Connor Proctor

Claude Code just released Agent Teams with Opus 4.6. This is insane. You talk to one team lead agent. It spawns a frontend dev, backend dev, and QA engineer. They all work at the same time. Here's the part that got me: The agents talk to each other. If the frontend needs something from the backend, it asks directly. If QA finds a bug, it flags the right agent. The team lead just orchestrates. It doesn't write code. It manages. Before this, you could run multiple agents in parallel. But they couldn't communicate. The frontend would build one thing, the backend would build another, and nothing connected properly. Now they coordinate like an actual team. You can check in anytime. Ask "how is everyone doing?" and get a full status report. Backend dev: 3 of 6 tasks done. Frontend: 1 of 6. QA: 0 of 2. It even builds you a Kanban board right in the terminal. The agents also update each other automatically. Backend notified QA that the data layer wasn't ready. No one told it to. One prompt. Three agents. Full coordination and real time visibility. I put together a free step-by-step guide on how to set this up from scratch: → How to enable Agent Teams → How the team lead delegates and orchestrates → How agents communicate with each other → How to monitor progress across all agents in real time Want the full guide? 1. Connect with me 2. Comment "TEAMS" Ps. Repost this to your network for priority access 👇

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A little while ago I posted about Sacramento Labs being interested in acquiring software products and heard from a number of folks I hadn’t talked to in a while. The responses and conversations were genuinely great. (Original post here: https://lnkd.in/g-6hjy6q) After talking it through, Garrett Milster and I decided to formalize something we were already doing informally: we’re offering a $10,000 referral fee for any warm introduction to a company that we end up acquiring. A few notes for clarity: -The introduction needs to be a direct, warm introduction (email or message). -Public listings or cold forwards don’t qualify. -Referral fees are paid after closing and are contingent on a completed acquisition. -There’s no expectation of ongoing involvement unless explicitly discussed. If you come across a software business that feels like it might be a fit for us, feel free to make an intro.

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"Delusional." Been hearing that word a lot recently. Every founder in SF has it. Every great company was built on it. You'll sit in a coffee shop on Valencia Street and the person next to you is building the next Google with "higher search semantics powered through agentic workflows". You grab dinner in SoMa and someone's explaining why their pre-revenue vibe-coded startup is going to be bigger than Salesforce. "This guy is delusional". Is what I thought when I first encountered scenarios like these, before realizing that I sounded the exact same way to people I tried to sell my idea to. After two weeks, this is what I've learned being out here: The line between delusion and vision is just execution. Every billion-dollar company started as a delusional idea pitched by someone who had no business pitching it. Airbnb was "strangers sleeping in your house." Uber was "get in a random person's car." Stripe was "two 19-year-olds are going to fix payments." Delusional. All of it. Until it wasn't. SF literally runs on delusion. The energy here is different because everyone around you has decided to bet on themselves despite the odds. It's simply the entrance fee — whether or not you make it depends on how hard you're willing to work afterwards. The people who worry about sounding delusional are the ones who never build anything. The people who lean into it — those who are a little too confident, a little too ambitious, and/or a little too early are the ones who end up changing things. That being said, how will you feed into your delusions this week? #startup #founder #sf p.s. this is a video of chinatown where we got cream buns that were quite mid

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Custom software feels smart. Until it doesn’t. Early on, the calls are quick. Move fast. Keep it lean. Ship what users want. But at $10M ARR, those early choices start to show cracks. Here’s what breaks: 1️⃣ It wasn’t built to grow ↳ The tools don’t scale ↳ Updates feel risky 2️⃣ Too much lives in people’s heads ↳ Only a few know how it works ↳ If they leave, you’re stuck 3️⃣ The fast way becomes the hard way ↳ Quick fixes pile up ↳ And small issues turn into big ones 4️⃣ What works now? ↳ Tools you can reuse ↳ Clear notes anyone can follow ↳ Tech that’s solid, not shiny 5️⃣ Most problems aren’t bugs ↳ They’re things no one saw coming ↳ You don’t need more engineers ↳ You need fewer unknowns Getting to $1M is about speed. Getting to $50M is about structure. If your team is feeling the strain, you’re not alone. ♻️ Repost if you’ve watched fast code slow down a good team 👉 Follow me for more real stories on what actually scales

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Valuations Are Vanity, Runway Is Sanity I’ve spent the last few months advising some Bay Area preseed-stage founders on their first fundraise. Seed funding now seems to be split into two camps: profit-first bootstrappers who ship instead of pitch, and “priced-to-perfection” startups with $50–500K ARR snagging $40–60M post-money term sheets from multiple VCs. From my experience, I’ve seen the fallout, higher burn, bigger milestones, and a flat round when growth stalls. My advice is straightforward. Price for runway, not headlines, leaving room for a 2–3× step-up before Series A. Build real revenue momentum and keep churn low before chasing sky-high valuations. I also suggest founders vet investors on how they’ll help you hire, ship, land customers, and reserve follow-on capital, because cash is fuel, not confetti. A true VC partner still answers the call if the market cools or gets competitive, and that’s dilution worth taking. #startups #startupfunding #venturecapital

