we get there in the early afternoon. Set up the tent and phone in an order from the one restaurant in town that does delivery: ribs, pizza, wings.

It’s too much food so we go to the campsite’s general store to give the extra pizza and wings to the employees (teenagers working their summer jobs). They’re genuinely surprised and gladly accept the food. I can tell by their expressions that they’re thrilled. It’s gratifying to surprise strangers and make new friends.

Day 8: Leadville to Frisco

Had a restful sleep for our last night of camping. The sun is already out as we pack up the tent and get ready for our final 35 miles of the tour.

It seems that just as we’re acclimating to life on the road, the trip is coming to an end. It’s bittersweet. I’m relieved that we are going home soon to creature comforts like my own bed and shower, but disappointed that the simpler challenges of food, water, distance, and elevation will be replaced by more complicated ones related to work and regular life.

On the way out, we pass through Leadville, which looks like a fun town to explore if we had time to, but we want to get to Frisco early to relax, so we rush out.

There is a final continental divide climb before the end of the tour, Fremont pass. We see many cyclists on their way back from the pass as we head toward it. Almost everyone waves or signals to us with a thumbs up, peace sign, smile, or a nod.

Climbing the pass seems harder than yesterday because of the heat and traffic but eventually we reach the top where there is a Molybdenum mine with various perplexing industrial structures.

On the way down from the pass we stop at a scenic lake next to the highway and take in the view and take some last photos.

Eventually we connect to a bike trail that leads all the way to downtown Frisco and the snowshoe motel where we started. It is all downhill and although busy with other cyclists, it’s a cool and pleasant coast to town.

We check into our room early, drop off the bikes at the shop, shower, pack, and spend the rest of the day relaxing. We eat sushi, drink ice water, watch Jurassic Park on HBO, and experience awe and gratitude when a massive surprise hailstorm interrupts the movie.

Walking to the Italian restaurant for dinner, we see lightning unravel through a dark thunderhead and only then do we appreciate the good weather we had taken for granted.

The shuttle for the airport arrives early in the morning so we turn in early.

Observations and Advice

To anyone looking to do a tour of this route or any others, here are some of the things I learned on this trip.

How to Handle Altitude

One of our biggest worries before the trip was how our bodies would handle the sudden change in altitude combined with the daily mileage requirements. For us, we luckily did not run into showstopping symptoms. We took it slow to avoid going beyond our cardiovascular limits, took frequent breaks, and took care to regularly drink. A week of this slow-paced riding at altitude was an adequate amount of time to prepare for Independence Pass.

Digestion

I’m not sure whether this was related to the altitude or just the fact that I hadn’t done a lot of riding before this tour, but I had some serious digestion issues on the first few days of the trip. Eventually I got the hang of what I could / couldn’t eat and in what quantities. I settled on this general strategy: simple carb-centered foods gradually eaten in small increments, starting with larger quantities in the morning and tapering off as the day went on. For example, pancakes for breakfast, a pack of M&M’s spread throughout the day, a sandwich for lunch, and then a small non-dairy pasta meal for dinner, avoiding all deep fried or fiber-heavy foods.

Inevitability of a Flat Tire

I was surprised by my flat tire on the first day. I’ve ridden over all sorts of nasty road debris on my Schwalbe Marathon Plus’es since the last tour when I’ve had them installed. These are the typical tires for bicycle tourists due to their exterme durability, so I felt that it would be highly unlikely that I’d get a flat on this trip. But, it still happened. I was glad that I brought the spare tubes and pump!

The Generosity of Strangers

This trip would have been far more challenging without the generosity of the strangers we met along the way. I feel that popular culture often portrays adventure as an exercise in independence and self-reliance. But I’ve learned that in reality this is rare. Almost every adventure I’ve been on has been a humbling experience in seeing exactly how much we depend on each other. On this trip, we put our lives in the hands of every driver that passed us, were fed by strangers at an empty campsite, and checked on when we ran into mechanical issues on the road. It was appreciated and I hope to pay it back.

Grand Canyon Connector Bike Tour

2019-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

Introduction

Right after Stephen and I finished our Pacific Coast bike tour from San Francisco to Los Angeles, we talked about what our next tour would be. He brought up the American Southwest.

Unfortunately, work and life got busy for the both of us, and as time passed I thought our commitment would sadly fade away like most grand plans made between friends in the moment. But I was wrong. Two years later, I’m on a flight to a small town in Utah with an itinerary and a helmet.

Planning

To plan the route and itinerary, we took the Grand Canyon Connector ACA route and modified it to fit our criteria:

an 8-day trip excluding travel days
1 rest day in Zion
1 rest day in the Grand Canyon
60-70 miles a day
motels for lodging, no camping

Given the rest days, we ended up deviating from the ACA route at the very end, finishing the trip in Flagstaff instead of Phoenix. Here is the RideWithGPS route that I created for the trip:

And the itinerary:

	Day	End At	Mileage / Elevation	Accommodations	Notes
Friday Jul 12	0	Home -> Cedar City, UT	Fly into Cedar City Regional Airport	Knights Inn Cedar City	Stephen and Ryo fly in during the evening, go to bed early at motel.
Sat Jul 13	1	Springdale, Zion National Park	57.6 mi +990 ft / -2938 ft	Bumbleberry Inn	Pick up bikes from Bike Route, bike to Springdale. Check-in to motel and explore Springdale in the evening (energy permitting).
Sun Jul 14	2	Springdale, Zion National Park	0	Bumbleberry Inn	Full day exploring Zion.
Mon Jul 15	3	Fredonia, AZ	42.0 mi +3098 ft / -2444 ft	AirBNB in Fredonia	Bike the windy roads through Zion National Park. We will need to hitch a ride in a pickup across the cars-only tunnel. Cross into AZ.
Tues Jul 16	4	Marble Canyon, AZ	66.4 mi +3265 ft / -4326 ft	Marble Canyon Lodge	Beautiful desolation
Wed Jul 17	5	Cameron, AZ	72.1 mi +2605 ft / -1814 ft	Cameron Trading Post	Beautiful desolation
Thu Jul 18	6	Grand Canyon Village	48.5 mi +1916 ft / -1550 ft	Yavapai Lodge	Arrive in Grand Canyon Village in the evening. Possibly catch the sunset at the Grand Canyon.
Fri Jul 19	7	Grand Canyon Village	0	Yavapai Lodge	Full day exploring Grand Canyon
Sat Jul 20	8	Flagstaff, AZ	81.4 mi +3194 ft / -3109 ft	Canyon Inn	Bike into Flagstaff. This is the hardest biking day, and we should wake up early to get started as soon as we can. Hopefully the weather is nice. Otherwise, we might need to hitchhike or find an alternative way to get to Flagstaff.
Sun July 21	9	Phoenix -> Home	Fly out of Phoenix Sky Harbor		Drop off bikes at bike shop in the morning to be packed and shipped. Take Arizona Shuttle to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Stephen and Ryo fly out in the evening.

Stephen and I took different approaches to ship our bikes. I shipped mine from a local bike shop to a bike shop at the start using FedEx. He checked his as part of the flight.

