Dylan Schiemann

Have you ever thought about how compliance laws are a lot like design systems? I recently spoke with Joe Toscano, founder of DataGrade, and he made a fascinating comparison. Joe explained how Brad Frost's atomic design methodology took an engineering approach to design: → Creating standardized elements → Templatizing them → Scaling them across a system This led to the rise of human interface guidelines (HIGs) from tech giants like Google, Apple, and IBM. But here's where it gets really interesting: Joe argued that privacy laws and regulations are like the ultimate HIG for product design. Just like how HIGs provide rules and constraints for design systems... Compliance laws set guardrails for what we can and can't do with user data. If we design something that isn't compliant, it doesn't matter how sleek the UI is. Legal requirements become the top-level framework we have to design within. That's what got Joe into studying laws - to understand this new "design system" for building products. So next time you're cursing a lengthy legal doc or trying to make sense of GDPR... Remember, it's all just part of the atomic design of compliance. — Do you agree with the analogy of compliance laws as the ultimate design system? Why or why not? Hear more of Joe's unique perspectives on the intersection of product, privacy, and law on the latest episode of The Minimum Viable Podcast.

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So cool to hear this story on NPR this morning. Our partner, Prism Labs, Inc., provides developers with the tools to integrate precise body scanning capabilities into their apps. Their technology goes beyond traditional BMI measurements, offering a more comprehensive view of health by analyzing muscle and fat composition. If you are a developer and are considering adding body scanning to your fitness app, please don't hesitate to reach out, and I can connect you! #HealthTech #Innovation #BodyScanning #PrismLabs #Wellness #HealthInsights

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Next Tuesday, 10 Sep at 5pm CT at the Capital Factory, Austin (and streamed): https://lnkd.in/gjQcFy6F I'll be providing an overview of the definition and goal of real AGI, and detail a roadmap of how a Cognitive AI approach can achieve this - at 1000th of the cost of Generative AI.

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This is a quick way (Bill came in below his 4 minute limit!) to learn more about what we're building with Prak.

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How did you meet your co-founder at LendAPI? It’s one of the most frequently asked questions, and I truly believe the stars were aligned at that time. I feel blessed to have Tim as a partner on this journey. Here is the story: https://lnkd.in/gDeFYQG8 #fintech #startup

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Paul Graham’s Founder Mode essay is a valid reaction to the zero interest rate phenomenon of average management and company bloat. The goat founders can operate well in this way and scale it pretty far. Unfortunately it’ll also probably inspire a bunch of mid founders not really get it — and to lean into their current erratic micromanagement ways. They’ll think they’re in Founder Mode, when they’re really in Flounder Mode 🐟 https://lnkd.in/gpjSV9Ea

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"United Independents, the group behind the Independent National Convention set for Denver in September, has launched a new software platform for indie candidates called Electify.us, which came out of a partnership with incubator Wolfram Labs — the first tool to emerge from its program." I am so proud to share that Chief Product Officer Dana Cichon has launched the first political tech platform to come out of our accelerator program. What are you waiting for? We have the formula for breaking into the digital campaign space. Are you are the next success story? Read more in Campaigns & Elections -->> https://lnkd.in/eHhqa-Xr #techaccelerator #startups #incubator #VC #SaaS #software #political #campaigns

