Brian Leonard

Hey folks! Garrett Milster and I have only posted about Sacramento Labs once, so we figured it's time for an update 😊 **What is Sacramento Labs?** We’re a small team focused on launching software products that solve real-world problems. Think of us as a startup lab—constantly testing ideas, learning from feedback, and building tools that matter, and having an impact while doing it. **How do we decide what to build?** We like to build products that: -         Solve real-world problems in mostly ignored industries -         Are small, highly maintainable, and scalable codebases -         Make the world a better place directly, or by donating a percentage of profits to a relevant charity in that space You can learn more about our philosophy at sacramentolabs.com **What you can expect from us** We’ll be posting product ideas that are in various stages of our pipeline: Early Concept, Customer Development, In Progress, Launched, Scaling. We’d love to hear your feedback! **Our latest concept: Self-Hosted Security** Here’s the problem: - Businesses often use third-party URL shorteners to share internal tools, resources, or campaigns, but these services introduce serious risks. Enterprise companies like Google, Microsoft, and Stripe have built their own internal URL shorteners for this reason – but most businesses don’t have the resources to do that. - Phishing attacks are rampant, and links from external services can be spoofed or abused. - Branding and security controls are limited, leaving sensitive information exposed. - You can’t track link activity—who’s clicking what, when, or why. - When employees leave, their shared links still work, leaving potential vulnerabilities. Our proposed solution: Self-Hosted Security. It’s a plug-and-play solution for businesses to host their own branded URL shorteners with: - SSO for secure access tied to your company’s directory. - Link expirations to ensure old links don’t stay active indefinitely. - Audit logs to track activity and improve visibility into link usage. 📢 We need your input! Would this solve a problem for you? What features would make this indispensable? Check out the landing page and share your thoughts: selfhostedsecurity.com Want to chat? Email me at ian@sacramentolabs.com 😊 💡 And here’s something we’re passionate about: a percentage of profits from Self-Hosted Security will go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Your feedback not only helps us create better solutions, but also contributes to making a positive impact. Thanks for being part of the journey!

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You've been there - stuck in some app, desperately clicking that “HELP” button, only to be met with either a terrible search box or a frustrating AI-powered chat bubble that offers little to no help. The truth is, users getting lost or confused is a big reason why they disengage. That’s why we’ve upgraded Appcues Launchpads to deliver help exactly when and where your users need it. Noticeable and (actually) useful without being annoying. Whether it’s a tour, a link, or a help doc, Launchpads offers self-support that’s perfectly timed, perfectly themed, and perfectly helpful. No engineering required. No annoying “ping” sounds. Just a smoother experience for your users. ps: I'm really proud of the team that brought this to life, specifically Joseph Muething, Alexandre S. and Magdiel Duarte. (But don't poach them. I need them.)

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I’m skeptical about measuring open-source package quality with metrics alone.    •   Low commit/update cadence: Doesn’t indicate low quality. It might signal a stable, well-functioning package that needs minimal maintenance.    •   High number of historical CVEs: Not a sign of low quality. It could show that the package has undergone thorough security scrutiny.    •   Many open issues: Not a reliable indicator. Many issues are more like support tickets, and there are often many duplicates. Quality assessment requires more than just metrics!

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That awkward silence is coming from your robotaxi. Waymo has had its share of bumpy roads, but its parent Alphabet believes the self-driving technology is on the right path to the yellow brick road, investing another $5 billion. The self-driving company is making the right turns. Drive around San Francisco on any given day, and chances are good the vehicle that comes up right next to you will have you doing a double take. Robotaxis are commonplace in the city by the bay. Whether it's the traffic-filled streets in the downtown or the narrow streets of Golden Gate Park, Waymo vehicles are dodging traffic and avoiding pedestrians. It's full speed ahead. Waymo delivers 50,000 paid rides per week, offering a fully driverless ride-hail service in San Francisco and Phoenix, and recently expanded to Los Angeles and Austin. And soon, the service will be available for airport rides to and from the San Francisco International Airport. The road well traveled doesn't mean everyone is so accepting. While Waymo has received compliments from some, it hasn't been welcomed by others. In San Francisco, vehicles have been vandalized and destroyed along with many who question the safety of self-driving vehicles. Whichever side you fall on, self-driving can be a highly polarizing issue, and only time will tell if the perception will ever change. Alphabet is betting that the sky's the limit. While the $5 billion commitment is nothing to shake your windshield wipers at, Waymo's partnership with Chinese electric automaker Zeekr is both symbolic and substantial. Waymo's deployment of a custom-built, roomier robotaxi made by Zeekr marks a significant step forward in the company's autonomous vehicle development. Zoom, zoom, just not too much zoom. Robotaxis aren't going way. Waymo is expanding if not slowly here in the states, while other countries such as China have companies such as Baidu taking the lead in major cities. And Elon Musk is gearing up with his own line of robotaxis in the near future. For Alphabet, the challenge is not only making them more acceptable to the masses, but also addressing safety concerns. The technology isn't perfect, but $5 billion will certainly help get it there https://lnkd.in/gn3TZcPx #alphabet #waymo #zeekr #robotaxi #culture #autonomousvehicles #automotiveindustry #transportation