Gear

Luckily, I had most of the necessities for a tour like this from a previous tour. Overall, I would say that I slightly over-packed for this trip. if I had to do this trip again, I would bring 2 backpacking meals instead of 4 and skip the clipless shoes and notebook. Here’s what I took:

Clothing

cycling shoes
hiking sandals
3 pairs padded bike shorts
10 underwear
10 regular pairs socks
swim shorts / shorts
padded cycling gloves
heat tech fleece
3 dry fit shirts
1 cotton shirt
ear mitts
sunglasses / glasses strap

Toiletries

body wash
sunscreen
toothpaste / toothbrush
first aid kit
wet wipes
paper towels
lip balm

Cookware

stove / gas
spork
backpacking meals

Bike Tools

air pump / patch kit
5 extra tubes
tire levers
multitool
bike lock / tire cable

Utility

cash
handlebar bag
Grand Canyon Connector ACA map
external charger
charging cords
water storage bag / water bottles
wireless headphones
hi-visibility vest
rearview mirror
bike lights

Day 0: Flight to Cedar City

Walking into the Cedar City airport, there was a big crowd of families holding up signs saying “mission accomplished”. I realized later that my flight was full of Mormon missionaries and not American service members.

Later, I had a couple of hours to kill while waiting for Stephen to land at the motel, so I was watching TV in the bed when I noticed a small bug moving across the bed. I looked closer and at first, I thought it was a small spider. Crushing it revealed the true identity: a fat bedbug. Stephen arrived from the airport just as I was figuring out a motel to transfer to. Luckily we were able to book a room in another motel, and I promptly put everything in the dryer to eliminate any hitchhikers.

Fun facts about bed bugs that I learned on my phone while waiting for the dryer to finish:

bed bugs at all stages of development can survive 2-6 months without food
bed bugs were common before WWII, then largely disappeared due to the widespread use of DDT. Now they have made a comeback due to us using less DDT
30 minutes in a dryer on high will kill bed bugs at all stages of development (as long as the heat reaches and stays at 120 degrees)

Day 1: Cedar City to Springdale (57mi)

We start the day by getting Stephen’s bike assembled and picking up my bike from the local bike shop. The TSA has damaged his bike during the inspection so we get it fixed up at the shop. This delay pushes our start time to around noon.

As we start to leave Cedar City, the landscape opens up and for the first time we get to feel the wind in our faces and the open road ahead. Over the next couple hours, we bike through a small dust storm, intense mid-day heat, down an interstate highway, and past a house where we stop to pet miniature horses.

We ended up under-eating and under-hydrating and hit a wall as we got to the 2/3rds mark on the ride. Even though today was the shortest and the most downhill day, it was the hardest. I get a flat due to a staple on the road and change my tire.

The sun is so hot that my toes feel like they’re burning. We stop at a grocery store after we realize our mistake and take an hour break to recoup over bottles of yellow Gatorade.

Finally, we start getting closer and closer to Zion as the sun goes down, eventually making it too Springdale in the dark.

Over dinner at a restaurant in Springdale, we reflect on the most significant moments on our first day.

Stephen: At the beginning of today’s ride as we left Cedar City, we had a conversation about why we are doing this trip and what makes it fun for us. We talked about masculinity and rugged individualism and the harder the journey the better the reward. We both work in tech and build solutions to make things easier but it’s nice to experience something hard, use your body and see what it can do. When I sat down at the super market I thought about that. I felt exhilarated and scared and that’s the best you can expect from an adventure.

Ryo: Getting a flat on the hottest stretch of the trip. No shade. Just sunshine at 100+ degrees. I’m mentally on autopilot as I change the tire. Stephen bikes back up a giant hill in the heat to check up on me. Thankful to have friends who will bike up the hottest roads for me. Proud that the newly installed tube holds until we get to our destination.

Day 2: Hiking the Narrows

Today was a rest day, so no biking. Instead, we spend the day hiking The Narrows, a small river that has cut a narrow canyon into the red stone. We should have rented a stick to make walking over the slippery boulders easier. But we managed. Took about 3 hours to get to the point where the canyon was empty.

In the evening we go to Zion Pizza and Noodle which ends up being our worst restaurant experience on the trip. It costs $16 per plate of Sbarro quality pasta and they don’t even seat us. You win some, you lose some.

Day 3: Springdale to Fredonia

We get breakfast at the inn’s restaurant in the morning, then we spend an hour and a half getting ready to head out and having our bike tires repaired at the bike shop across the street. I get my worn out stock tires replaced with proper touring tires with more puncture resistance and Stephen gets an inner tube replaced. Then we head into Zion National Park and up the steep switchbacks that lead to the tunnel where we have to hitchhike.

A Spanish-speaking man and his son who translates for us let us hitch a ride in their pickup and refuse the cash we try to give him. We bike for another hour, and then suddenly Stephen’s rear derailleur contorts strangely and is unable to switch gears.

We troubleshoot on the side of the road and notice a lack of tension in the cable, and I start to feel nervous since we don’t have the tools or knowledge to fix it. Our only option at this point is to head back 2 hours to where we started and see if the bike shop can make quick repairs. We hitchhike back again through the tunnel, and get to enjoy the switchbacks again but going down. We are lucky and the shop can fix it in an hour.

Also, they had a cute dog

At this point, we are leaving in the hot mid-day heat at 4 pm and still have ~50 miles ahead of us with plenty of elevation. I doubt we can make it to Fredonia before sundown, but could make it to Mt Carmel Junction, and hopefully call the bicycle roadside assistance to take us to Fredonia. We suffer through our second climb of the switchbacks and hitchhike for the third time into the tunnel, which we have become pros at. The rangers don’t directly help, but they do let you know how much time you have to find a ride, which is about 5-10 minutes from when they stop traffic. The trick is to find an empty pickup truck. Most people were willing to help out if they have room. The last guy even took our picture in the back of his truck:

After making it through Zion, we rode briskly to beat the sunset and barely made it to Mt Carmel Junction. Under the bright teal and pink lights of the Thunderbird restaurant, I called Better World Club, and within 45 minutes, a pickup truck from a local tow company was there to shuttle us to Fredonia! The driver said that they had never in 20 years gotten a call to pick up cyclists.

A half-hour later we are driving through Fredonia looking for the AirBNB. As we approach the address, it gets creepy since it’s night, there are no street lights, we’re in the countryside, and we are essentially about to just walk into a strangers house and call it a night. The hosts are camping so they left the backdoor open to us.

We enter the AirBnB and discover that no one has cleaned since the last guest. Rumpled sheets, dirty towels, and most unfortunately a soiled and clogged toilet. Bummer. A whining dog that has been locked in the other bedroom keeps me up.

Day 4: Fredonia to Marble Canyon

At 4:30 am today I’m still awake and feeling miserable because I hadn’t gotten any sleep yet due to the whining dog in the other bedroom and the meowing cat in the house. Sadly, I think about having to bike another 70 miles and contemplate just giving up and abandoning everything. I wake Stephen up once the sun starts coming out and we head out early. Petting the goats in the backyard lifts my spirits and makes me less grumpy.

Today we have a big climb (~5 hours of uphill) through a minor mountain range covered by forest. At the top is a restaurant where we eat a late lunch at the Jacob Lake Inn. Although from the picture it’s hard to tell, this meal ends up being the best one we have this entire trip. In particular, the cranberry sauce on the sandwich tastes like they used fresh-squeezed orange juice.

We take a nap to recharge, then in the afternoon we spend 3 hours speeding downhill, rolling out of the forest and into the desert scrub. It’s just a single lonely road cutting straight through the desert. In the distance, the tall walls of more canyons are visible.

Finally, we get to tonight’s motel, which is on the edge of the reservation. Tomorrow we bike through the Navajo reservation, and since it’s so much hotter here we’ll head out when the sun comes up.

