Aaron White

Big Changes

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:52:00 -0400

It’s hard to imagine a time more intense or enjoyable than the last few years I’ve spent building Boundless with Ariel & team. We took a bold idea, partnered with bold investors, had the good fortune to assemble one of the smartest teams in Boston, and willed into existence an important and transformative education company - one that will continue to shape the landscape for a very long-time. And we’re on a tear, Boundless is now used by students at over half of US colleges. Our open textbooks were recently released under Creative Commons open licenses, and since then have helped over half a million people!

There is a great irony in Boundless accomplishing so much so quickly. We have put in place an incredible team that is executing down our ambitious multi-year roadmap, and for the experimental & techie startup-er that is my core, this presents a challenge: what do you do when you’ve carefully & consistently hired amazing people who can really lead and scale each facet of the organization?

In this particular circumstance, and after careful consideration, I’ve decided to step down as CTO and my day-to-day work. I leave engineering running as it has already been for the last year: in the incredibly capable hands of our VP Engineering, Matt Hodgson. While I’ll certainly miss being a part of the daily energy in the office, I will continue to assist and advise the company strategically as both a member of the board, and as a passionate advocate for our team & our mission to dramatically improve the state of higher education in the US - there’s much to be done!

As for what else may come next for me, I’m still burdened by an intense passion for making the world better through software, and since the world isn’t perfect just yet, I suspect there are plenty of areas left to explore :)

Hiring and Leading a Superpowered Team

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:32:00 -0400

Hiring and Leading a Superpowered Team:

This Intelligently class, run by Boundless’s own Nick Ducoff, should not be missed. Nick is an incredible manager/operator/entrepreneur, and has taught us tons - building out a killer team, getting everyone on the same page, and executing down complex projects without missing a heartbeat, paradoxically hitting outrageous goals with reliable predictability. A great deal of his success comes down to his team management process - set goals, get aligned, be humane, and run like hell.

He’s given me a sneak preview of the outline, and I’m excited for the talk - if you want to learn how to create & run killer teams, you’ll want to attend. See you there!

Boundless Engineering just cooked up an awesome internal...

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:08:37 -0500

Boundless Engineering just cooked up an awesome internal change-log dashboard for the company.

Naturally, seeing the gift icon causes quick adrenaline bursts :)

Gave a quick in office-presentation on how students should think...

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:53:47 -0500

Gave a quick in office-presentation on how students should think about getting a job at a startup. Hope some of you find it useful!

Links and slides are available on the Boundless Blog over here.

Whiteboard or Die

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 09:51:20 -0400

I have a theory: “He who controls the whiteboard controls the conversation.” There’s a certain level of implied command when you’re standing in front of the room putting your ideas into writing, or real-time editing the thoughts of others (no matter how subtlety)

If you’re an introvert, it may be extremely hard to combat this extrovert-controlled reality.

At Boundless, we do our best to make sure everyone is a capable “whiteboard warrior”, allowing the best ideas to surface. The best way to ensure such equality, is by hiring folks who are comfortable communicators - one of the reasons we screen all candidates by asking them to give a full-team presentation. Can they hold the companies attention and make a point?

If they can’t, how likely are they to do so in the next group meeting? Or the one after that?

What's Your Superpower?

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:48:30 -0400

When I get to know someone, I make it a point to identify their superpower: what’s the one thing they truly excel at? And once you know someone’s singular, superlative-strength, great things can happen! Over the past few years, I’ve met and worked with some exceptional people. I’d like to share a few super-hero friends/colleagues & their powers with you:

Ariel Diaz: Vision

Ariel has strong, detailed, and vivid visions of how the world ought to be. This gives him exceptional perspective on what can-be, should-be, and what it will take to get there.

Brian Balfour: Insight

Brian has the uncanny ability to both actively and passively ingest large amounts of data, reflect privately for a while, and then drop some serious insight bombs that are truly mind-blowing.