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Today is Workstream’s 7th birthday! 7 years ago today --- Max, Lei and myself started Workstream after going door to door around San Francisco Bay Area talking to hundreds of business owners and learning that there was not a good all in one solution built for hourly businesses. Business owners were doing manual tasks from payroll, onboarding, hiring to HR tasks and spending 10s of hours each week manually running HR processes. Therefore, we started Workstream together! We have never looked back since. On our 7th birthday, I like to share 7 learnings from the past years 1/ Find truly great co-founders to be on this journey together I am incredible thankful to say I found not one, but two amazing co-founders. Just last week, Max, Lei and myself had our usual weekly sync and we had a 6+ hours call on Friday late night till midnight. To be able to be at it for 7 years, and still feel the same passion, determination and drive -- I'm thankful to have met the best co-founders one can ever have! 2/ Find a pain point that you want to invest 10 or 15 years in To build something great, you need time. Media and PR often glamorizes businesses & startups growing overnight. That is often not the truth. Choose wisely what you really want to spend 10 or 15 years on, because you will spend that and more on it. 3/ The team you build is the company you build Find great people who align with you on values, mission and purpose. The people you hire and work with is the team you build = the company and product you will build for your customers. 4/ Embrace the lows and highs Building a business is not easy. There's more lows than highs on the average, but one should learn to embrace both of them. Michael Jordan often says "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. That's why I win" 5/ Find a mission and purpose you care about Both my parents are hourly workers and I grew up seeing how hard it is for hourly businesses to manage payroll, HR and hiring all in the same place. Find a calling that you really want to work on and care about, despite the lows and highs. 6/ Go all-in 120% Building a business, whether you are an early employee/streamer or a founder, is extremely hard. We need to go all in to have a chance at winning. 7/ Enjoy the journey The days are long but the years are short. Enjoy the journey! Happy birthday, Workstream! P.S Photo was taken in 2018 when Workstream was a 6 months old baby (I would say we all looked younger back then too!) as we were outside our co-working space in San Francisco at South Park / Soma.

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I’m less enamored with Lean Startups than I was 16 years ago. I think it was a good philosophy when people were first starting to take advantage of the plunging costs of building software due to open source and the cloud. The idea of product-market fit is the most recognized concept to come out of the Lean Startup movement. Everyone wants to achieve product-market fit even if most people cannot define it.  I guess you know it when you see it... Every startup is in a rush to say they have product-market fit because that is what is demanded of them. Saying you haven’t achieved PMF is like broadcasting you’re incompetent. But the opposite of product-market fit is not failure or incompetence. You could be researching, learning and iterating (or pivoting). For early stage investors especially, those activities sound like they would build a lot of future value. As Steve Blank (quoting Tolkein) says, “not all those who wander are lost.” To build better companies, especially outside of software (eg deeptech) we need to value the wandering. It has to be wandering for a purpose. The timing of when a startup finishes wandering might not neatly line up with how we name funding rounds. True innovation usually resists standardized frameworks. Read my full post, Sceptic Mode Part II: https://lnkd.in/g2HqneVV

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Question for engineering leaders (managers, directors, VP's, etc): I'm curious about the current landscape of developer productivity analysis + management tools - things like LinearB and Jellyfish. Which tool, if any, are you using? Any opinions/pros/cons on the tool you're using (or the entire domain overall)?

