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# Ada Chen Rekhi

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://www.adachen.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [Essays](https://www.adachen.com/essays/) - Hello! I have moved my writing to Substack and will be publishing there from now on. The posts below are still up as archives :)
- [What I Didn't Know About Coaching (Part 2)](https://www.adachen.com/an-in-depth-guide-to-executive-coaching-what-coaches-should-know-part-2/) - In part 2 of my series on executive coaching, I'm sharing the coach-specific insights from my 80+ interviews with executives and coaches, and how they've changed the way I coach. If you're looking for the data, you can also refer to Part 1 of this series or visit Part 3: How to Find an Executive
- [An In-Depth Guide to Executive Coaching: Everything You Need To Know (Part 1)](https://www.adachen.com/an-in-depth-guide-to-executive-coaching-everything-you-need-to-know-part-1/) - I'm excited to share what I've learned from 80+ conversations to map the executive coaching industry: How are executives finding their executive coach? What areas is coaching effective for and how are people leveraging it? How much do executive coaches typically charge, and what's the structure? How do you maximize the value from your coaching
- [A Practical Guide: How To Find an Executive Coach (Part 3)](https://www.adachen.com/a-practical-guide-how-to-find-an-executive-coach-part-3/) - When I give advice to executives looking for a coach, I typically break it down for them into these straightforward steps on how to structure their search. This is Part 3 of my series on executive coaching based on insights from 80+ interviews with executives and coaches, focused on how to find a coach. Check
- [Leaving Silicon Valley After 18+ Years](https://www.adachen.com/leaving-silicon-valley-after-18-years/) - If you know me personally, you've already heard our big news: After 18 years in Silicon Valley, we're moving to Monterey! The obvious questions: What about work? What about friends? Sachin and I are fully remote—we'll continue running Notejoy, Sachin is creating courses on Reforge, and I'll continue my work coaching founders. As for friends,
- [The power of avoiding stupidity for startups](https://www.adachen.com/the-power-of-avoiding-stupidity-for-startups/) - One of the most critical challenges for startups is putting together an execution plan for success. Rather than focusing on what a shiny outcome would be, an incredibly powerful tool is to consider what a crap outcome would look like and avoiding that. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's late business partner, was often quoted saying "It
- [How to Not Spoil a Child](https://www.adachen.com/how-to-avoid-spoiling-our-kids/) - Are we raising a spoiled child? I recently read Ron Lieber's The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous and Smart about Money and it was instantly one of the books that kept me up at night thinking and talking with my partner. What am I afraid of as a parent? When I
- [How to Write Your 'Year in Review'](https://www.adachen.com/how-to-write-your-year-in-review/) - Every December, I sit down to write my year in review—capturing the highs, the lessons learned, and my aspirations for the coming year. This reflective practice has proven invaluable, providing me with profound insights and a roadmap for personal growth. It's a great practice which I would highly recommend. I have year in reviews going
- [Frank Slootman on creating a high-performing culture](https://www.adachen.com/slootman-amp-it-up-book-review/) - It's much easier to find our leadership style if we have examples to engage with in a detailed way. I recently picked up Frank Slootman's book Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity because I wanted to learn more about how he operates. Tldr; loved the book and
- [How to Delegate Without Being a Micro-Manager](https://www.adachen.com/getting-things-done-through-others/) - "If you want a thing done well, do it yourself" If you, like Napoleon Bonaparte, have ever reached this conclusion, you are not alone. Delegating effectively is a struggle and it often feels faster and better to do it yourself. The challenge is the devil is in the details on how to effectively delegate. Make
- [My Fellows Retreat with Leaders in Tech](https://www.adachen.com/my-fellows-retreat-with-leaders-in-tech/) - In fall of 2018 I had one of the most formative self-development experiences I've ever had to date -- attending a Fellows retreat with Leaders in Tech (LIT). My mind was blown because it is SO different from many of the offerings out there, and I wanted to write a post to share what this
