Steady

Steady is the autonomous team coordination platform revolutionizing modern work.

The average knowledge worker spends an astonishing 23 hours each week on coordination tasks—meetings, context-switching, and chasing information—rather than the work itself. This “coordination tax” drains productivity, diminishes work quality, and contributes to burnout and attrition.

Steady cuts the coordination tax and reverses the downward spiral of productivity, quality, and engagement. It runs in the background, automatically distilling plans & progress from tools, teams, and people into tailored summaries that give everyone the clarity they need to make fast decisions and outstanding products.

Designed for today’s complex work environments—where information is fragmented across tools, schedules, and human silos—Steady seamlessly integrates into your stack, delivering speed-to-impact instantly. It transforms how organizations coordinate, multiplying capacity and capability without increasing complexity.

At its core, Steady implements Continuous Coordination, an open-source framework for high-performance knowledge work. This proven methodology promotes structured, asynchronous communication loops, empowering teams to make informed decisions and achieve alignment without constant interruptions.

Founder and CEO

Status Hero

Built and operated a SaaS tool that provided asynchronous check-ins, live goals, and status dashboards to tech teams. Bootstrapped and profitable to $1M ARR per employee.

8012 Labs

Built a handful of niche consumer SaaS products and served as an advisor to early-stage tech startups and web product teams.

Founder and Principal

Constant Contact

Led a small, crack team charged with envisioning and prototyping disruptive digital marketing offerings for Constant Contact's small business customer base. Drove innovation by applying lean startup patterns and generally working outside of conventional corporate approaches. Delivered working prototypes for product organization to work with and integrate. Reported directly to SVP, Product.

Director, Product Development

Opened New York City engineering office for the leading provider of software-as-a-service small business marketing products following the acquisition of Bantam Networks. Managed cross-functional and cross-geographical team charged with integrating the Bantam CRM tool suite, new technologies and processes into a complex distributed architecture.

Director, Engineering

Bantam Networks (acquired by Constant Contact)

Co-founder of startup that built award-winning web-based social customer relationship management (CRM) application Bantam Live. Principal software architect for the modular, Ruby on Rails -based subscription service. Hired and managed development team, created development workflow and practices, and established deployment environment structure and operations. Company acquired in February 2011 by Constant Contact, Inc.

Cofounder and CTO

Aperio Networks

Created web applications in both a consulting role and as stand-­alone ventures. Developed and maintained custom content management frameworks on top of both LAMP-stack and Ruby web platforms. Projects included EventSpan.com, WebinarWire.com, KeyPeopleDirectory.com, ConferencingNews.com. Clients included Cadbury Schwepps, Pusser’s Rum, The British Virgin Islands Tourist Board and Alternative Investment Group.

Cofounder and Partner

Independent Consultant

Developed, planned and executed database enabled web presences for small businesses. Contributed to several open source programming projects. Directed programming and operations for popular internet radio station Digitally Imported.

Sapient

Design, development and user-research lead for consulting firm’s Media, Entertainment and Communications business unit. Estimated, sold and managed $2-10MM multi-disciplinary development engagements for Fortune 1000 clients and startup companies. Participated in acquisition and integration of design firm Studio Archetype. Clients included Columbia House, United Airlines, CBS and Verizon.

Director

Studio Archetype

Created new role at award-winning interactive design firm. Responsible for interfacing with technology partners at company and client level. Built and managed company-wide team charged with merging the principles of user-interface design with the latest in interactive technologies. Clients included IBM, Kodak and First Union.

Director, Web Development

Big World Media

Founded interactive media services and web site development firm. Projects included internet roll-out strategy and implementation for corporate clients, database to web connectivity, real-time web content updates and CD-ROM based sales and training presentations. Personally created proprietary Internet content updating system for a premier traffic and traveler information reporting company SmartRoute Systems.

Cofounder and Principal

I've been building digital products and leading software teams for almost three decades. My experience includes engineering and product leadership roles in all sorts of organizations, from bootstrapped businesses and venture-backed startups to publicly traded companies. 