Day 5: Marble Canyon to Cameron

I get woken up by Stephen and I realize the sun is coming up which means we have to leave ASAP. We rush to the gas station to eat breakfast and fill up water. For the past 3 days, we have been eating jimmy dean microwave breakfast sandwiches from these gas stations and I’m getting a bit tired of them but they have a lot of calories which is good for the ride. We head out and it’s more emptiness and desert. Yesterday and today are the only days so far where nothing big has gone wrong. There are a lot more cars on the road today rushing past. One gets close to us while laying on the horn which confirms my suspicions that 1% of drivers are just bad people.

Our midpoint today is a gas station in the middle of nowhere called “the gap” where we ate more gas station sandwiches for lunch. We rested here for a couple of hours while eating ice cream sandwiches waiting for the heat to come down. The next 40 miles were a bit of a struggle since the wind was just enough to cancel out the decline in altitude. We find shade in empty roadside stalls meant for selling Navajo crafts to rest and refill water bottles.

Luckily, at the end we are rewarded with a nice lodge. I had a Navajo taco for dinner. Tomorrow we have to wake up early again but the day after is a rest day so I am looking forward to sleeping in soon.

Day 6: Cameron to Grand Canyon Village

Start a little later, we check out and eat another round of gas station egg salad sandwiches in the parking lot as the sun rises. We ride out of Cameron and there are trailers on dusty lots, some boarded up. Behind the barbed wire, guard dogs bark and poke their heads through the gaps. We see a roadrunner cross the street and we slowly ascend, beginning our daylong uphill journey. After climbing up a road built on sand, we eventually get to the Kaibab forest. We start to get a sneak peek of what the Grand Canyon will look like. I motivate myself by thinking about tomorrow’s rest day and sleeping in. It gets hard about 4-5 hours in, as it is getting hotter. Break at the Desert View general store and the tomato soup is great. Arrive at Grand Canyon Village in the dark. I eat a massive salad for dinner.

Day 7: Rest Day in Grand Canyon Village

We spend our rest day hiking down and back to Indian Garden on the Bright Angel Trail. At the bottom, we take a nap on a large flat rock in the shade. It’s evening by the time we make it back to the rim and we are exhausted and hungry.

Day 8: Grand Canyon Village to Flagstaff

This day is our longest ride yet, almost 80 miles. So we wake up early and make some progress on the ride before the heat arrives. First, we fill up our tires at the visitor center bike shop. Surprisingly, our tire pressure is down to 40psi after 4 days of riding, and getting it back up to 100psi feels great! Then, we take a bike path to Tusayan and head downhill on a highway to Valle. The Chevron there is our last rest area before the empty road to Flagstaff. In Valle, there is an abandoned Flintstones-themed “Bedrock City” that we stop at to take some pics.

Later in the ride, we hear loud buzzing and look up to see high voltage power lines hang low over the road. The buzzing gets louder as we pass under, and then we start getting electric shocks on our hands and thighs where we are brushing up against the metal frame of our bikes. Ouch! In the afternoon, the temps climb and we start looking for shade but there is none to be found. Just grass and scrubby bushes. Eventually, we find a lone tree with some bones underneath it and park ourselves there for a couple of hours of siesta, which these days means browsing the web on our phones.

The last segment to Flagstaff is all uphill and we take fewer breaks since the sun begins to set and we wanna get outta there. We see a mysterious koala-like animal climbing a pine tree, which I later learn is a Coati. As we get closer to the city, we pass by houses with horses that gallop over to the fence in curiosity and packs of barking guard dogs that follow. The sun has set by the time we reach the city limits.

Observations and Advice

To anyone looking to do a tour of this route or any others, here are some of the things I learned on this trip.

Ship Your Bike Early

Don’t be a fool like me and ship your bike last minute. Issues with shipping can happen every step of the way, and for a one-way tour where the motels are booked in advance, you don’t want to stress about not starting on time. My bike had an issue where the label was damaged in transit and delayed it by 2 days. Luckily, it still got there (barely on time).

Water Consumption (in the summer in a desert)

For two people, we had 16 liters of water carrying capacity in the form of a 10-liter dromedary water bag and various bottles and smaller water bags. We assumed that we would consume at most 1 liter of water per hour, so we could last 8 hours before needing refills. This capacity ended up being just right for us where we always felt like we had enough to drink, and some extra to wet our bandanas or rinse our hands. If we were to do this trip again, I would have brought a hydro flask or thermos to keep a refreshing stash of cold water until the hot afternoon. Also, we learned that downing a bottle of water first thing in the morning was essential in starting the day hydrated.

Buy Better World Club Roadside Assistance

About a week before the trip, I was figuring out what we could do if we had bike trouble in different parts of the tour. After some searching, I found Better World Club which is an AAA competitor that offers roadside assistance just for bicycles. For a pretty affordable annual rate, they will pick you up anywhere in the US where there is a road and drive you 30 miles. I was lucky that I signed up because it ended up saving our entire trip on our third day! This service is a no-brainer for anyone on a bike tour in the US and essentially turns all of your unsupported rides into semi-supported ones.

Hiking Sandals > Clipless

I tried 2 types of cycling footwear on this trip: clipless shoes and hiking sandals. The clipless shoes were great for two days until I got contact dermatitis from wearing the shoes for so many hours. I wore the sandals for the rest of the trip and they were more comfortable and almost as performant. If I were to do this trip again, I’d just bring the sandals and leave the clipless at home.

Bring Your Own Sunscreen

Bring your favorite sunscreen and toiletries because there are no Walgreen, CVS Pharmacies, or any other major stores between Cedar City and Flagstaff. The selection of sunscreen is limited in between. I had to use some scented, greasy stuff because I ran out of my own and had to buy whatever was at the gas station.

Long Sleeves > Short Sleeves

I tried both the long and short sleeve dry-fit shirts and ended up preferring the long sleeves. Not having to repeatedly sunscreen my arms was convenient and because of the low humidity and constant airflow during the ride, there was virtually no heat trapped by the extra fabric.

Get Puncture Resistant Tires

This route has a high concentration of road debris in the form of dried goat’s head weed nutlets (yes this is the actual term). They are dried plant seeds that easily pierce through normal bike tires. As a result, I got 2 flats on the first day on my stock tires. Luckily, the local bike shop in Zion installed the more puncture-resistant Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires which resulted in no more flats for the duration of the trip.

Competitor Analysis Framework for SaaS Companies

2019-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

Doing competitive analysis is a skill that I’ve picked up on an ad-hoc basis over the past couple years. I never received any formal training, but I wish I did, and this is why I’m writing this post.

One note: If you’re reading this, you probably have an idea and want to find out if someone’s already done it. Well, I hate to break it to you, but there are almost certainly people who have already done it. And if it’s a good idea, there are multiple companies already in the space with a solid product or service. Despite the popular mythology that companies sprout from novel, previously untested ideas, the majority of new ones enter a space that has already been colonized by someone else. After all, Facebook was the n-th incarnation of a social network (see Classmates.com, Friendster, MySpace).

So before you go ahead and use some of these techniques to shatter your dreams that you had a globally unique idea, please remember that successful competitors are actually a good sign. The question for you is how do you create a better team, pick a more profitable niche, find a new distribution method, or a myriad of other ways to unlock a new business opportunity that doesn’t involve “eureka”.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get started!

Here is my framework to understand a market and the companies within it:

Preliminary Research

I usually start by putting myself in the shoes of the customer and Googling what I feel is appropriate. This will usually turn up at least one or two companies that are in my target space. The main objective is to figure out what most people call the target product or service. All of the other research depends on getting this part right, so don’t skimp here.