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Over the past two years, Integral Labs had the privilege of contributing to the creation of the Polkadot Community Foundation. Polkadot has already pioneered one of the most active and robust DAO governance systems to date, including tokenholder management of a nine-figure treasury. As the DAO continues to mature, the need to represent and serve tokenholders’ interests off-chain has become increasingly apparent. That’s where the Polkadot Community Foundation comes in. Designing the corporate structure, governance, and operating model, Integral Labs joined a working group led by our friends at Actum Node with a mission to extend the reach of Polkadot's onchain governance into the offchain world. This project was a first in the industry, with a novel design that stands apart from traditional DAO "wrapper" structures. Unlike foundations that subsume treasury assets and delegate limited powers back to the DAO, the Polkadot Community Foundation works as an optional, unopinionated side-car entity that any DAO member may utilize in their proposals. This ensures the DAO retains full autonomy and control of its treasury while enabling offchain activities such as holding real world assets, entering commercial agreements, making fiat payments, owning IP, and more—all for the benefit of, and under the explicit direction of, the tokenholders. The governing documents and bylaws are open source and available for future use by Polkadot or other DAOs. We hope is that this modular design becomes a blueprint for a future constellation of real-world businesses to permissionlessly cooperate and compete to serve DAOs by extending their existing onchain governance systems. The Polakdot community voted with over 98% support to establish the Polkadot Community Foundation. Now incorporated, community members have begun to publish treasury proposals that utilize the foundation, including the creation of what will be the first mobile app owned by an open community, and increasing accountability for vendors and service providers in the ecosystem. You can read more here: https://lnkd.in/ebCJKsjD Integral Labs is proud to have contributed to this project alongside Michael D'Alto of Actum Node, James Hutchings, ACA, CFA, Theo Louw, Michael Preston, and Kevin Foster-Archibald CA(SA) of Autonomous, Edward Noyons of Marfire, Matthew Shaw and Gregory Peacock of Webslinger Advisors, Glenn Kennedy of Leeward Management Limited, Jonathan Bain of Bridgestream, Ignatius N., Jonathan Hernandez, and David Manadom (formerly) of Fenwick & West, Melissa Lim and Justin Wretham of Walkers, Björn Wagner, Raul Ignacio Romanutti, Dieter Fishbein, and the Polkadot community.

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Well captured : "The main reason why this is the case is that quality is not the main barrier to adoption. The two main limits on adoption today are the lack of high-quality applications to automate tasks and the lack of willingness to adopt high-quality applications when they do exist."

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Back in 2010 or so I was obsessed with game engines like Unity and Unreal. Sure, they had been around for a while before that, but for me, at that time, these engines unlocked the magical world of game development by taking away the pain of graphics programming, user input, platform deployment (Android Studio, looking at you) and so much more. In 2012 I think I made one game a month for 12 months. Yes, they were all terrible but that's not the point. The point is that it was fun and easy to make games. Remember the mantra, "make games not engines"? The same logic applies to building CAD applications. Developing an application that lets users edit geometry in a robust, easy, and scalable way is very difficult. If you come from game dev, you might think meshes are the way to go. That will seem like great idea until your users want to boolean two meshes that came from who-knows-where. ❌ If you've got lots of extra dollars to spare and you come from the world of engineering, you might consider licensing one of the desktop CAD kernels. Good luck to you! Have fun learning the math behind BREPs for the next couple years let alone shipping that application to paying customers to recover your upfront costs. ❌ At Metafold 3D our vision is to change this. In this talk, our CEO Elissa Ross demonstrates how we developed a personalized medicine application that any clinician could use in less than a week. ✅ Get started today with our #opensource SDKs: https://lnkd.in/gkETXB5k

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Leveraging proven frameworks helps founders accelerate their technology, culture, sales, and operations. Frameworks help founders for us in action instead of struggling to figure it out. Join Julie Penner, Jim Franklin, Larson Stair, and myself as we delve into how frameworks have been game changers for us in this Denver Startup Week panel. Tuesday, September 17, 10am Techstars Denver #FrameworksForFounders #startups #DSW2024 #CTO CTO Levels