Christopher O’Donnell: Product

Is there someone in Boston who is the spiritual successor to Steve Jobs? Tough to say, but if you asked me to cast my vote, I’d hand it to happily to Christopher. His no-BS, this-is-exactly-what-we-need-to attitude makes him a phenomenal product person

Patrick Campbell: Execution

The youngest in this list, Patrick’s ability to STFU and GSD is inspiring. This guy just cranks, unabashedly and without hesitation.

Chris Keller: Networking

Ever wonder how to network to someone who is important to you? Chances are Chris Keller already knows them, hang/vacations with them, and is more than ready to make a friendly intro; he’s the best startup-connector I know.

Nick Ducoff: Management

TIme and time again, Nick has show the team at Boundless what exceptional management is truly about: recruiting, nurturing, planning & delivering. I can’t imagine building our company without him.

Matt Hodgson: Making Stuff

Matt can build anything, and build it well. He sees past the nuance, past the unimportant, and cuts straight to the core of how software should be made. This allows him to skip to the chase on construction, and lead a team to conquering the heart of a problem, producing beautiful results along the way.

—————

What’s your superpower? What are those of your closest colleagues & friends? It’s worth answering explicitly for every exceptional person that you meet.

You're a Neuron, Upgrade Yourself

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:27:03 -0400

(Subtitle: buy the iPhone 5 or any other phone-upgrade you can afford)

I have a pet theory I’ll share fully another day, but the gist of it is that as a knowledge worker, you’re a neuron in an emerging global organism (society), routing information and influencing other cells (humans) to keep the organism alive.

As a neuron, even a 20% boost in ‘dendritical’ or ‘axonic’ capability/speed is HUGELY meaningful…. so why would you spend anytime at all debating whether you’d upgrade your phone, on-cycle or not? You just should.

My friend, Eric, makes a similar point here.

I don’t understand why there is any debate if you even remotely have the means.

Upgrade yourself now!

Photo

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:29:09 -0400

How Healthy Is Your Office?

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 10:26:04 -0400

How Healthy Is Your Office? :

boundlessinc:

When building a company, it’s easy to neglect one of the most crucial resources in your arsenal—your team’s health.

Getting a company off the ground requires tremendous effort from everyone involved, but if you’re proactive about building a healthy culture, you can help keep the team happy and productive, even in stressful times.

At Boundless, employee health is extremely important to us. Here’s a peek inside of our office and our general health philosophy, including a few easy tips for making sure you’re creating a healthy culture of your own.

CRAFTING A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT

It can be tough to control your space when you’re sharing an office with other companies, but once you’ve moved into your own office, there are plenty of opportunities to ensure that you’re building a healthy environment for your employees.

1. Embrace the Power of Plants

Researchers aren’t entirely sure why, but indoor plants help reduce stress, so you should definitely consider adding some greenery to your space.

Unless you’ve got a green thumb, be sure to choose plants that are fairly resilient. We’ve had plenty of employees inadvertently kill bonsais, orchids and the like, and the frustration can negate the benefits these plants bring.

Take it from our CMO, Brian Balfour: When in doubt, go with cacti.

2. Seek Natural Light

Natural light is also key—ideal for protecting vision and keeping employees productive, it keeps the body’s regulatory processes running smoothly. If you don’t have windows, consider a skylight or holding regular brainstorms on a walk outside to get some crucial Vitamin D.

3. Get Stand-Up Desks

Research has shown that sitting in front of a computer all day can have negative effects on your short AND long-term health, so companies everywhere are catching on to the appeal of stand-up desks.

At Boundless, most of our team rocks stand-up desks, and many have found that it makes them feel much more energetic than hunching in front of a computer all day. Standing up while working can also help prevent slouching and alleviate back problems.

Don’t be fooled by stand-up setups that cost hundreds of dollars—we whip up adjustable desks for just under $70 with easy-to-assemble IKEA parts (Desk top and adjustable legs here).

FUELING THE TEAM

4. Offer Healthy Snacks

The ever-present stress that startup life brings can sap resources quickly, so be sure to have snacks on hand to help the team keep their energy levels in check.

