The Art of Product (Ben Orenstein and Derrick Reimer)

Ben has been experiencing a mix of emotions. Thanks to Tuple, his calendar is packed, and he’s getting more emails, people, and trials. It feels nuts, but it feels like things are working with the new product. It’s a crazy spot to be in, but it feels good. Every day, Tuple gains a little steam. Derrick feels the same way. He has started doing onboarding calls for Level. Now that he has done the Level demo a few times, his anxiety has subsided. Overall, people seem impressed with the product and interested in trying it. Today’s Topics Include: Developing a call to action and pricing process to follow the product demo Trials vs. Pay-Up-Front: Ideal customers expect to try it, before they pay for it Instrumentation put in place to test Level; ship solutions in a speedy manner Users are changing their behavior and using Level in a meaningful or experimental capacity to find a balance between it and Slack Big Surprise: Derrick’s relief about a mobile client not being a big deal, right now Power of Customer Development: You won’t know the most valuable points of a product, until you let people use it People are pretty forgiving; when they offer feedback, be responsive and try to fix bugs Revision of auction for Habits for Hackers; bidding started, but may not be high enough Pros and cons of slowing down growth or allowing it to speed up; it’s hard to improve product without feedback Superhuman Product Market Fit Survey: How disappointed would you be, if you had to stop using Tuple? Keeping people educated on all the things your product can do Trying to not over-engineer things; looking for the simplest solutions and integrations Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Habits for Hackers (https://www.habitsforhackers.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com) Justin Jackson (https://justinjackson.ca/) Superhuman Product Market Fit Survey (https://www.slideshare.net/marklittlewood/rahul-vohra-founderceo-superhuman-the-productmarket-fit-engine-122102118) Zapier (https://zapier.com/) Segment (https://segment.com/) JSON (https://www.json.org/) Rand Fishkin’s Lost and Founder Book (https://sparktoro.com/book)

Our favorite Canadian drops by to talk mobility, fancy A/V setups, what's next for Tailwind UI, and how we'll never find peace of mind.

Ben Kuhn drops by the pod. Check out his great blog! https://www.benkuhn.net/

We all freak out about things from time to time. Ben becomes neurotic about feedback, but fellow Tuple team members have different triggers that put them into a tailspin. Fortunately, Ben has found ways to better handle stress. In this episode, Ben and Derrick are joined by Sebastian Marshall, co-founder of Ultraworking. In previous episodes, Ben has mentioned Ultraworking and how he has benefitted from it. Today’s Topics Include: Using what he learned about monthly planning from Ultraworking, Ben did March for Tuple Ben met meditation goal via Ultraworking’s Lights spreadsheet, accountability partners 10 to 10: Ben’s theme for March; wants to win the night and beginning of the day by going to bed at the right time and developing a morning routine to be more alert and energetic Ben’s doing Tuple demos and getting positive feedback; promising things are happening Derrick decided to move forward with notifications feature for Level; shipping it soon Note about Level’s performance improvement offers positive sentiment and sanity check How much do you trust your own emotional memory, if you feel like you’re making progress or not? Do a data-driven review of week to assess and analyze headway Track where your time is spent using start and end time; only track most important work Defining wasted vs. leisure time; aren’t they the same? Depends on how you feel afterwards? Good or bad? Two categories of “bad” time: Neurotic flow and regret agreeing to something Average day in the life of Sebastian at Ultraworking; what makes or breaks his week Building a company and keeping it alive; Ben’s “duh” moment about delegating Ultraworking’s Work Cycles: Doing work (creative, technical, etc.) in structured way Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Ultraworking (https://www.ultraworking.com/aop) Ultraworking: Monthly Planning (https://www.ultraworking.com/monthly) Ultraworking: Cycles Template (https://www.ultraworking.com/cycles) Ultraworking: Lights Spreadsheet (https://www.ultraworking.com/lights) Roguelike by Sebastian Marshall (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25535056-roguelike) GitLab (https://about.gitlab.com/) Bench (https://bench.co/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Extreme Productivity by Robert Pozen (https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Productivity-Boost-Results-Reduce-ebook/dp/B007HBLNSS)