- [Make Better Decisions with Curiosity Loops](https://www.adachen.com/curiosity-loops-to-make-better-decisions/) - I think most would agree that one of the best resources for making better decisions is the advice of knowledgeable people who know us well. Unfortunately, it's often an underutilized resource. The main challenge is, how do you actually do it? I use something I call a curiosity loop to systematically extract wisdom from my
- [Podcast: How to make better decisions and build a joyful career](https://www.adachen.com/podcast-how-to-make-better-decisions-and-build-a-joyful-career/) - Listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeTranscript: Lenny's Podcast I was recently invited onto Lenny's Podcast and had so much fun there talking about how to make better decisions, career strategy, and living a life aligned with our values. Topics covered: Curiosity loops to make better decisions Values and how to map them "Explore and exploit" strategy
- [The Leadership Chasm](https://www.adachen.com/the-leadership-chasm/) - Why transitioning to management is hard: The Leadership Chasm When I coach founders and execs, I often encounter them in a point of transition. Reaching the point in your career where you transition from individual contributor to a people leader is often a story of struggle. Here’s why it’s so difficult to rise to the
- [Finding Meaningful Work with “Designing Your Life”](https://www.adachen.com/finding-meaningful-work-with-designing-your-life/) - With all of the talk of The Great Resignation, it doesn’t come as a surprise that many people are asking the question, what do I really want to do? Many people follow a guiding star throughout their early career. Their career transitions are based on what their parents or peers expected, what their peers did,
- [What's Surprised Me About Parenthood](https://www.adachen.com/whats-surprised-me-about-parenthood/) - Two and a half years in, I wanted to reflect on some of my top surprises of parenthood. TLDR highs are higher and lows are lower than expected. What we investigated In evaluating the decision to have a child, we tried to consider as much as possible. We approached it as an active choice rather
- [Marketers: Hone Your Customer Intuition](https://www.adachen.com/marketers-hone-your-customer-intuition/) - It is tempting to fully embrace data-driven decision making and demand all marketing efforts are backed with data and ROI. While this sounds reasonable initially, marketing is both an art and science, and great marketers should also spend time honing their customer intuition to be successful in their craft. The problem with data-driven marketing Data-driven
- [7 Things No One Tells You About Being a Startup Founder](https://www.adachen.com/7-things-no-one-tells-you-about-being-a-startup-founder/) - When I founded my first company Connected back in 2011, I was really surprised by the intensity of the emotional rollercoaster. By then I'd already worked everywhere from large corporate Microsoft to tiny new startup and felt prepared. I was dead wrong. I remember describing it to a friend as, "After I started a company,
- [Build Your Inner Scorecard: A 10-Minute Exercise for Better Decisions](https://www.adachen.com/build-your-inner-scorecard-a-10-minute-exercise-for-better-decisions/) - What defines you? What does success look like? How can I make good decisions for myself in the long term? My belief is that it's important to operate our lives by an Inner Scorecard. While an Outer Scorecard is based on how the external world sees you, judges you, and stacks you up in comparison
- [When Does Paid Acquisition Work for SaaS Startups?](https://www.adachen.com/when-does-paid-acquisition-work-for-saas-startups/) - A quick repost of my guest post for Andrew Chen’s blog yesterday. Introduction After recently moving on from adventures building a consumer gaming portal at Mochi Media (acquired last year for $80 MM), I’m now working on a new startup called Connected, which is a SaaS contact management solution for professionals. I decided to blog
- [Four unSEXY Startup Lessons](https://www.adachen.com/four-unsexy-startup-lessons/) - Last Friday I attended the unSEXY conference, a one-day conference hosted by 500 Startups focused on the unsexy topics of distribution and money makin’ for startups. You can see the conference slides here. I thought I’d briefly summarize four key lessons for startups. While they aren’t all non-obvious, it’s good reminders for every business builder
- [What Is Product Marketing?](https://www.adachen.com/what-is-product-marketing/) - The role of product marketing in technology companies is a fascinating topic in part because it is so poorly defined and inconsistent. I’ve managed product marketing now at LinkedIn, SurveyMonkey and various early-stage startups and in each case the expectations for the role were different from team to team and company to company. It’s a
- [Introduction — About Ada](https://www.adachen.com/introduction-about-ada/) - This is my introductory post.
