K. Matthew Dupree

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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An email landed in my inbox today making a crazy claim. What do you think? Can even the best developer tool 5x your engineering productivity? Probably not. And any product that claims so probably makes other less-than-transparent claims. Ellipsis (YC W24) doesn't. Our AI code reviews & bug fixes will improve your engineering productivity by ~10%. We don't need to make crazy claims because our product actually works. If you're buying AI developer tools, do your research. You can install in 2 clicks and start a free 7 day trail at https://ellipsis.dev

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Here's how tech agency founders kill their LinkedIn engagement: “We at Acme Software build software. If you need software, let me know.” Why would I engage with that? There’s no story. There’s no transformation. Nothing to personally connect with. Do this instead… Write posts with these 10 free prompts to connect with your potential customer: 🔹 What it’s like to work with your agency - your process 🔹 How your personal values have influenced your client experience 🔹 Short case study of a client (used with permission) 🔹 What it’s like to work for you - your people and culture 🔹 5 things people don’t know about your industry (and why it matters) 🔹 The story of why you’re in the tech consulting business 🔹 How you developed the product or service you’re offering 🔹 What experience led to the original idea? 🔹 Props for your team that you got from a client 🔹 A time when you turned a client’s opinion about consulting around Make it 200-250 words (this post is 239 words). Make it personal. Make it double-spaced. Make the sentences short. And post it as the owner or partner, not on your company page. This will: • personalize your brand • build trust with potential clients • demonstrate your expertise (built from experience) • give prospects a "hey, we're like that client" connection moment When you post it, shoot me the link. I'm ready to kickoff the engagement! ------------------------------- I'm Jason and I write human-powered content to help tech agency founders. Message me if you run a tech agency and are trying to get going on LinkedIn.

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One of the biggest blockers to meaningful improvement is success and inertia. No one can believe something can be so broken if a product is growing and making money. It is almost *easier* when a company hits the skids completely and has a catastrophic failure of some sort. It is the same in our lives. When things are going great, it is easy to let "debt" develop. "One more quarter...then I'll start spending more time to eat healthy and get in shape!" You rationalize how it is fine to run fast and loose because you're riding a good wave. Until.... Crash. Personally, many of my big personal growth achievements happened after I hit rock bottom, really opened up to friends about the situation, built a social support network, and rebuilt. But this came at a big cost. The trick is how to "cheat" this wicked loop—for us as individuals, and for companies. 1. Accountability partners during the good times 2. Enabling constraints (with someone holding you to them) 3. Listening to the "soft voices" you tend to ignore 4. Intentional efforts to disrupt yourself.... chaos engineering 5. Paying very close attention to the early indicators 6. Diary keeping, retrospectives (with yourself, and others) 7. Remembering that the good times were set in motion years ago What else? Etc.

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Ditch the Commute! 15 SaaS Companies Crushing Remote Work in 2024: The future of work is flexible, and these top SaaS companies are leading the charge with awesome remote-first cultures: 1.) Zapier (automation platform) 2.) GitLab (version control) 3.) Cloudbees (software delivery management) 4.) Automattic 5.) Doist (task management) 6.) HubSpot (CRM platform) 7.) SurveyMonkey (online survey tool) 8.) Slack (communication platform) 9.) Zoom (video conferencing platform) 10.) Dropbox (cloud storage) 11.) Mailchimp (email marketing platform) 12.) Stripe (payment processing platform) 13.) Canva (graphic design platform) 14.) Airtable (collaborative work management platform) 15.) ClickUp (project management platform) Considering a remote role? Research the company culture and benefits to ensure it aligns with your needs. Look for strong communication practices and support systems for remote teams. **Do you work for a remote-first SaaS company you love? Share it in the comments! #remotework #saas #careerdevelopment #hiring #recruiting #flexibility

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I hereby declare LinkedIn job posts utterly useless. The moment you hit publish, you’re ambushed by an avalanche of irrelevance. For example hundreds of full-stack developers applying for a design position. Doesn’t matter how specific your description is or how rock-solid your hard requirements are, LinkedIn somehow doesn’t care. Filtering applicants? A complete nightmare. The platform does everything in its power to trap you inside its clunky ecosystem, turning what should be a simple process into a soul-sucking grind. Efficiency? Forget it. When you factor in the wasted time and effort, it’s a net negative. LinkedIn job posts are where productivity goes to die. It is a defunct relic of the first SaaS boom so mediocre that its lengthy survival is beyond me. Time to do things differently.