Ben is now a Level contributor! Ben has paired with Derrick and his team communication and management tool called, Level - which is officially open source. Also, Derrick recorded himself building a Level feature and posted it on YouTube for feedback. It draws in people to see how an expert does things and share opinions and knowledge. It’s a win-win for everyone! Today’s Topics Include: Leveraging various networks to share information and provide value Building a brand and putting capital in the bank Impacts of stress on productivity Engaging and sharing with interested parties; building relationships Possible Milestone: Establish cadence of publishing frequency and balance of allocating time Proposed Product Milestone: Use Level to track the work on Level Utilizing GitHub to track tasks on To Do lists Finalizing logo and identifying domain for Level Value of retros Prioritizing tasks and making progress on important, but not urgent work Whether to focus on processes or engineering Product roadmap and associated expectations/productivity If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Level Live #1: Listing groups within spaces (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwPdHmw5EkE&feature=youtu.be) Level on GitHub (https://github.com/levelhq/level) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/)

Ben is set to launch his course and is using the looming deadline as an efficiency booster. He recently spoke at Rocky Mountain Ruby, and spent time prepping the talk with a friend at a beach house but unfortunately lost his data due to a hardware malfunction. The talk was still a great success, but a very stressful experience. The next week he spoke at Southeast Ruby in Nashville and it was a much smoother experience. Otherwise he is finishing up launch strategy details and looking forward to shipping the project. Drip.com is now live after a long process, and the Drip team is thrilled. Derrick has also found an opportunity to use Elm at Drip, and is looking forward to implementing it in a new project he can’t yet discuss. Drip is currently looking for a front-end engineer in the Minneapolis area, with Elm experience if possible. Derrick has been travelling recently and even had a flight cancelled due to the California wildfires. Today’s Topics Include: Deadline pressure and work efficiency Ben’s recent speaking engagements Last minute details for Ben’s course release Time-pressure and discount strategies for launch Drip.com domain acquisition Elm programming language If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: How we structure our work and teams at Basecamp (https://m.signalvnoise.com/how-we-set-up-our-work-cbce3d3d9cae)by Jason Fried Elm RefactoringRails.io (http://refactoringrails.io/) Drip

This week Ben Orenstein is interviewing guest Avdi Grimm, Founder of RubyTapas, which is a subscription service that provides screencasts of “gourmet” ruby programming. Avdi discusses the topic of his talk at Southeast Ruby in Nashville, which was the value of avoiding code and strategies to bypass the need to write unnecessary coding. Join us as he shares his advice on optimizing workflows and his experiences building RubyTapas. Today’s Topics Include: The value of avoiding code Hidden complexity in building out content platforms Using Wordpress for publishing content Code as a liability Episode production and future of RubyTapas Finding leverage in business and creative work Delegating workflows Views on side-hustling and product development If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: RubyTapas (https://www.rubytapas.com/) WordPress (https://wordpress.com/) Spacemacs (http://spacemacs.org/), Emacs (https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/), Vim (http://www.vim.org/), Neovim (https://neovim.io/) Side-hustle mindset versus product-business mindset (http://www.virtuouscode.com/2017/02/08/side-hustle-mindset-versus-product-business-mindset/) by Avdi Grimm Avdi.codes (https://avdi.codes/) VirtuousCode.com (http://www.virtuouscode.com/) RefactoringRails.io (http://refactoringrails.io/)

The Tuple team is growing as Ben kicks up sales efforts with help of an industry veteran and the engineering team onboards a new team member. Derrick is continuing to work in stealth mode on a new product and is bringing in some cash flow from a consulting project with...tune in to find out.

Today’s episode features guest Justin Jackson, who is building a new podcasting startup called, Transistor.fm, and runs MegaMaker training and books for SaaS and indie software companies. He’s discovering that it’s a lot of work to build something. Derrick and Ben know how he feels. For Derrick, it’s been a fun week in the land of Level. He’s been working on his new landing page and landing new sign-ups for the pre-launch list. Ben has pre-sold $700 worth of Tuple accounts and raised $500 worth of verbal “Yeses.” Contact Ben if you want to be a part of Tuple. They share their ups and downs, fears and triumphs! Today’s Topics Include: Should I learn more programming? More design? Acquire skills to connect the two It’s easier to build something after building relationships; a personal approach makes you stand out Can connection with core audience become a scalable competitive advantage? Ways to tell your story and generate followers before you have product info available Get your product into the hands of potential users Propensity that you know all the answers, but bury your ego and ask for help Deciding how much to charge, pricing structure You can get people to sign up and get them to pay for it, but can you get them to use it and keep using it? Invest in something that offers a virtuous cycle of revenue back to your company Demonstrate value of existing content; making money and conversions from specific campaigns and activities Fears and feelings when people are not using a product Hire customer support people to reach out to customers and generate revenue Trend is automated software companies, but the most successful companies emphasize a human service component Pair programming always bubbles to the surface Links and resources: Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Justin Jackson (https://justinjackson.ca/) Justin Jackson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mijustin?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Build Your Saas podcast (https://saas.transistor.fm/) Transistor.fm (https://transistor.fm/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Jason Fried (https://twitter.com/jasonfried) Seth Godin (https://www.sethgodin.com/) RightMessage (https://rightmessage.com/) How We’ve Taken FOMO 20k to 80k by Justin Mares (https://microconf.gen.co/justin-mares)