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One of my favorite people is Bob Van Nortwick. He started & built AWS for Startups in 2010. Let me share a story about Bob. It’s 2012. By this time I’ve known Bob for a few years - he was the AWS liaison to our portfolio at a16z. Credits, technical support, meeting Werner Vogels, you name it, Bob got it done. He built this team to over a thousand people by the time he left ten years later. This is a HUGE role. Startups are a large part of AWS, which is the growth engine of Amazon. You’d expected Bob to have self-portraits adorn his home, start off meetings with grandiose introduction, & relentlessly name drop founders & investors. Not Bob. He’s hilarious & humble, a combo of dad jokes with f-words sprinkled in. He listens to you with complete attention. Even when I call Bob, I can HEAR his focus. He sees me even when he cannot see me. Most of all, Bob was (& is) RESPONSIVE. Anytime I’d email him, he’d reply in five minutes or less. If I explicitly wrote “this can wait” he’d STILL reply in five minutes or less. Back to my story. It’s about 11pm ET on a Tuesday in NYC. I’m in my hotel room winding down. I should sleep but jet lag. Then I see the email no one wants.   A founder emails me about how his entire infrastructure melted down an hour earlier. I’m not technical but I understand adjectives. This is disaster. And, he’s launching his new ipad app this Thursday.   Less than 48 hours.   Which will be featured on the App Store. To millions of people. I immediately email Bob but I’m sure we’ll have to delay the launch and therefore lose the feature. As usual, he replies in five minutes, asks to be connected directly with the founder. I email the founder the next day. No reply. Not a good sign, but understandable. I email Bob. No reply. Shit. What I didn’t know was that Bob & his team were meeting every hour, pulling all nighters, do everything possible. They probably needed a week; they did it less than 48 hours. On Thursday, the founder emails “WE’RE ON THE STORE!!” The launch is a success! Whenever I share this story about Bob, he smiles & says “We’re just doing our job.” Amazingly, everything I just wrote is not the best part about Bob. He’s a fantastic dad with three grown & accomplished children. But of course he’d be a great father! He’s humble, hard working. Even though we’ve never worked formally together, when you work with Bob, you feel like you share an email address with him.   Why did I write this?   Do I owe Bob a poker debt? Is this a sponsored post by AWS? No, I just caught up with him, reminiscing about old times, & he has the same warmth, same deep attention, same dad humor. Our industry has wild & extreme personalities.   I’ve worked with some of them. It’s fun but exhausting. BUT there are very decent people here too.   They don’t get headlines. They don’t want them. But their stories,  their achievements, their character,  deserve sharing. If you know Bob, please tease & embarrass the shit out of him. 😁

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Startup decks vs Business plans. It's accepted that a startup needs a deck. Dax Dasilva of Lightspeed Commerce made an important point on 20VC. Writing a business plan - including financial projections - is an important step. It requires discipline. It provides a rigorous framework for thinking deeply about the problem you're trying to solve. Harry Stebbings countered that he doesn't even want to see a deck since it's all dreams. We spent a lot of time and energy on our business plan with the expectation that we would show it to no one ever. The business plan was part of our roadmap for the company. We researched customers - including having 50+ conversations. We wanted to understand them: their background, their interests, their presence on social media. We also wanted to understand how they were evaluated by leadership and how integrated they were with the business of the company they were protecting. We researched pricing both with potential customers and other products in our industry to find out if OpEx or CapEx was a better fit. How did they buy today? How would they like to buy? We did market research to understand the verticals and map the right entry point - we were wrong but that doesn't reduce the value of the research. We looked at competitors in depth to understand what they were seeing that we weren't. Dax is right. This is an invaluable document that should be updated every year - the company is changing, the market is changing, there's more feedback about price and ICP. It's not for sharing with the outside world. It's a map for driving forward. Decks won't get you investment - VCs invest in people. We make decks but we know they don't tell our story. The deck is a calling card. Dax and Harry are both right. https://lnkd.in/e25M82xY