- [How to Prepare for an Interview](https://www.adachen.com/how-to-prepare-for-an-interview/) - After going through full-time recruiting at Wharton last fall, I went through 20+ behavioral interviews between different companies. Not a lot by Penn standards, but I got to final rounds on all but one. Primarily, human resource and tech consulting, and then of course Microsoft. :) Behavioral interviews are interviews operating on the belief that past
- [Paralysis By Too Many Choices](https://www.adachen.com/paralysis-by-too-many-choices/) - I really hate the decision-making process. Lately I feel like I’m in a state of paralysis due to inability to pick anything, because there’s too many choices to deal with and I’m afraid that somehow I will make the wrong one.In a Consumer Behavior class I took last year with Professor Small, one of our
- [My Microsoft Interview for Search Marketing Specialist](https://www.adachen.com/my-microsoft-interview-for-search-marketing-specialist/) - One of the things I’m working on for this blog is to write posts that address my own personal FAQs — questions that people always ask me and I end up having to answer repeatedly. Now I’ve come up with the fabulous solution: I’ll just point them at my blog! At Penn, one of the best resources
- [How Often Do You Use These Google Products?](https://www.adachen.com/how-often-do-you-use-these-google-products/) - Well, Philipp Lenssen has a survey to find out.I was really surprised that a) there are so many google products out there, b) I have heard of maybe 2/3rds of them, and c) I’m not alone in not using most of the ones I do know about.Ada Chen
- [Car Purchases in the context of Negotiation Class](https://www.adachen.com/car-purchases-in-the-context-of-negotiation-class/) - My summer quarter at the University of Washington ends this Friday, and I’m registering only a sense of relief. Despite the pleasure of easily getting very good grades (they give extra credit?!) and the satisfaction of rounding off a classical studies minor, I’m pretty tired of the school routine. Part of it is due to
- [The End of Cheap Russian Music](https://www.adachen.com/the-end-of-cheap-russian-music/) - AllOfMp3.com may be reaching the end of its days with a new Russian law in place. Uh oh!I’ve become more and more reluctant to adopt products and services from smaller companies because in all likelihood they will have dramatic changes or not be able to stick around. A few that I love and use regularly
- [Live Search is Live!](https://www.adachen.com/live-search-is-live/) - In case you haven’t heard, Live Search is now officially live and getting attention. Jeremy Zawodny did a test-drive and Businessweek had a favorable review on the Live Search experience.Ada Chen
- [Developing Presence and Power](https://www.adachen.com/developing-presence-and-power/) - I attended an interesting training today put on by the company Skills To Success. The training was titled “Personal Power & Presence” and featured hands-on coaching on minor behavior adjustments each of us can do for more effective interactions.The class featured a predator-partner-prey model. A person can be all three in different interactions, but typically
- [Apartment searching in SF sucks](https://www.adachen.com/apartment-searching-in-sf-sucks/) - We’ve spent the past two weeks trying to find a new home (which, by the way, will end with triumph tomorrow when drop off our signed lease) and the whole process has sucked. Apartment hunting is an antiquated process that hasn’t progressed much beyond moving classifieds online and for free.Many listings don’t do a consistent
- [Hanging out at Flashforward](https://www.adachen.com/hanging-out-at-flashforward/) - This past week I was able to spend some time at the Flashforward conference, held here in San Francisco at the Nob Hill Masonic Center. Flashforward is a conference and showcase for the Flash design and development community. By my rough count, it brought together together a crowd of about 600–800 artists.Some thoughts on Flashforward:There
- [Washington Scenic Drive: Cascade Loop](https://www.adachen.com/washington-scenic-drive-cascade-loop/) - The Pacific Northwest has a lot more to it than just rain; it has amazing scenery and plenty of outdoorsy activities. I went on Cascade Loop last weekend on a drive with Sachin across the Cascade Mountains and into Eastern Washington. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking, and a great way to see the rest of