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This doesn’t mean coding is dead (sorry, Jensen Huang). Instead, what we are seeing is how deeply polarized the tech market has become in 2024 and how wide the gap is growing. Fewer tech jobs = fewer tech companies hiring. And traditional SaaS companies are at the center of this shift. Because: 1) VC money isn’t flowing like it used to. Historically, most of the VC capital raised by tech startups went to hiring and customer acquisition. Now, with funding rounds slowing, there’s less cash to fuel headcount growth. 2) Growth has stalled. Many SaaS companies are paying the price for their “growth at all costs” phase, especially now that the ZIRP era is over. There's a ton of zombie companies out there—still walking, but essentially dead. Some are going for “life raft” options: selling at lower multiples, turning to private equity, acqui-hires, or raising funds at steeply diluted valuations. And of course, this means no expansion, hiring freezes, or worse—mass layoffs after the 2022 bubble burst. Now, on the other side of the gap is AI, grabbing all the money, headlines, and triple-digit growth. But even within AI, there are two distinct markets. 1) Core AI infrastructure – AI-focused hardware, software, and services. 2) AI-embedded companies – Businesses that natively integrate AI (like LLMs) into their applications. In 2024, every company is calling itself an “AI company,” slapping AI into their apps or pitch decks to ride the hype wave. This approach works for now—they’re raising capital, iterating, and searching for product-market fit. But in 5–10 years? Many of these companies might not be sustainable. Their AI offerings are often easy to replicate, and their competitive edge fades quickly. Moat-less. The good news is, we are starting to see more enterprise spending in the application layer and I think more value is being created. Agentic applications are really moving the needle now. Which is critical - the entire AI movement rests on the future of application builders. AI infrastructure, on the other hand, has more staying power IMO. These companies—especially those working on hardware—are playing the long game. Yes, they’re capital-intensive, but the opportunity is massive. The proverbial diamond mine of AI is far from fully explored. And as history shows, the ones selling the tools to dig the mine will often be the biggest winners. What do you think? Let me know your thoughts. P.S. Great data from Bigdata.com and Linas Beliūnas

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Question for engineering leaders (managers, directors, VP's, etc): I'm curious about the current landscape of developer productivity analysis + management tools - things like LinearB and Jellyfish. Which tool, if any, are you using? Any opinions/pros/cons on the tool you're using (or the entire domain overall)?

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Here's how Intuit Mailchimp grew from a few thousand $$'s into a $12 Billion business. 💸 __ Founded in 2001, Ben Chestnut and his co-founders never thought that Mailchimp would become a multi-billion-dollar business. Ben and Dan created Mailchimp as a side project to help their web design clients communicate better with their audiences which eventually became the world's leading email marketing tool for small businesses. Here is how they did it and what you can learn 👇 1️⃣ Obsess over evolving customer needs: Mailchimp started as a simple email marketing tool but quickly expanded by focusing more on customers' evolving needs and offering the customizations they needed. One fundamental change was adding landing pages, which let users create standalone web pages to enhance their marketing campaigns. This is just one of the many examples of how Mailchimp evolved its features to stand out as an email marketing platform and an all-in-one marketing platform. 2️⃣ Master a Niche Before Expanding: Initialy, Mailchimp focused only on mastering email marketing for small businesses, achieving a strong product foundation before diversifying into automation and CRM. This helped them secure a 66% market share in their niche. For new businesses, perfecting one key area is essential. Once you're strong in that niche, you can add related services that your customers need. We applied the same strategy at Granimals. We went hyper-niche by providing digital rehab services to football players. Once we gained traction in that segment, we expanded to other sports/activities and, eventually, other types of injuries. 3️⃣ Build Your Brand with the Customer in Mind:   From the start, Mailchimp designed its brand to be quirky and approachable, which appealed to small business owners. Their logo, featuring a friendly cartoon mascot named Freddie, combined with bright colors and unique fonts, created a memorable and inviting image. Their casual, humorous tone in emails, ads, and the "Did You Mean" campaign made the brand feel relatable and friendly. This helped Mailchimp build a brand that was easy to support, use, remember, and share. 4️⃣ Don't Shy Away from Going Freemium: In 2009, Mailchimp made a big move by launching a free version of its email marketing tool. This strategy helped Mailchimp's user base grow from 85,000 to 450,000 within a year, with profits increasing by 650%. Offering a free option can attract more people to try your product or service, including those who might not have considered it otherwise. ​​ Mailchimp's rise from a side project to a leading global email marketing tool, achieved through bootstrapping, shows how focusing on customer needs, mastering a niche, and offering a freemium option can drive impressive growth. – Did you like this post or learn something new? 🔄 Consider resharing with your audience 🔔 Follow me for more on business and personal growth. P.C - Sprout 24 #mailchimp #bootstrapping

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Founders: your investor pitch is not your hiring pitch. And conflating the two hurts the hiring funnel. Here's why: Top engineers, marketers, and sales people aren't gravitating towards the outward facing metrics that investors salivate over. You raised your last round from Sequoia? That's a great signal to investors. To candidates weaned off ZIRP era hype, that's a signal that stack ranks quite low for them. Instead, they care about things such as: ➡️ Actual leadership skills of the founding team (not just how many Stanford and MIT degrees there are). This is where repeat founders get a bit boost. ➡️ Whether the work is interesting. This matters a ton of engineers, but also for other roles. Great candidates want to know that the day-to-day is going to be challenging, intellectualy rewarding, and fosters their own curiosity and growth. ➡️ Sustainability of the business model. This is where the smart candidates want to know the investor pitch, but also want the candid take on challenges. Companies who spend too much time explaining "here's why we'll be worth billions in five years" but show little thought on navigating the medium term have lost candidates. This is why we coach so many founders to speak during the hiring process to the role itself, and less about the company. Paint a picture of the purpose of the role. The impact. The learnings. Go beyond the surface level selling points and seek to connect in a 1:1 manner!