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I’ve gotta let out a mighty howl for Paw’d Jones! Claude wears a variety of hats in San Diego: Current VP of Product and Technology, former Senior Director of Engineering at Walmart, author, and community builder. Engineering at Walmart, you say? Actually, let’s start with a twist. Did you know Walmart was once the most innovative retailer before Amazon prowled onto the scene? If you dive into the history, you’ll find that Linkabit (a precursor to Qualcomm) helped Sam Walton broadcast his Saturday meetings via satellite in the late ’70s. Go ahead and Google that story—it’s wild! Claude is undeniably deep technically, but here’s a fun surprise: he’s also the author of Astro the Monster, a book that empowers kids with leadership lessons. Not exactly what you’d expect from a tech coyote, right? Instead of technical topics, his stories help kids navigate complex social structures as they grow up. Now here’s a personal note: long before The Social Coyote, I had an idea for a children’s book. I cold-messaged Claude, and guess what? He responded immediately and even took the time to share valuable advice on building, publicizing, and promoting a children’s story. I’ll admit it—I wrote, illustrated, and completed the book with his advice, only to let it gather digital dust in the Canva archives. If you bug me enough, I might just share it! But the point of this story is that Claude is willing to help complete strangers in our community. But wait, there’s more. He's also the founder of San Diego Tech Hub (SDTH), one of the key pillars of our tech ecosystem. SDTH added a twist to our typical tech meetups by incorporating fun activities like dancing and beach cleanups. Here’s where I let out a heavy, sad howl—SDTH is currently pausing operations after their final end-of-year happy hour. Not gone, but temporarily hibernating. The founders decided to step back to focus on family and reset, but the door to the cave is open for a return. This highlights a challenge many community-driven organizations face: when an effort is built around giving first without a strong focus on the business model, sustaining it becomes tricky. It requires sponsors, volunteer time, and a balance of support across the community. I’m sure there’s much more to the story, but this is not an uncommon theme when a group comes together to give their time to a community. There’s another wrinkle—San Diego loves free events and connecting, but we’re just beginning to understand the contributions needed to sustain organizations doing important work for our community. Now, these are only my observations and not directly from the organization or Claude himself. From what I hear, the SDTH community is vibrant and passionate. Until it returns, I hope its members continue to join and enrich other communities around town and bring their SDTH energy with them. Howl yeah, Claude—thank you for everything you’ve done for our tech community and all you continue to do. Ahwoo!

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Ever wondered where the perfect balance between tranquility and innovation lies? For me, it’s Seattle. Unlike the Bay, Seattle has a more serene environment that’s perfect for focusing on building products and businesses. The city’s vibe encourages deep work and creative thinking, free from the overwhelming hustle. But let’s be honest, Seattle’s founder and investor communities aren’t as vibrant as those in SF. Yet, this city holds a special place in my heart – a blend of my love for startups and the charm of Seattle. I believe in Seattle’s potential and I’m on a mission to help ignite its startup community. From connecting with fellow founders to engaging investors, let’s come together to build something extraordinary here. Seattle has all the ingredients to be a startup hub – talent, innovation, and a supportive ecosystem. What it needs is a spark. Let’s be that spark.

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In a startup's early days, tech debt is inevitable. Your focus is on iteration and speed. That's okay. What's not okay is architecture that backs your software into a corner. Smart founders preserve optionality, avoiding situations where they get trapped by their own tech choices. If you have to patch together a solution (and you probably will), make sure it's abstracted from the user's core experience. This way, you can replace it later without major disruptions to your product. This principle becomes even more critical in the context of AI. Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, urges startups to "nail [their] points of abstraction" when integrating AI capabilities. That way, they can incorporate the latest AI advances without needing to rebuild their entire product every few months. Our full conversation here: https://lnkd.in/gEAPFR-A

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Created an AI assistant app to connect patients and doctors using Vercel AI SDK, Assistant-UI.com components, function calling, thread suggestions, check it out (Guillermo Rauch, Simon Farshid, Kajari Ghosh)

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🎙️ My co-founder Ken had the pleasure of hosting Eli Daniel, Head of Engineering at Jellyfish, on his latest episode of Level Up. They dove into how to choose metrics that align perfectly with your organization’s goals, shared tips for analyzing where your team’s time is really going, discussed scaling metrics for better alignment and resource allocation, and explored why DORA metrics are just the beginning. They also delved into balancing quantitative and qualitative metrics to get a complete picture of how effective your team is. 💡 Product developers save an average of 2 hours each week thanks to OpsLevel. Imagine the impact of not being able to quantify such gains—this is where Jellyfish proves indispensable. 👉 Tune into this episode to dive deeper and uncover strategies to elevate your team's performance. Please share if you find this as exciting as we do!

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I spent over half a decade working with driverless cars. I see massive potential for these vehicles to reshape NYC real estate. Waymo recently raised $5.6 billion in a Series C round led by Alphabet and supported by many other leading companies. Meaning the future of this technology feels closer than ever. These are the biggest Opportunities & Challenges Driverless cars present in the NYC market: 1. Reduced need for parking could free up valuable urban space, converting parking lots into housing, retail, or green areas. 2. Easier commutes may drive up outer borough property values, balancing Manhattan and other more densely populated areas of the City 3. NYC’s notorious traffic, pushback from unions on automation, unpredictable weather, and high foot traffic require advanced tech and regulatory adaptation. The next steps will be crucial as real estate, tech, and policy leaders navigate how driverless cars might reimagine our cities. How do you think driverless tech will impact real estate in NYC? P.S This is me in a driverless car back in 2017

