agotterer

I've read a lot of posts similar to this recently and keep asking myself if the past 20 years of my professional experience was that atypical.

I’m sure there are companies who are writing “perfectly maintainable and highly scalable code”. However, for half of my career I’ve been brought into startups to clean up the mess created by engineering teams.

While AI may create an unmaintainable mess (I’m not totally convinced), from my perspective many (not all) engineering teams have been doing that all along. #v2 #refactor

Thats the goal! A little taste of what tells the story of where we are traveling that month. Sometimes restaurants will make off menu items for us, which is a lot of fun and usually something a little more adventurous.

I’ve had a lot of success using the root Claude.md for a handful of high level application wide rules and directions (I keep it pretty small), module specific claude.md in subfolders alongside the code with more specific rules and direction, and a custom rules backed /code-review skill that enforces it all and catches anything that was missed during implementation.

I didn't see it explicitly mentioned in the post, I wonder if they filtered exclusively for domains with mx records. Because I would assume that lots of domains just don't have email configured and therefore aren't aware that you should still setup DMARC to prevent impersination of your domain.

I subscribed to Kagi for a few months and really wanted to stick with it. For general web searches the results were exactly what I was looking for. It was the lack of local/location based search that kept sending me back to Google.

I used Vivaldi for many years and was a huge advocate. The problem for me was the browser got too bloated and buggy. They kept adding functionality that for me wasn’t necessary. For example: built in Proton VPN support, calendars, email functionality, notes, a game arcade. I don’t want any of that bundled in my browser. I want my browser to be lite weight.

I eventually switched to Edge a few years ago because it was nice and lite. Now I’m seeing the same pattern play out as they add copilot, shopping, and rewards programs.

What browser should I check out next? Some must haves: workspaces, vertical tabs, and chromium extension support.

I’m a little behind on email, I’ll reply later today.

I’ll answer some of the legal right now. First, we are at every event. Not sure how much it matters legally, but we are there as hosts and to drive the feeling of community. Without us, I don’t think the community has the same feel.

We also have an unbelievably respectful and mature community. After over 70 seatings we’ve never had an incident. We also have a code of conduct document we send all new members.

Second, we setup an LLC to shield us personally from legal liability.

Third, not to say that it shields us, but the restaurants also have insurance and are a better target for a lawsuit.

We are in the US, and at the end of the day anyone can sue anyone for anything. It’s just the reality and risk of the times. It hasn’t been a problem for us yet.

My partner and I divide and conquer. He focuses on front of house and I handle the backoffice.

The process starts ~3 months before the event. We start by picking a theme or region. Then contact some restaurants that fit the criteria and pitch them the event. That kicks off the back and forth on cost and menu.

Around 4 weeks before the event we send a save the date + previous event recap email. We summarize the last event and tease the next event, without giving away the actual resturant or type of food.

Over the next week we prep the invite email and payment forms. This requires putting the dishes on our menu template, research and writing about the history of the dishes, the region, and the resturant. Some of this content also goes onto our website.

Three weeks out we send the invite, which is a lottery system. Members have 5 days to request a seat and place a credit card hold. 5 days later we run the lottery (I wrote some basic software to randomize assignment, conver the card auth to capture and release any cards that didn't get assigned a ticket). Then we send an email to everyone who got in with which night they recieved and another email to anyone who was waitlisted. Everyone is added to a spreadsheet to track.

1 week before the event we send a reminder email and a last chance to cancel before the ticket is non refundable.

At the event we play host and check each guest in and say hi to everyone. Then we give a prepared ~5 min intro about the food, restaurant, celebrate any milestone members, and make any general house keeping accounments. Our 20 club members get a branded apron.

At the event we take video and pictures. Over the course of the next 4 weeks we post dish pictures with descriptions and history of the dish on our instagram. We also make a 1-2 min recap video of the event which also goes on our instagram and website.

Separate from the actual event related work we have to manage the books, handle members emails, and review membership requests. More recently we started selling shirts, so there's a little work in managing that as well.

Honestly, I can’t think of anything I would have done differently. Each stage of our growth came with some challenges and lessons. I think we did a pretty good job of internalizing and adapting. We definitely made some mistakes along the way, but nothing I regret doing and wouldn’t do again. Every mistake and lesson taught us something.

Feel free to email me if you run into any challenges. We might have already been through it!

We’ve never paid for marketing or advertising.

- We are lucky to have a passionate community who tell others about us.

- Sometimes we do shared reels with the restaurant, which helps drive some of their traffic to our social pages and website.

- There’s a few large local Facebook food groups which have driven membership.

- The largest driver of new membership came from coverage in the region newspaper. We credit that with the transition from 1 or 2 degrees of separation to people we had no connection to.

- There’s been a few influencers who have shown up and documented their experience. We didn’t pay for it. It drove a few members, but the quality of the newspaper and Facebook group members was higher.

We negotiate a per seat all in cost with the restaurant inclusive of food, one drink, tip, and tax. We sell the tickets directly to our members and add some margin on top. Average ticket is $115.

5 days before the event we lock the head count with the restaurant. At this point the ticket is non refundable (we allow transfers). Then we pay the restaurant one lump sum. At the event the guests are only responsible for their bar tab (outside the one included drink), we don’t get a cut of that.

Sometimes we have seat minimums we need to hit and eat the cost if we are short (that rarely happens). We don’t allow ordering any other food outside of what’s on our menu.