- Duration: 28 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01JVDC4FEPFZDQJDD7ER3MFM1K (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01JVDC4FEPFZDQJDD7ER3MFM1K)
Transcript
[Anh-Tho Chuong]: Hi Michael. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: How are you doing? [Anh-Tho Chuong]: I’m great, thank you. Thank you for taking the call so quickly. Yeah, of course. [Michael Houck]: I had some free time this afternoon, so no worries. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Thanks for being flexible on the time. Yeah, of course. Okay, it’s your meeting recorder read ai right oh yeah you can kick them both I don’t know what the other one I guess the other one the other one is mine no no it’s fine I’m I’m testing several tools for so many um yeah anyway um just quick intro so I’m ato I’m the co-founder of lago um we’re in discussion with adam for growth engineering wall um basically he he’ll be the the pm for growth PM slash full stack engineer. Um He’s he’s he’s done a great impression in his keys Um, I just have a few questions about like how it was to work with him Um, everyone has friends and like blind spots. So it’s just a question of like getting to know him better Yeah, sure ask away. I can um I can fire my How long did you work with him and did you manage him? What was the relationship? [Michael Houck]: I was the founder of the company. I had known Adam a little bit before. We had met back when I was at Airbnb. We were just jamming on ideas together at the time. I ended up staying at Airbnb and not leaving, so we ended up not building something together at the time. But then when I finally did start a company, we didn’t hire, it wasn’t a software product originally, so we didn’t hire any engineers right off the bat. But about a year into the company, yeah, about a year into the company, we started building a software product for our membership, our members. And I reached out to Adam and I was like, hey, Like, what’s your situation? And I think at the time he was winding something down. And so I hired him and I managed him directly. Although, you know, he was pretty out of time. Yeah, so he was our first engineer and our lead engineer. And we ended up hiring a team of four. And he was the primary, we didn’t have like an official like manager role on the team because software wasn’t a major part of what we were doing, but he was sort of the largest voice in that group and set a lot of the direction. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Awesome. So what projects would you avoid putting him on? [Michael Houck]: Oh, I’m sorry, I just realized I didn’t actually answer your question, which was how long did we work together. So hiring about a year into the company, and we worked together for over a year. And then I think I left the company before he did, or maybe it was the other way around. I’m not sure. The company kind of, you know, ended up not working out. And so I forget how that happened at the end. But yeah, we worked together for like roughly a little bit more than a year, I would say. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: OK, awesome. I knew about Launch House, by the way. The branding was incredible. So yeah, it was very awesome. Yeah, I guess it’s great at many projects. The question I like asking is, what type of projects shouldn’t we put Adam on? [Michael Houck]: Hmm. Shouldn’t you put him on? Let’s see, I mean, from my perspective, he had a good grasp of the technical side on the back end, which was great, because that was not my area of expertise at all. I spent a little bit of time as an engineer, but more so as a product guy. I would say that we never really put him on too many things that were intense, like you UX UI design like we my co-founder was a designer and so he had strong opinions on So I Remember having conversations where we would like whiteboard stuff out I don’t think Adam had as strong contributions on that side of things as he did on like here’s how the software should be built So I would say I see him I see him doing well at understanding how to build the software in a scalable way that balances moving fast and also being scalable, as I said. And he has good product sense, just I think in terms of the design side of things. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: That’s not his wheelhouse. OK. Awesome. So I asked these questions from a negative angle, because otherwise, during reference in schools, it ends up being like, oh, this person is great, everything’s good. So my next question is, when Adam wasn’t happy, why was he unhappy? It’s a good question. [Michael Houck]: So we ended up bringing in another engineer. I mean, as I said, we brought in a couple. But one who had also been a founder in the past, like Adam had. And I think that they didn’t see eye on a few things. So for example, the other engineer who we brought in, I think they had maybe a lower quality bar for what they would ship than Adam did. And I think that caused some friction between them. So we got to a place where, you know, we basically had them both own different parts of the system. And that was fine and workable. But yeah, I think that was why there was friction between them. It was just because they had different sort of quality bars. Okay. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: And did they try to poke this out? Yeah, we talked it out. [Michael Houck]: They hugged it out. We had an off-site at one point in New York after a couple months. Of them working together, we brought the whole team together. And we did like a big engineering session. And it was me, my co founder, and the two of them, and then another more junior engineer. And we just whiteboarded a bunch of stuff out and sort of, you know, also put it put sort of all the interpersonal stuff on the table. And, you know, they end up hugging it out. And we all went out to dinner afterwards and had a great time. And sort of after that, the problems weren’t really there, I would say, because they had sort of an understanding of how to work with each other. It was really just like they were both remote, and they hadn’t gotten in the room and sort of hashed things out and be like, hey, this is what I need. This is what I need, you know. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: So once we did, once we did that, it was fine. Okay. Interesting. And let’s say we work with Adam, what do you think I would discover during the first like six weeks? What would you describe? I’m a surprising thing. I don’t know. [Michael Houck]: I’m trying to give you an answer that’s going to be valuable here. I mean, I would expect him to step up on the product side of things like, you know, he’ll have good opinions, good, strong, but obviously able to able to compromise on them when needed about like how things should be done with the product. So if you’re looking for someone who you can sort of, over time, sort of hand some of those things off to. I think he is that guy. So I don’t know if that, again, it’s hard for me to say what will surprise you, because I don’t know what’s been in the sort of interview process. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: What surprised you the most during the year you worked with him? [Michael Houck]: I mean, again, I knew him before, so it was sort of a known quantity, like I knew sort of what we were, what we would get, you know. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Okay, that wasn’t a new surprise? [Michael Houck]: I mean, it’s always surprising when, you know, when folks who, from my perspective, I thought would work well together, who at first didn’t, but then they ended up, you know, sort of patching it out, as I said. So the initial part was surprising, but that was more my fault than anything else. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Okay, and what are his main Development goals according to you. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: He’s made what? [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Sorry development goals areas. Yeah Feedback like what did you? [Michael Houck]: Try remember so long ago Again I was I knew Adam I was pretty sort of happy with how he was our product at the time. So the main things that we talked about that I felt were like things that needed to be addressed were around sort of this working with this other person who was just very different than him. So I don’t have much outside of that. I mean, I’m trying to think because as a founder to founder, I want this to be as valuable for you as possible. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah, yeah, of course. [Michael Houck]: No, I mean, he shipped quick, but quality was good. He had strong beliefs, but he also sort of was willing to acknowledge in cases when he was wrong, like any good engineer or product person would. He was civil in debates with me about strategy and things like that. So all was good there. Honestly, I don’t have that much that I would say. I mean, I saw him work up and down the full stack. He built things from scratch. I don’t have much negative things to say, honestly. Normally I do on these types of reference calls, but I don’t have that much bad to say. Awesome. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: And founder to founder, do you think it’s a good role for him I mean, I was impressed. It’s a very hard role to fill because usually, you know, for growth, it’s not like very hard technical challenges usually to solve. So hardcore engineers wouldn’t really want to do that. They would rather work on the back end of Flago or things like this. And if we hire someone not technical enough, then engineers would hate this person. Had that kind of situation before. And I think Adam is the right balance between these dimensions. But yeah, I was like, you know him better than we do. [Michael Houck]: The growth engineer role is always a tough one to fill, for sure, for the exact reasons that you’re saying. My personal opinion is that Adam will be able to have the respect of the more technical back-end folks like heads down hardcore, he’ll be able to sort of have the respect and also maintain like the level of quality on the stuff that he’s building where they won’t be like, Oh, like, you know, the growth guy is building shit. That’s not good. But at the same time, he does have that product sense and that sort of mindset, where I think it could be a fit. So if I was thinking about what roles I would hire Adam for as an engineer, one would be engineer number one, and two would be sort of this growth engineer. Okay. So yeah. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Okay, awesome. And if you start another company, or maybe you’re, you’re already starting this out, would Adam be like, you kind of answered already, but top 3, top 10, top 50 people you would call? [Michael Houck]: Yeah, I mean, we’ve, we’ve been jamming over, over the time since we worked together. So, you know, Right now, I’m building a cash flowing bootstrapped hold co where we have a couple like agency businesses and media products. So I don’t have much software stuff. The one software thing we have, I basically just used outsourced devs to build the MVP of and then they ended up better than I thought and just other reasons. But if I was gonna be like, hey, I’m gonna build a new AI product today or a new software product today and start from scratch, who would I talk to? [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Adam would definitely be one of the first people that I would go to and jam with. What’s the best advice you can tell me about keeping him happy and motivated? [Michael Houck]: He’s pretty self-motivated. I think he’s the kind of person who gets conviction on something and he’s in. In terms of keeping him happy, I would say, just make sure that if you’re making promises to him about owning some part of the business or building something out, that those are kept as you would with any engineer as much as possible. That’s really the only thing I would say. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: That’s awesome. And this space in Canada, we don’t have anyone in Canada. Originally, I wanted someone either in San Francisco or Paris. Do you think he’s good at working remotely? It seems like a basic question, but some people are not. He was for us. [Michael Houck]: I don’t know what your team size is or strategy there is, but if you have a big engineering team, you want to bring them together in person sometimes. Important when you bring new people onto the team as much as possible. That’s more of a founder thing. As I said, he’s pretty autonomous, he’s productive, he’s not going to slack off. And he’s communicative too, like proactive slack and things like that. So yeah, I would give him the thumbs up there for sure. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Okay, awesome. Thank you so much. That was super helpful. Is there anything I interview now and in the future? I’d be happy to. [Michael Houck]: No, I don’t think so. I’m happy to help. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Michael Houck]: The one thing would be if you know any founders who are interested in building an audience. Our ghostwriting agency has been growing like crazy and works with a ton of founders in SF and all over the place. And it’s, you know, I’ve built an audience of 100k. And so is my partner on the agency and our team is really strong. So if you know anyone looking for audience building for LinkedIn, for Twitter, or for newsletters, send them my way and I’ll toss you a referral for it, of course. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Oh yeah, of course. What do you mean by audience? So we’re open source and dev tool. So definitely Twitter is something I haven’t worked on it. Like dating on LinkedIn. But that’s something that could be interesting. Do you have a deck or something? [Michael Houck]: I’ll send you an email later, but I’ll put our website in the in the chat. Yeah, I know some, you know, post hog, right? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah, of course. [Michael Houck]: We use them for one of our things. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: So James works with an agency for the content and I’ve always felt like maybe we can like um have the same setup but I have never I never had took the time to to work on that but um yeah I would love to have a look and I think for we have a group for open source um founders at YC and I think they can be a good target. [Michael Houck]: Okay awesome. Companies already. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Okay. Which ones? Because I can post in the Slack and I can say you already work with other YC companies. [Michael Houck]: I can’t share client. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: It’s ghostwriting. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: It’s private with clients. Okay. No one public? [Michael Houck]: No, confidentiality is number one for this stuff. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Okay. I would just post like they work with YC companies already. Okay, cool. That. I can do that. I’ll do that straight away after the call. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. [Anh-Tho Chuong]: Thank you. Have a great weekend. I appreciate it. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Bye.