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Don’t Take VC Funding – It Will Destroy Your Company
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15 min read
I’ve talked to quite a few people who were considering founding their own startups. Many of them were quite inexperienced regarding, well, everything, as they were either fresh out of University or currently in a day job which was completely unrelated to startups, the economy and broader reality (mostly doctors). All of them tell me…
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Six Years of Back Pain, Episode 1: Mouse Shoulder
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10 min read
This is episode 1 of my medical mystery. As all medical mysteries, it led me to physiotherapists and doctors – but, in contrast to most medical mysteries, it also led me to stuff my scrotum into a leather-lined pouch. And I also ended up shooting gut bacteria into various cavities of my body. But let’s…
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From Two to Three
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12 min read
In 2020, I founded a company called OpenRegulatory. At that time – the height of the pandemic, with low interest rates and near-unlimited funding – most startups were rocket ships – VC-funded, growth-oriented and, most notably, not profitable. I wanted OpenRegulatory to be different – bootstrapped by me, small, profitable – more like a tuk-tuk. Now, while you’re chuckling,…
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From Clojure to Ruby
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5 min read
Back in 2017, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I got my first coding job, I was super excited about Clojure. And what’s there not to be excited about? It’s super fast, it’s concise, and it’s a lisp. But now I’m coding in Ruby. Why? Superficially, Ruby and Clojure are similar (bear with me): They’re…
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From One to Two
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8 min read
In his book Zero to One, Peter Thiel writes: It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. The act…
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In the beginning of 2020, I left my job at Vara, where I worked as a Software Engineer, Soccer Mom and Regulatory Affairs Person. I didn’t really know what to do next. While I enjoyed the Coding and Soccer Mom Duties, one thing was for sure: No more regulatory work, ever. Fast-forward one year. I spent the year…
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Regulation Is Killing Medical Software Innovation
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11 min read
I’m back from cryosleep. After leaving Merantix Healthcare 7 months ago I haven’t been writing much. I took the summer off to finish my pilot’s license and to try out a few things on the side. One of them was doing regulatory consulting for medical software startups. Remember: At Merantix Healthcare (now: Vara), we managed to pass…
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Pioneers vs. Process People
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8 min read
Today is my last day at Merantix Healthcare. While I am very sad to leave behind a stellar team which I helped build, it’s the right thing for me to do. Why? At any company, there are multiple projects going on: Developing a product, getting regulatory approval, recruiting for a team.. you get it. Whatever…
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Become a Full-Stack Person
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6 min read
Let’s look at how most software is developed. I’m not talking about those shiny SaaS products like Slack. Those were built for developers, by other developers. No, I’m talking about the large underwater iceberg of boring software running enterprises, governments, hospitals and nuclear reactors. Real-world software. Software outside the Silicon Valley tech bubble. How does any such…
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The (Un-)Natural Progression of Machine Learning
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5 min read
Machine Learning is everywhere. Unfortunately. Most industries aren’t ready for it. We tend to ignore the natural progression of software. To illustrate this, let’s look at an example: Written communication. In the beginning, there was no software. There were only paper letters, typed on a type writer and sent off via snail mail. Communicating was…