Over the years, I've been lucky enough to work, fail, and succeed with world-class creatives, engineers, marketers, and execs. I deeply understand what it takes to efficiently align people behind inventing, developing, scaling, and cultivating exceptional software products.

Today, I'm harvesting this experience to build and grow Steady, a simple approach to asynchronously coordinating work for software product orgs. Steady implements an open-source set of principles for modern knowledge work called Continuous Coordination, which I helped to create with my colleagues at Steady and other tech leaders.

Henry Poydar

Madison | We Market Professional Services Firms

Madison helps grow professional services firms by making their Partners and Managing Directors "slightly famous." Specifically we help you:

- Get clarity on your Point of View.
- Communicate that Point of View through insightful and high quality content.
- Create natural and respectful ways for your prospects to raise their hands when they're ready.

Intentionally LLC

Helping founders and senior executives build better businesses and live better lives.

Owner

Kellogg School of Management

Teaching a course on digital marketing to full and part-time MBAs.

Adjunct Professor

Manifold

Manifold is a platform for perpetual value creation, combining venture investing, incubation and advisory services under one roof.

Founding Partner

Lead the product strategy and growth teams for our innovation business unit.

Partner at Digital Intent

Founder Equity

Founder Equity provides investors with an attractive way to gain exposure in early stage technology startups. Founder Equity has no fees and no carry, provides a built in portfolio of great companies, brings deep operational expertise to bear, and seeks liquidity targets significantly faster than traditional venture.

Partner

Brill Street + Company

Led product development for web 2.0 job and recruiting platform. Worked with the Brill Street team to determine product strategy, lead interface design and development, conduct user testing, etc.

VP Product Development

EducationDynamics

(NOTE: Goalquest was acquired by EducationDynamics in 2006)

Responsible for identifying market opportunities and new product development initiatives for company’s Enrollment and Retention Division, which has 120 clients and generates $8 million in revenues annually. Determined project objectives, gathered functional and business requirements, developed personas, created wireframes and design prototypes or mockups for production.  Conducted user testing and focus groups to gather feedback and improve products. Mentored and managed multiple graphic designers (in-house and freelance). Collaborated with other departments to ensure products accomplished business and client objectives. 

--
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

• Along with VP Technology and VP Product Dev, responsible for the creation of a social networking platform that serves over 100 million pages a year and reaches over 100,000 students, as well as an 
analytics backend, a content management system, and an early warning system. 
• Created and implemented a formal product development methodology to decrease development time, reduce costs, decrease scope creep and improve client satisfaction.
• Created the Enrollment Audit, an extensive consulting tool to help clients identify holes in their enrollment management strategy and provide suggestions for improving their overall enrollment process and increase revenue for the institution. 
• Developed, designed and deployed the EDDY Idea Manager, a Ruby on Rails application created to consolidate and manage innovation within the division and encourage collaboration between departments. 

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CREATIVE MANAGEMENT

• Responsible for managing the design of over 300 microsite and/or custom web development projects each year. 
• Recipient of multiple industry awards for web design and microsite development. 
• Received highest department grade for client satisfaction on every feedback survey conducted during tenure.

Vice President and Creative Director

Intentionally, Inc.

Web and email marketing company creating tools and consulting on strategies to help small businesses and non-profits run professional, results-driven online marketing campaigns.

GoalQuest

Acted as user advocate, helping bridge the gap between business, technical and user stakeholders. 

• Developed formal user testing process to identify and eliminate bottlenecks and pain points in the user experience for company's web applications. 
• Regularly conducted focus groups at client sites to gather informal feedback on products. 
• Organized client and student feedback groups, and held regular calls to discuss new product opportunities and identify ways to improve existing products and services.

Director of User Experience

Handled account management and client service responsibilities for 15 clients. 
• Had the lowest client attrition rate during account management tenure. 
• Generated over $100k in upsell and cross-sell revenue.