You’ll be surprised when you find out that everyone else in the world calls your product something different than you imagined. Especially if you’re a marketer. I’ve noticed over the years that marketers tend to love of coming up with new exciting jargon that doesn’t match what customers say.

Once you find a handful of initial competitors, delve deeper. Here are a couple of important places to focus:

Homepage Titles and Descriptions - The titles and descriptions of the homepage for a competitor were likely carefully crafted to match the most popular terms used to describe their type of product. If you see multiple competitors using the same words to describe their product in their title, there’s a high likelihood that that’s the keyword that most people search for.
Page Content - How do people talk about the type of product they are looking for? Not just on the pages of other companies, but also in forums and news articles related to the product?
AdWords Results - When you’re doing your searches, what terms cause AdWords ads to show up? Businesses optimize their ad spending to target the terms that result in the most business, so this is another useful signal to figure out whether a term is jargon or genuine.

Competitor Research

So now you know what people call your product. Congratulations, you’re already one step ahead of the majority of people who are creating a startup!

The next step is to build a list of companies in the space. You might think that this is the majority of the process. However, this part usually requires less thought than figuring out the language of the market and then analyzing the list. Luckily, there are many public (and paid) databases we can use to quickly pull up companies in a space.

Competitor Searches

As part of the preliminary research, you likely put together an initial list of companies. Start searching “[insert company name] competitor” and more than likely you will see listicles of tools, software review sites, and AdWords ads that will all show you more companies to add to your list. Unfortunately, you’ll need to do some evaluation before you put companies on your list. I’ve found that software review sites and blog posts often times contain defunct or unrelated companies, something you’ll need to manually check.

Market Technology Landscapes

If you search for “[insert broad market] technology landscape”, you may find that others have already done the hard work of putting together a comprehensive market landscape for you. For example, searching for “marketing technology landscape” or “sales technology landscape” will literally give you an up-to-date map of the market.

SEO Tools

On the off chance that you have a subscription to an SEO tool such as Moz, SpyFu, or Ahrefs, these can be great to dig up competitors. For example, on Ahrefs you can go to the “Site Explorer” and enter the domain of a company, and then go to “competing domains”, which will show the domains that compete for the same keywords. Most of these tools have similar capabilities and can uncover new competitors that the other methods haven’t uncovered.

Competitor Analysis

I usually start by putting all of the competitors that were found in the preliminary research in a spreadsheet and adding a couple columns for segmentation. What you choose for the segmentation columns depends on your goal with the research.

For me, my goal is to have a high-level understanding of the current state of the market, and then identify 1-2 competitors that can serve as inspiration for what I’m trying to build. Basically, companies that are small enough to learn from, but are growing fast enough to show success. So, what I segment by are:

Company size - The number of people working at a company can be a rough proxy for the amount of revenue they are making (although it can obviously be skewed for highly unprofitable businesses). Search the name of the business with the keyword “linkedin” to pull up the LinkedIn company page to find the number of employees.
Funding - The amount of funding a business has is a direct outcome of how much investors believe in the company. This number can be found by searching Crunchbase.
Year Founded - When the company was founded can show you market-level trends in market age. The oldest companies are usually the stalwarts that most enterprises use, and identifying and studying these can be useful when conducting product development interviews so you can go deeper into what is missing from these tools. This can also be found by searching Crunchbase.
Domain authority - Domain authority is a signal of how established a company is on search, which is a product of its investments in SEO combined with its age and reputation. If you already pay for an SEO tool like Ahrefs or Moz, then you can use that to find this number. Or use a free too like this domain authority checker

All of these signals are highly correlated but can signal unique strategies companies take to achieve their growth objectives. Sorting by one column and looking at the outliers in the others is a valuable technique.

For example, let’s take a look at a spreadsheet that I put together for the idea I’m working on now, an SEO experimentation platform:

From this spreadsheet, a couple of categories of competitors emerge:

The Old Guard - (Conductor, Brightedge, SearchMetrics) - These are the platforms that are currently dominating the market. Most of the people you talk to in the market will be at least familiar with them, so it’s useful to study them so you can talk coherently about them when doing product interviews.
The New Guard - (Botify) - These companies are newer versions of the Old Guard and are fighting to replace them. How the New Guard attempts to differentiate themselves from the Old Guard can teach you what the trends in the market are.
Larger Upstarts - (Ryte, MarketMuse) - These are smaller companies that have been able to hit product market fit and are able to sustain themselves as a sustainable business.
Smaller Upstarts - (ContentKing, Clearscope, RankScience, ClickFlow) - These are companies who haven’t quite reached product-market fit but are exploring new ideas in the space.
Dead Companies - (not listed) - For any market, there will be many dead companies/projects that are non-players in the space. These can be identified by taking a look at their blog/social accounts and seeing if they’ve gone silent. These companies should be excluded from analysis as they do not add any insight and there are too many of them.

Getting Even More Company Details

Now that you have a shortlist of companies that you want to learn more about, what can you learn about them?

History

Is a The Internet Archive a great place to see how a company has evolved over time. Looking at older versions of a competitor’s homepage reveals how the market has evolved and different approaches they’ve tried in positioning their product. It can also indicate stagnation if they haven’t changed their pitch in a long time and others in the space are moving toward a new trend.

Organization Data

These are large amounts of organization data available beyond what was mentioned earlier, and here are some of the sources I check if I want to learn something more specific about a competitor:

Crunchbase - General purpose organization database that keeps track of funding events
LinkedIn - The best place for an up-to-date employee count
Angel.co - Most tech companies post their jobs on AngelList, so it can be a good place to check for how much a company is growing
Owler - Similar to Crunchbase, but with a great focus on competitive intelligence
DataFox - An Oracle enterprise sales tool that sits on top of a high-quality database of companies
Mattermark - Similar to DataFox but less enterprise
Slideshare - Good for finding pitch decks and product demos

Product Reviews

How happy are your competitor’s customers? Find out on product review sites like:

Marketing Traffic

Looking at where leads are coming from for your competitors can show you how the market prefers finding your type of product. The resource below breaks down the channels that are delivering the most traffic for any URL:

SimilarWeb

Tech Stack

I usually look at tools like Datanyze, Similartech, and Builtwith to help me understand the tech that other companies are using. Generally, the type of tech a company is using isn’t very important from a competitor analysis point of view, but my engineering-side is just curious ;)

Other Fun Resources

Quora - Searching for questions related to the competitor usually brings up answers written by marketers working at each of the companies in the space
YouTube or Vimeo - Product demos, explainer videos, Q&A’s with leadership, if a company’s active on their video channel, this can be a rich set of data to really dive into what’s top of mind for a company

The SaaS Lifecycle

These categories reflect the lifecycle of SaaS companies as they age, and the different markets they target. The general trend is for companies to move upmarket as they take on more funding and need to maximize revenue. As they grow, they acquire other companies and turn their product into a suite of products. Along the way, they either become acquired, and the most successful IPO. However, companies can choose to take alternative paths, choosing to stay small and private, or continuing to focus on SMB’s as they grow.

Fake Demo Calls

Now, if you want to take it one step further, what you can do is to start taking demo calls with some of these companies so that you can see how they pitch you. Some people would say that this is taking it too far. Common startup advice is to disregard competitors and avoid being a copycat. In principle, I agree that obsessing over competitors can be a waste of time. But in practice, I’ve observed that most people using the advice as an excuse to not put the work into understanding the market.

