ensemblehq

Networking and having a really niche skill would be your best bet. Would also be good to think about the other side’s perspective - why should a US company hire a UK contractor over a US contractor?

I’m working with a UK contractor together on a project and we knew each other from previous projects. From past experiences working with him, I’m comfortable with his quality of work.

Based on the data sources you’ve mentioned, there’s not really a single dashboard that lets you pull together everything and customize their visuals. Generally I’ve seen folks use a simple ETL tool + custom scripts + dashboard tool to bring it together.

I’m a tech consultant, former VP at an enterprise, former entrepreneur and regularly deal with vendors. General advice is to always lead with a flexible plan (per-seat), throw in more for account executives, level of support, onboarding and etc. Price as high as you can and negotiate. Also use this as an opportunity to potentially land and expand - enterprises are typically made up of multiple business units under a single brand. Be wary of effort to get past security and procurement as well.

With enterprises, pricing depends on many factors including your product, integration, adoption, support, training, alternatives, etc.

I’ve advised and signed off deals ranging from $40k to $2m in annual contract value. It all depends on product and the value it delivers to the company (and the enterprise - I.e. other teams)

If you’d like to have a chat further, happy to share my experiences in greater detail if you can share more.

Are there any decent parsers in Python/Java/Ruby that someone can recommend?

Not sure what your budget is but I’ve used AWS for handling PDFs and it’s been pretty good at detecting content via boundary boxes.

They generally have higher insurance rates although I'm not clear on what's driving the model.

Personally, I’d begin from figuring out company strategy and how the team will deliver on it and what KPIs I’d use to measure the team’s output. I’d then map out what are the strengths and weaknesses of the team including skills gaps. This will include things like seniority, ability to deliver at an individual level. Since there’s only one team member so far, this would be more of a plan/roadmap of the team you’d like to grow into.

Junior members are great at knowledgeable tasks but may lack real-world experience to understand tooling, deliver quality work and put something into production (not always - there are exceptions of course). Since you’re in R&D, this may not be a huge factor/risk so junior engineers may be a good fit.

I’d be happy to discuss further over a call if you’d like. Happy to share my experience growing teams from 1 to 200.

Interesting thought. We ran into the same issue working on a recommendation system engine as well and previously tried to build a solution around it. Curious to know what’s driving your interest in post-analysis?

With your skillset, I’d highly recommend starting your own consultancy. There’s likely an incredible demand for you can offer.

I’m also interested in connecting to see if there’s any opportunity with the projects that come my way. I’d love to keep in touch. Cheers!

For larger organizations, there are governance rules, accountabilities and politics at play. Generally, developers are not allowed to deploy models unless they are within the teams mandated to do so. I haven't seen any "AI" teams willing to bear the burden to allow anyone outside their team. And from what I've seen so far, developers in enterprise organizations weren't really that interested in deploying models in the first place.

Best of luck! This feels very much like Algorithmia and a previous startup that I built a few years back. The challenge I experienced is the model productionization process and accountabilities as opposed to the infrastructure. No amount of tech I built mattered even if models could be deployed in seconds. Mind you - I was focused on enterprise. The hard part with startups for me was finding technical folks who already “know” how to deploy a model and don’t want to admit they needed a tool.

For a recent enterprise client, developers deploying models is just a non-starter. My advice is to talk to as many customers as you can, hone in on businesses where rapid model deployment is an absolute necessity and double down on them.

Good luck!

Focusing on jobs where your output makes an immediate impact is an incredibly smart move to make sure you matter. Of course, most roles matter but there are too few managers who know how to vouch and articulate a team’s business value properly.

I actually found myself working on a credit risk modelling project on the capital markets side and it’s been great as well.

What’s the challenge with LFS?

This is just how large enterprises work. Nothing deliberate. They operate in longer cycles.

Most contracts are standard 30-90 days with large enterprises. And they do take a while to process given their large structure. Sometimes there are breaches of contract terms but as a smaller consultancy serving a large organization, you really don't have much leverage to force them to pay faster.

