RemoteMatcher Journal #3

This is something new I’m trying: a journal recapping the work I’m doing on Remote Matcher which is my current side project. My goal with this is to do some public accountability so I’ll > keep moving forward on this project. (Real talk: I’m passionate about the idea behind the project, but I seem to have some kind of mental block about getting work done on it. These blog posts are meant to apply pressure to me to report my progress publicly and move the project forward)

BLUF

(Bottom Line Up Front) 2 weeks ago I was a bit busy so the update didn’t get written until the next week was started. Overall things are moving forward, just never as fast as I think I want them too.

Last week(s) in review

Let’s look at the goals from 2 weeks ago and score them

1. Address HTML scrubbing bug (not user-facing, but it is a blocker for #3) – DONE
2. Phase 1 of tagging improvements (tag extraction from untagged data) – Partially done
3. Continue Create thinking about OKR’s for this project. – DONE
4. Write 20 new tweets – Not started
5. Stemming and creation of bi-gram tokens – Tokens made, no stemming yet

Score: 3/5 = 60% OKR’s are coming into shape! I’m not committing to a long list of them, instead I’m adopting an iterative approach. More on this later.

Technical issues

I don’t have any concrete data to back this up, but my hunch is that a bi-gram based approach will help with some of the quality issues I’m seeing. (Quality == making sure a relevant job is delivered to the right person) This feels like a highly-measurable activity, so I’m quietly thinking about how to collect data on this.

Growing the business

For growth, I’m defining two aspects: Bringing in more users and more money.

OKR’s

After some rumination on this topic, I’ve come up with a few OKR’s to focus on for the next quarter: Increase user base | Timeline
—|—
Write 50 new tweets | Mid-October
And: Increase user satisfaction | Timeline
—|—
Add a survey to each email sent (1 click, “were these good links?”) | Mid-late September
Develop a list of 3 things that users want to see | Mid September
Improve open rate to be over [REDACTED]% (per week avg) | Early-mid October
These two OKRs align with the overall goals I have for this project. I’m still new to the OKR process, so I expect these will see some refinement over the next few weeks.

More users

Twitter works as a semi-passive source of new signups, so I’m doubling down on it. More tweets into the script!

More money

Making money is a goal, so it makes sense to create a way for this to happen. The first step is getting a plan together. I know what needs to be done, but all the steps needed to get me there are… vague at the moment.

Next steps

1. Get the bi-gram tokens stemmed with lots of tests around them. (Aiming to have them deployed into production in the next 2 weeks)
2. A plan for launching the self-signup page (steps outlined by next week)
3. 20 new tweets (recycling this one, it is easy and needs to be done!)

Questions? Comments? Email me and ask away!