Use the resources available

3 min readAug 8, 2016

This blog is a weekly reflection of WorkHound’s time at Dynamo, a logistics-focused accelerator based in Chattanooga, TN. In week four we discuss the importance of trusting our team and taking advantage of vendor resources.

Trusting ourselves

Accelerator programs challenge founders in some of the toughest ways possible. There’s an artificial time box that makes every minute count. There’s 50+ mentors recommending different ways to grow the business. And there’s us as founders getting gut checks daily.

Despite the internal questions that arise, we’re trusting ourselves.

Here’s a few indicators as to why:

-We participated in a market development conversation that stressed the importance of knowing your market in the pursuit of product market fit. Our initial target market is a very focused one in the trucking industry of a few thousand companies. Opportunities to expand beyond this initial segment continue to pop up, but we have stayed focused to help companies address these initial challenges.

-Andrew attended several sessions focused around building great products and product teams. Fortunately, much of the information was a refresher for Andrew. This goes to show we need to stay focused on the things we believe will set us up for success.

Use the resources available

(written by Andrew Kirpalani)

As with most tech companies, we use several third-party tools to help us deliver our product. One of these tools is Stormpath, which provides user accounts as a service.

User accounts are an important, but well-defined part of most modern software systems. By leveraging Stormpath’s focus, we get world-class functionality without having to create it ourselves.

Most companies do this. But, many software vendors offer something else which may be even more powerful. Expertise. For free.

I’m talking about Developer Evangelists. These engineers help customers with all kinds of implementation details.

Randall Degges is a fantastic Dev Evangelist from Stormpath who has been super helpful to us. First, he knows the Stormpath tool and the authorization use case far better than most. Second, and more importantly, Andrew is a single engineer. Randall has provided a much-needed peer perspective and second set of eyes for the WorkHound system.

Many companies have fantastic Dev Evangelists. Use them.

Read our previous posts about our time at Dynamo

WorkHound Joins Dynamo // Week 1 Recap // Week 2 // Week 3 //

What is WorkHound?

WorkHound is a software platform built to help carriers keep drivers and improve the truck driver experience. Truck drivers use their smartphones to share feedback and ideas with the carrier, which WorkHound aggregates and turns into actionable insights to help manage and retain drivers. WorkHound is co-founded by Andrew Kirpalani and Max Farrell.