A decade of building apps, teams and companies. https://www.nyblom.io 2025-06-13 https://www.nyblom.io/blog/ask_dont_tell https://www.nyblom.io/blog/ask_dont_tell 2025-06-13 We've all been there. You get promoted to manager, and suddenly you feel this intense pressure to have all the answers. But the answer isn’t the point. The point is helping your team develop the ability to find answers themselves. You'll be amazed at what people come up with when you trust them to think. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_kindness_trap https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_kindness_trap 2025-06-07 Kindness in leadership isn’t about avoiding difficult conversations. It’s about respecting your team members enough to tell them the truth about their performance and giving them the tools they need to excel. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/you_dont_need_more_time https://www.nyblom.io/blog/you_dont_need_more_time 2025-05-30 Waiting for perfect information is just fear dressed up as being responsible. And I get it. Making decisions when you're not 100% certain feels scary. But here's what I've learned after years of watching leaders succeed and fail: the ones who thrive are the ones who make decisions quickly and course-correct as they go. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_not_todo_list https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_not_todo_list 2025-05-25 The Not-Todo List isn’t just for product development. A marketing teams can use it to focus campaigns, executives can use it to allocate resources, and individuals use it to manage personal priorities. Anywhere decisions compete for limited attention, explicitly documenting what you won’t do creates space for what matters most. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/7_princinciples_for_effective_tech_teams https://www.nyblom.io/blog/7_princinciples_for_effective_tech_teams 2025-05-25 I’ve been leading teams longer than I’ve worked in tech. Needless to say I’ve made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. I’ve boiled down some of these learnings into a set of 7 principles that I use when building effective tech teams. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/magical_1_on_1s https://www.nyblom.io/blog/magical_1_on_1s 2025-05-09 Every week, leaders across the tech industry sit down for their 1:1s. These meetings should be transformative moments where careers take shape and leaders emerge. Instead, they often devolve into status updates, technical debates, or worse, they become dreaded obligations that both parties endure rather than embrace. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/push_and_pause https://www.nyblom.io/blog/push_and_pause 2025-05-02 Most people intuitively understand that you need to take breaks when it comes to physical performance. Yet there are leaders who don’t think their teams need to pause to take a breath. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/building_organizational_resilience https://www.nyblom.io/blog/building_organizational_resilience 2025-04-25 Building a resilient organization doesn’t happen overnight. But you can start today by mapping your vulnerabilities to identify single points of failure in people, processes, or systems. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/from_certainty_to_curiosity https://www.nyblom.io/blog/from_certainty_to_curiosity 2025-04-18 Today I turn 39, and I am less certain than ever. I've built companies, led teams, invested in startups, and done more self-work than my 19-year-old self could have imagined. Yet with each passing year, it becomes clearer how much I don’t know. And surprisingly, this uncertainty brings more comfort than certainty ever did. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/exceptional_talent https://www.nyblom.io/blog/exceptional_talent 2025-04-11 The rewards for being the best at something are exponentially greater than being ok at many things. Even being just 10% better over time compounds into outpacing the competition dramatically. A few more customers lead to a little bit more money that can be invested into a few more ads leading to even more customers and so on. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_power_law_of_focus https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_power_law_of_focus 2025-04-04 The rewards for being the best at something are exponentially greater than being ok at many things. If you've been in business for a couple of years, you’ve probably heard this over and over again in the context of product strategy. But here's what's interesting - these same companies who get it right in terms of strategy can completely miss this principle when it comes to their people. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/shaping_who_you_become https://www.nyblom.io/blog/shaping_who_you_become 2025-03-28 The team didn’t need me to tell them how to build features. They needed to understand why we were building them in the first place. And as I removed myself from the day-to-day operations, the team started moving faster. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_quitting_problem https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_quitting_problem 2025-03-21 During a conversation with a fellow coach, I had a realization that shook me to my core. For the past five years, I’ve been clinging to an identity as “the person who made it,” and with that, reluctant to put myself in situations where that identity might be challenged. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/from_output_to_outcome https://www.nyblom.io/blog/from_output_to_outcome 2025-03-14 The team didn’t need me to tell them how to build features. They needed to understand why we were building them in the first place. And as I removed myself from the day-to-day operations, the team started moving faster. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_non_ai_edition https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_non_ai_edition 2025-03-07 AI seems to be everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re working with code, people or biology. The message seems to be the same. If you’re not using AI you’re falling behind. However, I think there is something even more important that is getting lost right now: The craft. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/personal_leadership https://www.nyblom.io/blog/personal_leadership 2025-02-28 “He was like a brother to me,” he said, tears welling in his eyes as we sat in our weekly 1-on-1. His voice cracked as he described the accident that had taken his family member just days before. In that moment, spreadsheets and project timelines evaporated from relevance. What mattered was the human being sitting across from me. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/work_hard_rest_hard https://www.nyblom.io/blog/work_hard_rest_hard 2025-02-21 Just like athletes need recovery between training sessions, organizations need breaks between periods of intense change. Weekends exists, of course. But I think that it’s important to also find a sustainable rhythm in your organization. This is especially important when leading people. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_quantity_quality_paradox https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_quantity_quality_paradox 2025-02-14 What we often call “perfectionism” isn’t actually about quality at all. It’s about fear. When we obsess over making something perfect in a context where speed and iteration would serve better, we’re not pursuing excellence - we’re avoiding the vulnerability of shipping something imperfect. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/staying_sane https://www.nyblom.io/blog/staying_sane 2025-02-07 The same tools that enable seamless collaboration across time zones—Slack, email, calendar invites—have created an expectation of perpetual accessibility. This isn’t just about interruptions; it’s about the cognitive toll of being always interruptible. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/reactive_mode_vs_strategic_mode https://www.nyblom.io/blog/reactive_mode_vs_strategic_mode 2025-01-31 The same tools that enable seamless collaboration across time zones—Slack, email, calendar invites—have created an expectation of perpetual accessibility. This isn’t just about interruptions; it’s about the cognitive toll of being always interruptible. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/complexity_is_the_mind-killer https://www.nyblom.io/blog/complexity_is_the_mind-killer 2025-01-24 It’s not so much that we invite complexity into our lives. It sneaks in through the back door, disguised as solutions. A new process here, an extra approval there. Each addition seems sensible. But together they form an invisible web that slowly strangles our organizations. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_cost_of_not_deciding https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_cost_of_not_deciding 2025-01-17 Your non-decisions are killing your business. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/stop_managing_down_start_leading_across https://www.nyblom.io/blog/stop_managing_down_start_leading_across 2025-01-10 There’s a common challenge I see, especially among new leaders: which team do they primarily belong to - Team 1 (their peer group) or Team 2 (their direct reports)? https://www.nyblom.io/blog/viktors_weekly_in_2025 https://www.nyblom.io/blog/viktors_weekly_in_2025 2024-12-27 2024 is about to end and as always I have earmarked a good chunk of time to reflect on everything I’ve been up to over the year. One of those things is my newsletter. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/you_dont_know_how_to_sprint https://www.nyblom.io/blog/you_dont_know_how_to_sprint 2024-12-20 It took learning how to ride a motorcycle to really understand what a sprint should feel like. And no, I’m not trying to be clever with metaphors here - there’s a very real lesson about tempo that changed how I think about building products. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/stop_solving_everyones_problems https://www.nyblom.io/blog/stop_solving_everyones_problems 2024-12-13 If you’re a manager you, you should never take the monkey (problem) of the back of your subordinates. Instead you should schedule regular feeding times and make sure your subordinates monkeys are well maintained (by asking questions and giving direction in person). https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_magic_of_constraints https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_magic_of_constraints 2024-12-06 Most of us dream of unlimited resources and complete freedom, but more freedom isn’t the solution - it’s the problem. When every option is available, decisions become overwhelming. Even worse, without boundaries, Parkinson’s Law says that work expands infinitely. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_best_laid_plans https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_best_laid_plans 2024-11-29 When it comes to planning, I prefer to optimise for agility more than anything else. Responding to new information over following a plan. Long term vision, yes. But I don’t fool myself into thinking that I can predict the future. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/do_what_i_do https://www.nyblom.io/blog/do_what_i_do 2024-11-22 As leaders, we often find ourselves frustrated when our teams don’t follow instructions. We’ve laid out the steps in the process clearly, so why is it so hard for people to follow them? https://www.nyblom.io/blog/trust_and_disruption https://www.nyblom.io/blog/trust_and_disruption 2024-11-15 There’s a rhythm I’ve noticed in effective leadership - a pattern that emerges when building high-performing teams. I call it the 90/10 rule: spend 90% of your time pulling people forward gently, and 10% pushing hard enough to break patterns. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/clearly_the_right_hire https://www.nyblom.io/blog/clearly_the_right_hire 2024-11-08 The best hire I ever made took no more than a handful of days. Not because I rushed. But because I knew exactly what I needed - both for now and for the future. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/fighting_chaos https://www.nyblom.io/blog/fighting_chaos 2024-11-01 Each day brings fresh crises. (If it doesn’t then maybe you’re not moving fast enough) This means that you need to prioritise and pick your fight for the day. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/why_i_write_revisited https://www.nyblom.io/blog/why_i_write_revisited 2024-10-25 Kevin Kelly puts it well: “I don’t think to write, I write to think. When I write, my mind clears up. But why write as a leader? https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_art_of_delegating https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_art_of_delegating 2024-10-18 My three favorite frameworks for getting delegation right. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/micromanage_more https://www.nyblom.io/blog/micromanage_more 2024-10-11 If you’re like most people, you’ve probably been taught to delegate, trust your team, and avoid micromanagement at all costs. That’s all good in a normal company. But what if that advice is dead wrong for startups? https://www.nyblom.io/blog/on_clarity https://www.nyblom.io/blog/on_clarity 2024-10-04 Your team needs to know where they're going, how to get there, why it matters now, and what their part in it all. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/just_in_case_or_just_in_time https://www.nyblom.io/blog/just_in_case_or_just_in_time 2024-09-27 As a startup you want to be running as fast as possible. Doing to much up front slows you down, which means you need to wait with everything until the last possible moment. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/less_is_more https://www.nyblom.io/blog/less_is_more 2024-09-20 Your product tells a story about how many problems you're trying to solve at the same time. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_power_of_focus_in_finding_product_market_fit https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_power_of_focus_in_finding_product_market_fit 2024-09-13 when it comes to finding Product Market Fit, “AND” is a red flag. What you really want is a big, bold OR! https://www.nyblom.io/blog/shaping_the_environment https://www.nyblom.io/blog/shaping_the_environment 2024-09-06 Spending a little bit of time thinking about how your management systems influence both culture and results is not just nice, it's necessary. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/playing_to_win https://www.nyblom.io/blog/playing_to_win 2024-08-30 Startups often begin in a state of organised chaos, rapidly testing hypotheses to find their footing. As a company matures it needs to start looking at strategy as more than just a buzzword. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_canada_principle https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_canada_principle 2024-08-23 Once upon a time Netflix looked at expanding to Canada. Should be simple, right? Wrong. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/standards_by_design https://www.nyblom.io/blog/standards_by_design 2024-06-20 The problem isn’t that people are making bad choices. It’s that they’re making choices by default rather than by design. Nobody sat down and said “For our product, at our stage, with our customers, what should our standard for quality actually be?” https://www.nyblom.io/blog/seasons https://www.nyblom.io/blog/seasons 2024-01-17 Everything in life moves in Seasons. Season has its theme, and when a Season has passed it never comes again. Use fact in all areas of life to give yourself superpowers https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_great_rewrite https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_great_rewrite 2023-11-03 Rewriting a piece of software is a daunting task. And sometimes straight-up dangerous. In this post, I explore the pros and cons of a rewrite, and share some examples along the way. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_ideal_customer_profile https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_ideal_customer_profile 2023-10-18 Selling to everyone means selling to no one. The Ideal Customer Profile is a tool you can use to gain clarity about who you are selling to. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_unfair_advantage https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_unfair_advantage 2023-10-02 Don't get caught up in perceived unfair advantages. The only thing that matters is doing quality work. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/build_something_different https://www.nyblom.io/blog/build_something_different 2023-08-24 Building a company is hard. Building a company while obsessing over competition is even harder. Stop competing and build something different! https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_availability_trap https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_availability_trap 2023-07-15 Have you ever experienced days where you've been mostly responding to other people's requests and by the end of the day you're not sure if you've gotten any work done? Then this post is for you! https://www.nyblom.io/blog/top_five_mistakes_as_an_angel_investor https://www.nyblom.io/blog/top_five_mistakes_as_an_angel_investor 2023-03-29 Angel investing is about making good decisions. The right decisions will give you money to last a lifetime and the wrong decision can lead to losing a lot of money. Having been angel investing for over four years now, I’ve made quite a few mistakes. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_four_stages_of_a_startup_cto https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_four_stages_of_a_startup_cto 2023-03-22 Throughout a startup's journey, the role of the CTO goes through four different stages, and each stage requires different types of leadership. Knowing what stage you are in and where the focus should lie is key for both CTO and founder. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/exiting_your_angel_investment https://www.nyblom.io/blog/exiting_your_angel_investment 2023-03-08 My first two blog posts on angel investing were about getting into deals. This one is about how you get money back. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/syndicated_angel_investing https://www.nyblom.io/blog/syndicated_angel_investing 2023-02-10 Angel investing with other angels is a great way to manage risk and increase the likelihood of getting into the best deals. In this post, I try to explain why. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/a_shitty_first_draft https://www.nyblom.io/blog/a_shitty_first_draft 2023-01-29 Writing is editing. If you're having trouble writing something good, start by writing something bad. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/angel_investing_for_fun_and_profit https://www.nyblom.io/blog/angel_investing_for_fun_and_profit 2023-01-08 Angel investing has gained a lot of popularity. Here is my attempt to write the introduction post that I would have wanted to read when I started out almost four years ago. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/youre_doing_fine https://www.nyblom.io/blog/youre_doing_fine 2023-01-03 If someone had given me ten cents every time I heard the sentence in the title, I would be a very wealthy man. However, that sentence is a perfect example of the worst type of feedback you can give someone. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/effortless https://www.nyblom.io/blog/effortless 2022-10-28 Life is cumbersome when you work on other people's plans. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_focusing_question https://www.nyblom.io/blog/the_focusing_question 2022-07-02 Focusing on the right thing is hard. In his book, The One Thing, Gary Keller argues that you can use a single question to find actionable insight about where to direct your energy and focus. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/breaking_point https://www.nyblom.io/blog/breaking_point 2022-05-22 Most people I speak to have experienced some form of burnout. This is my story of the day that it happened to me. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/managing_remote_teams https://www.nyblom.io/blog/managing_remote_teams 2022-05-03 Managing is hard. Managing when you can't see your team every day seems even harder. Covid forced the and of many companies and the genie is not going back into the bottle. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/why_blog https://www.nyblom.io/blog/why_blog 2022-03-25 I have finally decided to start putting my ideas where other people can see them. In this post I try to reason about why I do this in the first place. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/how_to_slack https://www.nyblom.io/blog/how_to_slack 2022-02-26 As covid hit and people who were used to working in an office had to start working remotely, Slack (and similar tools) became the de facto standard for communication. However, bad practices quickly lead to availability stress followed by burnout. This is a collection of rules that I use to avoid this. https://www.nyblom.io/blog/left_right_and_left_again https://www.nyblom.io/blog/left_right_and_left_again 2019-01-13 One thing that I have been thinking a lot about lately though is the misuse of the word velocity. When most companies and teams say that they are measuring velocity they actually mean speed. But as it turns out, direction matters!