Steve Motola

Scaling your startup on AWS without burning through your budget? Sounds like a dream, but AWS actually hands out credits and runs programs that can save you serious cash - if you know how to grab them. This guide breaks down how startups can tap into the AWS accelerator, snag free credits, and turbocharge growth without sweating over the cloud bill. Spoiler: it’s less complicated than you think, and skipping this means leaving money on the table. #AWS #Startups #CloudComputing #TechGrowth #Entrepreneurship

2

Most teams wait too long to build systems. In this clip, Chris Hudson breaks down why great GTM operators design infrastructure before scale makes it a necessity. You don’t want to fix your foundation mid-sprint. 🎙️ Watch the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/gAAApVjH #GTMStrategy #StartupOperations #ChrisHudson #Signals #LeanScalePodcast #ScalingStartups #EarlyOps #OperatorMindset

1

Several people know about this problem but nobody talks about how to solve it. I was asked one time to help fix this issue at a company. The fix lies in breaking the work down to a few critical steps. First, never just hand off work in its entirety and expect you'll get anything you can use. Regardless of how good or bad the team is, always ask, always, the offshore team to pseudo code their approach. They should explain which files they'll touch, which systems they'll touch, integrations, which areas or layers of the application, etc. I call this the first pass. Why is this important? This tells me they're thinking about the problem right and if there are any gaps in their understanding, or any pieces they're missing. After that, they'll do a second pass. That is stubbing out which functions or code will need to be added or modified, maybe even making the functions and service calls work but with mock data. This is the "prove it to me" moment. This second pass also helps me as a dev manager gauge how fast or slow the offshore team is working, giving me indications too if they're stuck somewhere. Only after this second pass, do I actually turn them loose to go execute and "deliver" the solution. Only now, because I did some diligence on my managerial end, I've got greater confidence that what I'll get will be something on par with what I'm expecting and can use. This partnership and collaborative arrangement also fosters trust and over time the offshore team will learn how your organization operates, critical thinking, and that nothing should ever be done in a vacuum or cowboy way. For more helpful tips like this, follow me. I'm paying it forward in 2026 and will be sharing gems most people aren't talk about with a focus on the solutions, not just problems.

1

Creating a Product Requirements Doc is essential for any project. If you're using agentic coding, it's especially important. I authored this article on creating a PRD to increase the effectiveness and success rate of your next AI-assisted coding project. There's a link in the article if you just want the PRD+ (requirements + tech and UI descriptions) template. https://lnkd.in/gE7gvFka

3

1 Comment

What separates people who get great results from Claude from those who don't? It's not what you think. I've spent hundreds of hours building production agents on Claude, Copilot Studio, Claude Code, raw API calls. Same model, wildly different results depending on how you interact with it. Three patterns changed everything for me. 1. Edit, don't reply When Claude gives you broken code, don't reply with "that didn't work." That keeps the failed attempt in context. Claude anchors on it and tries to patch its own mistake instead of rethinking. Edit your original prompt instead. Add a constraint like: Fix the root cause in [function_name] without adding wrapper functions. This removes the bad attempt entirely. Clean context, sharper constraint, better output. Fewer tokens burned. 2. Ban workarounds up front Claude's default instinct when code fails is to make it stop failing. Not the same as making it work correctly. It adds try/catch wrappers. Fallback values. Defensive layers that hide the real bug. In agent workflows, this is lethal. A silently failing tool call cascades through the entire chain. Put this in your system prompt: Do not add fallbacks to mask errors. If core logic fails, surface the error. Fix the underlying logic only. This one instruction changes Claude's behavior more than anything else I've tried. 3. Plan before you build In agentic coding tools, Claude can enter rapid edit-run-edit loops that compound mistakes. Each iteration adds context and moves further from intent. Require a plan first. Review it before approving changes. If the plan says "add a fallback," reject it. If it touches unrelated files, push back. Making Claude's reasoning legible before it acts is the single highest-leverage habit you can build. Bonus Pin your constraints at the top of the prompt. Instructions at the beginning and end of a long context window get more weight than those buried in the middle. "No fallback logic" on line 3 hits harder than the same rule on line 200. None of this is about clever prompt tricks. It's context engineering. You're controlling what's in the context window, constraining the model's solution space, and making its reasoning legible before it acts. The model isn't the bottleneck. The interaction pattern is. #LegalTech #AI #ContextEngineering #LLM #AgenticAI