If you’re spending too much time on Twitter, Ben shares some helpful advice. Fully lock and block it by setting parental controls and content restrictions. While attending Big Snow Tiny Conf (https://bigsnowtinyconf.com/), Ben’s awareness of his Twitter addiction could no longer be denied. He successfully resisted being lured back into the app. Also, Tuple launched its Apple Pro Display XDR stand giveaway (https://publicity-stunt.tuple.app/). So far, a sense of humor has generated a positive brand impression and collected more than 900 email addresses. Derrick describes how StaticKit started as a form provider for static sites, but he continues to build out its functionality by offering tooling to collect payments via Stripe (https://stripe.com/). He discovered that trying to force payments in a form model posed many challenges. He decided to offer the same type of functionality as functions, instead of forms. Derrick is feeling content and confident with where the product stands relative to reinventing the model and changing the original vision.

Ben and Derrick welcome the New Year with this first episode of 2018. Derrick provides an update on his fitness goals for the first quarter of 2018 and plans his Bod Pod evaluation this week. Derrick also shares his strategy improving and maintaining Drip software features. Ben is launching the second cohort of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge this week, and this cohort is even larger than the first. He shares how this cohort will be different, and thoughts on adding a fee to increase accountability and participation. He is also thinking about future extensions of the challenge into a monetized product. Today’s Topics Include: 2018 Q1 Goal updates The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge second cohort launch Increasing accountability in the Challenge Monetization strategies for courses following a free challenge Drip software and features Navigation-driven development and app workflows Ruby losing popularity If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Nike Training Club App (https://www.nike.com/us/en_us/c/nike-plus/training-app) Bod Pod (http://www.cosmed.com/en/products/body-composition/bod-pod) Precision Nutrition (https://www.precisionnutrition.com/) Ruby Rogues Episode 342: Interview with DHH (https://devchat.tv/ruby-rogues/rr-342-rails-development-david-heinemeier-hansson) The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge (https://www.codequalitychallenge.com/) RefactoringRails.io (http://refactoringrails.io/) Drip

New Year’s Resolutions? Ben’s goal is to drink less coffee and get a survey out to Tuple customers. What do they want in the future for Tuple features? Are people using Tuple for reasons other than original core assumptions? Ben is looking forward to collecting customer insights to determine if they are on the same product development roadmap. Derrick came up with trends, themes, and habits that he hopes to cultivate and aspire to in 2020. He wants to exhibit intentionality with how he spends his time and not be a slave to Slack, Twitter, and other channels. Does Derrick have adequate self-control, or a suitable replacement? Self-control takes time, energy, and money. However, spending free time letting his mind wander helped Derrick develop a deliberate API design around payments for StaticKit.

Ben and team are preparing to officially designate Tuple 1.0! Derrick is working on embedding SavvyCal more deeply in customers' workflows and is digging more moats around time zone handling.

Derrick set Jan. 21 as the date to start onboarding some pre-order people for Level. He is trying to keep things in perspective when it comes to both positive and negative feedback. So, he is preparing answers to address questions and concerns about the product’s features and functions, or lack of. Ben’s thirsty for more feedback, customers, and interaction. Fortunately, overall feedback for Tuple has been strongly positively. However, any negativity can be brutal. It’s a mental game. So, he tries to not fear feedback or let it derail progress. Instead, he focuses on celebrating successes. Today’s Topics Include: How to know if a product is ready - present it to people Level’s Onboarding Goals: Introduce them to product via a demo/training, get their account created, and set up game plan for the future Overcoming hurdles and getting people to do stuff Calendly Calls: Preparing for and performing them is more exhaustive than writing code Last-minute list of Level features Derrick wants to include and reconcile Tag Team Mouse Mode: Hand-off feature change made for Tuple Making assumptions, instead of the simplest solution Interesting 4G experience onboarding Tuple team member in India Ben asks for Derrick’s forgiveness and understanding for starting a Slack group to get feedback on Tuple Enterprise Sales Process and Pricing: Customer easily spends $5,000, but it takes 5 weeks - keep the ball rolling Middle-ground Approach: Make Tuple available to those who want it, can have success Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Jason Cohen (https://twitter.com/asmartbear) Calendly (https://calendly.com/) John Gruber (https://daringfireball.net/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/)

Ben & Derrick reflect on their journeys the past year and their plans for 2021.

