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Re: Maintaining Quality Pharmacy Networks

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 13:18:30 -0000

I am an employer with 20 employees and going to double our staff this year alone. I make the final decision on what we provide to our employees and the vendors we will use. Let me reassure you I have already emailed our broker to address this situation. If you will not provide access to PillPack, I will find someone who will. Our renewal is coming in 2 months. Fix your screwup!

Re: The New Wistia Enterprise Plan | Wistia Blog

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 10:07:56 -0000

Please don't tell me you guys did it in one take :-)

Re: The Long Lost Myth of Capital Efficiency

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 12:24:09 -0000

I hear ya and you are preaching to the choir here. But there are certain things in perception we need to align with reality. Cost of infrastructure and tools went down. But other operating costs are up and sharply.
Let's take Boston and top 3 costs in ascending order:

* Health insurance - per employee I would run about 50% more now for bottom barrel HMO, but then I stand zero chance attracting folks who care about it, so I have to have decent HMO and now it costs me 2-3X what it did in 2010. I was really surprised to see only like 5% increase in costs last year. Usually I see high teens %. And even invincible 20-somethings, once they are off their parents' insurance (which is nice cost saver for a short while), they are going to be mighty pissed, if you try to put them in high deductible HMO.

* 5 years ago I could get space in Kendall Square for less than $20PSF. Today $60PSF will not get you anything. Downtown Boston, where we are, 5 years ago was somewhere in teens PSF, not without mid 30s or even 40s you won't get so so space. Gone are the days of landlord-financed improvements, so that is out of your pocket. You can tell me to move to Waltham or somewhere like that. Sure. Then my talent pool drops to almost nothing and now I am competing with large companies and deep pockets.

* I pity folks on the West Coast, because market there is beyond unsustainable. Boston salaries are up every year more than 10%. And you have to look at costs of other benefits. Burning up your employees with 100-hour weeks is not only shortsighted, but also gets you some of the buggiest product possible, so you need to have proper team. And in B2B there is certain expectation of the quality of even Beta. MVP is cute dream and maybe achievable, as envisioned, but in B2C. So again, you need to put in proper product development investment before you can land that MRR. Such is life. We deal.

So when we add all of this up, you are left with maybe 25% of your total burn left to optimize. If you are really frugal, you are more like 10% left to optimize. Not much to work with.

We all find compromises and having investor, who is aligning with your success metrics, truly helps. Then both of us are chasing same goal.

Re: Cash Policies for Startups

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 13:06:55 -0000

Brad, FDIC publishes at risk bank watchlist every quarter. At least for me, that is list I visit as part of due diligence and annual audit of my vendors.

Re: Cash Policies for Startups

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 10:07:06 -0000

I have always been a fan of CDs and using balance in the account to get as many favors and fee credits from banks as possible. You can also push smaller banks to take care of your employees real well and get them lots of service. No interest rate can match dividend of happy employee, who is getting taken care of by the bank, like he had quarter million in his bank account. Even helped one get favorable mortgage rate, by telling bank president I will move the funds, if they don't take care of my top producing engineer :-)

Re: What Do You Need to Do to Improve Sales? Here’s a Start …

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 12:49:02 -0000

Mark,
Was about to retweet this, but I see you have me blocked on Twitter (@apsinkus)... except that I never tweeted at or DMed you.

Re: Is The US A No Vacation Nation?

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 12:48:53 -0000

At Robin Powered (robinpowered.com) we don't count vacation or sick days. This was something we practiced from early days before spinning company off the product development one we run. Though our team is young (if we look at median age) yet exceptionally mature about work environment and balance, my co-founders and I constantly have to remind some colleagues to take time off. We want people having great relationships outside of the office, we want to see people getting engaged and married or be happy parents, which is very hard to do, if you are pounding out work 12+ hours each day. But it is something not possible without leadership team actively monitoring and encouraging folks. Even with this time off, team never missed a schedule, they never missed a deliverable, and we never had to fire anyone for taking advantage of the policy and messing it up for everyone else. (As ops guy, I hate dealing with accruals in accounting for these days, so it makes my life easier too.)

