On March 1st, 2016, JD and team took the reigns of Sifter. That day, it absolutely felt like the right decision, but now, with a year’s worth of perspective, how does it feel? Even better.
Handing over a project after pouring eight years of your life into it can be nerve-wracking, especially when you care about the customers, and not just the “exit.” Deciding to entrust JD with Sifter felt like a safe bet, but things don’t always work out.
I still hang out in the Slack room with the Sifter team and chime in on legacy topics, but that’s becoming less and less frequent. In the last few months, the team has really picked up momentum and shipped some long overdue features that I declined to implement for years.
You could even make the case that they’re doing better by customers than I ever was. Watching them run Sifter, I can unequivocally say that I was too focused on the micro-customer service and not enough on macro-customer service.
I fretted about support request response times, but then I casually dismissed feature requests that I understood but didn’t philosophically agree with. It’s been an eye-opening experience to watch another team run the show.
In hindsight, I can confidently say that this has a lot to to do with feeling good about finding the right home for Sifter. It’s a huge relief seeing Sifter thrive, and that has everything to do with its new caretakers. I interviewed JD for the Starting & Sustaining podcast, and it’s a great listen to help establish a baseline if you’re ever looking to find a buyer for your application.