Executive Spotlight · Technology
I like to think that we grew up with agency.
Barbara Tallent grew up the fourth of five children, had held several jobs and worked for several bosses by the time she was sixteen, and did not meet a micro manager until she was almost thirty. She was an application developer who wanted security to be someone else's problem, ran one of the earliest email marketing companies, spent eleven years building LiveBinders and almost seven as co-founder and CEO of Atsign, a company she and her co-founders deliberately built with no middle management. She now runs two small ventures, and she talks here about decisions as a muscle, about culture being easy to screw up, and about the moment she realised the team had her back.
Barbara Tallent
Co-founder, Unfussy.tech and Bay Area Motor Events · October 20, 2026
You have written that when you were an application developer, security was the last thing you would think about, and that you desperately wanted it to be someone else's problem. Years later you spent almost seven years building a company whose whole purpose was to take that problem off other people's desks. What changed in you between those two versions of yourself?
I love to solve problems for people. Security is a huge complex problem that most people do not want to deal with. At Atsign, we wanted to make security easier and make the problems just go away. Security was an ongoing problem for me as a developer, at Atsign, I was working with people who were much smarter than me who solved that problem!
“I love to solve problems for people.”
“At Atsign, we wanted to make security easier and make the problems just go away.”
You have talked about running one of the earliest email marketing companies, and how you believed it would be a great way for companies to reach their customers with offers that actually fit them, and instead it turned into spamming. What did that disappointment teach you, and how does it show up in what you have refused to build since?
I've always believed in what email marketing could be. The promise was genuine: for the first time, companies could speak to each customer as an individual — not just by name, but by actually knowing what they wanted and giving it to them. Decades later, that promise is still mostly unfulfilled. Most email marketing is still a broadcast in disguise.
I currently have two businesses, one is a simple CRM designed for small businesses (unfussy.tech) and the other is a site for car and motorcycle enthusiasts in the San Francisco bay area (bayareamotorevents.com). For the motor events site, I am providing monthly or weekly emails detailing events for the area that you select. I refuse to just blast out all the events to all the people and force them to figure out what is relevant. It is a lot more work, but I am doing this for my community.
“Most email marketing is still a broadcast in disguise.”
“I refuse to just blast out all the events to all the people and force them to figure out what is relevant.”
You have written that as you pushed the agile process across the whole company, you tried a lot of tools to hold it together, that none of them actually made the team more efficient, and that they were all eventually abandoned. That frustration is where UnfussyTech comes from. What were you watching happen to your own people that convinced you to go and build the answer yourself, and what do you want this company to be for the teams that end up using it?
New tools at a new company are always difficult. There will be some early adopters as well as some luddites that will only use the tool after complaining loudly for a very long time. But what is most frustrating is when people in the company spend more time updating the tool instead of doing the work. The tool becomes an impediment to productivity. This is often true for small organizations that are looking for a little productivity, but are forced to implement tools designed for large organizations. Your CRM tool should be as fast and nimble as your team — that was the inspiration for Unfussy.tech. Our goal was 5-15 minute set up and instant productivity. The tool is as lean and fit as our customers. By naming the company UnfussyTech, it gives our customers permission to point out any fussiness in the product, so our customers are helping us build and hone the product over time.
“The tool becomes an impediment to productivity.”
“Your CRM tool should be as fast and nimble as your team.”
At Atsign you and your co-founders vowed to be flat from day one, and you have written very honestly that you fell back into old habits and added a middle management layer anyway, and that Kevin had been trying to point it out while you were slow on the uptake. Why was that so hard to see from where you were sitting, and what did it take to undo it?
Creating a different organizational style and culture is extremely difficult and you have to be deliberate about everything you do and every person you hire. When you are running as fast as you can, it is easy to just do what you did before, or bring in that person with the right experience, even if they may struggle with the culture. Culture is hard to get right and easy to screw up, so it is important to take the time to be deliberate and constantly reassess along the way. I found a great way to do this by writing those articles on building an organization differently. The articles helped me reflect, and when I passed them around the company for review, they helped us all reflect on how we are building a place where we all want to work, every day.
“Culture is hard to get right and easy to screw up.”
“When you are running as fast as you can, it is easy to just do what you did before.”
When you were learning how a flat organization really works, Russ Aldrich told you that you no longer got to make the key decisions, that you could guide and coach but not decide. You wrote that you struggle with it daily because you like to move fast and find out quickly when you are wrong. Where are you with that today, and what do you tell yourself in the moment you want to make the call yourself?
This is a really good question because I let some things go sideways because I didn't make the call myself. I believe that decision making is like muscle-building, the more decisions you make the stronger that muscle gets. I wanted to be surrounded by people who were strong, so I had to step back from the majority of the day-to-day decisions.
However, over time, I did make some decisions myself. We implemented a decision log process so that all decisions were made with input and transparency. When I cared deeply about a decision, I would write the decision log and make the decision myself, just like anyone else in the company. I also learned to not be shy about disagreeing with a decision. I would write all over a decision log if I thought something was a bad idea. But just because I didn't like it, didn't mean that it didn't happen. People at the company had agency to decide and implement the strategies that they believed would move the company forward in the most expedient way.
In some way, I disagreed with Russ, but I'm glad I spoke to him early on because he got me thinking on the right track.
“Decision making is like muscle-building, the more decisions you make the stronger that muscle gets.”
“I also learned to not be shy about disagreeing with a decision.”
You have written that you were never a helicopter parent, that you wanted your kids to find their own way and to gain confidence from failing and picking up the pieces, and that leading people the same way comes naturally to you. Where does that instinct come from, and when has it been hardest to hold to it with someone who wanted to be told what to do?
I grew up #4 out of 5 children. My parents were pretty much done when my sister and I were growing up. My younger sister laughing says that we grew up "feral", but I like to think that we grew up with agency. By the time I was 16 I had held multiple jobs and had worked for multiple bosses. No one ever really told me what to do, they just corrected me when I screwed up.
I don't think I worked for a micro manager until I was almost 30 — and that was a disaster for me, I just felt paralyzed. People are on a wide spectrum — those like me who don't want or need a lot of direction, to those who want constant direction and feedback. At Atsign, we screened for the former, even with our interns, as we had to make certain that everyone could move quickly without specifically being told what to do. We really never had people sitting around waiting for direction.
“I like to think that we grew up with agency.”
“No one ever really told me what to do, they just corrected me when I screwed up.”
You describe the intern kickoff where, instead of you presenting the company values, each person picked one and spoke about it, and you felt the weight physically lift off you. What did that moment tell you about what your job as the leader actually was, and now that you are starting again with something new, what is the first thing you would put in place to get a team back to that point?
I loved that moment! When you run companies the pressure is unbelievable and you want to get everything right. It was at that moment that I realized the team had my back. Atsign was, and still is, a first-class team of people. In that moment I realized that we were building this company, not me, and we would do a far better job than I ever could alone.
Both my new ventures are tiny, but I have realized the power of a community as a team. At UnfussyTech, I treat my beta testers as part of my team, their thoughts and input are just as important as mine in terms of shaping the product. For the event site, it already is a community. The community helped me build the site with all their feedback and feature requests and they are sending me new events everyday. The site is specifically designed to bring local communities together at these events and it has been deeply satisfying to see it all work so well.
I miss the amazing Atsign team, but I use the lessons that they taught me every day!
“It was at that moment that I realized the team had my back.”
“We were building this company, not me, and we would do a far better job than I ever could alone.”
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