And then there’s the moral argument: Is it wrong to lie? The answer to that question is beyond the scope of this post. However, I will say that doing fake demo calls is not uncommon in the industry.

To maximize the relevance of the call, the alias you use will need to be closely aligned with the customer persona that you will be targeting in your venture. That way, you can see how the sales team tailors the pitch of their product to your persona, which is one of the most important pieces of information you can learn from the call. Also, if you haven’t nailed down your persona yet, these calls can be useful for identifying the most profitable personas to target.

You’ll want to be prepared on these calls with the questions you want answered, which you can sprinkle in the conversation. For example:

“What kind of customers usually find the most value from your product? Which ones don’t?” - This can be great for identifying a target persona
“I’ve heard of X, Y, and Z as competitors in this space. Which ones do leads bring up the most and how does your product differentiate?” - This one can add to the list of competitors you’ve already compiled, identify the most serious competitors to focus research on, and bring up differentiators that might not be on the website
“What new products or features is your company focused on rolling out in the near future?” - This reveals the direction the company is heading and can reveal market opportunities as well as general trends. For example, if a company is focused on enterprise features, they will probably start to reduce focus on their smaller customers, a potential opportunity.

Now it’s time to actually make the call. There are multiple ways of going about this step:

Delegating - This involves finding a someone in your network who would be willing to hop on a call with a salesperson and take notes. Trust is important here, you don’t want them to slip up and expose you or your company (although if you’re just starting out, it doesn’t mean much). As is basic familiarity with a software sales demo and the ability to record a screenshare (which can be surprisingly challenging in the 21st century).
Doing it yourself - If you are just starting out, you don’t need to create a new alias, but if you are already publicly in a competing organization you will need to. Creating an alias is somewhat time consuming but if you do it once you don’t need to do it again.

Once you have the the notes from the call, equally useful is finding a place to keep it all. It’s easy to spend all of your energy on doing the calls and then forget that you’ll want to reference the info months later.

Application of Analysis

Understanding the larger market in this way improves your understanding of how your product can fit and where the market opportunities lie. When doing product development interviews, it can be valuable to learn how each of these companies are performing in satisfying the user’s needs. Is there something that the larger upstarts are doing well that the old guard is not? What is the market’s perception of each of these tools, and why are they (or aren’t they) using them?

Being able to answer these questions will help you:

Improve your confidence in pursuing your existing idea
Find business opportunities in a specific market
Convince investors to fund the idea
Ask better questions in product development interviews
Position your product to potential customers
Know when and how to pivot to a different idea
Avoid bad ideas from turning into real work
Educate your team on where to focus efforts

On the final point, one of the greatest multipliers of competitive research is making it accessible and spreading the knowledge among your team (if you have one). Don’t give people an excuse to not educate themselves. Create summary videos with Loom and post them to your slack, put all of the competitor videos in your company wiki, organize sessions on how these learnings can be applied to different departments.

Having a team that’s well-versed in the market can make all the difference, and by putting the time into gathering the data, you make it that much easier for them to get there.

2018 Financial Year in Review

2018-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

3 years ago I wrote a 2014 Financial Year in Review that documented my spending habits. Since then, my life has changed a lot. I live in a nice 1 bedroom in the edges of SF instead of in a converted closet-room in the Tenderloin. I travel more to see family and friends. And I spend more freely now (more weekend trips, entertainment, and hobbies).

This year has also been a year of change for me. I’ve had a windfall from the acquisition of TINT (which I’m excluding from this analysis). Lots more stuff going on in my life, and I’m frequently feeling like I’m spending too much. How does it actually stack up?

Data set: Transactions

Paychecks: $39,207
Total spend: $55,850
Savings: -$16,643
Rent: $18,000/yr
Average Rideshare Spend: $154/mo
Average Total Transportation Spend: $406/mo
Travel: $11,771
Restaurants: $5,876
Groceries: $1,849
Big ticket items:
- Flight to Japan - $1,152
- Flight to Italy - $1,049
- Amazon: $1,049

Charts

Reflections

Since 2014, my paychecks haven’t changed much, but my spending has. My lifestyle inflated alongside the outcome from the acquisition of TINT. My spending increased 57% from back then, from $35k to $55k, a $20k increase. Almost half of that change is from my rent increasing from $800 to $1500. The other $12,000 is mainly from my increase in travel (3.5k → 11.8k) and transportation (3k → 4.9k).

I went on 11 trips requiring a flight this year and did something special almost every month. I don’t regret it, but it came at a cost. 21% of my spend this year was on travel. And for the transportation, a big chunk of it was riding BART from Oakland for my daily commute, as well as an increase in renting cars to go on day trips. My rideshare expenses have also increased slightly, from 1.4k to 1.8k, so I’m roughly taking 4-5 more Uber/Lyft rides every month.

Also, I’ve always wondered, “How much could I save if I ate out less?”. Taking a look at my monthly food spend broken down by groceries vs restaurants, I find that I spend about $150 a month on groceries and $489 a month on restaurants. If I halved my restaurant spend and doubled my grocery spend, I could cut costs by $170 a month. Now I know.

Overall, looking at the numbers has me thinking about my goals during this time of transition. If I am going to start a family in the near future, will we be able to afford staying in the Bay Area, or will it make more sense to move to a place with a lower cost of living?

Also, how long can I give up a regular job and enjoy the flexibility of entrepreneurship without impacting my ability to stay here? What is that worth to me? And if/when I start looking for a job, what will I pursue?

All questions that I don’t have answers to yet, but at least now I know how much it will cost to pursue my new ventures.

Extra Stuff

I didn’t know how to do this quickly in Excel, so I wrote a little script to help me categorize my transactions. Putting it here in case I want to use it again in the future.

My Farewell to TINT

2018-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

If you’re connected to me or anyone else at TINT, you might know that we’ve been looking for someone to take the keys to our company. The big news is that we signed a deal to sell TINT to Filestack. The press release will cover what both organizations want the world to know: This deal is a winning union between two successful companies, combining forces to strategically take on more of the user generated content market.

I wholeheartedly believe this is true. But, this post isn’t about that. It’s about what the deal means for me, in a way that could never be represented in a merger agreement or capitalization table.

Company Timeline

We started this journey in 2011. Raised $370k in 2012. Pivoted and launched TINT in 2013. Hit break-even in 5 months. Bootstrapped it to $5M ARR with 30 people. Sold it to Filestack in 2018. What happened in between? Here’s a company timeline:

2011: Hypemarks starts as Tim’s business school class project. In his homework, he describes the concept: “HypeMarks.com is a social bookmarking site that allows consumers to search the trending sites of today based on a specific category, store (bookmark) their favorite ones, and share the new-found sites with their friends.”

2012: Through a lot of hustle and luck, Tim builds the initial team, and Hypemarks goes from a university basement student project to a seed funded startup.

2013: Founders move to SF, pivot from Hypemarks to TINT, almost run out of money, and at the last minute achieve ramen profitability. Tim and I shared a studio together, and I slept on an air mattress in a tent (see photo above).

2014: Ramen profitability turns to sustainable business growth and we hire the first employees. Pictured above are Zen and Ro on Ro’s first day.

2015: Growth continues quickly, with impressive customers signing on, and TINT expands rapidly. 19 to 37 full-time employees. Moving from a 3,000 to 10,000 sqft office. Expanding sales globally with reps in UK, Dubai, and Brazil.