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Most manufacturer workflows today are automated, not autonomous. A recent Redwood Software report shows nearly 3 in 4 manufacturers operate in Managed or Controlled automation states. Workflows run, tasks execute, systems fire. But humans still step in constantly to fix data, resolve exceptions, and keep things moving. Only ~2% report truly autonomous operations. This is not an orchestration problem. It is a product truth problem. Traditional automation only works on predefined paths. Autonomy requires systems that can handle change, ambiguity, and exceptions as reality shifts. That is why piling on more workflows does not get you there. Autonomous execution requires agents that can: -> Interpret messy inputs like specs, CAD files, PDFs, and supplier data -> Reconcile conflicting versions of product truth across systems -> Decide when to act, when to escalate, and when to update the source of truth In other words, agents need to operate upstream, where product data actually breaks. That is the layer Reeva is built for. Reeva's AI agents continuously maintain and reconcile product catalogs across ERPs, PLMs, specs, and sheets so automation does not depend on humans to survive. You cannot automate your way to autonomy. You need systems that can reason about changing product data and maintain product truth continuously. That is how agents unlock true autonomy. #manufacturing #automation #AI #agents #catalogoperations

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🎙️New Tech Threads X Utah Product Guild Episode: Product/Engineering/Design Hybrid I had the incredible opportunity to sit down with Taylor Heyman, Principle Operations Engineer at Domo, to talk about the shift in product management to a more product/engineer/design hybrid role. In this episode, we discuss: ✅ The Product/Engineering/Design hybrid role ✅ Why a shift to the Product Management is coming ✅ How to position yourself to make this shift ✅ What does this mean for product managers right now! This conversation was packed with insights, career wisdom, and real-world experiences that anyone interested in product management can learn from. 🚀 🎧 Listen now: Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gBTSY_79 Apple Podcast: https://lnkd.in/gX9UykMt YouTube: https://lnkd.in/ggYMHKs6 🔗 Follow Tech Threads for more deep dives with tech and product leaders! #TechThreadsPodcast #UtahProductGuild #ProductManagement #TechCareers #Leadership

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If you're evaluating Metronome right now, the acquisition changed your position more than you think. This is what happens when core infrastructure gets absorbed into a larger stack. Billing isn’t an add-on. It’s embedded into your pricing logic, instrumentation, customer lifecycle, contracts, and revenue systems. Once that layer is owned by someone else, so is the roadmap, the pricing, and your leverage. If you were relying on Metronome’s infrastructure, you’re now on Stripe’s timeline. And Stripe’s priorities. This is exactly why billing infra needs to be open source. Developers figured this out in every other critical category: → PostHog open sourced analytics so teams could own their data. → Supabase open sourced the backend so no one is locked into Firebase economics. → Temporal open sourced orchestration to avoid workflow lock-in. The same logic applies to billing. Actually, even more, because this layer directly controls how you make money. The pattern is obvious: closed billing systems eventually consolidate. The larger players acquire the standards before they can be commoditized. If you're building an AI product or anything usage-based, you should assume this won’t be the last acquisition in the space. And if your billing infrastructure isn’t open, you’re one deal away from losing control over how you monetize. If you depend on closed billing systems, now is the right moment to rethink what that means for your roadmap. P.S. We’re building Flexprice an open-source, developer-first billing infrastructure designed for exactly this kind of future. Happy to chat if you’re evaluating your options.

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spoke with Shimon Rosen this week. he’s a product-led founder. not an engineer. but his speed today is on another level compared to even a year ago. he used to rely on tools like Balsamiq to get ideas out of his head. now he uses Base44 & Alloy . the difference? he can prototype in hours instead of weeks. not mockups. actual clickable products. screens you can click through. workflows that feel real. something you can put in front of users, investors, or engineers and say: this is the thing. then he hands it to developers and says: build this. but better. that shift in product development unlocks a few big advantages: 1. feedback gets real fast people react differently when they can actually use something. vague opinions turn into clear signals. 2. alignment with engineers improves massively everyone sees the same product. less guessing. fewer explanations. the conversation moves from what do you mean to how do we make it great. 3. momentum replaces perfection you stop waiting to be ready. you ship. you learn. you iterate. iv seen this too. i recently used Alloy to give feedback to Menachem Cowen, and it completely changed the conversation. instead of explaining ideas in words, i could show them. what worked. what didn’t. what to improve. curious to hear from product managers. what tools are you using to create mockups or prototypes before engineering gets involved?

