Retool, for those who don’t know, is a low-code platform allowing even non-developers to build a web app. With a no/low code person (me) and a deeply experienced developer (the boyfriend), we thought this would be a cool new tool to learn. I’ve used Glide in the past, taking an excel sheet compiling a list of some of my knitting patterns and details of each pattern. Glide let me make an app with my only code experience being HTML.

I’ve realized that so much of my life is product and project management if I want to survive chaos with minimal difficulty. One example is home renos. Renovating requires product and project managing my own home. What is the theme for my home? What fix or renovation do we prioritize? How much are we willing to spend? What items should we buy higher quality/brand vs a good, generic, less expensive option?

I took the Professional Scrum Master I exam. Why? Because I want to be more agile. I have a lot of startup experience on almost every front, but as I tell people, I don’t do the programming. So, I decided to check out Scrum and certification. Ultimately, I chose Scrum.org’s certification. The exam is based on the Scrum Guide, a short 11 page PDF. You might think, the test must be easy then.

Okay, I don’t actually hate sexy, I’m just not into “sexy” businesses. If I’m rolling into a pitch with a pair of shades saying, this is the “hottest new thing - like sex but with computers”, I’ve done something wrong. After working for and with many startups, the things I am most interested in are businesses that don’t ooze sex appeal. I like businesses that enable positive changes or facilitate important aspects of our life.

When you get a warm introduction or have someone pass along your deck, that’s the first chance you get in front of a VC (and possibly the only chance). As a founder, you think, “all they need to see is how awesome my idea is, our business plan, and then it will be inevitable.” There are many websites that tell you the standard slides you need for an investor deck. Problem, solution, opportunity, go to market, business model, financials, tech, timeline, team, competition, ask.

One of the things that baffles me with SQL is how some things make complete sense, but when you apply the same logic, it just doesn’t work. For example: select * from payments where amount > 20; This works and it makes sense that it works. Then you try this: select * from payments where avg(amount); And you get a grouping error. Which makes no sense. Why shouldn’t you be able to make that work?

In my last post, I talked about my previous misadventures with SQL. However, I still liked what I had practiced in the CodeAcademy trial. With that in mind, I went in search of SQL course rankings and found one called Code with Mosh. The course called, Complete SQL Mastery is a deep dive into SQL and the possibilities. It’s a series of guided video courses that pair MySQL with a database that Mosh provides for learning.

Okay, so typing this out generally speaks to my literacy, but when it comes to programming languages, it’s like all my years of schooling mean nothing. My only foray was trying first few lessons of Haskell in CodeAcademy many years ago. I haven’t done more than self-taught HTML (enough to bang out a reasonable website for an early stage company with limited budget) and talking nerdy to my close friends and family.

This is a note about the links in my navigation: Resume & Fibrary. Years ago, someone told me about this interesting tool called glideapp. It’s a way to create a no-code app. Seeing as how my attempt to learn Haskell is currently on indefinite hiatus, this seemed like an ideal tool to try. It lets me fill a Google sheet with tabs, columns, and rows of information that becomes an interactive app.