Tentacle Notes | October 2022
I’ve never really been a huge fan of Halloween.?Not sure why.?I have a massive sweet tooth, I feel like I have a fairly large imagination, and I’m always up for trying to make someone laugh.?On paper, it would seem that October 31st would be just perfect. Though?for me, Halloween serves as the formal announcement that Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, and it officially kicks off the end-of-year holiday season that includes new family memories, music, food, and time together. So... perhaps I am a fan of Halloween after all.??
A lot of great stuff is happening with Tentacle right now as we move into the fourth quarter.?As usual, it's a mix of both professional and personal items—all of which seem to be packed with new learnings that I hope to convey within my writing.?
The New Normal
The very first business travel I booked for Tentacle was a trip to Poland to meet with (now my friend) Gray Skinner, the founder and CEO of Masterborn, an application development shop that specializes in developing the most modern technology platforms with superior quality. ??The week I was set to depart, the pandemic was declared worldwide, cancelling my plans.?Fast forward two years and I have followed through on my raincheck and travelled to meet the team that I have been working with to build Tentacle since day one.?
Within the time between our delayed meeting, we’ve done more than 90+ code releases, have attracted almost 400 organizations to register on our platform, have had 400 morning video calls with our Polish team, have… well... built a company.?And in that time, there have been many lessons learned and new "norms" established. At one time, I held firm that I would not do business with anybody I had not met; that criterion has been completely re-written.?Meeting at the office, or even having an office for that matter, was once assumed and is now optional. (That, by the way, provides a massive cost savings to a startup.)?Basically, the act of meeting others in person is now purely optional, and the virtual nature of what we now do is reprograming many of the traditional business practices many of us have worked to hone over the last 20 years.?I’m curious to hear what you think: will the “new normal” prevail???
?Drop me a note at [email protected] and let me know your thoughts.
Product-Led Growth Enabled by Avoiding Technical Debt
One of the things I love most about Tentacle—which, if I am being honest, I found challenging while at YourCause—is the ability for us to listen to market feedback, solicit ideas from our users, and build new products that reflect all that we’re hearing.?Moreover, I love that we’re able to do this almost every month as opposed to spending our time digging out of our technical debt, solving client problems resulting from product deficiencies, or putting band-aids on the countless corners cut along the way.?
We’re in this position as a result of being disciplined in our product (and engineering) development from day one.?We never allowed “half-baked code” into our product, we resisted parsing out (and excluding) product features in order to push our product into the market, and we continually ensured that everything we did with our product was modular, flexible, and integrated with everything else we had already done… and everything we planned to do in the future.?
I say all that to announce our release of a massive enhancement to our assessment feature.?We’ve added the ability to assess programs with the organization, we’ve integrated all incoming and outgoing assessment into a single location, we’ve integrated our analytics into the assessment tracker, and we’ve added several improvements to the overall user experience to make it easier, more flexible, and, we hope, more impactful for our users.?
Click here to schedule a demo: https://tentacle.co/schedule-demo
Finding Myself In The Pyrenees
In my writing over the last couple of years, I’ve referenced my quest to be some sort of meaningful participant in the sport of ultra-running.?In the last Tentacle Notes, I spoke to the amazing lessons learned through failure in the Leadville 100 (in Colorado).?Since then, I made the journey over to the Pyrenees mountains (outside of Barcelona) and participated in the Solomon Ultra Pirineu—a 100k race that had nearly 20,000 feet of total ascent.?And although it took me a solid 25 hours to complete, I finished it.?It was the hardest single event I have ever done and it tested my physical and mental toughness.?Simultaneously, it was one of the most impactful events I’ve had in recent memory.?
Perhaps it's a bit cliché, but “the mountains changed me” last month.?Being exposed to their beauty made me realize how much I am living my life with my head down and am simply missing way too much.?The views contrasted so with what I see in Texas, the mere thought of returning to the desert felt irrational.?And even though I had one of the longest days of my life, I crossed the finish line with an overwhelming sense of how short life really is. The peace and quiet in the mountains, combined with the crisp and clean air, served as a motivating fuel for me to re-think how I am currently pursuing my day-to-day life, how I am prioritizing all that I do and where I aspire to be.?I’m quickly learning why the sport of ultra-running is so addictive, despite the pain and suffering that is inevitable in training.
Keep Reading
My long-distance running is allowing me to experience more books than I would ever be able to read if I were to lean on reading them only at night—something I am very grateful for.?With that said, I am ALWAYS looking for new titles to tackle.?If you have a great book for me to check out, please don’t hesitate to send me a note about it.
Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire, by Elaine Shannon
I picked up this book a while ago, started it, got distracted, and then finally finished it, motivated by wanting to clean off my reading list as we end the year.?Perhaps the fact that I paused reading it should reflect how enthused I was by this book.?Hunting Leroux was an overwritten (true) story about a man (also described as an entrepreneur) who used the dark web, illegal activities, and just about everything in between to build an underground empire that ultimately was taken down by the FBI. Parts of the story were extremely fascinating, yet the book failed to truly grab me like other books with this same story profile (eg., “American Kingpin” by Nick Bilton).
领英推荐
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, by Tom Nichols
I was sent this book by my father, a retired Ivy League professor, with a note "strongly encouraging" me to use the message within the book to form how I approach my own children’s pursuit of higher education.?Indeed, I found the book to be very interesting, educational, and engaging. What stood out the most to me was how opinionated the author's writing was, almost reading as if it were an extended blog post.?As a father currently going through the college application process with my eldest, I found many of the points and suggestions he tossed out in the book to be helpful—or, at least, thought provoking.?
I'm Glad My Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy
I never watched iCarly, but I heard about it—likely from the children’s television watching when they were much younger.?After this book, I have an entirely new appreciation for Jennette’s accomplishments and, simultaneously, a far more critical eye for other child actors in whom we find entertainment. Her story was disturbing, to say the least, and reminded me of how gripping eating disorders can be; the pressure parents put on children can be; and how powerfully in need a child is of receiving genuine love from their parents, day in and day out.?Loved the story, loved the book, loved the style.?As with any good book, I found myself Googling for more information about Jannette McCurdy after finishing; always a sign of a good one!
Blogging
Some additional writing has also been taking place since my last Tentacle notes that I thought I would highlight.?As I consistently write about how our personal and professional lives are intertwined, I'll mention two new blog entries that touch both those categories. ?
Men Should Speak Up, Too
Inspired by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and my agreement that men need to start speaking up far more than we have about these topics, I wrote about a related personal experience of my own.
Information Security Management and the Connectivity Gap: Solving for the Missing Links in Enterprise Information Security
Danielle Morgan, from our team, wrote a wonderful post speaking to many of the existing complications and hurdles that are faced within the enterprise related to the proper management and communication of an information security program.?Not just written for the InfoSec nerd, this entry is written to be relatable to everybody impacted by an enterprise’s security procedures (which is most all of us!).
Link: https://tentacle.co/blog/post/enterprise-information-security-management
Wrap Up
That’s it for the October version of my Tentacle notes.?Even though I am aware of the excessive length of this post, I feel like I am just scratching the surface of all the items that I am excited to share related to the work we’re doing and all that is happening right now.?If blogs were measured by volume, I might have a chance to really stand out!?
Enjoy your Halloween.?May you find excitement in the change of season, the upcoming holidays, and the last 11 weeks of 2022.?Thanks so much for sharing some of your time with me. I truly appreciate it.
Matt Combs
Founder & CEO
Web:?Tentacle.co?