2016: Revenue growth plateaus while expenses climb due to rapid growth, so we have our first layoffs to stabilize the business, and work to reduce churn and increase contract value.

2017: Despite having significantly grown our average contract value, overall revenue still hasn’t grown so we continue pushing hard as a team, offering an unlimited plan for enterprises, bringing in a customer success consultant to help us reduce churn, and later in the year we hire experienced senior directors of sales and marketing. Our goal is to push into the enterprise space.

2018: The investments we made in 2017 did not result in traction in the enterprise space, so TINT switches direction to focus back on the self-service market and going back to profitability. During this time, Tim intensifies his search for potential acquirers, and after considering multiple offers, we sign a deal with Scaleworks / Filestack.

Looking Back

Looking back on the timeline, it’s shocking to me how much has happenned at TINT over the years. The innocence of the early days, the exuberance of early growth, the shock of hitting the plateau, the determination in the face of continuous challenge, and the uncertainty of looking for an exit.

My worldview has changed thanks to all of the madness that comes with operating a small business. Tim has handled more of it than anyone else, but me, Nik, and others on the team have faced it at one point or another. There’s a lot of crazy stuff behind the scenes that no-one talks about. Patent trolls. Ex-employee going rogue and stealing customers. Surprise illegal office zoning. Surprise Instagram API changes that break the product. Layoffs. Lost friends. Burnout.

But the team was able to find a way to handle each of those situations. As time has passed, the sharp pain of these situations has mellowed into experience. And the experience is why I joined this team, so ultimately I am grateful for the opportunity to learn valuable lessons.

Lessons Learned

As expected with our first company, we succeeded at a couple things, failed at many more. Below are a couple of things we learned along the way:

No Playbooks

I’ve read countless startup books, blog articles, podcasts, videos, HN comment threads, slideshares and the biggest lesson I’ve learned from putting these resources into action is that it’s rare to find a panacea, “golden rule”, or even a shortcut. It’s counterintutive that this is my first point because below I basically go into my own spiel about what you’re supposed to do, but I’ve found that every hard situation is unique in is difficulty, and there are no easy playbooks or advice to follow when you feel like you need it the most. Tim put it well when I talked to him about this. “I don’t ask for advice anymore. I ask for someone’s experience and figure out what’s relevant for me.”

Growth Hacking and SEO

A big part of how we got our initial traction was thanks to our efforts to continuously find hackish ways to distribute our product. In the beginning, we built Hypemarks profiles for celebrities for them to promote on social media. Later, we integrated TINT into the Wix app market when it first opened, piggybacking on its growth. The biggest traction-creating boost was when I created keyword-specific landing pages and pointed our product’s embed backlinks to them, catapulting us to the front page for searches for “instagram widget” and “twitter widget”. Unlike writing code, with growth hacking, effort is not closely related to impact on a project-to-project basis. It’s about experimenting as many channels as possible and seeing what sticks. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to exercise my SEO skills while at TINT as well. I’ve found that organic search is one of the most underrated, least understood areas for digital marketers.

Solutions > Products

When we first built Hypemarks, we took a product-first approach where the end user’s problem was secondary to our own excitement about the idea. Luckily we were able to pivot in time to not run out of money, but for the next company, I’m going to spend more time trying to understand a customer before jumping to build a product.

Never compromise on hiring

One of the most valuable things that can’t be described in a blog post but must be learned first-hand is the skill of evaluating how competent someone is at their role. In the beginning we as founders had zero experience in this area, so it took us a couple of years to get okay at this. Looking back, the biggest variable in our company’s success (after product-market-fit) was who we hired. We got incredibly lucky to have attracted and retained certain people. These people were classic “multipliers” who were able to go beyond their role and amplify the efforts of the entire team. On the other hand, we also had our share of mishires who added years to reaching our goals. Unfortunately if you’re a new grad starting your own company, there’s no way out of this issue, you just have to fail at it and learn. Otherwise, this will be a function of the quality of the teams you have worked on.

Self care

Being a founder is lonely because of both the pressure to exude success and the difficulty in connecting with others who have been through a similar situation. There were times when I felt hopeless. We were lucky that with 3 founders that there was some redundancy and it almost never occurred where all three of us were hopeless at the same time. Being proactive in building a support network within our organization and outside of it was one of the best things we did to stay healthy and productive.

Good Management

For a period of time before 2016, we thought Holocracy, flat structures, and manager-less environments were superior to more traditional org structures. We quickly learned that there’s a reason why people have been doing things a certain way when it comes to organizing people. I’m sure more wealthy organizations can buy more talent to make this work, but for TINT, a bootstrapped startup consisting entirely of inexperienced millenials, it became inefficient fast.

One person can change everything, but everyone should be replaceable

The usual saying is “everyone is replaceable”. But there really are certain special people who are so rare that they may as well be irreplaceable. Building TINT helped me understand what the threshhold of replaceability is, how to evaluate the tradeoffs of making a keep/cut decision, and to what lengths to go to keep people. In general, our instinct at TINT was to keep compensation relatively flat and help B and C players at the expense of rewarding A players, and although it helped us create some level of camaraderie, it also hurt us in many ways. We had many A players leave us earlier than they needed to due to this culture. Next time I will better understand tradeoffs of creating a more “cultivation”-focused company culture.

Don’t sign a 4 year lease on the basis of a growth projection

This one seems dumb, but I had to put it in here because it’s one of our most painful lessons. In 2015 we were rapidly growing, and projecting our rapid growth into the future, we saw that we would easily have the budget for a much larger office. At the time, we justified our move by saying we would be more productive as a team with a better space, but looking back, a 4-year commitment was an unnecessary commitment that caused us to depend financially on a growth projection that never materialized. Not making that mistake again!

Special early-company things

There were a few important things that we did early on in the company that we would not have been able to do later. For example, making our salaries transparent and based on a formula. Or making our cap table transparent. Another example was when we created a self-improvement program that eventually became a culture-defining company tradition with high employee participation and buy-in. I’m thankful that didn’t miss the window for doing these special things. It’s important to identify those special things that you can only do when you’re a small team that the organization can grow into as new team members are added on.

Good Memories

Besides all the lessons, there are also many good memories that I hope to keep forever. Hackathons where we built eye-tracking social signage. Getting lunch with the engineering team in the South Park every day. Retreats in grand mountain houses. Rallying together in times of company crisis. Meeting customers who love our product. Meeting random people who have used our product. Seeing the product randomly out there in the world.

And the relationships. TINT helped create friendships and professional connections that people will take with them into the future.

So yeah, it’s been a wild ride. And there’s a lot to be grateful for, even the bad stuff.

The ride has exceeded my expectations. I just had no idea that this is how TINT would turn out when I met Tim. To describe how much this TINT experience has exceeded my expectations, I will now indulge myself in writing a brief description of my life as it relates to this company:

Humble Beginnings

Sometime in the mid 90’s our family got our first computer (the photo above is the model our family got, a Power Mac 7100). I remember learning about the Internet, loading a webpage for the first time, and being amazed that anyone in the world would see the same page if they typed the same thing into the address bar. And not only that, but anyone could create pages for whatever they wanted, even me! But unfortunately after asking my parents to help me set up a web page, they said that it costs money and even if they were to pay money to let their 8-year old dabble in web things, they wouldn’t know how to do it.

