Introducing Cumulative
I started this newsletter about 2 years ago, at the outset of the pandemic. Spurred by having more free time, I picked up the digital pen and started writing. I had no goal other than to write, mostly for my own benefit. Writing clarifies my thinking and is a great teaching tool, at least for me. Oftentimes I ask myself a question or am intrigued by a topic. I then spend days, even weeks, reading about it and formulating the article in my mind. The typing is the easy part, it’s the thought process that is both hard and very rewarding.
I had no intention to make this blog popular and yet it has grown 100% organically to 100s of readers - thank you all very much! The addition of every new subscriber makes me feel ever so grateful - thank you for your support - but it also introduces an onus on me. To try and improve what I write about and how.
My focus, or lack of, up to today, was to write about topics that I encountered, and continue to, in my career as an executive at startups. One of the key lessons I learned through this experience, is focus matter. Ironically I wrote an article about that same topic. I also found out, unsurprisingly, that the topics I enjoyed writing about the most and the ones that garnered the most readership, were ones in which I spend most of my time thinking of: running software development organizations.
Therefore, I’ve decided to pivot and narrow the focus of this newsletter to topics that concern running software development organizations. The topics I cover aren’t just applicable to startups, they will also apply to smaller companies and some to larger ones too. I will also attempt to publish on a more regular cadence: twice a month.
Lastly, I am rebranding the newsletter and calling it cumulative, because the word captures my intent for this newsletter. The more, I write, the more I learn and hopefully the more you do too.
cu·mu·la·tive (adjective): increasing by successive additions
I’ve also created a short backlog that covers some of the topics I expect to write about. Some are tactical and cover day to day operations and others more strategic. The commonality between them all is that they concern the runnings of an engineering organization. In addition to that, I always welcome topics that you suggest I write about. You can always submit those here
But first, I head out for a much needed vacation and will be back in early August :)
Karim