Small Moves, Big Weeks
This week wasn’t glamorous. It started with a leaky kitchen sink and a smoke alarm that wouldn’t quit. One of us (Ben) spent the night trying to drown out the beeping with noise-canceling headphones and rain sounds. Founders aren’t exempt from broken plumbing—or broken sleep.
But in between all of that, we made real progress. We’re onboarding new customers, our first SDR starts Monday, and somehow we almost signed a lease for an office space next to Winger’s trash bins. Let’s unpack.
The Sketchy Mall Office That Almost Was
We like to keep Masset lean. That includes being a bit scrappy with in-person meetings. Instead of fancy coworking spaces, we rent rooms at the Provo library. It’s quiet. It’s cheap. It works.
After one of those meetings, we grabbed lunch at the Provo Town Center mall (yes, the mostly-abandoned one). While sitting in the food court, we remembered a post from one of our investors about office space becoming available—right there, in the mall.
So we wandered over. One unit had been half-converted into a tattoo parlor with segmented private offices. It was perfect: ~1400 sq ft, six-ish rooms, and dirt cheap. We’re talking $1-2 per square foot per month. No power, though—so we explored it by phone flashlight, walking past the service entrance and straight through Winger’s garbage alley.
This was Tyler’s “frayed carpet” moment—his nod to startup roots, just like when Domo kept their ugly carpet to remind everyone they were still scrappy. We were all in. But ultimately, the space was just too big for where we’re at right now. (Shoutout to any local startups looking for a steal. It’s still available... we think.)
Making Our First Hire
More exciting than a potential garbage-adjacent HQ: Whitney joins us this week as our first SDR.
She brings a background in marketing and already gets what we do—and why we do it. That's rare, and it’s why we moved quickly to bring her on. We’re hoping she’ll be much more than just an SDR: an AE, a leader, a culture builder.
Prepping for a new team member also meant putting on new hats. This week, Tyler became part IT director, part HR. He wrestled with Apple’s business program (just buy your laptops at Costco, trust us) and wrote up onboarding checklists. We’re now thinking more carefully about Slack permissions, data sensitivity, and SOC 2 prep.
Staying Lean (By Design)
Here’s something worth saying out loud: we’re not trying to scale through headcount.
We’re working with large, impressive customers—the kind that usually expect a team of ten or more. But we’ve kept it small on purpose. Every new hire changes the company, and we want to stay close to our customers, solve their problems personally, and be nimble enough to build features that matter.
Tools help. Contractors help. But we don’t want to build a culture where hiring is the default response to every challenge. There’s a Sam Altman quote we like: “We’re waiting for the first billion-dollar company run by one person.” That won’t be us—but the spirit of it resonates.
This isn’t just about customers either. It’s about our responsibility to future employees. When we hire, it’s intentional. We want people to stick around. We want them to build something with us—not get swept up in a hiring-firing cycle that’s all too common in tech.
So yes, this week was messy. But it was good. We got closer to the kind of company we want to be.
Until next week,
Tyler and Ben