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A lot of pre-product, pre revenue startup clients approach Calibrate to architect, design, and develop their first web or mobile app. One common theme we see among many of these ambitious co-founders is trying to launch with a larger feature set based on what they THINK their users will find valuable. In scenarios such as this, our team always advises our clients to consider pairing back the feature set to an MVP (minimum viable product). We start this process by asking our clients “what are the critical features absolutely necessary to launch your product and start getting valuable feedback from the user base?”. Anything beyond that is speculation and unnecessary. In the startup world (or even with software SMBs are launching), it’s imperative to get to market as quickly and cost effectively as possible to start establishing a POC (proof of concept) and collecting feedback; MVPs ensure that happens. Through collecting real user feedback, clients can prioritize and execute on their roadmap (aka new features) with FACTS (aka data driven insights) v. CONJECTURE (aka speculating on what users want). Check out the blog article on our site for some tips to help narrow down the feature set of a product to an MVP: https://lnkd.in/gHTeynVb

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Great podcast with Bret Taylor (CEO Sierra). Stellar communicator. Covers a lot of ground. One area he touches on are engineering changes instigated due to agentic frameworks. Resonates with a lot of the work we are doing at Doyen AI. A few nuggets - engineering moving from rule-based to goals & guidelines, increased focus on statistical approaches for managing non-deterministic systems, core agentic components are (a) knowledge of the business, (b) knowledge of business processes, and (c) knowledge of underlying systems for actioning. Worth a listen! #agents https://lnkd.in/ezdghk_v

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Crazy to think how fast interfaces will evolve: Screens → Voice → Brainwaves https://lnkd.in/gd_V9YqG

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Anthropic's Claude can now use computers like we do - clicking, typing, and working with actual software. Not through APIs. Through the actual interface. For our manufacturing & retail clients asking about AI automation - this is HUGE. AI that can actually help with any existing software stack, not just integrate through complex APIs. • Uses standard software like a human (still learning but improving fast) • Crushing it at coding tasks 93.7% 0-shot (This is fantastic) • Faster, cheaper version (Haiku) coming this month While everyone's hyped about the tech, we're already mapping out practical applications for our clients. Real automation. #AI #Innovation #Manufacturing #Retail #DigitalTransformation https://lnkd.in/geFkjfr6

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𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆-𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀! We're conducting a benchmarking study to define success metrics specifically for vertical software companies. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Existing SaaS benchmarks just don't cut it for your unique industry needs. This research will provide the data-driven insights to measure and optimize your vertical software business. 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗽? A few minutes of your time can make a big difference.

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I really enjoyed this podcast from Indie VC and Linear's Cofounder Karri Saarinen: https://buff.ly/47Ay117 Main takeaways: * Build your company the way you want to build it. This is "founder mode." * You don't have to grow fast in venture. You can think long term and build a sustainable business. * You can focus on product quality over growth. There's a craftsmanship and a love of quality that can really shine through if you do. * Remote work can work. Design deliberately though. * Build a great product and users will tell other users about how great it is

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As you may, or perhaps not know – not only do I publish the Econ Dev Show newsletter and podcast for free every week, but over the past year, I've also been developing a groundbreaking tool for economic development organizations: Sitehunt. I've been told it's the first truly practical application of AI in economic development. Your peers agree. In its first year alone, Sitehunt is already being used by EDOs of all sizes across the country. Here's what it can do: - Automatically research and enhance your existing buildings and site database--or even create one from scratch. - Continuously discover new, suitable buildings and sites within your communities to grow your economic development inventory. - Generate compelling marketing content for your sites. Instantly analyze RFIs and match them to your inventory, ensuring you never miss an opportunity from a site selector. As we approach the end of the year, now is the perfect time to think about 2025. Can I give you a demo? I promise you'll be amazed at what Sitehunt can do.

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Economic Developers - you can order a 40+ page strategic plan for your community that is built using Lightcast data. The technology behind this makes this a super-affordable. ⚡ I met the CEO of this company last week and the technology is amazing so we wanted to pass this along. Get your plan in days. Powered by Lightcast data from your community. Low, low cost. Check it out here. Download a sample plan. Get a 15% code to save even more. https://lnkd.in/gew3W_Br #ecdev #economicdevelopment #strategicplan

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