Jake Lingwall

Dev agencies, if you don’t want to be treated as a commodity, stop acting like one. - Learn the business context for engineering needs - Stop squeezing your clients every opportunity you get - Prioritize transparency, communication, and accountability In short, position yourself as a partner that uses tech to solve business problems. You really can’t complain about being seen as a commodity if you treat everything as a transaction.

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I spoke with developers recently. They were telling me their pain points when it comes to waterfalls and distributions. They underwrote a deal in which they’ll make a profit for a few years, then do construction (which they’ll raise more capital for), and after that, they will refinance and hold for 10-15 years. Their issue is that their returns and IRR for both the GP and LP weren’t adding up. I brought up a few good points for them to start looking into and asked them how they would solve these issues. Was their model created for construction and to handle multiple capital injections? What happens when you have different investors contributing at different times? When is capital being returned? All of these issues are common occurrences and need complex solutions to resolve. Everyone wants a simple waterfall, but every case is unique. How do you answer these questions when you are underwriting? If you need help structuring and organizing these types of distributions, reach out and let’s chat. --- If you found value in this post, please like and comment. Follow for more content! If you want to receive my newsletter, direct message me! Any distribution or waterfall questions? Reach out! Need help setting up or calculating a waterfall? Reach out.

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Product is fun, complex, messy, and there are no shortcuts. Once you accept that—and embrace it—amazing things happen to your career. Cat Hicks, PhD puts this better than anyone: "Doing research with developer teams, something that really strikes me is how much people look for ways to make complex problems easy rather than make it easy to work on complex problems What I mean is, sometimes it's really useful to admit we just are trying to accomplish tough things. Asking how we can support our teams who NEED the time and space to work through that, it's often a much more tractable lever than trying to change the inherent nature of the work I think it behooves me to say as a psychologist here that I think people are actually really excellent at working on complex problems! It's one of the reasons research with developers is so great. Overall devs love to learn, love to be curious, love to innovate. It is core stuff. What would it look like if we could ask, "how do I make this the absolute best environment for complex problem-solving" instead of "how do I take away all these annoying hard problems." The stuff we want to accomplish in the world is hard. But can be joyful to accomplish."

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"You can have a great strategy for the next billion-dollar developer product, but the battle is won in the trenches of daily iterations." I love this clip from Lee Robinson (VP Product, Vercel). Lee helped scale Vercel to 1M+ developers and has some of the clearest thinking of developer marketing that I've read. We talked about: - Getting into the developer's mindset - 3 pillars of a great developer experience - Why developers don't trust your marketing A few quotes from Lee: "Most developers don't adopt a tool the first time they hear about it. It's probably the 10th time." "Great documentation is great writing. The tech industry is plagued with jargon and fluff. It would be much cleaner if people wrote more like how they talk." "The battle is won in the trenches. It could be a two-paragraph docs change or a small UX improvement. For every developer that complains, 100 more won't say anything." 📌 Watch now: https://lnkd.in/g-g-u3E5 Also available on: Apple: https://lnkd.in/grhhYVyh Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gGyvBKmX Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/gGkkYG4M

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2025 hot take: I'm not sold on Test-Driven Development (TDD). After years in the industry, I’ve seen few teams fully commit to TDD and even fewer stick with it long-term. I’ve been on teams that have completed projects with TDD and ones that started with TDD but dropped it when it became more of a blocker than a boost. The biggest untold truth? TDD success stories often come down to survivorship bias. The teams that succeed with TDD would likely succeed without it, too. Why? Because the teams that have the most success with TDD are usually made of senior engineers who’ve built similar systems countless times before. Here’s how I see it: If you’ve studied for a test so well that you could write both the questions and the answers before you take it, you’re going to ace that test no matter what. In essence, TDD works best when you already know the answers. But really then TDD isn't the main or even a contributing reason for a project's success. What do you think? Is TDD overrated or am I missing something?

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I'm a diehard Duolingo user, and it's all because of streaks. So I enjoyed listening to Jackson Shuttleworth on Lenny's podcast do a really deep dive on how streaks came about and how the team used them to drive growth. A few takeaways: 1. Unit of use. What's the thing people need to do in your app that, if they return to do again, it's worthy engagement? That's the unit of use. For Duolingo, it's one lesson. Build return engagement around that. What's your app's or website's unit of use? 2. Retention is fragile early in the user journey. For Duolingo, the first seven days is what will make or break ongoing retention, which is where streaks shine. What time period is most critical for your user retention? 3. Test relentlessly. Over the last four years, Jackson and team have run over 600 experiments on streaks to see what works best. That's over 12 a month. How many have you run this month, and how can you do more? 4. Evaluate quarterly. Look at what you've learned over the past three months and decide what your strategy moving forward is. That strategy should inform your experiments so you're building towards something, not randomly trying things that sound good. When did you last review a series of your experiments and their overall results? A LOT more insights in the podcast. Check it out! Thank you Jackson for sharing, and Lenny Rachitsky for hosting. More deep dives on other product features in the future, please! https://lnkd.in/d-fKn-Te

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Totally agree with Dan DiGangi here. If you don't understand the overall strategy of a business, it's hard for you to align and be fully effective. This goes from leadership down to engineering. What are you doing to try and understand that vision? Link in comments to the full interview with Dan!

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Few agencies without a technical lead are able to get by (and none thrive). Relying on contractors can be a double-edged sword: they bring specialized skills but often lack a cohesive vision that aligns technology with your customer’s long-term goals. This disconnect results in software bloat, where unnecessary features and technical debt pile up. The pain is real: without a consistent, forward-thinking approach, your business is at risk of compounding technical debt that will stifle innovation. Don’t let short-term fixes lead to long-term problems. It’s time to rethink how you approach technology, ensuring it supports—not stifles—your growth.

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Here's the fast-track to tech agency mediocrity: Say yes to every project. This is a recurring theme with the agency founders I talk to. But I get it! My agency did the same thing. We treated every project like a life raft, especially in the early days. We were building: • Dental websites • Windows-based software • Multi-tenant e-commerce sites • Real-time insurance quoting systems And that just scratches the surface. But here's the thing... 𝗔𝘀 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀, 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗲𝗹𝘁 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗅 ✅ Cash flow was steady ✅ Our portfolio grew diverse overnight ✅ We were learning something new every day We were the agency version of "yes, and..." improv. But you know who else took every job? A lot of our competitors. So we end up without any differentiation. In our case we found ourselves: → Starting every project from nothing - no leverage → Burning out faster than a cheap candle → Without an efficient sales process → Without a specialty But our solution wasn't what you think. Everyone says, "niche down." But niching down doesn't have to mean you stop taking a variety of work. We started focusing on a smaller menu. We niched our marketing down. We niched our systems down. We might still take a project that wasn't on the menu. But that's not what we'd optimize for. (so it would have to be worth it $$$) Focusing on projects that combine what you love to do with what your customers value leads to: ✅ Higher quality work ✅ Better client relationships ✅ Differentiation in the market ✅ A team that's energized, not exhausted And that's a recipe for long-term growth for a tech agency. What's another way agencies can differentiate in 2024? ------------------------------- I'm Jason and I never click the "Rewrite with AI" button. Let's talk if you run an XR agency and want more work.

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Some software companies make it really f***ing hard to buy their product. 😡 I had an experience recently, And thought how that would look if it were an in person interaction. Lil’ awkward don’t ya think? 🤔 Here’s the thing - I’m not some giant #PLG advocate who thinks every product on the face of the planet should be self-serve and that sales people aren’t needed. You do need sales people ✅ You do need to ruthlessly qualify your prospects ✅ And because the above are needed, you’ll naturally have some friction in the buying process. But most software companies today have OVERCORRECTED for this. So what to do then? Here’s what I would do 👇🏻 Find some feature set that can deliver value to your customers immediately, and package that into a self serve version of your product. Look at your sales folks as a “sales success team” (eg more like a customer success team), Who’s job is to share best practices, provide additional use cases for the product, and unlock the extra features needed for your customers to accomplish these things. Easier said then done, I know. I also know that some products are so inherently complex that self-serve seems out of reach. But think of all the things we have now, that used to feel out of reach. 🤔 So just because it doesn’t seem possible, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try, egh? Happy Monday y’all ✌️ #revops #revenueoperations #salesops #salesoperations #customerlifecycle #buyingprocess #buyerexperience

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I once asked a lead engineer on Angular: Which is better: Angular or React? His response: "Both require good engineering to be effective." So, my developer friends, consider this a reminder that "frameworks" like Diátaxis are fine, but they still require good engineering--such as UX, information architecture, style, maintenance processes, and so on--to create great documentation experiences for your customers. Alas, the framework alone isn't enough.

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In case anyone wants the "low down" on what we're doing with LymanWealth. But I also want to add -- it's super fun! If you're looking for something more aggressive to add to your portfolio, you definitely should check us out. Note: not a full portfolio management or retirement strategy, should only be used with the portion designated for growth / high risk. May not be suitable for everyone. #investmentmanagement #wealthmanagement #automatedinvesting #automatedtrading #ria #etfs #investmentstrategy #stockmarket #stocks #indexinvesting #dca #dollarcostaveraging #alpha

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The future of engineering design and coding is about here. Imagine simple text prompts that assist your software engineers in designing and coding complex systems, saving thousands of hours and months of work. Getting a smart code base and avoiding the dreaded Tech debt. I see Pledgecircle using AI engineer to assist with our 5 zero-to-one components system designs. It's a new world to build.

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Thank you to Jason Lengstorf for talking with me at CityJS Conferences about reducing stress for #softwareengineers, and sharing practical tips for advancing a coding career. + Get a sneak peek at "Web Lunch", Jason's latest series. Link down below!👇

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These are some great thoughts on engineering metrics; I agree with much of this. Metrics have always been a great way for me to identify areas for conversation within the team itself and as an engineering executive looking across teams.

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Engineering Managers, Software Devs, and any other AI-curious cats: do we have a treat for you. On May 9th, we're blasting off into the future of software engineering with our friends at Propel Ventures. Get ready for "Stellar Engineering: Double Your Productivity with AI.” 🧑‍🚀🚀 Juggling efficiency and quality can be a real challenge, but what if we told you there's a way to unlock new levels of both? Paul Greenwell will give you peek under Propel’s hood to see how they’ve used AI to revolutionise every stage of the software development lifecycle.👀  From streamlining user story creation to implementing intelligent AI testing, their coding arsenal packs enough punch to pulverise any dev challenge standing in its way. They’ve even leveraged AI to radically improve those productivity-draining meetings we all dread. Goodbye mental fog 😵‍💫, hello high-speed efficiency. 🏎️💨 Don't be a straggler, the launch window is limited! RSVP for this unmissable meet-up via the link down below. See you among the stars. ✨ 🗓 Thu 9 May from 4.30-7pm 📍Propel Ventures: 7 Hill St · Cremorne #continuousimprovement #techmeetup #AI #softwareengineering Ryan Lynch Michael Boyd Tatiana Ashby Kyla Boyd Stephanie Futerman Thomas Clark Sam Bowring Hannah Campbell

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You've been there - stuck in some app, desperately clicking that “HELP” button, only to be met with either a terrible search box or a frustrating AI-powered chat bubble that offers little to no help. The truth is, users getting lost or confused is a big reason why they disengage. That’s why we’ve upgraded Appcues Launchpads to deliver help exactly when and where your users need it. Noticeable and (actually) useful without being annoying. Whether it’s a tour, a link, or a help doc, Launchpads offers self-support that’s perfectly timed, perfectly themed, and perfectly helpful. No engineering required. No annoying “ping” sounds. Just a smoother experience for your users. ps: I'm really proud of the team that brought this to life, specifically Joseph Muething, Alexandre S. and Magdiel Duarte. (But don't poach them. I need them.)

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NEW: Internal Threads Internal threads allow you to spin up conversations in Slack from Pylon. It's great when you want to start a conversation with someone, but they primarily use Slack (e.g. engineers, product people or anyone who isn't living out of the support system). Common internal threads we are creating at Pylon: 1/ #bugs to report a potential bug 2/ #project channels to ask a team a question about a specific feature 3/ #feedback to report product feedback to the team It's been one of the most game-changing features we've released and we're so excited to share it with everyone. Enjoy!

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