Account Manager

Zosima Development

Web and application development company, focusing on creating online campaigns and building attractive, standards-based websites and web applicaitons. Responsible for all marketing and PR aspects of the company and manage implementation of design for client work.

My primary work is as CEO of Madison, helping professional services firms grow. 

People buy professional services differently than other services. It requires becoming a Trusted Advisor, which is done by having a compelling Point of View, communicated consistently through Authority Marketing, nurturing relationships over time. Madison helps busy professional services firms turn their team into Trusted Advisors at scale.

You can DM me to learn more, or you can learn more about how we think here: https://hiremadison.com.

--

Once a year I help a group of 30-50 senior executives build more intentional lives through a six-week group program. During that time we:

- Craft a compelling vision for the next 10 years of your life.
- Identify the values you want to model your life off of.
- Translate that 10 year vision into 3 year and 1 year objectives.
- Implement a system to capture, process and organize every open loop in your life so nothing falls through the cracks.
- Identify systems and routines that fit into the natural cadence of your life, many of which can be automated so you don’t have to think about it.
- Create a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly operating cadence for managing the execution of your plan.

You can see what past members think and learn about the next cohort of that program here: https://www.sean-johnson.com/intentional-life-program

PREVIOUS WORK:

Previously I was a founding partner at Manifold, where I helped build a 70-person boutique enterprise consulting company, invested in over 25 companies with several exits, stood up an incubation practice, and raised millions in funding from LPs.

I have spent 9 years teaching at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation program.

My aggregate experience has given me a unique lens into the worlds of professional services, startups, and venture investing. I understand intimately the pressures of building a company, the struggle to balance making something incredible with creating a balanced and meaningful life.

FOLLOW ME:

https://sean-johnson.com
http://twitter.com/intentionally
http://instagram.com/intentionally_
http://youtube.com/@intentionally_

Sean Johnson 🔥

Returning home from a few days in LA with my daughter. While I was out, no wheels came off. Several clients expressed their gratitude to the team about the impact they’re having. And a bunch of great stuff shipped.

I'm so incredibly grateful that I get to build this thing. That I get to do it with this small team of badasses. That we collectively get to serve an ever-increasing group of clients, and get to see that work help them accomplish their goals. And that when one of us takes a few days off, the others have our back. That things not only don't fall apart, they thrive.

I'm on the plane, preparing for our annual planning we'll be doing in December. And I'm also grateful that for the second year in a row, we will have met or exceeded our revenue targets for the year. First written down when this was just an idea on a napkin (okay, Notion doc.)

The world is a complicated, broken, flawed, but ultimately beautiful place. And every day we get to show up doing creative work, every time we get to serve each other with generosity and love, every time we pour all of us into the next meeting or call or email or deliverable, we are experiencing a full and fulfilling life.

May we realize how much we have to be thankful for. Not just on Thursday. Not just when we get the opportunity to step away. But next Monday. In that next meeting. In every breath we're blessed to take.

CEO @ Madison. Growing professional services firms. Kellogg professor. Investor w/ multiple exits. Amateur chef. Former Founding Partner @ Manifold.

We are built for rhythms. And it's important we design our lives and our businesses to fit into the reality of those rhythms. Some thoughts on how to do that:

Each year, the day after Thanksgiving, my family puts up our tree. We drink cider and sit in front of it. And then we watch the first of many holiday movies. We've done it since my son was born, and it's a deeply satisfying marker in the year for me.

I believe our whole world operates on rhythms.

Our bodies have rhythms of wakefulness and rest. We can try to violate this for a time if we wish, but we’ve all felt the impact of doing so.

Athletes know the importance of rhythm. You must pair periods of intense work with periods of rest. Otherwise your muscles don’t have time to rebuild, and you risk injury.

The planet has a rhythm. Seasons of growth, seasons where things slow down, seasons of quiet stillness.