So, I aged through my regular milestones, and later on I learned basic HTML/CSS by customizing my Neopets shopfront, setting up an Angelfire page of strange pre-adolescent musings, and modifying my Blogger template. My dream job in middle school was working for Flickr as “PHP Engineer”, but it was seemingly totally unattainable. I saw some PHP when I clicked on the wrong button on Wordpress and it was intimidating and gibberish-like.

In high school I was part of the robotics team, but I didn’t do any robot programming. I was embarrassed to try when there were already other kids who knew how to do “real programming” so I worked on the Public Relations team where we focused on putting together marketing material to promote robotics. Brochures, essays, an animation, and a website (screenshot above).

When it came time to choose a major for college, I took my dad’s advice: “If you aren’t talented at anything, you should be a doctor because you get paid a lot and all you have to do is memorize things.” So, I entered college as a Pre-med student in biomedical engineering. I tacked on a minor in Computer Science because I still had hope of working at Flickr. Who knows? I kept my expectations low. Especially with so many other kids with AP-CS classes.

Junior year, I started to have second thoughts about going into medicine. My doubts stemmed mainly from how stark the difference was between the attitude of students in CS vs Pre-med. I remembered my first Pre-med “study session”, and being surprised that it ended up being a “copy session” where most of the students were looking for another student’s homework to copy. Afterward, I had the crappy feeling of being used. Another negative experience that comes to mind is how effed up I felt about the Pre-med honors society really just being a o-chem test-bank society.

The experience on the CS side was different. We worked on team projects where for the most part people worked together to solve problems collaboratively. So I figured, if these are the kind of people I’m going to work with for the rest of my life, I’ll take the chill ones. I dropped Pre-med and switched majors to focus on CS full-time.

After switching majors, that’s when I first discovered Hacker News and started learning more about the startup scene.

The Start of Something

When I met Tim, it was through my ex-girlfriend Pauline, who went up to him to ask about planting more trees on campus. Tim was in Student Government, part of the Environmental Committee. Tim couldn’t do anything to help, but asked her if she knew anyone in the engineering school who could help him with his idea. She did, and that’s how my relationship with Tim began.

We worked out of a student apartment, meeting after class and staying late into the night. This is embarrassing to admit but imagine the most wantrapreneur college students hunched over our laptops listening to The Social Network soundtrack on repeat. That was us. Listening to that soundtrack still brings me back to those uncertain days.

That summer, I managed to get an internship at real tech company, Yahoo! Out of the 30 companies I applied to, I got accepted to 2 (Yahoo and Adobe). And was the 7th pick at the one I joined (shoutout to those 7 people who decided Yahoo wasn’t for them!). I learned enough web development at that internship to be able to come back senior year and actually contribute to Tim’s Hypemarks project.

All of this life-history summary is to say that I never expected to be able to have the skills and knowledge to go off and help create a product and organization as substantial as TINT. Even though 2016-2018 were hard years where we weren’t able to grow the business, I am still incredibly lucky to have chanced into the opportunity to achieve my dreams.

I am really lucky.

Gratitude

There is just too much gratitude to express.

Tim - I hope you are able to take the break you need after TINT because you deserve it. People say shit rolls downhill but I’ve found that it rolls equally uphill. When all the easy decisions have been made by others, the hardest ones are the ones you had to face. You have unfailingly looked out for the best interest of the team and company and that’s the most anyone can ask for in a leader. “It’s not about the idea, it’s about the team.” That’s what you said to me when I was on the fence about joining you after graduating. I’m lucky to have trusted you.

Nik - It’s hard to believe that we met in a library basement in college, and have been working together almost daily up until today. What a pleasure it has been to work with such an ambitious and hard working person like you. Someday I will search google for “sean parker of india” and see your name as the first result. Thank you for having my back, and also being outrageously photogenic and letting me take countless pictures of you throughout our TINT journey.

The TINT Team - I’ve been lucky enough to work with more than 60 teammates while at this company. Each brought their unique skills to the table to help us advance the company to this exit. I’m going to miss being surrounded and inspired by such a talented team. I’ve absorbed so much in the experience of working together, and I have also set wildly higher bars for performance in every degree, whether that’s programming, design, sales, or support. Can they code as well as Dan? Ship as well as Brett? Sell as well as Kelly? Or organize as well as Jess? These are questions I’ll be asking myself in my future roles. The journey has been tumultuous, but I hope that y’all were able to grow from the experience too. For the continuing team, the gratitude extends into the future. The brand that we’ve worked so hard to create now rests with you.

Our Customers - Where would this venture be without our customers? I have my personal favorites. Greg from Mambo Media, thank you for being willing to Gchat late at night and give us product feedback in our early days. Nasdaq for putting TINT on the Times Square jumbotron on our team trip to New York. The Sakura of America team for the free boxes of Pigma Microns that powered all of my analog writing at TINT. Kayla at Blue Apron for always being down for a product feedback call. Purdue University, I never thought the university I grew up next to would end up being a customer! And Bob Harrington and the Orange Department at Specialty Produce for being our biggest customer champions.

Monica - Thanks for being the behind the scenes “Director of HR” when it came to the plethora of people challenges I faced at TINT. You always have a thoughtful perspective that reflects your ability to consider everyone’s needs and wants. I am very lucky to have met such a smart peach.

Idealab/StartEngine - Thank you for believing in us from the very beginning. We really didn’t know what we were doing back then, but you helped us get off the ground and we wouldn’t be here without you.

Zen - You deserve a special shoutout for being our very first employee and for the inspiration you brought to our team. I still follow your mantra of “motion inspires emotion”, and attribute our initial success to your insistence that we switch all of our passwords to “100kMRR”. I don’t know why we stopped doing that.

Gokce and Prannay - Thanks for being my mentors during my Yahoo! internship, and teaching me that “There is no company, only a team”. The technical skills I learned from you guys were what gave me the confidence to start my own thing. I even got to work on an improvement to Flickr at a hackathon! That was a great summer.

Gary, Jeremy, Dani - Thanks for bringing me on as a “webmaster” for my first technical project of any merit. Daily Brink was the project that got the attention of my eventual manager at Yahoo!. Looking back, it’s pretty impressive how much content we put together.

What’s Next?

There are a couple of mantras I’ve followed through the TINT journey that I plan on applying after the 90 day transition period:

“Keep doors open” - I believe that my optimal path to achieving success is to create opportunities and see what happens rather than picking an end goal and rushing to it.
“Everything happens for no reason” - The funny thing is that Tim has an arm tattoo that has the exact opposite of this mantra. I don’t bring this up in front of him because I don’t want to invalidate his world view, but I find it awesome that regardless we’ve always worked well together. Back to the mantra, I think that serendipity plays a far larger factor in life than is commonly acknowledged.
“Do your best” - I’ve always felt that doing your best is the easiest way to avoid regret. The concept is interesting to me because it doesn’t necessitate that you do “the best”, just “your best”, and begs the question “what is my best?” which leads to the definition of personal best, which is how growth is catalyzed. I’ll be doing my best to take the energy that was being focused on the company, and focus on myself and finding what’s next.

I am working full-time on transitioning the company until the middle of November, but after that, I would love to find another team of people trying to build a SaaS company from scratch and give it another go, so I’ll be looking around for people who would be interested. If you know anyone who’s looking to collaborate on a project that would benefit from a growth hacker / front-end developer, let me know!

With #tintlove,

Using Selenium and ECS to Create Reliable Rendering on Signage Systems

2018-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

Your browser does not support the video element.