- [Kindle vs. Used Bookstores for Students](https://www.adachen.com/kindle-vs-used-bookstores-for-students/) - Amazon’s plan plan to tackle student textbooks has met with plenty of skepticism. Is tackling college students a successful strategy? I did some digging back in my old files to see whether or not the Kindle would have made sense when I was in college not so long ago. I kept fairly good records of
- [My Love-Hate Relationship with Apple](https://www.adachen.com/my-love-hate-relationship-with-apple/) - Not even a year out of the M$ campus, and I’ve adapted to a new life in SF accompanied by the usual mix of geeky accoutrements. Along with the Twitter account and flirtations with new technology, I’ve also managed to acquire an assortment of Apple products including a brand new MacBook (which I’ve affectionately named
- [Roadtrip on Hwy 101](https://www.adachen.com/roadtrip-on-hwy-101/) - 2 — Sonoma Coast (13)Originally uploaded by adavark. I’m driving up the California, Oregon and (part of) the Washington coast! Impressively, I am logging on fairly often to post photos.Check them out on my Flickr.
- [Craigslist rental scam and community policing](https://www.adachen.com/craigslist-rental-scam-and-community-policing/) - In largely user-generated communities, it’s always pretty impressive to see how quickly inappropriate behavior gets busted by the user community. In my latest housing search, I ran into one of those “too good to be true” sort of postings, and received the following message from the would-be scammer. Pretty neat to note that the first
- [In Memoriam](https://www.adachen.com/in-memoriam/) - 01 31 07 GrantDog 021Originally uploaded by adavark.Our family dog Grant passed away this weekend. He went peacefully in his sleep. He was a big fifty pound dog and lived to be 14 (like 80 in dog years), but it still hasn’t sunk in that the puppy from when I was in third grade is
- [First Timer on Habbo Hotel](https://www.adachen.com/first-timer-on-habbo-hotel/) - Last night I checked out Habbo Hotel, a virtual world predominantly catering to the 13–16 year old set, and thought I’d share a troubling first user experience.My first move after setting up my character, downloading Shockwave and entering the world was going to the New Players Lobby. I entered the lobby, only to find the
- [Hit-list of my favorite Flash games](https://www.adachen.com/hit-list-of-my-favorite-flash-games/) - I play a looooott of Flash games, and thought I’d show off a few of my recent favorites.BoombotKABOOM! Blow up bombs to get the guy to the door. Simple enough, right? Riveting, slightly random and sometimes downright frustrating puzzles are addicting with the perfect progression of difficulty. I will warn you that the moment I
- [Back in Business](https://www.adachen.com/back-in-business/) - To follow up my earlier post about my Apple MacBook cracking, I visited the store and it took “5 to 6 business days” for them to replace the case of my MacBook. But voila, I’m back in business!Apple’s done a fantastic job of cultivating its clean image of virus-free dependability, but I’ve definitely had my
- [The Different Dialects of Casual Game Monetization](https://www.adachen.com/the-different-dialects-of-casual-game-monetization/) - Games are hot lately and GDC 2009 is just around the corner. When talking about games, most people tend to think about the business of making games in the loose terms of console, casual and mobile. However, the casual games industry is definitely a lot more segmented than that. The conversations become radically different depending
- [Are You Internet Illiterate? Sux 4 U](https://www.adachen.com/are-you-internet-illiterate-sux-4-u/) - I recently finished reading Proust and the Squidby Maryanne Wolf, a fascinating book about the biological and cognitive development behind the simple act of reading. The initial reason to pick up the book was an equally interesting article read in The Atlantic during a plane trip: ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’.To summarize the ongoing debate,