Various cultures and religions have had rhythms. Times where you have a ton of activity, times when you perhaps have less. Times to work, and times to reflect. Times to reap, times to sow.

It’s as if we’ve always understood implicitly the need for a rhythm or cadence to life. It seems as though only recently have we forgotten this.

Consider identifying these and submitting yourselves to them.

Look at your day, your week, your year. Ask yourself when you have the most energy and the least. Ask yourself when you can prioritize periods of intense activity and when you should prioritize rest.

For example, I’ve learned my ability to focus tends to wane throughout the day. So I carve out 2-3 hours in the mornings to only work on my MVT. Then I can spend the rest of day in meetings or in admin work.

My wife and I prioritize a weekly date night. For many years we did it on Wednesday. But we found that our energy level wasn’t that great midweek, and were giving each other the leftovers of our week. So we moved it to Saturday night most weeks, when our energy is high, we feel refreshed, and our stress levels are low.

I learned over the years that most potential investors and clients were pretty checked out in August and December. So you should probably not time your fundraise or major sales push around those times.

I know it's cheaper to do the holiday party in January. But it violates this rhythm. I want to have our strategic plan done before our party. And I want our party to close the year with celebration and gratitude, so we can hit January running.

Ask yourself what your ideal workday looks like. Your ideal weekend. Your ideal month. Your ideal season. Write them down.  Slot your habits into stacks and create routines around them.

Begin implementing some version of a weekly review process. Schedule it in your calendar.

Identify times to do a monthly, quarterly, and annual check in. Make a brief outline of what you want to include in each. Schedule them in the calendar. 

We live and work best when we submit ourselves to rhythms.

How I do strategic planning for my personal life (and an invitation to do it together next Friday):

During my 18 month sabbatical, I helped around 150 senior execs build more intentional lives. And the annual planning rhythm was a central piece of that process. How it works:

1) Reflect on the previous year. 

I like to start from a place of gratitude and perspective. Look back since January and ask yourself what you've accomplished. If you make goals, refer to them. 

Be kind to yourself - don't focus on areas where you didn't measure up - that happens to all of us. Focus on what you DID do.

2) Review values and 10 year vision.

Create vivid, compelling 10 year visions, and a statement of values. Reviewing them makes sure what I do for the coming year is downstream of my vision and in alignment with my values. It's also the one time a year I allow myself to change my values if necessary.

3) Brainstorm scenes.

Life is a story. Great stories have memorable scenes in them. And while I can't MAKE those scenes happen exactly the way I want them to, I can create the conditions to make it likely. 

An example: I started "man school" with my son as a right of passage when he turned 13. I kicked it off by giving him letters from myself and his grandfathers, diving into Lake Michigan (in January 😨) and then warming up in my friend's mobile sauna. I had another scene where we hike up a 14er together.

4) Write down goals

This is the typical bit. I translate my 10 year vision into 1 year goals for the various areas of my life. 

All the goal setting stuff is helpful here - making them actionable, realistic, measurable, holistic, etc.

5) Consider your Rhythms

Ask yourself what your ideal workday looks like. Your ideal weekend. Your ideal month. Your ideal season. 

Try to visualize it as vividly and realistically as possible. To the degree you identify areas for improvement, write those down.

6) Pre-book Yourself

Build your calendar for the year. Plan out your ideal work day, your ideal weekend. Block out when you’ll take major trips. Block out tentative dates for time-based events. Block out habits.

Slot projects those into months, factoring in how long those projects will take, how many major initiatives you can realistically move forward at one time, and the natural rhythms you’re trying to cultivate. 

--
Next Friday (12/12) some of my old coaching folks and I are going to do this together over Zoom. If you'd like to join us, comment "2025" and I'll DM you the link. No cost. And no, I don't do coaching anymore - just a gift to help folks start next year strong.

View company: Madison | We Market Professional Services Firms

This never gets old. Thanks to our clients for continuing to support us, and for giving us the opportunity to serve.

