No such thing as a dream job?

Dear adventurer,

It has been a few weeks since we last connected via?The Startup Adventure. In the last edition I shared my excitement for the first of this year's biannual?Aha! onsites. (If you missed that newsletter,?catch up here.) It was a packed week of connecting in the moment, activities, volunteering, and looking ahead. We loved the natural beauty (and hail storms) in Park City, Utah.?

Aha! is no longer a startup — in team size or business activity. I do my best to interact with as many of our more than?130 teammates?as possible during these trips. And I carve out a special time to welcome and get to know the?latest cohort of new hires. Even though these folks work in different disciplines and live in different locations, I am always surprised by the consistent themes that emerge from our conversations.

People are excited by the opportunity to make an impact in an organization that?shares their values. And I am honored that they are able to do so at Aha! alongside a collective of incredible individuals. From my experience achievement is a universal driver for anyone on a high-performance team. So for this edition of The Startup Adventure, let’s focus on the idea of making an impact — in how we work, in what we build, and how we grow.

You can read it: Same expectations, half the team?

Are we in the middle of a “Patagonia vest recession?” That is what NYU Stern professor of marketing Scott Galloway has been calling the waves of?massive tech layoffs. The moniker certainly captures the imagination — conjuring the prototypical software worker clad in a company-issued fleece. But?more than 200,000?software folks were laid off this year alone. While those fuzzy jackets were once coveted, many are now wondering when the next round of layoffs will unzip.

Many software companies were incentivized to show growth above all, which led to overstaffing and bloated teams. Not all though. Some of us kept talking about the value of bootstrapping. And we put profit and sustainable growth first, operating within our means even when it was not a popular path. (Aha! is just one among many such?bootstrap-minded organizations.) But a great number spent the last 10 years — the entirety of some folks’ careers so far — building without much thought to cost.

The resultant suffering is deep on many sides. Certainly there is pain for the individuals suddenly thrust into a job hunt. There is also hardship for those left behind — survivor’s guilt and the nervousness of?looming layoffs ahead. Customers facing similar issues are distracted and less engaged. And more broadly, there is tension as folks reckon with a shift away from wasteful abundance and back towards delivering sustained value.

There is a lot of pressure to streamline while still achieving results. The squeeze is extremely tight for?product development teams, whose efforts consume significant resources and directly impact business outcomes. But how do you meet company and customer expectations with fewer resources without adversely affecting one or the other??

I gathered my own thoughts and suggest four ways to organize your thinking →?You can read it here.

You said it: A dream job is not one thing

The conversations with the Aha! team had me wondering if other folks felt the same way. So I posted?the poll above to LinkedIn?— intentionally leaving out factors like compensation. It was interesting to me how potential for impact and value alignment edged out a clear career path.?

Quite a few people left comments and most said that it was a blend of factors — realistically, a dream job is not defined by one thing.?

Susan Sons concurred what many of the folks in the comments agreed with — the fact that it is hard to pin a “dream job” down to just one thing. She suggested a list of six elements, which I am going to summarize.

A dream job enables me to:

1. Positive impact on the world
2. Help my family thrive
3. Keep growing through new experiences
4. Integrate my work and life together
5. Develop myself and others
6. Stay true to my morals and values

If you had to add a lucky number 7 to the list, what would it be?

Tell me in the comments below.

You can learn it: Aha! + LinkedIn Learning

Achievement requires constant tending and nurturing.?That is why the Aha! team is happy to announce?that we have partnered with LinkedIn Learning on a new Product Management Professional Certificate.

Aha! is filled with product development experts. Collectively, we have hundreds of?years of experience planning, building, and launching successful software. We engage daily with thousands of product teams who use Aha! software to plan, build, and launch their own products. Many have asked us when (not if) we would offer a standalone educational course.?

The courses offered as part of the Aha! Product Management Professional Certificate will give you foundational product management knowledge — from understanding the stages of product development and setting strategy to building a roadmap that serves your team and organization. While the courses are geared towards early-career product managers, each one is also relevant to professionals on adjacent teams who want to better understand what it takes to plan and build exceptional products.

Interested in earning the new Aha! Product Management Professional Certificate??Check out the course?— available now to LinkedIn Learning members.

If you want to make a meaningful impact in any area of your life — but especially in your professional career — growing your skills and abilities is essential. Once you reach a certain level of expertise, sharing that knowledge with others gives you the opportunity to keep that impact going.

Here is to achieving together,

Brian?