- [The World of Flash Games](https://www.adachen.com/the-world-of-flash-games/) - We just wrapped up Flash Gaming Summit on Sunday and it was a packed event with lots of interesting discussions and thoughts come out of it. There was a good mix of games-related companies, game portals and independent developers. I thought the most interesting conversations came discussion around Flash games intersecting with multi-player, virtual MMOs
- [Gearing up for Flash Gaming Summit on Sunday](https://www.adachen.com/gearing-up-for-flash-gaming-summit-on-sunday/) - I’ve been busy organizing the Flash Gaming Summit this coming week, which is a one-day conference dedicated exclusively to the Flash game development community. The conference is a mix of speaker sessions and panels, and also features The Mochis, which recognizes the best Flash Games of 2008.Check out this amazing video which Brandon from WeGame
- [Casual Connect 2009 Recap and Observations](https://www.adachen.com/casual-connect-2009-recap-and-observations/) - I just wrapped up the week at Casual Connect in Seattle. Overall, a great conference and big kudos to Jessica Tams and the Casual Games Association team for putting it on and growing the attendance to new highs in a difficult economy. :-) I’m not planning to spend too much time summarizing the content, though there’s
- [Free Ringtones(*) With a Catch](https://www.adachen.com/free-ringtones-with-a-catch/) - It was heartening to spot the news today that Google has agreed to force search marketers to disclose the subscription fees associated with a lot of the supposedly “free” ringtone ads out there.In a deal with the Florida Attorney General’s office, Google agreed to require search marketers to use copy such as “ad-supported” or “$9.99/month”
- [PAX 2009: Designing Indie Games With a Team of One](https://www.adachen.com/pax-2009-designing-indie-games-with-a-team-of-one/) - I spent the past weekend at Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. It was a fantastic, packed event and definitely felt more like a gamer convention than a developer convention. The gamer enthusiasm ran the gamut from complex D&D games featuring 20-sided dice, card games like Magic, to XBLA games and hardcore console games. This year,
- [PAX 2009: What is an ‘Indie Game’? Panel](https://www.adachen.com/pax-2009-what-is-an-indie-game-panel/) - I’ve cleaned up a quick version of a transcript at the ‘What is an “Indie Game” Panel’ at PAX over the weekend. As these things go, it’s probably only about 80% complete so please excuse any omissions in the content. Enjoy!PAX 2009: What is an ‘Indie Game’? PanelPanel Description:The rise in game platforms and distribution mechanisms
- [Google Stops the Dance Music](https://www.adachen.com/google-stops-the-dance-music/) - The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has discontinued Google Dance, their annual search geek party at Search Engine Strategies. I attended Google Dance back in 2007 and was blown away by the scale of the free food, beer and events that Google organized for the search community.While Google cites “cost-cutting efforts” as a reason
- [PAX 2009: A Strategic Approach to Game Design](https://www.adachen.com/pax-2009-a-strategic-approach-to-game-design/) - Geoffrey Zatkin, president and COO of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR), gave an interesting talk about what strategic questions developers should ask themselves before diving into game development. While I don’t believe that this is 100% relevant to the Flash games market, it did raise some interesting questions for me on how smaller indie
- [GDC Austin: MMO and Virtual World Monetization](https://www.adachen.com/gdc-austin-mmo-and-virtual-world-monetization/) - An MMOs and Virtual Worlds Panel at PlaySpan’s Monetization 2.0 Forum had some great data points. I did some scribbling and typed up my notes below so forgive any inaccuracies.The panel was moderated by EA’s Nanea Reeves with panelists:Jim Crowley l CEO, TurbineCary Rosenzweig l CEO, IMVUJohny Mang l EA- DiceTom Hale | Chief Product
- [Video and Notes from Casual Connect 2009: Emerging Revenue Channels for Flash Games, Social…](https://www.adachen.com/video-and-notes-from-casual-connect-2009-emerging-revenue-channels-for-flash-games-social/) - In addition to my observations from Casual Connect, I spoke at the conference about emerging revenue channels within Flash games. I’ve linked the slides here.Earlier last week, I also joined the Leadership Development Forum to lead a roundtable on “Social Networking and Branded Games” with Vicky Tamaru of Plexipixel. Hosted Wordpress doesn’t let me embed