The model we use for helping professional services firms position themselves: "What can you credibly say about yourself, that matters to your client, that others can't say?"

All 3 elements are important:

1) Credibility: It has to be true. And I have to BELIEVE it's true. Those are 2 different things. This most often is a problem in two ways: a) You make experience claims but lack the case studies to support it, and b) You make claims around the number of things you can do, but your size doesn't seem to support that claim.

2) Relevance: Often companies are too inwardly focused on what they think makes them great. But if the client doesn't care, it doesn't matter. The best way to find out? Ask them :)

3) Uniqueness: Firms often struggle here. The best ways we've found to do this are through either your beliefs about the world that inform your work (we call this your "unified theory", often expressed though a problem -> diagnosis -> solution framework), or through your values - the why behind what you do. Both can work. The first informs what you do, the second informs how you do it.

Examples can help. 

My former firm was an innovation consulting firm. We used to say: 

"You want to be innovative. The best way to do this is to borrow from the most innovative people in the world - Silicon Valley. That means from a governance standpoint operating like a venture fund (clear thesis, spreading bets, stage-gates, etc.) and at an operational level like a startup (lean, customer development-focused, validated learning, etc.)" 

This made logical sense to clients. And we uniquely could say this because the founders were all startup guys originally, and we had an early stage fund.

Madison's:

"You don't grow professional services firms the way you do anything else. It's a trust-based sale - that's why referral is usually the primary source of business for firms (they're borrowing the trust of someone they already trust.) We believe the best way to build trust through marketing is to get laser focused on who you serve, showing up for them consistently with your best thinking, and creating respectful ways for people to raise hands when they're ready."

One reason I believe so much in marketing for boutique professional services firms: I believe your company is ultimately a reflection of you as the owner.

You are telling a story with your life (even if you aren't aware of it). And you spend more of your waking hours working than anything else. As such it's a material part of that story.

And, other than delivery, marketing is the primary way you communicate that story to the outside world. It's how you tell the world what you care about, what animates the work you do. The hills you'll die on for your clients. How you believe work should be done. How you believe clients should be served.

If we're honest, what most firms sell are commodities. There are MANY bookkeepers in the world. Many strategy consultants. 

But your story is unique. Your business truly is a snowflake. It's an amalgam of your strengths and weaknesses. Your values. It's a monument of sorts, to who you are at your best.

And I guarantee you that there are potential clients out there who will resonate with that. Who will want to cheer you on as you build this little monument to the things you care about. Who will resonate with you as you share why you care so much about what you do.

Most firms don't take advantage of that opportunity. An old mentor of mine said words are like sledgehammers. But too many of us refuse to use them that way. Too many of us have vanilla value propositions, have rounded the corners off of our positioning to try to appeal to everyone, refuse to put a stake in the ground, GPT our way to messaging that hits right in the middle of the bell curve.

But any of us can. 

Your story matters. The way you communicate it matters. It just requires the space to think about what it is you believe (which is part of why we spend so much time there in our POV workshops). And then the courage and conviction to put that message out there, in as compelling language as possible.

How to do annual planning as a couple: 

In addition to personal strategic planning, my wife and I plan as a couple. We usually do it between Christmas and New Years while hanging with my folks. Here's how we do it:

1) Vision and values. 

- What do we want our family to represent to the world? 
- What do we want our lives to be about? What’s the “story” we’re making?
- What are our non-negotiables? 
- What values do we want to instill into our kids?
- Ask yourself how well you modeled those values to your family in the past week. Look for opportunities to improve.
- You’re going to fail, that’s okay. Be gentle with yourself.

2) Goals

- What do you want your life to look like in 10 years?
- What needs to happen in the next 5 to make that happen?
- What needs to happen next year to make that happen?

3) Finance

- Project income for the coming year.
- Identify big rocks you want to allocate to - investing, saving, giving, experiences.
- Design a rational budget for the rest of the year to allow those things to happen.
- Update budget monthly - projected vs. actual. Adjust.