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How are Utah startups shipping code while staying afloat? Utah’s tech scene has come a long way, from scrappy Ryan Smith-led startups to a full-blown innovation hub. Thanks, Silicon Slopes. But with growth comes the issue of staffing: how do we keep seats filled with the right people? Since moving back in June, I've heard a few common complaints: 1. For startups, tech salaries are too high 2. Good talent bounces around too quickly 3. Finding the right talent takes too long That’s why more and more Utah founders are turning to remote teams in Armenia: a largely-hidden region packed with the best tech talent in the world. Top-tier engineers, fluent communicators, and startup mindsets. No, I'm not biased. At KapTek, we make the process seamless: ✅ You tell us exactly what you need ✅ We provide a shortlist of tech-vetted candidates after only a week ✅ We hire them full-time on your behalf ✅ You focus on growth while we handle payroll, tax, and compliance If you're building in #Utah and need engineering talent, #Armenia should be at the top of your list.

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We’re all familiar with first-mover advantage. But is AI quietly making second-mover advantage more powerful? Dalton Wais and I have been talking a lot about how our roles as engineers have shifted over the last few months. AI is pushing engineers further upstream, closer to product management. When you can build almost anything, what you choose to build matters more than ever. That was always true, but it feels amplified now. A lot of our time recently has gone into experimenting with how we define, analyze, and capture product requirements. Some of this is still very traditional. Talking to our ICP, listening carefully, synthesizing notes, analyzing transcripts. But more and more, we’re using AI to surface requirements at a depth and speed that just wasn’t possible before. For the payroll system I’m working on, that looks like a few things. Asking AI to find and analyze every payroll product demo video on YouTube, not just reading transcripts but inspecting the UI itself frame by frame, and producing a comparative matrix of features across vendors. Asking AI to scan blogs, Reddit, and forums for people complaining about payroll software, clustering those complaints, and turning them into candidate requirements. Asking AI to read thousands of reviews across G2 and similar sites and separate what customers say they want from what they say they hate. And then layering all of that together. This is what got me thinking about second-mover advantage. When you’re the first mover, very little of this data exists. The market is mostly theory and opinion. But once a category matures, it generates an enormous exhaust of demos, reviews, complaints, and expectations. AI can now consume that exhaust almost instantly. If you can take a well-understood set of requirements and turn it into working software quickly, the old moat of “we’ve been building this for years” starts to matter less. Time to market was a real advantage pre-AI. Now time to insight might be the bigger one. Of course, this just pushes pressure onto the other hard problems. Narrative. Distribution. Lock-in. First movers still have advantages there, if they execute well. But the quiet moat of time spent just building is eroding fast.

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Just downloaded Tesla Robotaxi in SF, a real threat to Uber, Lyft, and Grab? Most experts measure Robotaxi by today’s metrics: cost of operations, active users, global adaptability. By that logic, scaling looks impossible. But Tesla flips the script. Unlike Waymo’s costly retrofits, a Tesla only needs a software update to become a Robotaxi. With 1.7M+ Hardware 4.0 vehicles already on the road, the scale potential is unmatched. Cars shift from being liabilities to income-generating assets overnight. This isn’t just product innovation, it’s a redefinition of value. At ElasticDash we’re doing the same for QA. Today, QA costs are labor-driven, with humans building and maintaining tests. Our AI agents change that: they build and adapt end-to-end tests automatically as your app evolves. Just as Tesla is rewriting mobility economics, we’re rewriting QA economics. ElasticDash is on the way.

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Want to scale innovation? Automate how you prioritize problems. One of the biggest shifts we made inside City Innovations | A Venture Studio was moving to a problem-first innovation model. Why? Because most innovation teams start with a solution. Something trendy. Something cool. Something that may or may not solve anything. We built systems to flip that: 🔁 Identify the root problem 🎯 Score it based on urgency, pain, and willingness to pay ⚙️ Automate signal detection through early market testing Only then do we start building — and by then, we already know there’s demand. This isn't just more efficient. It’s dramatically more effective. Because solving the wrong problem is the most expensive mistake a team can make. #ProblemFirst #InnovationSystems #AutomationStrategy #CorporateInnovation #ProductOps #CityInnovations Established by Traction Lab Business Acceleration Creative by ThinkTank Thought Leadership

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I’ve been seeing the work going into VAST FWD behind the scenes and I’m so excited to see it come to life next week! We’re bringing together a massive ecosystem of builders in Salt Lake City to talk about what it actually takes to run AI at scale. From deep technical labs to some head-spinning sessions on the future of intelligence, this isn't your typical tech conference. Watch the teaser from VAST Data and looking forward to seeing some of you at The Grand America! 