At Boundless, we provide healthy snacks—like tea, coffee, nuts and dried fruit— because they’re delicious and incredibly easy to keep in supply via Amazon’s subscription service (which can offer serious savings—details here.)

Remember: it’s important to keep decaf options on hand for those who shun caffeine. We’ve seen a surprising amount of employees make the decaf switch over the last few months, and most report sleeping far better afterward.

Then again, most of these decaf converts fall off the wagon every other week, but this is a startup after all…

5. Everything in Moderation

It’s also key not to be draconian with your health focus—beer and wine are usually on hand at Boundless to help those who want to unwind toward the end of the day, and birthdays often see a major spike in workers’ sugar intake.

Thankfully, we have a couch for napping in the back room to help them work through the inevitable post-birthday-cake crash.

6. Repeat After Us: “Embrace the Nap”

Rested employees are far more productive and make better decisions than their sleep-deprived counterparts, so resist scoffing at the idea of “sleeping on the job.”

Many companies are catching on to the benefits of napping, and at Boundless, we’d rather see our employees refreshed then propping their eyelids open with paperclips.

7. Promote Frequent Breaks

Everyone’s work style is different. With that said, we encourage all of our employees to take regular breaks to help them decompress and handle the endless stream of tasks that roll in while working at a startup.

A number of our employees take to the basketball court across the street for frequent disengagement sessions or even take a quick lap around the block. Stepping away from a difficult problem or project for a moment can bring some much needed clarity.

8. Find and Encourage Bike Storage

Most of our employees are very active—rock climbing on the weekends, training for half and full marathons—and many bike to work everyday. It’s essential to offer bike storage for those who commute via bike, and we’ve set aside a separate closet to accommodate our growing team’s rides. Biking to the office has a number of environmental and health benefits, so it’s great to encourage this practice whenever possible.

9. Foster Healthy Competition and Activities

Also, although it’s currently out of commission due to some construction, we have a ping-pong table to encourage the team to get up from their desks and clear their minds.

We’ve also found that it’s great to give employees space to introduce their fellow teammates to their passions. Amy, one of our Content Leads, practices yoga regularly, and she’s been kind enough to lead us through a few in-office sessions to help the team decompress during particularly tough weeks.

Amy preparing to lead the team in Warrior Pivot Pose on our roof

10. Allow Pets in the Office

Finally, we’ve got our very own office dog, Pepe. Primarily on hand to guard HQ from intruders, he’s also eminently adorable (see below).

Dogs in the workplace have been shown to significantly reduce stress, so consider allowing your employees to bring their own pets, if your landlord will consider it and you’ve got the space. Keep employees’ allergies in mind here too—make sure the team is comfortable sharing their workspace with a new four-legged colleague.

Beware of Pepe

Creating a healthy culture is an extremely important investment. Remember: you need your team to be performing at their best, and they’ll greatly appreciate you looking out for their well-being.

Also, these health tips are by no means exhaustive—be sure to check out sites like LifeHacker for additional productivity ideas.

Think your company’s got a healthy culture? Have a great tip to share with the community? Let us know about it by posting a comment below or sending us a note on twitter @GoBoundless!

Crafting a healthy/fun/productive culture has been a blast! PS: we’re hiring!

Boundless Engineering: Why Scala? Our Take at Boundless

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:38:50 -0400

Boundless Engineering: Why Scala? Our Take at Boundless:

boundlessengineering:

Nearly a year-and-a-half ago, Boundless Learning made the decision to use Scala as our backend language for three reasons:

Functional programming & static-typing make for better code

The robustness of the Java ecosystem

The language hiring bias/paradox

Functional Programming & Static Typing

First of many technical blog posts from the team here at Boundless, we hope you’ll follow along!

I'm Done Developing for Twitter

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:39:00 -0400

There’s a reason my side projects have favored the Twitter platform: I’m a fan of the service, and earnestly want to improve the experience of her users. No more: Twitter is a hostile partner to developers and has bluntly terminated my projects without so much as a reason.