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We've all heard the horrifying tales of software projects spiraling out of control - bloated budgets, missed deadlines, lackluster products. What if you could wake up from these nightmares for good? My new guide covers everything you need to know about the key approaches for building software: 💻 Do it yourself (you're a product developer) 💻 Outsource it 💻 Build an in-house team 💻 Use a combination approach I break down the pros and cons of each option, so you can choose the right path for your product vision and avoid common pitfalls. No more sleepless nights wondering if you're on track. No more cold sweats thinking about looming disasters. Read the guide today and ensure your software build is a developer's dream, not a nightmare on Dev Street: https://lnkd.in/ehDG_JsN

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I’m fortunate that Graphite is doing well. As we grow, I’m focusing on helping teammates transition from individual contributors to leaders. This shift requires moving from asking questions in the audience to fielding answers on the stage. An early Google engineering director once advised me: “Shift your perspective from being in the audience to being on the stage.” In our small team, it’s been okay to ask audience-style questions: • Are we worried about customer response times? • Should we hire faster? Are we hiring too fast? • Is now the right time to create tech leads? • Are our engineering interviews fair enough? • Should we add an on-call rotation? My co-founders and I have been happy to answer these. They’re often polite pleas to adjust priorities. But as we grow, I need leads to elevate their thinking. Imagine being at an all-hands meeting and stepping onto the stage to answer these questions. What would change? First, you’d ask fewer open-ended questions. Instead, you’d align with the company’s strategy and provide answers: • “Customer response times are important. We’re planning to staff up next cycle to improve them.” • “We need more smart, kind people ASAP. Given our runway, hiring now is the right call.” • “We’ll need tech leads eventually, but they don’t address a current problem, so adding that process now would be a distraction.” These answers might not be perfect, but they’re attempts to translate the company’s needs into action. Being on stage doesn’t mean you stop asking deep questions. It means coupling them with proposed alternatives and understanding the tradeoffs involved. Don’t ask, “Are we selling too top-down?” Instead, propose, “I’ve thought about our sales strategies. Given our growth needs, how about running a bottoms-up experiment? We could destaff our integrations project temporarily—we can handle some pain there.” The key shift is founding decisions on “what will keep the startup alive and growing” rather than “what is good craft, what is fair, what is my preference.” The best leads adopt this “on stage” mindset. They stop asking leading questions without solutions. They understand the business’s needs and make conscious tradeoffs to keep the company thriving. Not every individual contributor needs to make this shift. But for those eager to explore leadership, this is the path. -- Shortened for LN -> longer reflection here: https://lnkd.in/evfCv_RZ

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What happens to your Snowflake queries when your browser crashes - are they quietly consuming your credits without you knowing? 🤔 If you've ever wondered about the fate of those long-running queries after a sudden disconnection, you're not alone. That's where the ABORT_DETACHED_QUERY parameter steps in. By default, Snowflake lets in-progress queries continue running, even if your connection is lost. This might be perfect if you want the job done, but it could also mean an unpleasant surprise on your bill. Setting ABORT_DETACHED_QUERY = TRUE tells Snowflake to abort these queries 5 minutes after losing connection. It’s a simple change that can save resources when unexpected network issues arise. With compute being the major driver of Snowflake costs, this control might just be your secret weapon against runaway spending. A few practical notes: - If you explicitly close the connection, all synchronous queries will stop immediately. - Asynchronous queries keep running until they're done, canceled, or hit a timeout. So, are you letting those detached queries run, or do you prefer to take back control? I’d love to hear how you manage your Snowflake sessions for efficiency! 💡

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The biggest gripe I had with myself earlier in my career, was being just another engineer. Good perhaps, excellent even but still siloed. Pair that with my love for working at startups, I could feel that there’s more to the problem than moving from Fargate to EKS. And this is something that I have seen across the board. Even if the environment is welcoming and fosters collaboration, we as engineers feel most comfortable with code. Almost bound by a sacred oath to never visit the dark lands of product 😅 The key to change this is to understand you are not there to serve at the whims of jira tickets. You didn’t learn algorithms to be the fastest in the world at sorting. Your ability to breakdown problems and spot patterns extends beyond code. Your empathy for users and the larger problem makes you a better engineer! Certainly more employable, especially in an environment where coding prowess is no longer an edge. PS: I have found PostHog’s notes especially helpful. Terse, and to the point. I hope they help you as well.

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