The Tuple team has recently grown by three team members! Ben is looking forward to getting the Linux client out the door in the next month. Derrick is staying busy moving SavvyCal forward and bringing his new developer into the app.

While Derrick is away, Ben welcomes Don Goodman-Wilson, who was the first hire at Screenhero in 2013. Don shares his version of Screenhero’s incredible journey, its migration to Slack, and Tuple coming to the rescue. Better late than never! Today’s Topics Include: Work Ethic/Culture: Doctorate in philosophy requires logic and dedication Engineering Challenges: Learning low-level C/C++ code in Screenhero product Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac: Harmonizing code bases Web Application Programming: User interface (UI), reliability, latency, quality, and billing Product/Market Fit: Quick growth, adoption, and implementation of Screenhero Pair Programming: Personal and professional sharing and collaboration Second Day at First Expo: Atlassian’s interest, followed by Slack’s acquisition Platform of Choice: Who’s the best partner to work with to achieve Screenhero’s goals? In and Out of the Sandbox: Screenhero’s prone to crashing and uses private APIs Slack destroyed Screenhero: Expectations and compromises created culture clash Heartbreaking, Rational Reality: Removal of remote screen control in Slack calls Maintainerati’s Mission: Understand challenges and offer solutions for maintaining open source software Links and resources: Don Goodman-Wilson (https://don.goodman-wilson.com/)  Don Goodman-Wilson on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/degoodmanwilson) Maintainerati (https://maintainerati.org) Screenhero (https://screenhero.com/) Y Combinator (https://www.ycombinator.com/) Slack (https://slack.com) The Screenhero Story - The Screenhero Blog (https://blog.screenhero.com/post/109339022326/the-screenhero-story) Removal of remote screen control in Slack calls (https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/360022908874-Removal-of-remote-screen-control-in-Slack-calls) Atlassian (https://www.atlassian.com/) HipChat (https://www.atlassian.com/partnerships/slack) WebRTC (https://webrtc.org/) Redis (https://redis.io/) Python (https://www.python.org/) Stripe (https://stripe.com/) Ractive.js (https://ractive.js.org/) Ruby-Grape Rack (https://github.com/ruby-grape/grape) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/) Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/) Google Hangouts (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/hangoutplugin) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Maintainerati on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Maintainerati) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) Level (https://level.app/) Level Retrospective (https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-away-from-the-product-i-spent-a-year-building.html) Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto)

Derrick & Ben catch up after a few weeks away for the holidays. Ben is still in hiring mode. He's considering ways to do more teaching (something he used to do a lot when he was a programmer by trade). Derrick is planning to be more intentional in fostering a growth mindset this year in business and life.

Ben is entering the last week of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge. He has enjoyed getting the challenges out each day and seeing participants engage with the content. In the future he is deciding whether to personalize the programming languages or to remain language agnostic. The next cohort of the Challenge will start January 3, 2018, and Ben’s looking forward to iterating and improving each cohort of the Challenge. He also discussed a connection he made with Discourse, and explores options for forum management in the future. Drip is working on their visual email builder with the help of their new Elm developer. The team has just completed several product structure tests using a prototype, which was a greatly helpful experience to the developers. Ben and Derrick discuss their experiences with product usability testing. Today’s Topics Include: Approaching the end of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge Challenge results and stats on participation The next Challenge cohort begins January 3, 2018 Positive customer experience with Discourse Drip’s visual email builder project Product usability testing If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge (https://www.codequalitychallenge.com/) Discourse (https://www.discourse.org/) Steve Schoger @steveschoger (https://twitter.com/steveschoger) Full Stack Radio podcast 78: Ben Orenstein - Our All-Time Favorite Refactorings (https://www.acast.com/fullstackradio/78-ben-orenstein-our-all-time-favorite-refactorings) RefactoringRails.io (http://refactoringrails.io/) Drip

Ben interviews Len Markidan, CMO at Podia about hiring a Head of Marketing for Tuple. Job description: https://tuple.app/jobs/head-of-marketing

