josiah mugambi

Things That Matter Featured

Frugality FTW

Being frugal is often associated with being cheap or living a deprived lifestyle. However, this couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, being frugal is a valuable skill that can help one save money, make the most of resources, and live a fulfilling life on a budget.

Why everything about startups and business is about risk

Everything about startups  and business is about risk, i.e. one can look at everything in startups and business in general through a risk lens. This arguably applies to life in general. I’m not a risk professional but this is a concept that I’ve mulled over for quite

Recovering Entrepreneur?

I've previously described myself as a ‘recovering entrepreneur’, but I haven’t quite gotten to the details of what that exactly means for me. I wrote about the entrepreneurial journey some years back. This 'update' post has been on my mind for several minds for several months, but I haven't

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One more marathon

I took part in the 2022 edition of the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon. Despite a somewhat truncated training period, I still managed to lower my PR by a few minutes (yay!) from my last race in 2019.

Learn by doing Featured

Attunement and the Ambivert Advantage

Introverts are ‘geared to inspect’ while extraverts are ‘geared to respond’. Selling of any sort - whether traditional sales or non-sales selling - requires a delicate balance of inspecting and responding. Ambiverts can find that balance - knowing when to speak up and when to shut up.

Learn by doing

Lifelong Learning, Range, Being a "Deliberate Amateur"

I finally got round to finishing Range. One of my best books. Here are some ideas from my favorite chapter, "Deliberate Amateur" which strongly resonated as I consider myself a life long learner, along with some final learnings. Amateur? It’s often that we see the word amateur being used

Learn by doing

Wicked Problems require Range

The more constrained and repetitive a challenge, the more likely it will be automated, while great rewards will accrue to those who can take conceptual knowledge from one problem or domain and apply it in an entirely new one. This excerpt resonates with me as I find myself tuning out

Learn by doing Featured

Range: “Kind” vs “Wicked” Domains

Our greatest strength is the exact opposite of narrow specialisation. It is the ability to integrate broadly

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People

As entrepreneurs start and grow businesses, they are dependent on talented and skilful people and teams.

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Ecosystems

I used to do a lot of personal blogging a long time ago. Then social media (read Twitter) happened. Over time, I have however realised that I gain a lot more understanding on a topic when I write, and so I made a promise to myself to write a lot

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Cloud, Connecting, Coffee and Collaboration, Ecosystems

Connecting, ‘getting your brain picked’, collaborating and ecosystem building have a common thread: they require building trust. This is necessarily hard and takes time. Hard because it’s all about people.

Open Source #TBT and a side project

This is a bit of a #ThrowBack now that it’s Thursday + a side project. Once upon a time, I was quite the vociferous open source evangelist and got into lots of heated debates with some then Microsoft evangelists. I contributed a little to the debate in 2007-2008 on the

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Everyone is in business

Everyone is in business

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Focus: Cloud, Data and Complex Problems

I needed to focus. Decided on Cloud, Data + Complex Problems

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Learning by doing, Curiosity did not kill the cat (+ a Career update)

A brief career update as well as areas I'm exploring next.

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42

One of the best ways (I think) to celebrate a birthday is with a run. I find it hugely helpful to spend those hours reflecting on God's goodness for the years past. My 42k one month ago was my third time doing it, this time celebrating a marathon of years.

Things That Matter

Character Matters

Sanctification in the very best is an imperfect work. The history of the brightest saints who ever lived will contain many a "but," and "howbeit," and "notwithstanding," before you reach the end. The gold will never be without some dross - the light will never shine without some clouds, until

Things That Matter

Legacy

My grand-dad, the one I'm named after passed on about a month ago at 103(!) years. Indeed he lived a long and fruitful life - the bulk of the 20th century being born at the tail end of a world war, conscripted into service for the next one, becoming a

Learn by doing

old dog, new tricks

TL:DR Old dogs *can* (un/re)learn new tricks - passing the Associate Cloud Engineer examination. Background I’m generally a curious person especially when it comes to matters tech. I enjoy experimenting, trying out new stuff. I also enjoy building products. The process of discovery, learning, and building

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My fitness journey + Nairobi Marathon 2019

My fitness journey, and I finally did my maiden marathon!

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Came up short! #40kAt40. Lessons from (long) runs

(Cover photo by Matt Gross on Unsplash) I came up about 4km short of my #40kAt40 early July. So near yet so far! I really messed up fuelling — one can actually overdo this — and hydration, because I crashed far too early. We shall revisit! This ~36k birthday run nonetheless was

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Normalizing the entrepreneurial story

Normalizing the entrepreneurship: worth it but very very very hard, and not the youth employment panacea that African governments (and some DFIs make it out to be)

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Reflections from my last ~20 years in tech: part 3

This is the final part of a collection of memories, thoughts and lessons from my last two (!) decades in technology, in mostly chronological order. I thought I'd get this done in the course of 2018 but it wasn't to be.

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Reflections from my last ~20 years in tech: part 2

This is the second part of a collection of memories, thoughts and lessons from my last two (!) decades in technology, in mostly chronological order. I thought I'd get this done in the course of 2018 but it wasn't to be.

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Reflections from my last ~20 years in tech: part 1

This is the first part of a collection of memories, thoughts and lessons from my last two (!) decades in technology, in mostly chronological order. I thought I'd get this done in the course of 2018 but it wasn't to be.