- [GDC10 Notes: Sid Meier on Why Everything You Know is Wrong](https://www.adachen.com/gdc10-notes-sid-meier-on-why-everything-you-know-is-wrong/) - Friday morning’s keynote was from none other than Sid Meier himself, co-founder of Firaxis and the creator of the Civ series.Session Title: The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong) from Sid MeierMeier began his talk with the assertion that gameplay is primarily a psychological experience and player psychology is primarily based on
- [Three smart ways Frontierville executes on game mechanics](https://www.adachen.com/three-smart-ways-frontierville-executes-on-game-mechanics/) - The entire company has been playing Zynga’s Frontierville for the last few weeks as a group observation on social games. I’m amused (and a little embarrassed?) to admit that I’m one of the few people I know in the games industry that actually enjoys playing these games. However, as penance for an excessive amount of
- [Quick Notes from Smartphone Games Summit — Android, Social, Freemium and More](https://www.adachen.com/quick-notes-from-smartphone-games-summit-android-social-freemium-and-more/) - I stopped by the Smartphone Games Summit today, and thought I’d post a few notes. Great job to Charles Hudson and mediabistro for another great event. One of the interesting sessions in the morning was a session called Smartphone Game Trends, presented by Peter Farago, VP of Marketing for Flurry.Smartphone Game TrendsConsumers are changing in
- [How Games Fulfill Maslow’s Hierarchy](https://www.adachen.com/how-games-fulfill-maslows-hierarchy/) - It struck me the other day how well Maslow’s hierarchy of needs maps directly to many social game mechanics.Maslow’s hierarchy was introduced in the 1940’s as a concept that people are motivated to satisfy basic needs before they build up to other needs. The lower level of the pyramid is built off of hygiene needs,
- [What is Gamification and Real World Examples of It](https://www.adachen.com/what-is-gamification-and-real-world-examples-of-it/) - What Is Gamification?Gamification is a new vocabulary word lately, and there’s even a summit about it. What is the definition of gamification? The word gamification is used to describe companies integrating game mechanics into their non-gaming product or service to drive user engagement. These companies are “gamifying” their products and services by adding light game
- [Mochi Media Acquired by Shanda Games for $80 Million](https://www.adachen.com/mochi-media-acquired-by-shanda-games-for-80-million/) - Last night my company Mochi Media announced our acquisition by Shanda Games for $80 million. I am THRILLED about the deal and am really honored to be part of this experience.It’s been nearly 3 years since I joined Mochi Media, and it was one of the easiest decisions for me to make. I practically begged
- [GDC10 Notes: Achievements Considered Harmful?](https://www.adachen.com/gdc10-notes-achievements-considered-harmful/) - Last week I sat through a couple sessions at GDC10 — excellent talks all around. Here’s a quick write-up of my notes part 1, but more detailed coverage also available here.Session Title: Achievements Considered Harmful — Chris HeckerHecker classifies achievements astangible — cash, gold star, trophyverbal — praisesymbolic — achievements like on XboxAnd also breaks them down on a variety of criteriaexpected vs unexpectedinformational (objective
- [GDC10 Notes: The Evolution of Habbo Hotel’s Virtual Economy](https://www.adachen.com/gdc10-notes-the-evolution-of-habbo-hotels-virtual-economy/) - Session Title: The Evolution of Habbo Hotel’s Virtual Economy by Sulka Haro (Lead Designer, Sulake)Overview of Habbo HotelAge range is 12–17, with $74 million in revenueOffices in 13 countriesThey maintain 16 instances = 16 separate virtual economies10 years old this yearSulka describes the 6 phases of change that the Habbo Hotel’s Virtual Economy has gone
- [Roundup: Ongoing Gamification Debate](https://www.adachen.com/roundup-ongoing-gamification-debate/) - Gamification as a buzz word seems to be picking up steam and there’s a lot of conversations going on about the topic these days. After my recent post defining gamification and giving examples of it, I’ve pulled together a roundup and quick summary of the topics.To start off, the web can’t seem to decide whether