While Ben’s on vacation, Derrick welcomes Matt Wensing, founder of SimSaaS and co-host of the Out of Beta podcast. Matt was also the co-founder and CEO of Stormpulse. Derrick credits Matt for giving him great advice to make the winding down of Level less daunting. Now, Derrick’s on the upswing of rebuilding his confidence, despite challenging cluster headaches and stress cannibalising productivity. Today’s Topics Include: Out of Beta: Matt’s new podcast where he publicly discusses projects and products Mentorship Momentum: Seek help to sharpen software as a service (SaaS) skills Matt’s focused on marketing efforts to get work done and sales to gain access What is launching? Get started for free! TinySeed, Big Benefits: Solo business can’t do it alone; community plays a big role Fruitful Conversations: StaticKit update involves JavaScript, APIs, and Markup (JAMStack) Links and resources: Matt Wensing on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mattwensing) Matt Wensing on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wensing) SimSaaS (https://simsaas.co) Riskpulse (https://riskpulse.com/) Out of Beta Podcast (https://outofbeta.fm) Stormpulse (https://stormpulse.com) SimSaaS on TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/latest/2019-funding-announcement-simsaas) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com) MicroConf Europe (https://microconfeurope.com) Brian Casel (https://briancasel.com/) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Jason Cohen (http://blog.asmartbear.com/jason-cohen) Company of One by Paul Jarvis (https://ofone.co/) Slack (https://slack.com/) Heroku (https://www.heroku.com/) CI/CD for WordPress with Peter Suhm of Branch CI (https://webmasterradio.fm/episode/ci-cd-for-wordpress-with-peter-suhm-of-branch-ci) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) Level (https://level.app/) Level Retrospective (https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-away-from-the-product-i-spent-a-year-building.html) Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto)

Welcome to the Art of Product podcast. This is episode 1, and just the beginning of the journey. This is a show with Ben Orenstein formerly from thoughtbot and Drip co-founder Derrick Reimer. Ben recently quit his job at thoughtbot, and is now focusing on what he is going to do next. Stay tuned. This is going to be a fun journey. Ben and Derrick talk about venturing out on one’s own and starting a new business. Ben has found a new co-working space in Boston. He is even trying a shared desk for interaction with people and to avoid the work-at-home isolation. Keeping focused and staying on task are important issues. Hopefully Omnifocus will help with that. Derrick is excited about the future and growth of Drip. Today’s topics include: How to stay focused when setting up a new business and do more than just the fun things. The importance of having built-in structure when working on your own business. How work can creep into your entire life without the luxury of a set schedule. Putting travel off while getting established. Going from income rate to a burn rate. Having a financial buffer to provide flexibility with establishing a new business. Brennan Dunn just spoke at Leadpages, he also happened to be Drip user number 5 and he pushed the product with his innovator feedback. Derrick enjoyed talking with a power user like Brennan. How Drip is scaling and hiring with the backend and the core product or feature team. Links and resources: CIC Boston Omnifocus Drip Leadpages Thoughtbot Brennan Dunn

The Tuple team is contracting with Thoughtbot for pairing and leveling up their Rails skills. Derrick is working on team permissions and thinking about working with a marketer after wrapping up most of the work around the StaticKit sale.

Ben & Derrick brainstorm a "rooms" feature for Tuple. Derrick is getting close to wrapping up the SavvyCal Outlook integration. Ben shares highlights from their latest team retreat and teases some new plans for later this year.

Derrick’s been traveling and finding inspiration from re-reading Deep Work, a kind of manifesto of what Level stands for. He’s discovering how to position and market Level, as well as recognize things in his own work patterns that need to change. Ben’s been feeling anxiety and thinking about Tuple’s broader mission and impact on the world. He believes deep work can be accomplished through the powerful practice of pair programming. Today’s Topics Include: Embracing Boredom: Derrick removed Twitter and email client from his phone as dependence on distraction Recruiting next wave of paying customers; reminding people what Level is and why they should care about it Learning is a valid category of work you can do during the day; productive use of time Ability to go deep and focus is a skill most people have lost; getting back into the mindset Tuple’s mission and onboarding campaign; selling a solution to an underlying problem Apprenticeship: Learn and gain expertise from peers Derrick’s main piece of content for Level may not be about specific tool to achieve mindful workplace Celebrating call quality feedback feature in Tuple; customized CRM to close the deal Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) Deep Work by Cal Newport (https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692) The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon (https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Sale-Control-Customer-Conversation/dp/1591844355) Heroku (https://www.heroku.com/) Screenhero (https://screenhero.com/) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/) Podcast Motor (https://www.podcastmotor.com/) Clearbit (https://clearbit.com/) Brennan Dunn’s Double Your Freelancing (https://doubleyourfreelancing.com)

