14 Stitches
A musical journey through our first year as a startup, some of the ups, downs, people and learning.
Each song symbolises a month, with 9 to 5 kicking off the list starting Dec 2013. There is some artistic license on the order of the books (although all books were read in 2014 at some point) in order to fit in with the theme of the song where possible.
It’s all about the journey. Enjoy it.
9 to 5 — Dolly Parton
Symbolising the step away from a career path in Investment Banking and into the unknown.
Book of the Month: “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives”
Start Me Up — Rolling Stones
January with Jan (Jones) in Thailand. Thanks for the kickstart from all the great people at Oozou. You’re more connected to people than you think you are and more interestingly…there is science to back this up. Graph theory and neo4j enter the scene.
Book of the Month: “Networks, Crowds and Markets”
My Silver Lining — First Aid Kit
This is for the one and only Ian Harris. Graph databases and silver linings, it’s your year sir!
Book of the Month: “Graph Databases”
We Exist — Arcade Fire
Small starts. Much enthusiasm, many ideas, trying to understand the world and build great things.
Book of the Month: “About Face — The essentials of interaction design”
The Fear — Lily Allen
The startup euphoria wearing off. It’s not celebrity startup land, it’s hard work, you need to learn new things, in many ways we went back to technology school this year. Neo4J, Angular JS, Heroku, New Relic, Intercom, Invision and all the various SaaS services. Superpowers for Developers.
Book of the Month: “Angular JS”
Hate Street Dialogue — Rodriguez
Fight Club. I can’t talk about it.
Book of the Month: “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”
Demons — Imagine Dragons
Dedicated to all other founders, CEO’s and entrepreneurs. Good luck with “The Struggle”.
Book of the Month: “The hard thing about hard things”
Stand By Me — Ben E. King
You’ll never make it without good cofounders. Marcus is awesome. The guy is enthusiasm squared, somehow knows everyone and when things look rough always has your back. This one is for you buddy. Big Love.
Book of the Month: “Slicing Pie”
Leave This Island — Maximo Park
For Richard, leaving New Zealand and arriving in Europe. Also in general for early stage employees…you have to leave the island at some point…so go for it. Risk on. Terry’s based standups.
Book of the Month: “Hooked — How to build habit forming products”
Parallel Lines — Junior Boys
You need new ideas and new blood. Junior boys and girls! Great teams are are made from old colleagues supplied with new blood, so this song is for all graduates, self starters and startup kids of the world. Go out there and change the world!
Book of the Month: “Zero to One”
Let’s go surfing — The Drums
You need an outside life too. We organised #DevWax, a meetup about coding and surfing in Croyde. We did some coding, some drinking and deployed a surf sentiment application in Node.js. It was mostly about the surfing though! We had our first board meeting.
Book of the Month: “Mountains of my Life”
With a little help from my friends — The Beatles
A song dedicated to everyone who has helped out, especially Sarah, who took us through Product Managment Bootcamp. NLP Chris and DSL Ozgur; you guys rock. There are so many people that offer time, advice and encouragement, so thanks to you all!
Book of the Month: “Inspired — How to create Products customers love”
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger — Daft Punk
All this is great, but sometimes you just have to get your head down, shut out the rest of the world and crank it out. Go dark.
Nothing beats being in production.
Book of the Month: “User Story Mapping — Discover the whole story, build the right product”
Everything is AWESOME!!! — Joli
Everything is cool when you’re part of a team.
You have to believe. You have to have enthusiasm. Maybe….a lowly factory worker can become a master builder and change the world. Ideally with a voiceover from Will Ferrell.
Book of the Month: “Abundance — The future is better than you think”
In summary
9 to 5 — Dolly Parton
Start me up — The Rolling Stones
My Silver Lining — First Aid Kit
We Exist — Arcade Fire
The Fear — Lily Allen
Hate Street Dialogue — Rodriguez
Demons — Imagine Dragons
Stand By Me — Ben E. King
Leave this Island — Maximo Park
Parallel Lines — Junior Boys
Let’s go surfing — The Drums
With a little help from my friends — The Beatles
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger — Daft Punk
Everything is AWESOME — Jo Li
We hope everyone out there has a great 2015, in whatever way you want. Life, work and family.
It’s all about the journey.
