Jeff McLeman

So,

As I mentioned last week, I backed Manton Reece’s Micro.blog project. I have since set up integration with this blog. As you can see on the sidebar, there is a micro.blog feed. If you want to see the whole thing, you can click on the micro.blog link in the menu at the top right of the blog.

Best Regards,

JeffMc

I had backed Manton Reece’s Mico.blog Kickstarter. I think it will be a good platform.

Anyways, you can look at my microblog at: http://jeffmc.micro.blog/feed.xml in your favorite RSS newsreader (Mine is NetNewsWire for Mac, iOS and tvOS).

This is an edited re-post of something I wrote in March of 2013. I am revising it for lessons learned and such.

I am on my 6th Startup in my life. I have been an exec at most of them. A couple I actually was a co-founder at. Most the time, I was brought in as the seasoned grown up to help facilitate growth. A number of times, I actually had to the the grown up and work hard to prevent management issue with young, in-experienced co-founders.

The one thing I always liked about a start up was the fun in building a company. It is a lot of hard work. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances that work hard to build their respective companies. The hardest job, is hiring talent for your company. I have looked at thousand upon thousands of resumes’ in my time in startups, and it gets all a blur after a while.

REALITY

So, when you go to hire, the worst thing you can do is advertise for a “ninja” or “rock star”, for this will most certainly get you the douche waffle candidates. You know who they are. The faux-hawk hair style, always talking about how they can code javascript and Ruby faster than anyone. What I look for in a candidate is a number of things. I will attempt to spell them out here, because, a lot is on intuition.

Sincerity. This is big for me. I have distain for shallow people. If a person feels passionate about working in a collaborative environment, and doesn’t come across like they are God’s gift to programming, it is a great step towards a candidate. Now mind you, I do not want to confuse ego with a douche attitude. Ego is good. Inflated ego is not.

Confidence. A person who shows confidence impresses me. Even if they do not know the answer, but know how to be professional and confident, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they can solve a problem with resources. If they are over confident (see braggart), it is a red flag.Stay away from the braggart.

Manners. If a candidate has basic manners, they get a vote in the “could be a strong contender” camp. (Believe it or not, there are people who have bad manners in an interview, like texting, email, etc).

Hygiene. Believe it or not, this matters. Please do not come in with a funk. You will be working with a group of people who know basic hygiene.

Technical Acumen. Unlike the mighty Google, all I care is if you know what a hash map is, what a hash table does and whether you can reverse the order of a singularly-linked list. I want to know , if I am hiring you as a server engineer, do you know what a LAMP stack is, or a practical framework that makes you smile in the mornings. If I am hiring you to be an IOS developer, do you know the framework and Objective-C. If I am bringing you on to be an Android dev, do you know Java, bonus if you know NDK (and C), and you know what an intent is.If I am hiring you as a firmware person, do you know C, power management, and how to do the max for the minimum? If I am hiring you to design hardware, what about the toolset you use, etc? If you talk a lot and evade the questions, you are not going to be working with us. If you do not know an answer, and I can see your problem solving skills are good, I am not going to hold it against you. (FWIW, I have, myself, blown interviews. Being asked transmission line theory when I was going to be a logic designer on CPUs).

Understanding of the Platform. This might sound like the previous bullet item, but it is more about hardware. I do not care if you know the clock speed of a chip, I want to know if you know how the code you write can affect memory usage, translation buffer thrashing, cache issues, etc. If you know that, you have won a special score in my mind.

It’s Simple

Simply put, do not come across as a dick. If you are genuine, smart, love working together and are not hung up on religious things like (mercurial vs git vs svn) and want to work hard, but have fun at the same time, you would be welcome.

Something I disagree on with past board members (and maybe current 🙂 ) is the hiring of a business person. If your board forces you to do this, make sure you get someone good. If they come in asking for a HUGE salary and other perks, stay away from this person. If they want to help build your company, they will work hard for a startup salary and an equity position. Make sure, also, that they have experience in the area you are targeting. Do not hire a carrier-oriented person if you are targeting consumers.

Wanabee

The wannabe is the person who wants to do a startup for the quick exit and the bragging rights. It is all about impressing the groupies who follow the shallow startup community. They are usually marketing themselves, and have no time to apply their talents (if any) to your startup. They love to go to every networking event, party with all the groupies, and talk on social networks on how they are a rock star. Never once do they give credit to their co-workers, or even their boss. It is all about them. They show up late for work, and usually have to leave to go attend these social events. And when you do ask them to perform, they make up excuses why they can’t. Flush them ASAP, as they will be poison to your team.

Again, building a new company and making it thrive and grow is hard work. But it can be rewarding, especially with the right people and the right investors. Just remember, your people and your capital are the life blood. Do not waste capital on bad people.

