Happy Thanksgiving! It’s also the 2nd anniversary of the incorporation of Cadence OneFive! Since staring with just a piece of paper from the State of Delaware, we’ve made a thing that didn’t exist in the world, earned nearly $3M in revenue, and walked the walk on working hard, but humanely. It’s corny, but I’m really happy to be doing this with Marc and with you all!
I can’t leave it all pollyanna, so let me also tell you a bit about some blips on my radar:
2023 financial performance.I made a decision mid-year to ramp up spending to get more product built faster. It’s worked out great in some ways (namely, we shipped the RFP feature), but the risk I took in doing that was betting that we would get all our expected revenues on time – and that did not happen. We didn’t get the IPC Wells Fargo grant revenue this year, nor the performance payment for the National Grid expansion, nor the grant payments for SAFE. None of these were our fault, but it means that we are eating more into our reserves than I had hoped. We aren’t in any danger, but we’ll need to be smart about deploying the cash we have in 2024.
DevOps process v2 had some positives, but it also killed production productivity for 2 months, which is putting pressure on year end, costing us money in additional DevSquad time, and costing various people life force. Was it too many changes at the same time? Some communication misses? Not realizing the downside impact on shipping code? Acts of god? Big thanks to Chuck, Robin, and Jason for persevering!
New revenue this week: 0
2023 ARR: $301,130
2023 New customers: 11
Up next: The $100k-ish Related Co.
And because we’re headed toward end of year:
Old revenue collected this week: NYGB ($10k) - Yay!
Outstanding invoices as of 11/22: $146,188.10
This was a good week for our talent efforts! Thanks for pitching in, everyone!
Naina Shah hired as new building science intern!
Wrapped up 1st round interviews for a promising Mech-e hire
Wrapped up references for current HOE front-runner
Having been on the receiving end of job application ghosting, I’m against letting people wonder what is going on with their candidacy – and for the most part, I think we have done pretty well, both in keeping candidates moving expeditiously through the process and giving people as much transparency as we can.
The other highlight for me–and this may be only for me, since I’ve been tied up with fundraising for so long–is getting a feeling that we’re in a much more organized place for 2024 than we had been for 2023. The product process we have right now is far from perfect: it puts a lot on Jason’s plate, and we’re still learning how to document; however, compared to last year, we have a great list of asks from Willdan and now CPC, and thanks to Chuck, Robin, and Jason having lunch at Essex Market, a good start at knowing what needs to be refactored for the national product. Knowing’s half the battle, right?
BIG FAT release: Multiple building projects for CPC! Bug fixes! Please keep an eye out for testing coordination from Chuck on Monday. It’s got a lot of churn and we need everyone’s help testing
Offers: Someone asked Jason what he would do with a magic wand, and he said “more people.” I couldn’t agree more – if both candidates accept, it’s close enough to magical for me!
And here’s what’s on my radar screen - what am I forgetting?