First it was Proxlet (now defunct). Chris Ricca and I built Proxlet because we wanted to improve our Twitter experience. It’s too easy to resent your tweet-stream when it’s overflowing with #FollowFridays, Paper.li and other assorted tweet-spam. So we did something about it: we built the ultimate Twitter API Proxy that would allow us to mute undesirable applications and hashtags in a way that could work w/ nearly every important native or web client. It was a huge hit, well covered by major tech blogs, gaining a large following and even dedicated support in native clients.

One day, Twitter decided to take issue with the implementation. Instead of reaching out to us to warn us of any potential action, they unceremoniously shut our application down, leaving every single one of our users in a broken state: suddenly their clients just stopped working; they had no way of knowing how to recover, and we had no time to prepare to tell them.

Flash forward half a year, I built a small app called TweetFavor. It was built for two reasons, the first to help my friends and I coordinate tweeting. Instead of receiving an email request saying “hey tweet this!” you receive an email and can pledge a single tweet of your choice the requester can redeem in the future. The second reason I built it was to teach students at Intelligent.ly how to build Google App Engine, Twitter Bootstrap apps. Imagine my surprise when mid-class, Twitter shutdowns down TweetFavor without any reason given. As far as I can tell, it in no way violates their terms of service, but even more insulting, it looks like they never even logged into to investigate it.

All my developer goodwill towards Twitter has been exhausted. They’ve demonstrated not once to me, but twice, that they have no desire to work with developers, but rather antagonize them as they see fit.

Moral of the story: be-wary of developing applications with dependency to a platform. And if you’re doing so for hobby projects, let this serve as a guide about where you should steer your efforts.

/endrant /endtwitterdev

"If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they..."

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 06:16:38 -0400

“If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they would have said that a decentralized network of information nodes that are linked using hypertext.”

- Sep Kamvar (via cdixon)

kottke.org: The Wirecutter goes long on standing desks

Wed, 30 May 2012 23:07:58 -0400

kottke.org: The Wirecutter goes long on standing desks:

jkottke:

The fantastically obsessive Mark Lukach just spent an outlandish amount of time researching stand-up desks and shared his findings at The Wirecutter. Even if you have no interest in standing on the job, The Wirecutter is worth a visit for their concise and excellent guides on what to buy from…

"Machines may one day realize they are alive, but long before that we’ll realize we’re..."

Sun, 13 May 2012 23:20:52 -0400

“Machines may one day realize they are alive, but long before that we’ll realize we’re all just machines.”

I fear for future generations of programmers. Carefully engineered systems with the best of...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:08:00 -0400

I fear for future generations of programmers. Carefully engineered systems with the best of intentions turn into organic abstraction-sprawls as we build more and more on top of the old.

I can easily lose hours of my day code-diving into software, systems, and services conceived & built 1 year ago, 10 years ago, or 30 years ago.

In a hundred years from now, code-spelunkers will find the rabbit hole goes FAR deeper than they’d imagined (or feared). Despite my belief we’ll be building better tooling to compensate, there will always be rough edges, and cliffs.

Dear future: be careful where you step.

$8M in Funding and a Lawsuit to Boot? Game on.

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:37:11 -0400

Nearly a year to the day we began, we’re ready to tell the story of one of the most broken yet important areas of education.

boundlessinc:

It’s been a hell of a year for Boundless Learning. We’ve raised $8 million in new funding, reached thousands of students with our products and innovated in an industry that’s long overdue for disruption.

But whenever there’s a great party, there are bound to be crashers.

In late March, we were sued by 3 of the world’s largest publishing companies for alleged copyright infringement.

Don’t worry—we won’t let the fact that someone slipped a lawsuit in the punchbowl ruin our good time (we have a lot more punch).

Boundless is committed to bringing educational content into the 21st century, and we remain focused on our mission.

—-

Introducing Boundless

We’ve been plugging away in our bunker in Boston for the last year building products that reinvent the way that students engage with educational content.