Some podcasts present terrible sound quality, yet garner tons of listeners. Ben and Derrick are professionals, and care about the sound quality of their AoP podcast episodes. Despite audio difficulties, Ben and Derrick are back. They sound good, and they’re ready to rock their updates on StaticKit and Tuple! Today’s Topics Include: Should you test? Trust weak data? Split-test customer email messaging tools should push you to test as default path (Not) Steady State of New Trials: Email blast offering free Tuple trial to everybody Tuple T-shirt Prototype: Take the next step in funnel to pay for Tuple to get T-shirt Structure and Process: Sense of energy from Tuple’s stand ups and status updates Tuple to handle classic startup chaos by reading, Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters by Ryan Singer StaticKit Solopreneur: Derrick’s suffering from decision fatigue, struggling to juggle multiple tasks, and balancing building a great product and connecting with customers Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/) Using Tailwind CSS with Next.js (https://statickit.com/guides/next-js-tailwind)  Level (https://level.app/) Audio-Technica ATR2100 USB (https://www.audio-technica.com/cms/wired_mics/b8dd84773f83092c/index.html) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Shape Up (https://basecamp.com/shapeup) JAMstack Conf (https://jamstackconf.com/) Slack (https://slack.com/)

Today Ben’s guest is Brennan Dunn, co-founder of RightMessage, a tool that allows you to personalize your website based on user information and behavior. This allows you to customize your messaging to each user’s unique story and needs. Brennan explains the value of customer targeting, shares his ambition for Right Message, his personal journey and advice for other software startups along the way. Today’s Topics Include: Brennan’s experiences and genesis of RightMessage Targeting with ads and website content Technical details on customer targeting Most profitable targeting activity Onboarding hesitant customers with course material Current status and future plans for RightMessage If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: RightMessage Double Your Freelancing Drip Pro Tools Master Drip Email Automation Course - Brennan Dunn Bounce Exchange Webpack Planscope Churn Buster Baremetrics Open Startups

Ben and Derrick discuss hiring support engineers and philosophies around customer support in general. They go deep on the topic of investing in your business, diversification, and allocating assets.

Derrick is enjoying work the last week by taking joy in setting and achieving small goals each day. The Tuple redesign project is nearing completion and has been a welcome distraction from the pandemic. Ben is hiring a full-time Mac OS engineer and an accountant to help with managing the money side of the business.

Ben and Derrick talk to Adam about how to effectively plan and organize work.

Ben recently returned from an entrepreneur retreat that featured sessions and activities focused on various topics, from projects people were working on to troubles with cofounders. Attendees were able to be honest, open, and transparent with each other. Ben had the opportunity to demo Tuple during the retreat. Feedback was that there are too many people working on its development, so he should focus on marketing. Derrick emphasized the importance of keeping in mind the cost of getting someone caught up to speed on a project. He has thought about hiring a contractor to help with the development of Level, but decided that his single brain was enough. Today’s Topics Include: Ben is working on a website to host the best pair programming guide on the Internet Not getting on the content marketing treadmill, but coming out with 1 or 2 solid, comprehensive pieces of content that draw in people Cascading style sheets (CSS) make your website site look good; should you hire a designer or learn the basics on your own? Create a good network; know people who know about things, and ask for help Derrick pushed a license update for Level’s code base; justified reasons why he should or shouldn’t make it an open source product and garner legal protection Derrick’s original end-of-October people testing goal for Level is still possible; using Trello to list and clarify tasks Finding a balance between making progress and doing other things that keep a product in people’s minds Tuple’s team is starting to adopt more foundational processes to address tasks Feedback from Listeners: More interaction and question-asking between Derrick and Ben, as well as bring people into their podcast process Links and resources: Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com/) Big Snow Tiny Conf (https://bigsnowtinyconf.com/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Julian.com (https://www.julian.com/) Tailwind (https://tailwindcss.com) Redis (https://redislabs.com/) Trello (https://trello.com/)

We're nominated for the SaaS Podcast Awards (https://microconf.com/latest/saas-podcast-award-nominees/) - go vote! The guys muse about the clever marketing behind the awards and their fellow nominee Courtland Allen's unfair charm & good looks. Ben talks through a shared clipboard feature he is shaping for Tuple. Derrick shipped a bunch of marketing projects this past week.

