Published in The Startup·PinnedA Comparison of Austin and the Bay Area by an Austin Local and Bay Area TransplantIntro and Part #1 (Tech Jobs) — Note: (Views expressed in this article are my personal views only and not representative of my current employer) Introduction I’m writing today from my hometown of Austin, Texas which has lately been the center of attention in the tech world as luminaries, companies, and regular working people alike have decided to…San Francisco13 min read
Jul 23, 2021Austin vs. San Francisco Bay Area— Food (Restaurants)Part #3A — Food (Restaurants) — Note: (Views expressed in this article are my personal views/opinions only and do not reflect those of my current employer) With the shift towards remote-work and a general trend towards greater acceptance of a more distributed workforce vs. centralized in the Bay Area, the interest in Austin as a potential…Food17 min read
Feb 7, 2021Austin vs. San Francisco Bay Area — HousingPart #2 — Housing — Note: (Views expressed in this article are my personal views only and not representative of my current employer) Introduction and Recap In part one of this series, I compared the tech job markets for Austin and the Bay Area. This article is part of a 7 part series on Austin vs. SF Bay…Austin17 min read
Aug 20, 2020An Entirely Qualitative Assessment of Four Key Pandemic Consumer Goods Based on Weekly Target Runs and Predicting the Future for Said GoodsSince COVID-19 shutdowns began in mid-March, I’ve been making weekly runs to Target to pick up various goods. One of the things I’ve also been tracking is the availability of and selection of four pandemic related products: hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes, masks, and toilet paper. …Covid 1912 min read
Jun 23, 2020Elusive Profits and Potential Solutions — Part #1 of Online Grocery SeriesThis is the start of a three-part series on the future of online grocery. The series will cover the following topics: Profitability challenges and solutions Competitive landscape Technology and HR strategy Online grocery shopping has overnight made its way from the sidelines to the starting lineup due to the impact…Grocery Shopping12 min read
Published in UX Collective·May 21, 2020Product over network — Strava’s strategy explainedA few days ago, I, like many other athletes across the world, received an interesting note from the founders of Strava notifying us of some changes they were going to make. It wasn’t really clear what was happening until a few paragraphs down when the TLDR became clear — Strava…Fitness9 min read
Feb 5, 2020QB House, Haircut Excellence in OperationsThis past Sunday morning, I went to get my haircut at QB House at Columbus Circle here in New York. QB House is a Japanese haircut chain with over 640 stores mostly in East Asia. They recently began expansion into the US market and currently operate three locations in Manhattan…Hair4 min read
Jun 2, 2019Meituan-Dianping vs. US consumer app ecosystemI recently returned from a trip to China where I liberally used the Dianping app to identify the best places to eat at. Dianping (or Meituan, depending on which you use, they seem pretty much the same to me…), can be used just like Yelp in the US, though in…Tech4 min read
Feb 4, 2019老干妈 Lao Gan Ma — Chili Oil US Growth Strategy老干妈 Lao Gan Ma (LGM, for short) is a popular Chinese chili oil brand and has recently started gaining popularity in the US as somewhat of a “cult favorite” in mainstream America as well as being a staple for Chinese diaspora households. The brand has even begun to make its…Food9 min read
Dec 16, 2018McDonald’s Pricing MysteryI enjoy eating Big Macs (there is something special about two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun that just can’t be replicated anywhere else), but really don’t find buying them at full price particularly worth my while, so my visits to McDonald’s are…Food3 min read