Today, we’re thrilled to emerge and announce that we’ve recently raised an $8 Million Series A round of funding led by Venrock with follow on investments from Kepha Partners, Founder Collective and Nextview Ventures.

We’re very proud to be working with such an esteemed group of investors, and this new round will be critical in helping us realize our goal of giving students educational products that are actually built with them in mind. We’re also working with an incredible group of advisors with deep experience in education, publishing and the OER community.

A Broken Market with Little Innovation

Of all of the pieces of the learning equation, the one most ripe for disruption is the educational content industry. Textbooks remain the core content for most courses in higher education, yet they’re completely obsolete: expensive, disconnected relics of an analog age.

According to The College Board, the average college student spends over $1,000 per year on textbooks. At community colleges, the cost of textbooks alone can often exceed 50% of a student’s overall educational expenses.

Is it any wonder that 7 in 10 college students have skipped buying a required text due to price concerns?

There’s one other major concern: textbooks are just flat-out terrible products. They’re ineffective pedagogical tools: dense collections of long-form text that fail to engage students’ wide range of learning styles.

Everyone has a favorite teacher, but no one has a favorite textbook.

Technology has improved quality and reduced the costs of production and distribution in almost every other content-centered industry. How have the textbook publishers managed to maintain their antiquated business model for so long?

Textbook Publishers: A History of Exploiting Students

The textbook publishing market is an oligopoly, with over 80% of the textbook market controlled by the top 4 publishers: Pearson, Cengage, Wiley and McGraw-Hill.

These publishers have been able to maintain nearly 65% gross margins on what is essentially a commodity product. They have continued to raise prices for this stagnant product in the face of innovation in every other information related industry, growing at a rate of 3 times inflation.

Additionally, these publishers have maintained their grip on the industry with questionable sales tactics and anti-competitive actions. In fact, these abusive tactics are so egregious that it forced Congress and the President to intervene.

In 2008, President Obama signed the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA) into law to increase transparency in education and help students navigate the costs associated with pursuing a degree. The HEOA requires, among other things, that textbook publishers “unbundle” their core educational content from optional add-ons like study guides or homework systems.

Unfortunately, many publishers have failed to comply with HEOA’s demands. These publishers continue to package their content with expensive access codes to “homework systems”—glorified online quizzes that often charge students up to $90 just to submit their required classwork.

Stifling Innovation to Protect an Outdated Business Model

These publishers’ antiquated business models and fat margins are being threatened from all directions, and we’re the ones that caught their eye.

On March 23, we received word that we’ve been sued for alleged copyright infringement by Pearson Education, Cengage Learning and Bedford, Freeman & Worth.

Change is hard, particularly when it’s disruptive.

It’s disappointing that these companies chose to open communication with us via litigation. We’re currently preparing our full response, and we believe that the allegations in this lawsuit are without merit and we will defend our company and mission vigorously.

These publishers are threatened by innovation and have responded by wrongfully claiming ownership of open knowledge and information. We respect the legitimate intellectual property rights of others, but facts, ideas, and other not newly created material are not protected by copyright and cannot be owned by anyone.

Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, has rightly argued that successful copyright policy has to be based on neutrality and should not “preserve business models established under obsolete or moribund technologies.”

Like the major players in the music industry 10 years ago, textbook publishers are now faced with fighting a battle that they’re doomed to lose: asking consumers to continue to foot the bill for an overpriced, lackluster content experience.

Seeking a Solution

In higher education, students are the ones who ultimately bear the cost of textbooks, as professors decide which text is required for their course. Professors have no real incentive to find the most affordable solution for their students. Likewise, given that they’re essentially selling to a captive audience, there’s no pressure for publishers to cut costs.

Every semester, students face the same frustrations—hunting for “custom” editions that are exactly the same as the original text and coughing up hundreds of dollars for “new” editions that offer little significant change from their predecessors.

Outside companies have worked to develop more beautiful and engaging digital textbooks—see Inkling, Apple and Kno—but their offerings are stifled by DRM and availability issues.