Unfortunately, for us founders it isn't that easy. I am a father too and I always feel guilty taking time off. I know I supposed to set an example, but I also know I have to serve my people and deal with BS, so they don't have to. So finding a balance is not easy. Yes, you go on vacation occasionally, but you bring several phones and wireless data devices, so you are always reachable. I have never not looked at coverage maps to see which carrier has what where I am going. Only thanks to Google Drive/Docs, can I now not bring my laptop with me and do any necessary work just on the phone.

Re: 2013 Pacific Crest SaaS Survey

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 13:44:31 -0000

Very likely typical $100K per employee. Those with higher margins and ACVs likely were somewhere in $150K-$200K range. $200K+ range is a territory of those in enterprise and government contracts and zero customers in VSB, SMB, or B2C. Just going from financials I have seen in the last couple of years. That all said, my sample size isn't what Pac Crest got their hands on.

Re: Non Sequitur Fridays: Sales, like rock and roll, will never die

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 21:39:03 -0000

I can't even pump out one blog article a week. You have too much faith in my abilities.

Re: Non Sequitur Fridays: Sales, like rock and roll, will never die

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 13:33:12 -0000

Adam, you got to publish more of these articles. I know I get the benefit of sharing the "war stories" with you in person and I know you got heck of a lot more lessons learned you need to share.

Re: What Recruiters Really Mean When We Ask You…

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 13:41:13 -0000

Just because something is legal, does not make it ethically right. There is a reason why recruiters have developed worse reputation than used car sales people. Those of us in business to build greatest teams need to rise above lazy "techniques".

And you know you can create your own W2, right? Plenty of "rainmakers" do it.

Lastly let me reiterate, if you want women to stop being underpaid you need to stop the practice of anchoring "match"/compensation on past one. Change starts with you!

Re: What Recruiters Really Mean When We Ask You…

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 14:32:30 -0000

With all due respect, it is none of recruiter's business what a candidate is making right now. It is very much unethical. And especially in cases of females, is the reason why pay gap is not shrinking. You also have no idea why someone took a position before for certain compensation and what are the circumstances why someone is asking for a big bump or is looking to take a major cut. Focus on what the candidate is worth to the company!

Ask a question on expectations and don't poke your nose into something that is none of your business. Value of one individual to one employes does not equal to what it is for another.

And yes, if anyone on my team dares to ask someone about past compensation, they will be fired (just if they dare to ask any of the protected class questions). I have recruited some of the most incredible people, because I focused on their talent and value to the team.

Some of the most gifted candidates will tell you to take a hike, if you poke your nose into something that is none of your business. So don't be an unethical fool! Do your job! Sell!

Re: Etsy CTO: Prioritizing Diversity in Our Hiring Fielded Better Women ... and Men

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:54:38 -0000

There is only like several decades of research showing what diversity does to teams, work product, profitability, etc. Plenty of peer-reviewed research available from your friendly academic source.

Re: Etsy CTO: Prioritizing Diversity in Our Hiring Fielded Better Women ... and Men

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:46:06 -0000

Google it. You will find detailed data from US Labor Department.

Re: Etsy CTO: Prioritizing Diversity in Our Hiring Fielded Better Women ... and Men

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:15:43 -0000

Studies already show that wage gap between sexes in tech is virtually non-existant after 1 year post-graduation.

Re: Etsy CTO: Prioritizing Diversity in Our Hiring Fielded Better Women ... and Men

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:13:44 -0000

BTW, tech is one field where wage disparity between males and females is almost non-existant. Look up AAUW Pay Gap study for tech.