- [Facebook and RockYou on Performance Marketing for Social Media](https://www.adachen.com/facebook-and-rockyou-on-performance-marketing-for-social-media/) - I attended 80/20 Conference, an interesting performance marketing event earlier this week put on by Jay Weintraub. Lots of interesting content there besides this, but posting my quick notes below on a session called “Sustainable Monetization of Social Media Inventory” from Facebook and RockYou.SpeakersSarah Smith, Online Sales Operations, FacebookMihir Shah, VP Ad Network, RockYouRockYou15 billions
- [Whirlwind year and new blog name](https://www.adachen.com/whirlwind-year-and-new-blog-name/) - It’s been almost 6 months since I’ve posted an update. Yes, I fell off the blogging wagon once wedding planning kicked into high gear. It’s been a whirlwind year with first Mochi Media’s acquisition, running the second year of Flash Gaming Summit, and nearest to my heart — getting married! On April 24th, I officially tied the
- [How to Price Your Virtual Currency (Dataset Across 57 Social Games, SNS and MMO/Virtual Worlds)](https://www.adachen.com/how-to-price-your-virtual-currency-dataset-across-57-social-games-sns-and-mmo-virtual-worlds/) - One of the key early decisions to game design or creating a virtual currency platform is designing the price and exchange rate of virtual currency. Unfortunately after it’s been released, it’s also one of the most difficult to change, because the change impacts the userbase and economy of the system as a whole. So if
- [Why Startups Should Care About PR](https://www.adachen.com/why-startups-should-care-about-pr/) - One of the common questions that startups ask is whether or not they should bother with hiring a PR agency. PR agencies are fairly expensive for small businesses to work with, often thousands per month on a retainer basis. The most common complaint I hear is that they’re pricey, and difficult to measure the return
- [The Wilderness Downtown](https://www.adachen.com/the-wilderness-downtown/) - The Wilderness Downtown is a super impressive showcase of the capabilities of HTML5.
- [My new startup Connected is contact management without the work](https://www.adachen.com/my-new-startup-connected-is-contact-management-without-the-work/) - A new projectI’ve been so heads down working at my new startup that I’ve neglected to update my blog. Sorry guys!A few months ago, I left Mochi Media and the world of games to start a new adventure with Connected, which provides contact management without the work. It automatically pulls in contact information from across your
- [Breaking Stalemates on Product Design Questions](https://www.adachen.com/breaking-stalemates-on-product-design-questions/) - One of the challenges of early product design is creating the initial product hypothesis on what the product actually is. Internally, products tend to be more easily described as a bundle of features, but it’s difficult to convert that into an actual description. Marketing and initial product design is often the realm in which everyone
- [Lessons from designing a product in less than 24 hours](https://www.adachen.com/lessons-from-designing-a-product-in-less-than-24-hours/) - Last weekend, Sachin Rekhi and I did connectme.cc as a little hackathon project for the Cloudstock Hackathon. I’m proud to report that we were a finalist for the event and even made it onto Techcrunch! If you’re not familiar with it, Cloudstock is a small event offshoot off of the larger Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference designed to
- [Good Marketer / Bad Marketer](https://www.adachen.com/good-marketer-bad-marketer/) - Inspired by a recent conversation that reminded me of Ben Horowitz’s Good Product Manager/Bad Product Manager post, I wanted to share a cleaned up version of a similar talk I prepped for a subset of my team at SurveyMonkey on what a world class marketer looks like. Sometimes people ask me how marketers can get
- [Freemium and Free Trial Conversion Benchmarks](https://www.adachen.com/freemium-and-free-trial-conversion-benchmarks/) - Inquiring minds want to know… What is the average free to paid conversion rate from a free trial or freemium? What is a “good” conversion rate from free trial to paid? Without an industry survey out there and in the process of defining the growth plan for my own company Notejoy, I was curious to
