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The term “high-impact” gets thrown around a lot lately, and it got me thinking about what that exactly means and why it’s important. And if it’s essential, how do we achieve it as product leaders? When we talk about impact in the product world, we usually mean a few different things: Impact on end-user experience Impact on business goals of the organization Impact on internal processes All of these are worthy goals to have for any product team. Of course, any PM would want to have a positive impact on both the customer experience and revenue, as well as making their peer’s jobs easier with better processes and internal tooling. ...

I have been on the hunt for the easiest way to host a personal site and blog for a long time. Over the years, I: developed several versions of my own CMS used various static hosting solutions like Jekyll built a simple static templating solution with Flask used Medium used a headless setup with AWS and Zappa tried Micro Blog even gave WordPress a try. There were pros and cons with each solution, but nothing really felt easy to setup and update. With this site, I feel like I finally settled on a configuration that is easy to maintain and update, with very low-cost hosting: ...

My name is Taylan Pince, and Kaizen Musings is my little corner of the internet. I tend to use this patch as a way to self-document my various interests, both personal and professional. It’s also a good excuse to write more, which I enjoy as a strategy for thought exploration and personal growth. Who Am I? I am a software engineer turned product manager and entrepreneur. I spent the last 20-odd years building startups from the idea stage and getting them to market. I also launched and grew a digital product agency that built products for early-stage startups. I enjoyed the journey and the battle scars that came with it. Most importantly, I got to meet and work with some wonderful people along the way. ...

As I was putting together the Rover v2, there were quite a few lessons along the way, mostly about hardware. I’ll capture them here for posterity. Handling Power Since I have two motors for driving and another for the LIDAR, I had to use two L298N modules, with different input voltages. I already had a voltage booster for the drive motors, getting 7.4v from the LiPo and boosting it to 14v (12v for motors + 2v for the module). I thought I could simply plug in a direct line from the LiPo for the other module, since the LIDAR motor is 6v. In practice this proved to be unreliable. Without a booster, there was a lot of variability in the current and it caused stalling issues with the motor. Once I added a secondary boost to 8v, it started humming along as expected. ...

Now that the Rover v2 base is working and driving well, I am turning my attention to the new LIDAR module. After reconsidering the previous GT2 pulley based design, I decided to redesign it completely on the new Rover base, using a gear based approach. Reasoning behind using a geared drive is fairly simple: Pulley and timing belt approach didn’t necessarily create a smooth drive mechanism like I had imagined. It also takes up a lot of space and it’s a nightmare to calculate for. Finally, printing GT2 pulleys doesn’t generate very clean results on the 3D printer, which in turn contributes to lack of smoothness. ...