Personal Board Update: Q1 2020

April 1, 2020

David Kobrosky Q1 update

High Moments

  • Professional: Exciting news! I'll be the first product management intern over at DataRobot this summer (Enterprise AI company out of Boston).
  • I recently received an offer from 1Password as well so I'll be joining them in a software engineering role next fall (and I'll be taking the semester off school 😈).
  • My side project/company Hey Thomas (taking fairly serious now) is currently in it's 2nd round of Alpha, and we're narrowing in on some key issues around meetings and building relationships.
  • Emotional: I've been seeing this girl recently named Jordan who I like a bunch. She's very different than me and I think that's a good thing. She asked me the other day, "Hey you're into startups right? I hear of this cool company you should check out .. it's called Robinhood. Think it has to do with investing in companies?"

Low Points

  • School: Last semester ended eh. Got by one of the more intense CS classes at Michigan (data structures and algorithms) but didn't do too well.
  • Professional: I had a 3 hour interview with Faire for a product role and spent far too long on the data analysis part, so didn't have much time to get through the product side of things. As you can imagine, no luck with the role.
  • Reflection: Think I just need more practice here and some more dilligence with getting reps in. At the end of the day, I also need a better understanding of what I don't know (part of the reason I'm asking you to give me feedback every few months).

Productivity, Health, Habits

Productivity:

Productivity metrics graph
Productivity chart

KEY

  • Progress on projects (50% of score): Fairly subjective (Did I get shit done and are we moving forward).
  • Tasks completed divided by Tasks planned to complete (50% of score): Fairly objective aside from the fact that some tasks are weighted heavier than others.

Takeaways:

  • The highest points seem to be end of January, early February. I think this is because it takes a few weeks to really set into a habit.
  • Feb 15th was a tough week with midterms and I skipped out on quite a bit of health related habits. I need to make sure not to compromise on these.
  • On the weeks I did well with both diet and gym, my weight was lowest. Surprise surprise. Thanks board member @ Ron who recommended I only eat when hungry, and stop when I'm not hungry. Funny how intuitive yet underpracticed this is for me.
  • Getting a 5 in sleep (6hr sleep avrg + pretty inconsistent as far as timing goes with atleast 3 days going to bed past 1-1:30) is simply not sustainable.
  • If I do well in one of these, I typically do well in the other ones (See January 20th and January 26th). Having one good habit lets the others fall in place.

Health:

Health metrics graph
Habits metrics graph
Health and habits chart

KEY

  • Working out (30%): Atleast 30-45 min a day and high intensity is a 10/10
  • Sleep (30%): Based only on the score my sleep ring gives me each night which takes into account time in bed, types of sleep received, efficiency, etc.
  • Diet (20%): Little carbs, no treats, and no overeating is a 10/10
  • Meditation (10%): High-caliber 15 min a day for a 10/10 rank
  • Journaling (10%): 15 - 20 min a day for a 10/10

Skills review - This is the section I think I need the most help with

Below is an example of what I had in mind with each higherlevel area of knowledge broken down into more tangible skills.

Ideally this covers:

  • Technical Skills (Programing language, new tools, etc)
  • Founder Skills (Validating ideas, salesmanship, etc)

Key

Beginner - Consciously Incompetent: Learner is aware of a skill or knowledge gap and understands the importance of acquiring the new skill. It's in this stage that learning can begin.

  • 💡 Beg ✅ Means I know: 1. Why it's important 2. The way it works with other components 3. Have a plan to learn more
  • 💡 Beg ✅✅: 1. How to use the tool/skill in practice at a high level by building something that uses it

Intermediate - Consciously Competent: Learner knows how to use the skill or perform the task, but doing so requires practice, conscious thought and hard work.

  • 💡 Int ✅: 1. Built 2-3 projects that used the tool/skill 2. Specifically know my weaknesses and what I need to improve in
  • 💡 Int ✅✅: 1. Know that nearly any task that involves the tool/skill I can complete, but it may take a long time and I will have a few hiccups along the way

Expert- Unconsciously Competent: In unconscious competence, the individual has enough experience with the skill that he or she can perform it so easily they do it unconsciously.

  • 💡 Exp ✅: 1. I can look at a problem involving this tool/skill and know exactly how long it will take to build 2. At this point, I have built 10+ projects using this tool/skill
  • 💡 Exp ✅✅: 1. If I ever get here, I'm probably not outsourcing well enough

Design

Summary: Taking a design course right now and getting better at the fundamentals

Design skills chart

General Software

Summary: Got through the core CS classes hear at Mich and now I have a strong base to now build off.

General software skills chart

Frontend

Summary: This is mainly just picked up from a bootcamp last summer and a few smaller side projects

Frontend skills chart

Backend

Summary: I haven't done anything backend heavy. WIll be learning more this summer though!

Backend skills chart

WHAT SPECIFIC SKILLS DO YOU THINK I SHOULD MEASURE IF I WANT TO BE THE BEST TECHNICAL CO-FOUNDER POSSIBLE IN ~2-3 YEARS? (Not CTO level technical)

Value review

Current top 10 values and ranking of each one.

Values chart

Primary Metric Reflection

I'm currently maximizing for conviction in my own ability as a founder / head of product. The majority of my conviction seems to come from learning new skills and going through different experiences that will make be a better founder. These could be lessons learned, projects completed, etc.

At this point, I recognize there are tons of skills I need to get to the point where I can be a competent engineer and most importantly, leader of a company.

I outlined 3 of the 4 stages of learning above: consciously incompetent, consciously competent, and unconsciously competent. The stage I skipped over is the first stage: unconsciously incompetent. I bet there's quite a bit about running a fast growing company where I am unconsciously incompetent.

At this point of my life the most helpful thing for you to show me and for me to learn is how to get from stage 1 to stage 2. That is, how can I get from not knowing what I don't know to being aware of what I don't know and having a clear path ahead of getting there.

Quarter 2 (High Level) Goals

  • Finish off junior year of school, passing classes and fully prepared to dive into my summer at DataRobot (hoping the intern program is still on).
  • Finish up Hey Thomas Alpha so Rob and I can start building our beta. This means validating the problems surrounding meetings and lack of thoughtfulness in relationships as well as how our product solves these problems.

30 Day Goal

  • Understand all fundamentals of Android development and be comfortable with Java for fall internship with 1Password.
  • Launch Beta of Hey Thomas with Rob (whatever that looks like)
  • Know exactly the technical skills I want to acquire and have a set roadmap for those skills
  • Be crushing it as DataRobot's product intern

My ask to you:

  • If you were in my shoes, what's one change to the board of advisor update you would make? Is there something that I should be reflecting on that I'm not?
  • As asked above, what other topics should go in the skills section? The goal is to be an absolute dope founder in 2-3 years give or take.
  • What's the best piece of advice you were given that you think will be helpful for me right now at this point in my life