Matthew Mazur

Founder and Data Consultant

Matthew Mazur is a software entrepreneur and analytics consultant, best known as the founder of Preceden, a SaaS timeline maker and roadmapping tool. He started developing Preceden in late 2009 and has been focusing on it full-time since September 2018. The tool is designed to help users visualize complex timelines easily.1 2

In addition to his work with Preceden, Mazur is also the founder of Alden Analytics, a consulting business that assists SaaS companies in leveraging data for growth. His experience includes serving as the data lead at Help Scout, where he worked on various analytical projects to improve business performance using data-driven insights.1 2

Before entering the tech industry, Mazur served in the United States Air Force for over nine years. He attended the United States Air Force Academy and held various leadership roles, including project manager for Air Operations Centers and director of communications for Air Force Special Operations in Iraq.1 2

Mazur resides in Cary, North Carolina, with his family and continues to be involved in software development and analytics consulting.2

Highlights

Oct 16 · twitter

💯 I'm a big advocate for shipping fast, but one thing you should never rush is ensuring your product is secure. A few front-end bugs aren't a big deal, but just one subtle security bug could result in a massive data breach.

To reduce the risk, you can sign up for https://t.co/rphq74kENS to encourage white-hat hackers to try to find and report security issues in your app. Pay valid reports generously, as it will encourage more people to poke around. It's much cheaper and less time consuming than having to deal with your production database getting compromised.

Also, add lots of automated tests to ensure you never accidentally make a change that results in new vulnerabilities. A robust test suite enables you to ship faster and more confidently because you don't have to worry you're accidentally introducing bugs, security-related or otherwise.

Oct 8 · twitter

Hard to beat solopreneurship for maximizing decision making speed. The tradeoff is that you’ll wind up making mistakes that you might have avoided if you had collaborated more with others. But you can fix those mistakes faster too, assuming you realize you made them.

Experience

Founder at Preceden and Alden Analytics

Data Lead / Consultant at Help Scout (March 2017 - Present), Various roles at Automattic including Marketing Engineering Lead, Analytics Team Lead, and Domains Team Lead (2013 - 2017), Multiple roles in the United States Air Force including Project Manager and Director of Communications (2003 - 2012)