Ben wants to build a meditation habit and is considering ways to facilitate that. Tuple is still searching for a product designer. Derrick & Ben both saw success with their year-end annual upgrade promotions. Derrick is planning a Product Hunt launch in early January.

In this episode, Derrick is broadcasting from California as he visits his family. Ben went to Vermont last week and quickly realized how relaxing it is to be outside and see greenery. Such a different feel from the tension in the city. Ben has been chatting with a couple of people about consulting as a revenue officer. He had an interesting chat with someone but their visions just weren’t aligned in terms of value and compensation. Also it turned out this person wasn’t the decision maker, and the founder wasn’t as agreeable to Ben’s terms. Lesson learned - always talk to the decision maker. Ben is also struggling with whether he really wants to be involved in consulting. He may want to just focus on his product. Enjoy the show. Today’s topics include: Buying Apple laptops and how tricky it can be. When interviewing and making offers it’s always a good idea to talk to the decision maker. Launching info products and being smart about the automation and marketing. Ben’s idea for a SaaS starter kit has been getting positive feedback. Derrick shipped a new Drip feature called sharing workflows. There will be a gallery with workflows that people can just click on and use. Derrick is making good progress and writing less code, so that he won’t be the bottleneck on his team. It’s motivating to have people focused on their area of expertise. Challenges of getting new hires and team members up to speed. Links and resources: Drip Leadpages Thoughtbot WWDC2017 SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark Test Brennan Dunn How to exit the Vim editor Podcast Motor

This week Ben is adjusting to jet-lag from his travels to Las Vegas and Martha’s Vineyard last week. He did however manage to release another episode of his sample campaign that was recorded before his vacation, so he is making good progress with the course. He has a welcome to the mailing list campaign featuring the three sample videos, and has nailed down a pacing and difficulty level for recording each video. He will finish a fourth video in the next few days and is thinking of pre-launching the course once at least half has been recorded. Derrick is celebrating and reflecting on the one year anniversary of the Drip acquisition. They have gone from 3 to 10 engineers in the last year, and have really hit their stride in productivity. Their free plan has launched, which has only been feasible since receiving funding, and it has been a successful market strategy. Overall he has been a bit stressed at managing the large scale use of their platform while planning for future growth. Today’s Topics Include: Falling out of good routines while traveling Releasing evergreen content instead of broadcasts Thinking about non-native English speaking viewers when recording videos Celebrating the Drip one year anniversary of acquisition Managing current workloads while scaling and also planning for growth Scaling challenges in SaaS businesses Keeping mental and physical health up during stressful times Getting used to using the Amazon Echo If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: RefactoringRails.io Drip Scaling SaaS Ben Orenstein on Twitter Derrick Reimer on Twitter

Derrick is coming back from a much-needed vacation in San Francisco and enjoyed walking tours thanks to the Detour app. He returns refreshed and was able to get back into the swing of things and even into his yoga classes. It was also officially announced this week that Clay Collins, Founder and CEO of LeadPages is stepping down and will be replaced by former COO John Tedesco. Clay had a great amount of self-awareness in his announcement and this brings up the topic of The Founder’s Dilemma and best management practices for startups. Last week Ben published a new sample course video on speeding up slow test suites. He is improving his recording and editing processes using Final Cut Pro. He is now working on the fifth video and nearing the halfway point on the course. He is also going to try live streaming the practice run of his next video and incorporating early feedback into the final recording. To market the course, he is looking forward to traveling the country and speaking at Ruby meetups. Today’s Topics Include: Taking real vacations and disconnecting from work in order to recharge The restorative power of yoga Company history and leadership changes at Leadpages The Founder’s Dilemma and knowing what you are optimizing for Freedom, wealth and ambition as a startup founder Outsourcing and the value of having a personal assistant Video editing processes, software and live streaming Ruby meetup tours as a marketing tool If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: RefactoringRails.io Drip Detour - guided walking tour app Leadpages The Founder’s Dilemma by Noam Wasserman Rich vs. King in the Real World: Why I sold my company by Jason Cohen Don’t Build a Business Because You Want Freedom by Jeff Goins Startups for the Rest of Us podcast Final Cut Pro

