Looking Back: One Year At LogDNA

LogDNA is now Mezmo but the people you know and love are here to stay.

Last week on the 19th, was my first anniversary at LogDNA. I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious. 

Because of this milestone, I wanted to reflect on some of my experiences with the team. Things like what it's been like switching jobs in the pandemic, moving from a big company to a startup, and more. I didn't tie these threads to each other well - so bear with me as I try to unload a bulleted mind-map. 

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Moving During the Pandemic

I'd never joined a company before meeting my manager and the team in person before. But unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures. Thanks to our IT Engineer, Brian, the transition was smooth, including the tech onboarding.

Having worked remotely for almost a year, I'd already experienced the following things:

• low productivity and time mismanagement 
• super productivity and burnout
• finally having set a routine to manage time well while being productive

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It was strange to meet my boss in person five months into the job for the first time though. It was very similar to how people 'put a face to a name,' except I put a body to a zoom face. I drove to her home in Oakland to meet her and another coworker​. The night before, I had a lengthy discussion with my husband about it. What should I order for lunch - balancing between eating something non-messy, vegetarian, not a salad, but not entirely unhealthy either that would give a poor impression (uhh don't you lure me in, fries!!).

Moving From A Big Company to a Small Company

I moved from ServiceNow, where I was on a ten-member Product Finance team, part of a broader 80-member Finance & Accounting team. Being the first hire in FP&A under the CFO was a big shift. It was a trade-off between the depth of scope of work and breadth for me. My scope was much broader - if I was building a spoke in the wheel earlier, I was making the whole cart now. And to put it lightly, it was disconcerting.

The change of pace was the first big adjustment. Work threads that we usually followed up on in a week were followed up on the next day at LogDNA. We had a lot to accomplish, fast. The first couple of months were a blur, spent catching up on who does what, differences between our revenue models, understanding our financial situation for the year, personally managing the FY21 financial model, and taking over  a monthly close process. I spent LONG calls with our accounting partner, who I'm sure has spent much more time with me than she wanted to.

The People

A huge part of my journey at LogDNA has been the people I work alongside. In all panel interviews that I take at LogDNA, when talking about company culture, I always say, 'We have interesting problems to solve, and interesting people to solve them with.' I firmly believe that. The bunch at LogDNA is hard-working and fun. I love that!

Working With the CFO

Working with Caitlin, our CFO, gave me a lot of insight into how broad the overall scope of things the Finance team manages can be. Finance, Investor Relations, and Operations all roll into one. So you can't have blinders on while working, as every glitch you discover has an impact on multiple things.

With the volume of things to be tracked at a startup stage,  it's essential to have controls in place. 

For instance, it's not enough to know what software vendors we currently use and plan to use for Engineering. We also need to track the monthly spend for each vendor. We also need to track when vendor contracts are up for renewal and whether or not auto-renewal is on. Being hands-on with vendors was a new experience for me. I have worked closely with three different vendors so far, helping them ramp up and working together on projects. It's been exciting so far, to say the least.

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Conclusion

I'm excited about what lies ahead for the team and me! We’re now a Series D company and have massive growth goals for the coming year. Working for a startup, I know I have a direct impact on helping the company reach these goals and I’m grateful that LogDNA has made this an incredible journey so far.