11

1 Comment

💥 I just found a foundational flaw in Claude. All models, all interfaces. Repro steps below: 1. Go to Claude settings 2. Attempt to update your email address 3. If you can’t find how to do it on your own, ask Claude how to change your Claude email address 4. Validate that Claude is not hallucinating by going to https://support.claude.com and searching for “How do I change the email address associated with my account?” 5. Shake your head and think “sorry users, I know we kind of slid past this when you signed up. Hope the email you used to sign up never gets compromised or needs to change – magic links or SSO are the only option (darn it). And if it does, hope you didn’t buy an annual PRO plan because no refunds / transfers even if to the same human ✌ (grrrr…)” Perhaps this behavior is the result of conscious prioritization based on a thorough understanding of needs / trade-offs. If this behavior was an oversight, then based on prior trips on the modernization train, this could be a massive slog of tech debt. Particularly in a hyper-growth business dependent on uninterrupted & high-integrity data access / entitlements / provenance. Product people – let's use this moment to build foresight! - Don’t abdicate PM or UX from “technical” discussions about data models, identity, or access control – decisions within these domains have incredible implications - Customer onboarding & admin workflows are foundational CX, not afterthoughts - If you’re using Claude Code, invest in Git + GitHub integration for improved resilience (and much more)

3

Building and maintaining trust with key stakeholders is too often a forgotten requirement for product managers in the craziness of their day. This article is a great read for anyone struggling to be heard and wanting to a framework to build the trust needed to influence effectively.   I would add that a key part of this is learning to speak the language of your stakeholders. In most cases, that common language is $ and customer engagement.   Too often I have seen product managers talk features and technical specs to sales or marketing teams, instead of focusing on how the product will engage customers and translate into $ for both customers and the sales/marketing teams. It's a sure fire way of losing trust..... and the room.

5

Copilot isn’t just for writing emails. It’s your shortcut to operational clarity. One of our clients used it to run internal surveys—and uncovered: → Duplicate software spend → Tools no one was using → Broken internal processes End result? 17% savings in one quarter. That’s just one use case. We’ve got six more for you here - https://bit.ly/4kXDapA #GenerativeAI #AIInnovation #Copilot

1

The org chart that helped you get to 10 partnerships starts working against you at 50. Unclear ownership, reporting lines that bury the function, specialists brought in too late. Scaling a partner program requires making structural decisions that reflect where you're going, not just where you've been. On Thursday, March 26, Nelson Wang (Partner Principles), Jessica Baker(AchieveUnite), and Eleanor Thompson (Gravitee) are joining Denise Duest, MBA of HubSpot to talk through the real decisions behind building a partner team that scales:   ➡️ When to hire generalists vs. specialists ➡️ How to structure around different partner motions and how that changes as you grow ➡️ What reporting lines signal about whether your organization actually values partners Join us for a candid conversation from people who've built partner teams from startup mode through enterprise scale. Register here to attend live or get the recording:  https://lnkd.in/eFSf_g8v

39

1 Comment

Finally had time this weekend to dig into "Aligning for Impact: A Shared Definition and Multi-Stakeholder Insights" on BHI in California from Kristina M. and the outstanding California Quality Collaborative team. It was a privilege to contribute to this work on behalf of Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute. This brief clearly reflects what many of us see across the states where we work: • Definitions drive payment and scale. Without a shared definition of behavioral health integration, reimbursement, contracting, and data reporting remain inconsistent. • Multi-stakeholder alignment is the implementation strategy. Convening payers, providers, and purchasers is essential to sustainable financing and system transformation. • Integration is essential, not optional. Embedding behavioral health in primary care improves access, outcomes, and whole-person care. When providers, plans, purchasers, and policymakers operate from a common understanding of BHI, we reduce fragmentation and accelerate adoption of evidence-based models like Collaborative Care. It was also encouraging to see additional “flavors” of integrated care highlighted, including Texas programs such as CPAN, BHIG, and TCHATT. These models show that while Collaborative Care is a strong foundation, states can also benefit from a portfolio approach that includes e-consultation, co-location, and pediatric access programs to meet diverse population needs. Thank you to Kristina and the CQC team for advancing the conversation and offering practical guidance the field can act on. https://lnkd.in/ejf4HpqN #CollaborativeCare #BehavioralHealthIntegration #MentalHealthPolicy #WholePersonCare

27

3 Comments

We’re excited to partner with Cognition, the stellar crew behind Devin 🤖 and Windsurf 🌊, to make SWE agents more effective. Here’s the workflow: ✨ CoreStory extracts the hidden business logic, requirements, and complex behaviors in legacy codebases into a persistent spec. ⚡ You pass that spec as context and tasks to Devin, Cognition's Autonomous AI Software Engineer. 🚀 With the spec to navigate, the AI agent gets more powerful. It can modernize entire systems, or use the spec to field even more tickets with higher confidence. This is what the future of software engineering looks like: Human devs + AI agents, working side by side, with CoreStory fueling the spec. #AI #Agents #SpecDrivenDevelopment #LegacyModernization #CoreStory #Cognition

17

"I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter." - Blaise Pascal'' This also applies to software demos. We've tightened the onboarding workflow and now have a 60 second demo of the journey from a blank slate in Claude Code to a deployed preview application on VeilStream.

2

1 Comment