Publishers “digital’ offerings are no more exciting. Most digital textbooks published today are little more than glorified PDFs, scanned versions of print content with no innovation or attempts to improve the content consumption experience.

In short, these products are failing because they are not focused on the primary consumer: the student.

Boundless: Building a Better Solution

Students are angry, and they’re ready for change.

At Boundless, we realized that the sad state of the textbook industry is especially startling when you consider the wealth of Open Educational Resources (OER) that has been created over the last 20 years by leading educators and institutions. Top tier universities, professors, and faculty have created amazing educational content, which has remained disconnected from existing students—until now.

Boundless’ first beta offering was a 100%-free textbook replacement that leveraged these open resources to prevent students from being forced to shell out hundreds of dollars on their assigned texts.

Boundless textbook alternatives enabled students to access relevant course content anywhere, take notes and highlights and focus on key terms and concepts.

This initial product was just the first step toward our goal of making the world’s open knowledge free, open and accessible.

Students Are Loving Boundless

Since launching our private beta in the fall of 2011, we’ve reached thousands of students at over 1,000 universities across the country.

On average, students who used Boundless throughout the fall semester rated the experience 50% better than a physical textbook.

The average grade received was a B+, with 80% of our users reporting that they received the grade they wanted or higher.

As a result, 92% of users reported recommending Boundless to a friend.

Looking Ahead

The last year has been an incredible learning experience for the Boundless team. Our most important lessons have come from working directly with students to help hone our core product into an indispensable educational tool.

We have been working towards a new iteration of our core product that makes it easier still for students to consume educational content, gain real-time feedback and master the relevant content for their courses.

It seems obvious now, but that’s hindsight for you. The product that is going to replace textbooks isn’t going to look anything like a traditional text.

We remain focused on building a content platform that integrates students’ course content across disciplines and offers unparalleled accessibility, affordability and academic effectiveness.

We will not let the recent litigation distract us from our mission, and can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on—we’ll be releasing our new offering soon.

Sign up today to get early access to our next release.

Ariel Diaz
CEO
Boundless Learning

Just say no to testing red vs blue

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:09:10 -0400

Just say no to testing red vs blue:

Great reality check / advice

nabeel:

The problem with A/B testing is not the testing, it’s the inputs. If you are an early stage company and you need 2x returns you need to be swinging big.

I personally found this hilarious, tested these 2 ads for the sake of curiosity 15k impressions each:

- Nice picture of actual in-game content
- Green call to action button w/ “free”, “free online racing”
- Trust symbol (EA = reputable, Need For Speed = huge reputable franchise)

VS

- Some shit ad I made in 5 mins in Microsoft Paint.

Results? 0.049% CTR vs. 0.137 CTR in favor of the shit ad in Microsoft Paint. I also tested speed lines vs. no speed lines behind the car and speed lines won LOL. So what does this prove? Every idea that you have is worth testing, no matter how crappy you think it is.

Badass JavaScript: WebKit.js: Yes it has finally happened! Browser Inception is now possible.

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:47:00 -0400

Badass JavaScript: WebKit.js: Yes it has finally happened! Browser Inception is now possible.:

badassjs:

I knew this was going to happen eventually, it was just a matter of time. WebKit has been ported to JavaScript, and no, this is not just some Emscripten compile, it is a full hand port of the popular browser engine to JS. WebKit.js uses WebGL as a rendering backend and basically enables…

a face in a cloud: Minimalist

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 11:26:50 -0400

a face in a cloud: Minimalist:

afraser:

Last night I noticed just how ugly the Disqus comment system makes my blog pages so I decided to take a knife to it and I thought I’d share some code.

.disquscomments h3, .disquscomments #dsq-sort-select, .disquscomments #dsq-pagination, .disquscomments .dsq-comment-footer, .disquscomments...

Great Disqus trimming CSS. Will be adding to this blog in 3, 2 …

“In science we trust, all others pay cash” ;-)

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 03:44:37 -0500

“In science we trust, all others pay cash” ;-)