4a) Management, Part One: Meeting Pulse

- Schedule a weekly check in with each other (we do Sunday).
- Review goals. 
- Review next 2 weeks calendar. 
- What can we do to move our big rocks forward? 
- What memorable experiences can we create for our family?

4b) Management, Part Two: 1:1s.

- Schedule a weekly date night. Non-negotiable. No talk about logistics. Just enjoying each other.
- Schedule 1x monthly date with kids. 1 parent, 1 kid. Doing things they enjoy.
- Ask for feedback. What could I do better as a parent/spouse? Actually listen.

4c) Management, Part Three: Operating Cadence.

- Design a weekly rhythm. 
- Chores happen at the same time each week.
- Dinner happens at the same time each night (as much as possible.) 
- Phones down after X time.
- Predictability creates peace.

5) Systems

- Identify common processes. Look for ways to streamline, simplify, delegate, automate or routinize.
- Examples: meal plans and grocery lists based on health goals, weekly/monthly/quarterly home maintenance, check-ins with important family members, etc.

6) Experience Design

- Memorable stories consist of memorable scenes.
- Memorable scenes can be deliberately created.
- Think about setting - sights, sounds, smells, etc. 
- Think about dialogue. Everyone remembers times when someone spoke into their lives powerfully.

A well-run home feels more peaceful, more predictable. More space to have fun and enjoy each other because you aren’t in constant chaos.

Do you do planning as a couple? What does it look like for you?

"Wedge" engagements can be a powerful way to get in the door, to hopefully "land and expand" into higher value work. But it doesn't always work. Some things to keep in mind:

Good wedge engagements are easy to buy, solve an acute pain point a client has, and ideally don't require a significant investment or committee sale (or a protracted procurement process.)

But this can create a trap. Sometimes a wedge can be easy to buy but not strategic. And unless you're thoughtful about the downsides, it can actually relegate you to the bottom of their consulting food chain. They see you as the provider of cheap stuff. And once that mental model calcifies, it can be hard to change their perception.

Great wedge engagements need to make sure they solve an acute problem and get quick wins, but ALSO position you effectively for the more strategic work you're hoping to do.

The best way to make sure that happens is to make that wedge engagement create a new set of opportunities or problems that are unlocked by solving the previous one. But that's not always possible.

If not, the other approach that can work is to literally script out the delivery of that engagement. Every deliverable, every client interaction. And then look for natural and intelligent ways to bake hooks or talking points about your other service offerings into delivery. 

You don't want to rely on hope that they bring up other needs proactively. And you don't want to assume that your team responsible for delivery would recognize an opportunity if they saw one.

If you're going to pursue a wedge strategy, make sure it has a natural onramp to your other stuff. Design the experience deliberately to surface those opportunities. And make sure your team is trained on how to create that experience with consistency.

It's planning season. You're (hopefully) figuring out what 2026 is going to look like, and what your firm needs to do to make it happen. But "grow more" isn't a plan. How we do it at Madison:

1) Review last year. Start with gratitude and celebration. What wins did you have? What difference are you looking to make in the world? Starting from a place of gratitude tees up the rest to be more productive and positive. 

Then dig into the details. Obviously look at the numbers, but also consider your client mix, team capacity, market position, extent to which your team is becoming "slightly famous" with who they seek to serve, etc.

2) Cast (or re-cast) your vision. Do you need to update your beliefs or values? Your 10 year vision for the firm? (if 10 years feels bananas, do 3.) You want something compelling, that the team can rally around (again, more than just numbers.)

Then, translate that vision into 1 year goals that are more tangible. And decide on some metrics (not too many) that you'll use to assess progress toward the goals. 

3) Get concrete. Break major initiatives into quarters, decide on how to allocate resources (people and budgets.) Develop a system for accountability.

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Link to this guide is in the comments. Hope it's helpful!

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The Battle

Henry Poydar

Sean Johnson 🔥

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