My one year at Fyxer 🎁

New learnings, new leadership, new product...

A year in Stanley

I’ve just hit one year at Fyxer, which (for me) is quite a milestone - I last hit a 1-year-anniversary four years ago in 2022 🫠

12 months ago, I had commitment issues. After being let go from my previous full-time role, followed by three years of wonderful independence freelancing, going back full (FT) time was scary. A friend even said to me ‘You have it so good now, why change?’.

But, I ignored her, I took the plunge and here we are a year later.

I’m going to be honest: there are things I miss. But the upsides in what I’m learning in my role are so huge it nets out.

The one-year mark has made me think hard about what I have now versus then. If I had to explain in a nutshell:

Freelance: a much more efficient use of my time, 90% of the work I did was getting shit done. Full control over my life and calendar. It was more lucrative, I had more free time. I worked with clients both short and long term - some for over a year, so I felt the benefit of seeing long-term improvements, not just short term wins. But, freelance was a spinning hamster wheel of new biz calls, clients, content, events. Exhausting in its own way.

Full time: waaaay less efficient. My calendar is full. ~30% of my time is getting shit done, the rest is stakeholder management, communication, unblocking people, hiring, HR. I don’t have control over my day or where I work. There’s a different type of hamster wheel which is a never-ending to do list. But the product challenges we’re solving are so unique: how to design for non-AI-literate users, how to make intangible things tangible [trust, intelligence], how to create a re-enforcing product loop, how to create good evals for our product features. There’s also something relaxing about having all your mental energy in one business instead of five.

Neither is better than the other, I see them as phases. Freelance is calling me for whenever the moment is right, but right now I’m excited for what we’re building.

So, on my one year anniversary I’m going to cover some highlights, lowlights, what I haven’t figured out yet and some things I’m SO excited for in 2026. We have:

• 5 highlights from this year

• 4 hard moments

• 3 product learnings

• 2 things I’m excited for by the end of 2026

• 1 request for you

Here we go 🥂

5 highlights from this year

1. Actually having a product leader as a boss. Three months ago, Leah Tharin joined as Chief Product Growth Officer - from whom I’m learning how to make change, push product culture forward, be more direct, think bigger and be more visionary. One of the steepest learning curves I’ve had in recent times for sure.

2. Working with great people - It’s a cliche, but its true. Specifically when FT, I have more time to get to know people. Learning about someone’s unique expertise is fascinating, and trusting that someone has just ‘got it’ (because they’re good at their job) is a really freeing feeling.

3. Doing new things - living through my first re-organization of product and engineering, running a full-day dog fooding session for the company including role play, working on vision, customer research for evals, running product in over multiple teams at once.

4. Building a team - something I had on my ‘one day’ list. There’s a unique feeling when you meet someone, they inspire you from day 1, you’re excited to work with them, you’re excited to introduce them to the team, you’re excited to learn from them. Wow.

5. Coffees in the mornings with friends - or a glass of wine in the evenings 🍷 I’ve always made incredible friends at work and this year is no exception.

4 tough-but-will-make-you-better moments

Making hard decisions

Saying no to good people in a hiring process, making a tough call internally, giving hard feedback. When you manage people it feels like mistakes you make are worse, as there’s more people to be impacted than just you. My rule now: go with your gut, and do it as soon as possible.

Constant battling with alignment

With scale ups, org changes, new leadership, the ever-fast changing AI landscape - getting alignment in what we’re doing is a never-ending, 24/7 job. My new rule: assume if you’re off on holiday for one day then when you come back it’ll be chaos 🫠

Learning to manage up well

One piece of feedback Leah gave me was about learning to manage up. She shared her article in which she drew a trouble funnel: i.e. the process before shit hits the fan. Have a read. It’s great. Safe to say, my biggest learning is ‘your boss is on your side, look like an idiot earlier rather than suppressing it and shit hitting the fan later’. Show your thinking, plans and assumptions so that someone can course correct early, or just validate that you got this.

Needing stronger boundaries when you have less time

I’m an all-in sort of person. With freelance, I found it easier to step away at the end of the day. Now I’m 110% all the time, because these product and growth challenges are just so interesting, I’m hyper focused. Which means what falls away is exercise, content, seeing people. It’s taught me to be more ruthless with boundaries and prioritization (though I’m evidently still getting there). I need to put work third after exercise (number 1) and content (number 2).

3 things I’ve learned about product in the age of AI

(One for a longer newsletter, coming soon).

Screw AI. Certain tasks need to be manual.

I’ve seen people try to automate customer research, QA testing, writing narratives, presentations, important documents. What happens is that you can’t trust anything you see, and you also don’t really understand anything anymore. The people who I’ve seen win recently write their own concise docs, communicate 1-1, understand the customers problems deeply and hold the product in their hands often. First-hand communication and understanding is what I see is setting certain people apart. Judgement in what you should and should not be using AI for.

Prototypes are a double-edged sword.

When someone shares a prototype without the problem it’s solving, instant red flag. Prototypes are arriving too early in the development process. What should always kick off any new build is the customer problem. I’m finding my job is increasingly becoming ‘whats the problem we’re solving here’ more than before.

You do get it, people just aren’t explaining it clearly.

When working in AI, there’s an underlying feeling that 'if I watch a video later, I’ll get it’ or ‘I’m sure that’s something else they’re talking about’. Nope. Nada. No. There’s been many times where I’ve felt like I didn’t understand something technical, felt stupid for asking basic questions, but realized that I understood the thing all along, and it’s a language problem. Few people have nailed really clear communication, and the people who have are my favorite.

2 things I’m so pumped about

We’re making some big bets at Fyxer

What we’re building will change the way I work, and I’m excited. There’s a lot that we’re building where it’s not been done before, its new, or its just so intangible its hard for us to put down on paper. But once we do, I’m excited to see how it lands in the market.

The team I’m building

From where we were in January, being 1 of 2 product people amidst 27 engineers, to now building a team of 5 🫶 There’s new joiners I’m excited to be learning from, and people coming in who I can’t wait to get started with.

1 ask for you

I would love to chat. Hit reply via email, tell me anything:

• Who you are

• What you’re working on

• Questions I can answer for you

• What you disagree with me on, or not

I have some call slots to open up too if you’re keen 🤙

There’s two reasons behind this - the first is that every time I’ve chatted to one of you it’s given me new momentum and ideas for Growth Dives. Second is that open rates dropped from ~60% to 40-45% since moving to substack. Engagement via email is the biggest lever for this, so gimme a shout!

Till next time 👋