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Most conversations about technology focus on innovation and speed. But after spending years in traditional industries, what stands out to me in the Bay Area is something different: how quickly businesses grow before their financial foundation matures. In construction and manufacturing, finance is the structure that growth sits on. In tech, growth often comes first and financial structure is built later. The turning point comes when scale requires clarity, not just momentum. FinTech and AI are transforming how companies operate, but they are also raising expectations around financial visibility, accountability, and forward looking insight. The future is not just faster transactions or better tools. It is financial intelligence built into the way a business grows. Innovation drives opportunity. Financial clarity sustains it. #fintech #financeleadership #bayarea #financialstrategy #aileadership #digitaltransformation #technologybusiness #financialclarity #growthmindset #businessresilience

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Everyone told us payroll was a solved problem. Then we spoke to 50 YC founders and discovered something insane. They were all duct-taping manual workflows and admin work on top of their "automated" payroll systems. Not because existing tools were bad. Because startups are complex in ways legacy vendors just weren’t built for. Founder 1: "We have employees in 12 different states, and are drowning in tax notices" Founder 2: "Our engineers negotiate custom vesting schedules. Everyone is different." Founder 3: "We switched from LLC to C-corp mid-year. The migration broke everything." These aren't edge cases anymore. This is how modern companies operate. Traditional payroll software was built for stability. Same employees. Same structure. Same location. Startups are built for change. New hires weekly. Pivot the business model. Very little time to babysit a clunky dashboard Every founder we talked to had the same setup: Payroll software for the basics + spreadsheets for everything else + prayer that they're compliant. We realized the opportunity wasn't replacing Gusto. It was to build for the complexity they were managing manually. Now, when startups expand internationally, restructure their equity, or pivot their entire business model, our system adapts with them. Warp is built for companies that change faster than traditional payroll can handle. The next wave of infrastructure isn't about replacing what works. It's about building for the complexity that existing tools pretend doesn't exist.

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I spent some time at Colorado Startup Week this week and here's the best thing I learned for growing companies: The 5 Conditions Framework, developed by TrueSpace. It's framework for startups-to-scale-ups and a practical checklist founders can use to figure out if they’re ready to graduate from starting to scaling. Condition #1 on the list: Alignment. Are you and your team aligned around three elements? 1️⃣ Direction — Where are you trying to go, and why? 2️⃣ Focus — What’s your market, who are your customers, and what’s your point of view? 3️⃣ Structure — Do you have the leadership and capital to get there? As a marketer, I love seeing alignment lead the list. Mel Bell, Garrett Jestice and others have clearly articulated lately the huge upside GTM alignment brings to teams, with speed the most obvious benefit. Driving alignment is a superpower every marketer should develop. We intuitively know the value of getting teams aligned and the fuel it adds to GTM execution. And it's great affirmation to see the deep datasets and analysis that Charles Fred and his team have conducted back up what many marketers know by intuition/experience/scar tissue. Also, a bit of reality check for marketers: There's five conditions on the list ... and the other five are probably harder than alignment. You can download the complete 5 Conditions Framework at TrueSpace's website.

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After being featured at Colorado Startup Week last year, I had a lot of conversations with founders who all shared the same frustration: “I have the idea… I just don’t know how to actually build it.” So this spring we’re doing something new for the Denver startup community. We’re launching the 𝗣𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁, Colorado’s first in-person 𝗩𝗶𝗯𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗽. This isn’t another networking event or lecture. It’s a hands-on builder session where founders learn how to turn ideas into real products using modern AI tools. We’re excited to be partnering with 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗶𝘂𝘀 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 , Colorado’s largest entrepreneur meetup, to bring together builders, founders, and operators who actually want to ship things, not just talk about them. The reason we created this is simple. Most early founders get stuck on the same things: • Not technical but want to build their idea • Spending months planning instead of launching • Paying thousands for web or mobile apps before validating • Feeling overwhelmed by AI tools, no-code, and dev stacks • Not having other builders around them This workshop is built to solve that. You’ll leave with: ⚡ A real 𝘄𝗲𝗯 𝗼𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗽𝗽 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗼𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲 ⚡ A repeatable workflow for building with AI ⚡ Feedback from other founders ⚡ A stronger network in the Denver startup community Denver has an incredible builder ecosystem and we want to help people move from ideas to real products faster. If you want to join the 𝗣𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗼𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁, drop a 🚀 in the comments or DM “𝗩𝗜𝗕𝗘” and I’ll send the details. Or visit pilotspring.com/contact Let’s build. #DenverStartups #ColoradoStartups #VibeCoding #BuildInPublic #StartupDenver #EntrepreneurLife #AIStartups #FounderCommunity #TechDenver

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This been in beta for a few select customers, but we've now opened it up to ALL Gusto customers. You can now pay international contractors SAME-DAY in any country via USDC or Wise. Excited to see how crypto will modernize our world's aging payments infrastructure.

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