Field Notes - Nov 17, '25

Executive Signals

Noise is not signal: weekly swings don't justify capital or messaging shifts
CRM before CPM: audience plumbing beats creative when agencies ramp
Guardrails over drift: define CAC, SQL quality, and pause triggers upfront
Ship, then learn: hallway tests convert guesses into 48-hour fixes
Security at commit: scanners coach greenfield, triage legacy debt separately
Fast paths vs slow tails : cache determinism, observe live only

Last week’s rebound after a dip is a reminder: single-week swings are noise. Budget, headcount, and positioning calls require a broader window so you do not overfit to variance. Build an operating cadence that anchors decisions to rolling truth, not anecdotes.

Track a 4–6 week rolling average for MQL→SQL→Opp
Investigate only if variance exceeds 30% for two consecutive weeks
Annotate the calendar with launches to explain spikes and dips

Marketing

Before the Agency Spins Up, Fix the CRM

Agency performance rides on clean lifecycle data and audience plumbing. Make the CRM the source of truth and sync it to ad platforms for targeting and suppression. Stop wasting budget on people who already booked demos; let CRM state drive exclusions and lookalikes.

Finalize lifecycle stages and enforce contact-to-deal sync
Pipe stage changes and key events to ad platforms; build suppression lists
If integrations stall, stand up a lightweight automation bridge as a stopgap

Set Guardrails for Agency Spend Up Front

Pre-commit to what “working” means so ramping spend does not drift. Watch cost and quality together, not in isolation. Baseline pre-agency performance, then require volume improvements without degrading payback or SQL quality.

Baseline CPA, CAC, and funnel conversion this week
Require SQL growth without CAC payback exceeding ~18 months
If SQO rate drops >20% for two weeks, pause and adjust creative or audiences

Product

Ship V1 Now, Then Hallway Test

Perfection delays learning. Ship the first version, then run in-person hallway tests during a high-traffic window. Turn observations into a 48-hour patch that fixes the sharpest edges while momentum is fresh.

Script five core tasks; test with 5–7 people for 15 minutes each
Capture time-to-complete, wrong turns, and “can’t find it” moments
Fix the top five issues within two days; queue the rest

Engineering

Ship Security Scanners on Day 0 or Budget a Triage Sprint

Adding SCA and SAST midstream detonates into pages of “critical” issues. On greenfield, scanners coach as you code; on legacy, separate “no new debt” from “old debt” and work down reachable vulnerabilities deliberately.

Gate only new PRs first with “no new high or critical”
Auto-snooze version-conflict findings with 30–60 day expiries
Burn down reachable vulns weekly; ratchet to full-project gating after 2–3 sprints

Treat AI-Authored Code as Untrusted Input

Copilot and agents accelerate velocity but introduce injection and “looks-right” errors. Pair AI assistance with automated guardrails and explicit human review criteria so correctness and safety keep pace with speed.

Run SAST, SCA, and secret scanning pre-commit and in CI; block on high or critical
Require line-by-line reviews for AI-heavy PRs (>200 LOC) using a validation checklist
Add tests for high-risk paths like query construction and file or URL handling

Cache Idempotent Agent Steps to Kill Tail Latency

Agent workflows mix deterministic steps with live “observe” calls. Caching the idempotent parts and persisting caches across deploys eliminates avoidable slow tails and stabilizes p95 without blunting freshness where it matters.

Tag cacheable steps with TTL; persist caches across runners and deploys
Diff near-identical flows; copy the faster step configuration
Set SLO: p95 under 30 seconds; flows over 60 seconds trigger optimization

Start the CRM Integration Before Credentials Arrive

Do not idle while waiting for access. Build the outbox, queue, and interface now, then plug credentials later and replay events. You de-risk the last mile and keep momentum.

Define idempotency keys, retries with backoff, and dead-letter handling
Feature-flag the sink; use a stubbed provider in CI
Log request and response shapes with payload redaction for privacy