- [How to Make Your First Marketing Hire](https://www.adachen.com/how-to-make-your-first-marketing-hire/) - Just about every startup has to cross this bridge at some point: making their first marketing hire. I often get asked about this topic and after several conversations, I was inspired to put together a guide on how to scope, evaluate and hire a strong first marketer for your team. Defining the scope of your
- [Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog and the slippery slope of founder ethics](https://www.adachen.com/phil-knights-shoe-dog-and-the-slippery-slope-of-founder-ethics/) - Thanks to all of the end of year book lists, my current reading list is swelling with newfound gems and Shoe Dog is one of my new favorites. I devoured it in a single day. Shoe Dog is the memoir of Phil Knight, founder and CEO of Nike and details the company from its early
- [Anatomy of a Marketing Organization](https://www.adachen.com/anatomy-of-a-marketing-organization/) - One of the areas I often advise startups on are questions around how to structure a marketing organization or make their initial marketing hires. I noticed there isn’t a lot of information out there about the different types of marketers, so I wanted to share some of the key functions that make up a marketing
- [Uncovering the secrets of happiness](https://www.adachen.com/uncovering-the-secrets-of-happiness/) - The holidays are one of my favorite times of year. As the sparkling lights and decorations go up, the holidays are a reminder and invitation to reflect, spend time with loved ones, and take stock on the learnings from the prior year. I thought this would be an ideal time to post a reflection on
- [Three keys to building a strong technology brand](https://www.adachen.com/three-keys-to-building-a-strong-technology-brand/) - Brand is a hot topic for tech companies lately. It’s unsurprising, because tech companies are currently dominating the top brand charts. In the 2016 Interbrand survey, technology companies occupy fully half of the top 24 global brands with Apple and Google 1st and 2nd, and Facebook and Amazon the top growing brands in their report.
- [Building Effective Marketing + Product Partnership](https://www.adachen.com/building-effective-marketing-product-partnership/) - Product and marketing are key players in ensuring the success of a product. However, often these two functions struggle to work effectively together. Marketing and product are often out of sync In my experience leading marketing teams, a common complaint I hear from product teams is that marketing comes in at the wrong time. It’s a
- [✨I’m an executive coach✨](https://www.adachen.com/✨im-an-executive-coach✨/) - Exciting news to share— I’ve started a part-time exec coaching practice for founders and executives looking to scale themselves as they scale their teams. 🚀 How did I get here? For many years now, I’ve been working with founders as a growth and marketing advisor. In addition to those topics, I was always fascinated by the

## Pages

- [Hi, I'm Ada](https://www.adachen.com/) - I’m co-founder & COO of Notejoy, a fast and focused notes app for you and your team. I’m also an executive coach who works with founders looking to scale themselves as they scale their teams. Based in California and wife, mom, and dog-lover. Featured Essays Executive Coaching An In-Depth Guide to Executive Coaching: Everything You Need To Know A Practical Guide:
- [What Others Say](https://www.adachen.com/what-others-say/) - "Working with Ada has played a monumental part in my professional and personal development as a first-time founder at a fast-scaling company. Her coaching has resulted in measurable improvements in company growth and my evolution as a leader. Ada has an impressive and diverse background, including roles at SurveyMonkey and LinkedIn, as well as the
- [Executive Coaching](https://www.adachen.com/executive-coaching-with-ada-chen-rekhi/) - My Approach My approach to coaching is personalized and pragmatic. I believe you need to be able to bring your whole self to your work, and that means examining the topics that we cover together through the lens of your values and priorities. There is no 'right path' but only the best one for you.

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