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Entalas and ClarityBoss, a tool for managers

A little over a year ago, I created Simple Bit Labs to do some work on my own. Since then, I’ve learned a ton, and have had the opportunity to find a co-founder for another venture.

Matt Miner and myself started Entalas to do many of the same things I was doing at Simple Bit Labs - look for problems that might not be venture scale and attempt to solve them. We also know we aren’t going to strike gold on the first opportunity. Our latest product is ClarityBoss - an attempt to create management software that guides you to doing the right things, whether you area first time or seasoned manager.

We landed on developing this product after talking with several engineering managers, team leaders, and folks relatively new to people management. Several conversations later, we realized there is often a cobbled together toolset used by good managers to do their job. Even worse, new managers are promoted into the position because they were a good individual contributor, and often left to fend for themselves at learning the tricks of the trade of being a good manager, or the hope that osmosis worked when they were on the other side of the table.

Feedback is something we heard over and over about, and is a huge focus of the tool. Giving both positive and critical feedback to your direct reports at regular intervals is extremely important, and most managers don’t have good tools that keep them honest with it. While you can track this type of stuff in a Google Doc, it is unlikely to remind you to keep up the proper cadence.

Hopefully more to come in the future, but at least right now, it’s free for anyone to sign up and try! We’d love feedback, positive or critical.

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