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These work principles are here as common knowledge for those interested in working with me and are a work in progress. In work and life I strive to Seek Truth, Be Good, and See Beauty. Acting on these principles encourages a culture of trust.
Work Principles
To seek truth is to humbly acknowledge our limited understanding of truth while learning as much as possible and reserving judgement. Seeking truth is a constant process of attuning to the evolving nature of reality and this is good.
To be good is to act according to what we believe is true. The good actions I strive toward are to always speak honestly, keep your word, do your best while helping others do the same. To see beauty is to recognize truth, good acts, and their potential around and within us. If you do not see anything beautiful, then Be Good and beauty will emerge. If you cannot Be Good, such as keeping your word or help someone, then Seek Truth as to why and make good changes to yourself and your environment to ensure beauty flourishes around you. Cultivating truth, goodness, and beauty energizes life, work, and encourages a culture of trust.
Method
A culture of trust kick-starts the creative process. This process begins with the leader discussing their vision. Discussing this vision creates buy in as others share in the vision. Once others are energized by this shared vision, then leaders need to give autonomy and support for turning this vision into reality. With the appropriate encouragement and incentives in place others feel comfortable to contribute their creativity and such contributions are often genius solutions. This method forms unstoppable engines of creativity and contributes to a work culture productive, energized, and fun!
Success
The process above contributed to the creation of Pakira, Data Platform Company that serves over 1,000 companies and reached a valuation of $12.5m. Along the way I learned how to listen and communicate on multiple levels and fronts, as well as problem formulation, requirement collection, abstraction, strategy, spec writing, data structure & design (Back-End, ERD), product design (UI/UX), administration, corporate structure, process design & progress tracking, hiring, onboarding, team building, agile development, team leadership, product testing, product launching, feedback collection, and product improvement.
Pakira serves Global Commodities Trading through our Business Platform connecting users to 90,000+ Potential Trade Partners. We feature a search, chat and trade engine that helps businesses serve more companies with better service in less time.
The idea for Pakira began developing in college after an interview with the Forest City Trading Group (FCTG). Durring my interview I discovered that the $20T physical commodity trading Industry isn't served by technology! Despite their $6 Billion+ in revenue, FCTG's cpre technology was a over 30 year old. Given my experience running a digital exchange in college, I was hired by FCTG to help modernize their trading. But, after testing all the technology on the market and nothing met our needs – I set off to Cambridge to turn my idea into reality.
Problem Formulation
To validate if the problem we surveyed over 300 companies across the industry and discovered that over 90% of companies need help "finding new customers or vendors". This problem reached a breaking point during the Supply Chain Crisis of the Covid-19 outbreak when supply chains broke down.
After validating the problem, we began brainstorming. Our team created a vision for a Data Platform that helps companies find new Partners. Scaling down our vision to an MVP, then smaller still to an initial "MVP0" and got to work executing across departments.
Building the Team & Product
Our initial build was bootstrapped and our saving grace was Big Tech's responded to COVID – layoffs. Thanks to MIT, Harvard, Brandeis, and Northeastern we gave jobs and internships to 20+ people and worked with over 80+ students in class projects. Together we completed our initial MVP0.
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After raising an Angel Round we built out our engineering team, finished the MVP, and prepped our launch.
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I am so very proud of the Pakira team, all the great work they've done, and their continued success!
Launching to 1000+ Companies
Leveraging our database, LinkedIn, Industry Contacts, Conferences, and much more we began a campaign that reached 30,000 companies!
Learning from each interaction I became an expert at outreach, relationship development, onboarding, feedback collection. This experience gave me a strong intuition for how to avoid user frustration and cultivate user delight.
While most users immediately loved our product and their feedback was priceless. Leaning from each on-boarding, we gained insights, made changes, and shared these changes with our users until they were absolutely delighted.
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We successfully built our platform into a complete all-in-one Trade Platform that hosts over 1,000 companies that represent $100 billion+ in revenue.
Take aways
Here are the top product design principles I learned building Pakira and their reasoning.
1. Consistency – Consistent interfaces reduced confusion and feel intuitive.
2. Simplicity – Simple designs make it easier to highlight desired actions.
3. Minimalism – Removal is the best instinct for effective product improvements.
4. Accessibility – All relevant features should be visible and accessible within 1 click.
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Moving forward I believe data and technology will have an ever greater impact on enterprise and society. The biggest challenge to technology adoption for enterprises is the digitization and centralization of information around business operations. Currently the quality and development of technology far exceeds the quality and development of enterprise data. Moving forward, if organization are capable of digitizing their operations, then this will set them up for sustainable competitive advantages as we head into the this new AI era. I will continue to be working in this space and if you would like to work with me then please reach out!
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Thank you!
Special thanks to the entire team at Pakira. I can only list about 35 of you here, but there are well over 150 people who helped create Pakira and we could not have done it without you. I am proud of all your hard work, thank you!
Pakira Podcasts
Community Leadership
I believe in the power of mentorship. As a child I was matched with my Big by Big Brothers Big Sisters and it changed my life. Shortly after, my single mother passed away but my Big and his wife took me into their home and continued to raised me as their son. Today I do my best to give back as a Big Brother, and board member. This has been some of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
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During my 6+ years of service, I've been lucky to see this organization continue to serve kids as we grow! Today, I am proud to say BBBS of NH is one of the strongest chapters in the country and I look forward to continuing to help them serve more kids.