Top all-time · #6135
Colin Keeley
Personal blog · colinkeeley.com/blogstartupsbusiness
Colin Keeley's personal blog at colinkeeley.com covers startups and business. Since 2019, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 34 times, most often “Constellation Software Operating Manual”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Profiles of business operators and companies, such as Bending Spoons' operating playbook, John Malone's operating manual and Mark Leonard. HN commenters cite them for context on acquisition and cloud-cost strategy.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Welcome! Every month, I send out a newsletter breaking down how the most successful people built their business empires.
Most-linked posts?
- /blog/bending-spoons-operating-manual3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-10-29
- Constellation Software Operating Manual3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-10-21
- Cold Email Your Way into an Internship/Job at Any Startup2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-12-31
What Hacker News says?
Someone wrote about Bending Spoons' history and playbook: https://www.colinkeeley.com/blog/bending-spoons-operating-ma... I enjoyed this part: No On-Call Rotations: Bending Spoons aims to build systems so reliable that they eliminate the need for on-call rotations. This is unusual in the tech industry, where on-call duties are standard to promptly address system issues. For most of their products, they have no on-ca…
Comment linking /blog/bending-spoons-operating-manual
on “AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B”Submitted Software Sweatshop – Inside Billionaire Joe Liemandt's Empire as a story · 119 points
HN discussionThe fact that it's the norm for the builders of mature software to stick around can lead to some gross engineering inefficiencies. For instance, a lot of Evernote's backend infrastructure was manually managed [0]: With Evernote, Bending Spoons identified that the backend needed a complete rewrite. They moved from a monolithic architecture running on manually provisioned virtual machines to a microservices architectu…
Comment linking /blog/bending-spoons-operating-manual
on “Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday”Submitted Andrew Wilkinson and Tiny Capital as a story · 82 points
HN discussionIt seems to all be debt financed, i.e. just a private equity model slightly specialized for tech. The "innovation" is that Bending Spoons has an in-house engineering team it seems they try to keep constant yet scale out to all the acquisitions. I hadn't looked into them much before, but https://www.colinkeeley.com/blog/bending-spoons-operating-ma... is an interesting report -- though not focused on the finance side.
Comment linking /blog/bending-spoons-operating-manual
on “Bending Spoons laid off almost everybody at Vimeo yesterday”Submitted Losers exist. Don’t hire them as a story · 6 points
HN discussionHe has a pretty unique beard https://colinkeeley.com/blog/mark-leonard-constellation-soft... Also found this…"he worked as a banker, valuator, mason, gravedigger, dog handler, bouncer, sapper, and wind energy researcher. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magaz...
Comment linking /blog/mark-leonard-constellation-software-operating-manual
on “Being Acquired”Submitted How I Designed the Perfect Startup Logo for $20 as a story · 6 points
HN discussionBelieve you're talking about conserving cash through reduced taxes since this guy was against paying taxes. However, spending a premium on cloud services over what you could with an on-prem capital investment does not help your cash position. His tenant of frugality would have conflicted, especially since the cloud premium can easily exceed the tax rate - that is to say, paying taxes would have been cheaper Section…
Comment linking /blog/john-malone-operating-manual-cable-cowboy-book-summary
on “Don't rent the cloud, own instead”Submitted The 10 Risks That Will Kill Your Startup as a story · 5 points
HN discussionits quite simple. if you are a profitable company paying taxes, you 100% want to defer taxes (part of EBITDA) thus trade earnings for market share. This is exactly what TCI did [1] with cable [1] https://www.colinkeeley.com/blog/john-malone-operating-manua...
Comment linking /blog/john-malone-operating-manual-cable-cowboy-book-summary
on “Don't rent the cloud, own instead”Submitted How to raise prices without making everyone hate you? Examples as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Constellation Software Operating Manual as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Invest in Your Tools: Home Office Essentials as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Have Your iPhone Read to You as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why the Top Startups Start with a Mission as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted A penniless immigrant built an empire and toppled governments as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Buying 500 Software Co's – Billionaire Mark Leonard Playbook as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Start a Podcast to Own a New Industry as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Cold Email Your Way into an Internship/Job at Any Startup as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted What Happens to Startups and Early-Stage Venture Capital in a Recession as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bevy Post-Mortem: My Sharing Economy Startup Failure as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bevy Post-Mortem: My Sharing Economy Startup Failure as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted ESW Capital Operating Manual as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted BuiltWith: 1 Employee, $14M+ ARR as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Hire a Virtual Assistant (VA) for Your Business as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Double Your Profits in Six Months or Less as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to Grow Your Podcast as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Invest in Your Tools: Coronavirus Edition as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Cold Email Your Way into an Internship/Job at Any Startup as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