That being said, project continuity is huge with large organizations and if you're opportunistic, there's always something to be fixed. They also pay well and are more likely to pay. That's the tradeoff for slower payments.

It’s been several years since I began but it’s been an amazing experience given I’ve always wanted to do something entrepreneurial. I feel a lot happier knowing that I can help clients advise them on technology and bring solutions to their problems. Happy to have a chat anytime.

There are quite a few open-source wiki solutions that you might consider self-hosting. What are some killer features that you’d consider Confluence to be great at?

We run a managed support function so if you need help, we can take on supporting you with a different product in place of Atlassian.

It varies from company to company. For some, usually the executive team comes up with a percentage of costs that need to be removed and then the message for team managers is to identify the individuals. For others, it's silent and it's more crude - based on numbers/tenure/etc. and automatically filtered by HR and accounting teams and doesn't take into account product/operations. Sometimes, consulting firms would come in and recommend team structures and sizes that drive layoffs as well.

Perfect timing as I'm looking for something like this (was going to build this but happy to contribute!). I'll give it a go! Thanks!

I'm happy to have a chat - I've previously worked with hardware founders in the past so I might be able to connect you with someone. Also, part of a larger entrepreneurial network that's successfully built out hardware startups.

I’ve been on both sides of the table: software vendor/consultant and buyer so I can share some other insights others may not have yet. Your question is still too general and without knowing your product, it’s hard to advise on go-to-market.

Enterprise and B2B are not entirely the same thing. When you’re thinking about your segments, think about business size and revenue. Billion dollar companies are different than million dollar companies. Think about the decision-making process and the network connections you have to land your first sale. It’s usually easier when you have a prior relationship with your buyer and if the business has a sole decision maker. Otherwise, be prepared for a lengthy sales process that may not result in anything other than a “thank you” email. In the enterprise, your product actually includes the technical product as well as sales/support that goes along with it.

Having said that, some GTM strategies that could cut through the noise: user-led (pricing within individual corporate budgets), open-source, free trials, etc. SaaS is a good idea but it depends on business size/industry/culture. Generally, non-regulated industries have a more open culture to trying new things.

Unrelated but really love the problem you're solving at TripleAxle! How have things been going so far?

This is a great idea! Would be curious how you got started. I’d love to start something similar in our local community.

That’s fair. For a radical idea, a friend has his eyes set on building a self-sustaining biosphere dome to mimic the South East Asian climate in Texas. He’s hoping to introduce tropical birds and plants. Fascinating project and a great source of education for the community.

I’d start by figuring what your goals are. Maximize value and profitability? Building something for the community? Want to be known for something? Your goals will likely guide you down different paths and lifestyles.

Been looking at pickle all trends and it looks like it’s growing phenomenally.

It’s significantly easier to deal with one vendor than multiple banks API. What does UPI stand for?

Congrats on your great growth. As a consultant, I’m not surprised by your success and firmly believe you will continue to grow (wish I could’ve been an early investor!) Your value proposition demonstrates a clear link to ROI and is an easy sell.

As I’m looking at this for my clients, how does Usage AI actually work? Would my clients be the ones paying for the reserved instances upfront and Usage AI buying back unused capacity? Who holds the contract for the reserved instances?

It’s a problem I’ve seen and faced personally in my business albeit the invoicing rules are less complexed. Even then, it’s been tricky to find anything that provides enough automation and flexibility for me to override changes. I’m currently assessing whether it’s feasible to automate the workflow with minimal code. It won’t be fully end-to-end automation - it might be just enough that there will be components here and there with some human intervention.

Thanks - just exploring Airbyte for a client so will be running through the motions myself. For another client, we just built our own data architecture to fix some of these issues and more importantly cut costs significantly.

Were you able to find something else self-hostable? Ideally, we really want to stay away from cloud.