j0hnbull

Personal Finance - Simple, Boring, Confident

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 13:35:04 -0400

I’ve developed an amateur interest in finance, motivated partly by curiosity and partly by survival instinct (401k’s don’t manage themselves!). It’s been a humbling journey, the more I learn the smaller my circle of confidence becomes.

The output of this effort is an approach to personal finance that is simple and boring. I’ll do my best to capture it here.

First step is to establish a foundation by setting goals, thinking about edge and managing emotions.

Psychology of Human Misjudgment

Thu, 25 Jan 2018 15:09:27 -0500

“Bias [arises] from the nonmathematical nature of the human brain in its natural state as it deals with probabilities employing crude heuristics, and is often misled. —CHARLIE MUNGER, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 1995”

When facing a big decision - or a decision under stress - I make an effort to swing focus away from the decision and focus directly on my thought process instead. As Naval puts it “run your brain in debug mode”. Stop execution and analyze, with a dose of intellectual honestly, all the biological and emotional forces at play.

How Artists Work : Grit and Energy

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 15:19:21 -0500

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

Chuck Close

I’ve long held an interest in the mundane aspects of the creative process. On the micro how do the great artists create? How do they make incremental progress on a creative masterpiece? What’s their routine? Do they have quirky ticks? And, most curiously, do they suffer from the same afflictions (procrastination, self doubt, ebb + flow of inspiration) as us mere mortals?

EV impact on EU car manufacturers

Sun, 23 Jul 2017 17:03:03 -0400

ING predicts the three major hurdles to consumer EV adoption - charge time, range, and price - are overcome by 2024 and by 2035 only passenger EV’s are sold in Europe.

The shift to EV powertrains, which are simpler and requirer fewer parts than ICE powertrains (200 vs ~1,400), would eliminate an important differentiator for European car manufacturers.

ING Research: Electric cars will take over, threatening European car industry

About

Sat, 20 Jun 2015 23:16:27 -0400

I’m a technical entrepreneur living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I build technology teams that deliver on product initiatives and advance business goals. I get stuff done through code. My experience is varied, I’ve held positions in Big Tech®, venture backed startups and “lifestyle” businesses.

You can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter or GitHub. Or below is my life in bulleted list format:

My wife is a pediatrician who trained at Children’s Hospital Oakland.
We live in beautiful, downtown Oakland California *
She’s from Washington state. I’m originally from Florida.
I was the second technical hire at Distil Networks. We scaled up to 180 employees.
During periods of high growth I’ve held roles in Sales Engineering, Production Engineering (ops) and others but my passion is software development.
I’ve participated on the deal team of two acquisitions.
I’ve participated in one lay off.
I co-founded a company and raised ~$1MM in seed funding.
I wrote thousands of lines of embedded code and Android + iOS apps.
I ran a Kickstarter campaign that raised $120,000 dollars
I founded a lifestyle business that helps people replace lost furniture parts, a surprisingly common problem - FurnitureParts.com

Get in touch, I’d love to hear from you : john.m.bullard -at- gmail -dot- com.

How a Math Genius Hacked OKCupid; And How Distil Would Have Stopped Him

Thu, 23 Jan 2014 21:43:44 -0500

Another post over on the Distil Blog, check it out:

It’s worth noting however that the same techniques this UCLA PhD student employed to scrape OkCupid are also used everyday for more nefarious purposes. Content scraping is big business – attackers do everything from stealing and republishing original content, performing competitive pricing analysis, and more. It can have a material impact on a business bottom line.

How a Math Genius Hacked OKCupid; And How Distil Would Have Stopped Him

Seed Stage Founder vs. Growth Stage Employee

Fri, 27 Dec 2013 21:45:39 -0500

New post over on the Distil blog:

A lot has been written about the relative differences between working at ‘big tech’ versus a startup. But not all startups are the same and there is less on record about the relative experience of working for startups at different stages of maturity.

Distil: Seed Stage Founder vs. Growth Stage Employee

Researching Kickstarter: The Data Behind Successful Campaigns

Fri, 17 May 2013 22:03:46 -0400

Massively successful crowdfunding campaigns are almost cliche these days. Seems any group of bright, motivated entrepreneurs can pull together a Kickstarter page and the $$$$ will start flowing in.

Unfortunately this perception is wrong. Dead wrong in fact. Like pretty much anything else, the key to executing a successful campaign is planning and preparation. At Flomio we spent the better part of two months prepping for the FloJack Kickstarter campaign. We did a tremendous amount of research and came up with a detailed execution plan before pressing the big, green LAUNCH button.

Home Alone (or the magic of hallway conversations)

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:19:21 -0400

I’m in agreement with Tony Hsieh’s when it comes to the remote worker debate. This paragraph especially resonated with me:

There are doors on all four sides of the {Zappos headquarters}. The employees of the building’s previous tenant went through whichever door was most convenient. We actually lock all the doors from the outside and force employees to walk around the entire building to get to the front door. Even though it’s more inconvenient, we believe this helps our culture because it creates more opportunities for employees to have serendipitous interactions by colliding with each other in the main lobby.

CNN Money: Working From Home Alone Is The Real Cuplrit:

Home in Flux

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:09:42 -0400

A visualized representation of the states I called home during the 2012 calendar year (Flomio’s fledgling first year) -

And my living arrangements during that time -

Comments (archived from WordPress)

Matthew Lally (@shinsyotta) wrote on 2013-03-22:

Movin’ on up!

The Evolving Values of a Young Entrepreneur

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 02:29:59 -0500

A few weeks back a friend of mine shared a copy of Principles by Ray Dalio. The 120p pamphlet outlines Dalio’s core principles on life and how he applied them to his hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. He believes these core principles - and the culture they fostered - are the main reason Bridgewater has become one of the most profitable funds in history.

Dalio focuses on constant improvement, extreme realism, and hyper rationalism as a few of his core values. I won’t try and summarize beyond that. It’s a brisk read, recommend checking it out for yourself.

Making the jump: Why leaving a six figure salary for startup life was a no brainer

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 03:07:51 -0400

When we talk to customers, fellow entrepreneurs, or others in the Miami startup community I frequently encounter some form of the following question:

“How did you decide to make the jump from a comfortable salary, benefits, and a predictable career path to get Flomio off the ground?”

Well, being accepted into TechStars was a big part of it (more on that later).

The other part of the story - contrary to what most folks think - wasn’t impulsive. Instead it was a highly calculated move that approached the question from a few different perspectives. This post is my attempt to disect that process and illustrate how such a seemingly huge decision became rather obvious with the right approach.

Hello world!

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 19:50:09 -0400