The Problem

My company, TINT, produces dynamic social displays for digital signage (among many social media related products). If you’re walking through a mall and you see Instagram photos show up on a kiosk screen, it could be us, especially if it’s a Westfield mall. Our product is built using web technologies (HTML/CSS/JS) and is rendered through a web browser.

Traditionally, we have relied on the browsers supplied by the signage company vendors, such as Broadsign, Brightsign, and FourWindsInteractive to render our content. However, this often results in performance issues because the hardware isn’t powerful enough to render smooth animations in a browser, or the browser is outdated and difficult to support.

The Solution

My approach in tackling this was to remove the unpredictability of the signage system’s browser, and use a browser running on a server to render a video that can be delivered to the signage system. After all, what kind of signage system doesn’t support video? After doing some research, I found that most signage systems can download a video file from a URL and cache it locally, syncing it occasionally to keep it up-to-date. This is usually done through Media RSS, or MRSS.

Using video instead of HTML has a number of advantages, including:

Reliable playback during network instability
Increased compatibility with older hardware/software
Consistent animation performance
Easier troubleshooting

The tradeoffs are that:

The dimensions of the screen must be known beforehand
There is greater delay from when content is posted on social media to when it is shown on the screen

For most customers, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, so I decided to move forward with the video approach.

The only thing I had to do was figure out how to create automatically updating videos from webpages in a simple, but scalable way. Unfortunately, there aren’t any off-the-shelf services that provide this kind of thing (startup idea?). However, after some digging, I came up with a creative way to do it myself:

First, I found Headless, a Ruby gem that creates a virtual X screen and records videos of Selenium test runs. I used that to create a simple script to create videos of websites. Through trial and error, I figured out which flags Chrome requires to create a fullscreen video:

Now I had to find a way to take this basic script and scale it up to be production-ready. I decided to use AWS ECS and Docker since it is a simple way to wrap environments around tasks, and have them run on a schedule or in parallel. I thought about Lambda, but AWS Lambda doesn’t support ruby, and I wasn’t sure that Lambda was meant to handle a task as resource intensive as rendering a video from a chrome session. To store metadata about the videos, I used MySQL, and Sinatra to provide an endpoint for signage systems to request videos from.

A flow chart of the system:

Here’s how it works:

The signage customer provides 4 inputs to an internal tool: URL of the social display, height/width of the screen, and the duration of the video
The tool returns 2 URLs which represent the link to the video file and a link to the corresponding MRSS feed
The customer uses either the video file or MRSS feed link in their signage system (depending on what their system accepts)
When the signage system first requests a video, it receives a response that says “video is being generated”, while the service starts a ECS task which generates the video
Once the ECS task finishes, the video is saved and the video becomes available to download
The signage system periodically requests the video to download, so the second time it makes a request, the video is downloaded, then played on the screen
In the background, an ECS scheduled task iterates through all the videos that have been created to determine whether any videos need to be expired (I expire any videos that have not been requested in a day) or refreshed (I refresh videos every 30 minutes)
Voila:

Your browser does not support the video element.

The system still has some imperfections which I haven’t gotten around to addressing, which include:

Autoscaling - I eventually want to use AWS Fargate to handle autoscaling of containers. Right now all of our microservices share resources on our ECS cluster, and I have to manually throttle my video microservice to balance resources. Unfortunately, as I write this Fargate does not support the shm_size parameter, which Chrome crashes without.
Unnecessary Proxy - Currently the Sinatra server proxies the video from S3 to keep track of when videos were last accessed. However, I could be parsing S3 logs to do the same thing, which would reduce latency and infrastructure costs in delivering the video.

Overall, I’m happy with how this project came out. It solves a problem for our signage customers and gave me a chance to creatively re-use Selenium in a way that I imagine its original creators didn’t envision, to render visualizations for in-store screens:

Additional Reading

TINT Support: Signage Video Link Integration

My Experiences with Professional Coaching

2018-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

It’s after work, before the holidays in 2016 and inside the Lever office in downtown San Francisco, I’m hanging out with my friend Jen, catching up and venting about work. I’m telling her about some hard decision that I didn’t have enough validation on when she suggests, “You know, one thing that’s worked really well with our team is professional coaching.” She explains how she helped her team find the best coaches, the benefits of coaching, and referred me to Christina and Blue Door Partners.

So a week later, I’m dialing their number, not knowing what to expect but open to being challenged.

“Hiiiiiiiii”, says Christina. “Hey, this is Ryo. So, what happens now?”

Fast forward a year, and I’ve been able to work on a bunch of longstanding challenges like,

Saying yes too much
Taking work too personally
Not giving people enough space for their own feelings
Not being assertive, authoritative, charismatic, inspiring, vulnerable, or strategic enough
How to be a more supportive partner
Upcoming challenging social situations
Recovering from breaking someone’s trust

Looking back at it, it’s hard to believe I covered all of that. When I started the coaching experiment, I didn’t expect much. But I ended up getting a lot out of it. So, I’m writing this post for anyone who hasn’t explored coaching as an option for personal improvement because I didn’t know what to expect when I started.

Before going into what coaching actually involves, I admit that it seems silly. But when you pay a couple hundred dollars to work with someone to do silly things, you start to pay more attention to both the task and its intended value.

The initial coaching work consisted of exercises like:

Inner Voices - Have you ever lost control of your inner monologue? This exercise involves writing a paragraph describing the inner voices in your head. A Saboteur voice that comes up whenever there’s uncertainty. A Practical voice that focuses on what to do next. An Appreciator voice that comes up to reflect on positive situations. etc. These voices are then revisited throughout future coaching sessions to improve recognition and understanding of how you feel.
Strengths/Weaknesses - Another part of understanding yourself is appreciating your strengths and admitting your weaknesses. Writing a paragraph about one’s own strengths, and then acting them out in a physical motion representing the strength, and doing an investigation on weaknesses can bring themes to recurring challenges.
Improv - How awkward is it to do improv exercises alone and over the phone in a glass conference room that all your coworkers can see and hear into? Very! That’s why I take my calls in the back room. Based on the value I got out of the coaching improv work, I even ended up taking a class at a local theater, BATS.

From there, the sessions followed a common pattern.

Biggest Challenge - The beginning of every session started with a question: “What do you want to work on?”. There’s a significant chunk of value attached to having someone ask you this question. After going through a couple sessions, I realized that in the rush to get things done, it’s easy to ignore the harder challenges that have no easy answers. But they don’t go away. They’re on the back of your mind, collecting in a pool which eventually gets distracting, irritating, then unavoidable. And having someone ask you that question helps empty that pool.
Exploration - Going deeper into the topic through a series of Powerful Questions. Alternating between questions, and having Christina reflect back on me her observations of how I answer. Having a great coach allowed me to have a mirror on both my external projection and internal perception. A coach is supposed to help you find your own answers (although I did from time to time get straight advice, which was nice too).
Homework - identifying actions that can be taken in the next week to either explore or improve the issue. The homework would be reviewed at the beginning of the next session. The pressure to actually follow through with the homework was valuable.

Every 2 weeks, we’d have a 30-minute session following the above structure. The meetings felt like a pocket of intense inner reflection, in a sea of external responsibilities and priorities. And having the support from someone you know you can share everything with feels great.

If you’re interested, Blue Door Partners offers individual coaching in addition to Pop-Up Coaching where they come on-site to run individual coaching sessions for companies. We’ve had a great experience offering the service to our employees as a perk to improve wellness and professional growth. In addition, it’s a smart idea to set up initial introductory sessions with a couple coaches and see who gels with you. Yelp is great for this.