Re: Etsy CTO: Prioritizing Diversity in Our Hiring Fielded Better Women ... and Men

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:12:01 -0000

Apparently some of my fellow men don't get it, it is about increasing the talent pool! It is OUR fault we drove away women from tech (in 80's we had 40% females in tech). In order for our industry to thrive, we need to make current female (and under-represented Latinos and African-Americans) professionals stronger, so they attract new talent to the awesome profession of engineering. We need to help them become role models, so the new crop of talent have someone to look up to.
Meritocracy and diversity are not dichotomy, so let's not start that straw man garbage.

Re: Who Really Drives the Funnel: Sales or Marketing?

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 13:46:55 -0000

After going through bunch of startups and seeing what works and doesn't work, I have become a believer in putting Sales, Marketing, AND Customer Success (Service) under leadership of Chief Revenue Officer. If you remove the typical finger-pointing between Sales and Marketing (with associated VP of Sales and Marketing churn) plus get those teams close to Customer Success, you are much more likely to have more effective and profitable organization.

Re: 4 Ways to Sabotage Outbound Lead Generation and Sales Team Collaboration

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 13:29:09 -0000

Why not put outbound lead-gen together under the same group as inbound lead-gen in marketing? Usually both groups can run under same metrics and performance compensation system. Folks closing the deals have sales ops to take care of them.

Re: Offsetting Behaviour: A little respect

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:10:20 -0000

And you could be absolutely right re. number.
But that "net profit" is still blood money, especially when you consider deaths and numerous diseases 2nd hand smoke causes.
Why not make "net profit" on all the drugs? We can have government-sponsored dopehouses on ever corner. No?

I still think one cost to truly consider, which makes cessation programs such a good investment to both private enterprises and governments - loss of productivity. Loss of productivity is not limited to just sick days or more "breaks", but also to lower cognitive performance due to break of concentration. Say for a technology business, when one employee could be generating 4-10X their compensation in revenue, even just 10% loss of productivity is expensive. Multiply that for the entire economy, especially if it is knowledge-worker driven.

Re: Offsetting Behaviour: A little respect

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:48:47 -0000

I was on a patch for two weeks. That stuff can be so strong, you actually feel nicotine high. I actually quit after 2 weeks with the patch, cold turkey did not work prior to that.

Re: Offsetting Behaviour: A little respect

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:46:42 -0000

You are assuming methodology for accounting for that "net contribution" is any better than accounting methods Groupon used to file for IPO.

Re: Offsetting Behaviour: A little respect

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:57:41 -0000

I can pull numbers out all day. I do that for finance, I do that for market testing, etc. etc. I think this thread has been expensive enough on my time as is.

Bottom line for this whole thread: smoking is an addiction and accommodating it in healthcare facilities beyond nicotine replacement is a waste of taxpayers' money.

Re: Offsetting Behaviour: A little respect

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:54:04 -0000

I still stand by my statement that nicotine patches, Chantix, and other aids are the only acceptable options for patients. There is no reason a patient should be outside of the premises with medical equipment. Nicotine patches work. If they don't like it, then they should be discharged on the grounds of refusing treatment.

NZ has been on the forefront of having the courage to have legislation that balances personal responsibility and interests of society in general. This act is one of those right decisions.

Re: Offsetting Behaviour: A little respect

Apolinaras Sinkevicius — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:49:27 -0000

Apparently, Christopher, you have failed reading comprehension 101. Or maybe you just suffer from TL;DR syndrome. I am talking about patients going to the hospital, who have respiratory problems, and have to pass bunch of addicts by the entrances to the hospital.

So pointing out that habit that kills you and other innocent people should not be tolerated on the hospital premises is bigotry? Really? Should then alcoholics be able to drink while in rehab?

What is pathetic, that patients are allowed out of the hospital to smoke, while in care. You are in a hospital, not an effin' casino! Don't like it? Go home!
And what is hospital doing letting out an admitted patient outside with medical equipment? That is not only stupid, but malpractice.

What is even more pathetic, that doctors with addictions are bullshitting you (I even feel sadder for you, since you are buying it) so they can have convenience and accommodations paid by taxpayers to feed their own addiction. Get real!