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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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Software agencies often get a bad rep—and for good reason. That’s why, at Tech Swamy, accountability is at the heart of everything we do. Your vision deserves a partner who’s as invested in its success as you are. Check out the full post to see how we’re doing things differently. 👇 #softwareengineering #softwareconsulting #consulting #agencies #agency #saas

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These 5 A/B tests took 5 minutes to set up And drove 5 figures in new monthly revenue each… I’m a big advocate for running smaller tests > huge makeovers. These tiny but powerful tests require no design or coding skills… Yet have returned huge revenue gains: 1. Removing Collection Headers Many stores use big photos as collection headers. But here's the thing, on collection pages people just want to see products they can buy… Giant banners just push interesting products below the fold, out of sight. So just remove the banners. The last test we ran where we removed one? Led to a +$0.48 increase in revenue per session & monthly revenue added of +$73,672 2. Using 'Top Collections' as the second section on the homepage Most stores we work with have a grid showing the top-4 collections as the second section of their homepage. It helps users get into relevant collections faster, find a product, and purchase. Most themes already have a section like this. In our test, we moved it up the page and lifted revenue per visitor by a huge +$0.81. Monthly revenue added: +$108,640 3. Removing Apps Like most Shopify store owners, you've probably installed apps that haven't been revenue tested. That's perfectly normal. But we've tested removing them a bunch of times. And sometimes we find ones that really hurt. Recently we removed a '3D Fit Finder' on a clothing store in a test that increased revenue per visitor by $0.41. Monthly revenue added: +$93,649 4. Removing 'Back to Cart' buttons on Checkout Every Shopify store has these buttons. Every time I've tested removing them, it’s given a small but healthy boost in conversion and revenue. All they do is take you back, away from the purchase. You don't need them. Monthly revenue added +$62,995 5. Reorganize Navigation Based on Clicks + Revenue Try this: Step 1 - Track clicks and revenue on your menu (Google Tag Manager) Step 2 - Reorganize your menu with high-revenue links first Step 3 - Test variants and deploy the winner It's a simple experiment that any store can run. And our test for an 8-figure store generated +$0.18 revenue per visitor. Monthly revenue added: +$72,507 Take these 5 tests and try them out with your own landing page! P.S. And if you have any questions about implementing them, feel free to drop them in the comments :)

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🛠️ Okay y'all, looking for advice: I'm running a handful of small apps for Build Carolina's Development Studio initiative. These are low-utilization apps for relatively small audiences. I'm leaning heavily on Rails at the moment but expect to bring on some JS-stack projects in the near future (likely Next, but I'm always open to the flavor of the week in JavaScript 😅) Here's what I'm finding for hosting: - I still know Heroku best, but I just don't trust them to not enshittify further. 🫠 Every new app here is a liability when Marc decides he needs another island or whatever. 💰 - I'm using a lot of Render and like their devex philosophy, but their pricing is weird (per-service + premium tiers? Pick one!), the big feature gaps in their platform have gone long-unaddressed, and their support has been poor. 🤖 - I'm experimenting with Fly.io: great pricing, but a weird mix of UI-vs-CLI workflows and segmenting project resources is unintuitive. I feel like I'm going to wake up to a huge bill because I accidentally over-provisioned something here. 💸 I'm curious what other folks are doing for small-scale artisanal app hosting in 2024+. Are we all running our own EC2 clusters? Is everyone just writing Next apps for Vercel? Maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy looking for a backend host in a static SPA world. 👴 ❓ Tips/tricks/tales welcome. Where are you hosting your lil' bytes right now?

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Building your own quality commenting experience from scratch is painstaking and can take a ton of time away from your dev team. Time that could be better used building on your product's core competency... BUT Luckily there is Velt SDK! At Velt (YC) we have spent years refining the best commenting experiences, so that you don't have to. All you need to do is add a few lines of code to integrate our SDK's full stack components!

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If culture fit isn't the most important aspect of adding another developer to your team I know you don't ship much. I follow so many small companies that out deliver large ones it's crazy. 3- 10 person teams, ship ship ship ship ship...Why? The mission is ____ing LOCKED in, everyone is on same page from character to keyboard. Let me give y'all hiring managers a tip. When you have those two candidates, one has ALL the tools technically but you vibe better with the other who wants the gig more? Hire the latter, train 'em up. That 4 week ramp up they need on 'X' will be well worth it long term, 100%. #softwarejobs #java #javascript #typescript #react #reactnative #vue #angular #svelte #astroJS #htmx #go #golang #rust #ruby #rubyonrails #scala #kotlin #closure #haskell #elixir #csharp #aws #azure #ai #aiml #tensorflow #python

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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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Three questions every non-technical founder should ask potential developers: - 'How will you make sure we're building the right thing?' - 'What happens when we need to pivot?' - 'How do we know if we're spending too much?' The answers tell you everything ... - Bad developers talk about technology. - Good developers talk about outcomes. - The best? They ask you questions back.

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