Well, it has been a bit since I posted here. What have I been up to? Well, 2016 was a weird year.

In the March timeframe, I helped fund a company that was going to be developing IoT solutions over the cellular network with a new protocol. I had worked with these folks in the past. As the summer started to wane, they asked me to join with them, and help them take it to the next level. I ended up joining in November, and was named CEO. Since that time, we have helped develop a firmware stack for use over the cellular network to a backend service for IoT devices.

We have also designed and delivered a cellular IoT module that included some basic sensors, GPS and a reasonably powerful Cortex-M4 ARM CPU for continuing development of this end to end service. We are now working on our next HW device, which includes a newer radio device, that will allow us to use 3 different protocol paths (more choice for customers), over the cellular system, to said backend. It will have additional sensors. It is designed to be used standalone, connected to other HW or we can custom design a solution for any enterprise needed gone.

We have also developed a Cocoa framework that abstracts the backend from the developer and are providing sample apps for IOS, tvOS and even watchOS. In addition, using the same framework, we have developed a tool for the developers implementing IoT devices, using this backend and our devices, to provision and manage these devices on this service. I cannot go into more info than that, as I tend not to defy NDAs.

I have been working an average of 12 hours a day, including weekends, because I love what I am doing. I get to design hardware again, and help contribute to the FW and the Apps, when needed. What I find is that I am not living someone else’s dogma. My team and I are creating a culture of “getting stuff done and delivering” and keeping our egos checked at the door.

We also always hire the smartest people. My philosophy is we hire great people to help us win. We DO NOT hire people because they have some famous company on the resume’, or that they are in some clique, so we look cool. As I have found out in the past, they usually aren’t all that great. Our interview process is not arduous, but we do have a set number of things that will not let us hire a candidate. It has to do with religious wars over frameworks, and anyone who acts like a brogrammer, or doesn’t seem to embrace diversity.

I am also never the smartest person in the room. I like to surround my self with real smart people, who share the same ethics as myself, so I can be informed, honestly of issues, so I can make the informed decisions, and to learn from them.

Having a virtual office, allows me to travel to the east coast to visit the team and to sit and learn from what they have been doing, or what their concerns are. My job is 2 things: Help people accomplish their job, and to design the best HW.

This is the second time I have been the captain of the ship. I have learned valuable lessons from the first time, and I have witnessed other leaders while I have participated in other entities and learned what mistakes that they did, so I do not do those.

For the first time in 4 years, I feel energized, again. “Go seize the day, wake up and say, this is an Extraordinary Life!”-JW

We lost John Wetton on January 31st. In the 70s I had met John and had some conversations with him. I met John before he started his battle with alcohol, so I never really experienced anything that resulted from that. Long before Asia, I thought John was a extraordinary musician. When Asia formed in the early 80s, their first album was playing in a local record store. I said “That voice sounds so familiar”. Well it was John, and obviously he had spruce up his wonderful voice to something even better. In the past few years, we reconnected on social media. He was gracious, as he always had been back in the 70s. I know he fought a lot of demons, but he took control of his life and tried to put it back on track, and did a marvelous job. When I heard he had cancer, I was so proud he faced it with positivity. But I knew, he had a battle to fight, and he did a fantastic job, but cancer, sometimes, will win. I cried that day, because he made a difference in my life at a very young age. He lived an extraordinary life. Songwriter, bassist, guitarist, and pianist. His love for classical music and his love of football (soccer for you Americans) and his love for Lisa, kept him positive and fighting.

As I never experienced the dark times in his life, although I have heard of them, I am so glad I only experienced the young musician who was going to go places. And he did. 

Rip John. I miss you.

His words to live by:

Go seize the day, wake up and say, This is an Extraordinary Life. Enjoy today, come what may, This is an Extraordinary Life. – John Wetton.

I have been listening ot the band Ghost, lately. I had heard of them when they broke on the scene in 2010. I thought they were a black metal band from Sweden. As time whent on, I started listening to them more and more. While their lyrics are all Satan stuff, in reality, they are protesting religion in general. The music though, is written with many hooks to get you to keep coming back. It is not all dropped-tuned guitar and growling. They are many fine pieces that border on Prog and heavy rock. But those hooks. Very talented and tight group. Of course these guys have played together in other bands in the past (and no, I will not go into who I think they are, or discuss why they shield themselves, etc). Their live shows are to be considered theatric. They have gone through 3 incarnations of frontman, Papa Emeritus. (Same guy, different costumes/makeup/mask). They never disappoint. All I can say is that I really enjoy their music. Some of my favs:

and from their Popestar EP: