My first real job since 2012

Tailwind is joining Shopify. Adam Wathan announced it last week, and Peter's last day at Tailwind Labs was the day before. He'd been there four years, never full time (a couple of days a week as a contractor), but it was his main stable thing the whole time. He originally joined to build a job board, which he'd completely forgotten until recently. His own startup was near the end of its runway, and Adam asked if he wanted to start a business inside Tailwind Labs part time. It later turned into running partnerships. He's known about the acquisition for a long time, which made Laravel Live Denmark a month ago pretty strange (the perfect place to talk to everyone about it, and he couldn't).

Following the team to Shopify was something Peter could have pursued, and there were a ton of good reasons to do it. But he's never really wanted to work at a big company, and if he ever did, he wanted it to be a decision he made on purpose. He also had too many things going on the side that he wasn't ready to let go of, and he'd have been the only person in Europe on a North American team. Adam told him he didn't have to come, and that it would still be a good outcome for him if he went and did his own thing.

Instead, Peter is joining Phone.inc as product growth lead on October 1. He was already an investor and helping out as a contractor. The role covers marketing and the part of product that overlaps with it (the founder-led growth videos, onboarding, changes in the app itself). Niklas thinks of it as founder in residence, and Peter says it looks a lot like his job when he was starting Reform. A friend had been asking him for months why he was only there one day a week, since he already sounded like he was running growth.

Peter isn't very employable (the last time he didn't work for his own company was 2012), and his real worry was joining when he knows he'll want to do his own thing again someday. Niklas said that's exactly who he's looking for. An experienced growth hire usually brings the one playbook that worked somewhere else, and at this stage Phone.inc needs someone who can go find the one that works for them. Peter also tells the story of his first job as a junior Rails developer. He quit after four months, and his boss offered to fund his startup if he stayed. Niklas makes the case (from his blog post "Seasons in life") that founders can take a job for a few years without it being an identity crisis. He did it at Trustpilot after Firmafon and says it was the best thing he's done career-wise.

On the Phone.inc side, invites were paused in early September until two core features shipped: do not disturb and call transfer. Both went live yesterday. At Firmafon, transferring a call meant remembering a star code, so people just didn't (some customers literally threw the phone across the office instead). Now there's a transfer button next to end call, a live list of colleagues and their status, and you can brief the person before handing over while the caller listens to hold music Mikkel made in a day of jamming (Niklas says it's the best he's ever heard). Invites are back on, with ten new companies in a day and a goal of 100 live companies in two weeks. Phone.inc is also hiring someone to lead direct sales.

The podcast will follow Phone.inc even more closely from here, hopefully recorded in person at the office.