Ben and Derrick are joined by Brian Casel, podcaster, cofounder of Big Snow Tiny Conf, and known as “Mr. Process.” The three are fans of podcasts and conferences because they offer time to build relationships with people and talk deeply about things. In this episode, they share their updates and thoughts on involving others in their day-to-day processes. It brings everyone together to learn from each other, as well as build a community and consensus. Today’s Topics Include: Hosting and handling logistics for smaller conferences and retreats Ben shipped his Pair Programming Guide that offers tips, tutorials, and resources Guide to serve as top of funnel for Tuple; build an audience, establish expertise, get people together who care about it, and offer them a tool Flipping into different modes (writing, marketing, programming, etc.); in startup mode, you’re trying to make progress and doing everything - even when you have partners More people are live streaming their coding sessions, writing processes, and other tasks - documenting the creation and development of a product or service Build trust with a group of people to build referrals and have them talk about your product; but giving fans access to your product and building a community can be challenging Building a new product; spend money to hire someone to do it fast or take it slow and learn to do it yourself but don’t get paid for your time When building a company or product, it can be fun and frustrating; these days you should know a bit about all the pieces to it - teaching infrastructure is now an industry Coaches and friends can give you advice and let you know just what you need to know Practice Project vs. Real Product Mindsets: Perfecting something that you know won’t be perfect out of the gate, making it as good as possible, or plan first and then execute Links and resources: Brian Casel on Twitter (https://twitter.com/CasJam) Productize & Scale (https://productizeandscale.com/) Big Snow Tiny Conf (https://bigsnowtinyconf.com/) BootstrappedWeb (http://bootstrappedweb.com/) ProcessKit (https://processkit.com/) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Startups for the Rest of Us (https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) Pairing with Ben Orenstein on the Tuple Pairing Guide (with Adam Wathan) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK27unk2UuI) Jason Fried (https://twitter.com/jasonfried) Laravel (https://laravel.com/) Mackenzie Child (https://www.youtube.com/user/mackenziechild) Drift and David Cancel (https://team.drift.com/david) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/)

Ben is trying out Roam (https://roamresearch.com/) for organizing his notes. He shares some tips for engineers applying for jobs. After manually onboarding customers for a few weeks, Derrick is soft-launching SavvyCa (https://savvycal.com/)l to accelerate his learning from real-world customers.

Suntans and sunburns aside, Derrick’s winter escape to Mexico provided meaningful ideas and perspective on StaticKit. By reading, Competing Against Luck (https://www.amazon.com/Competing-Against-Luck-Innovation-Customer/dp/0062435612), Derrick’s goal is to be innovative and gain traction in product/market fit by asking customers the right questions and identifying jobs to be done. Ben recommends reading, Schlep Blindness (http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html) by Paul Graham. It describes how startup ideas remain a painful process instead of a phenomenon. Also, Ben announced that Tuple wants to hire a part-time remote developer with Mac iOS and C++ experience. Recently, Ben realized that writing is better than talking when it comes to business communication and conversations.

Drip successfully sailed through Black Friday and Cyber Monday unscathed with no queue backups or problems. Derrick has been thinking about shifting the Drip team structures after Black Friday weekend and is considering adopting more efficient workflows and processes. Ben and Derrick discuss different team structures, including those at Basecamp and Spotify. They also talk about team size, communication overhead, and growing revenue versus growing team size in business. Today’s Topics Include: Drip’s Black Friday success Team structure and restructuring teams at Drip Work processes and discussing article Running in Circles by Ryan Singer Mutable requirements and engineering feedback Uphill Strategies and task deadlines Spotify “squads” and team structures Communication overhead with large teams Be sure to stick around at the end of the episode for Ben and Derrick’s post-show chat. If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: HQ Trivia App (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hq-live-trivia-game-show/id1232278996) Running in Circles by Ryan Singer (https://m.signalvnoise.com/running-in-circles-aae73d79ce19) The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge (https://www.codequalitychallenge.com/) RefactoringRails.io (http://refactoringrails.io/) Drip

Ben and Derrick chat with Tuple's Chief of Staff and GTD expert, Stephen Dolan. They discuss Stephen's path from programming to sales to his current role and nerd out over methods for staying productive.

Derrick discovered his marketing and promotional tasks were eating up too much of his time and mind, so he took a break from them. He shifted his focus to the actual development of his product, Level. He made some forward strides on the product’s design. Ben decided to give notice and leave his current job for an opportunity to develop a Screenhero alternative. Screenhero is a pair programming tool that has a rough history with Slack. So, he has a co-founder, new technology findings from Stanford, and encouragement from original developers. Could anything be more aligned?! Ben’s alternative and Derrick’s Level is a match made in heaven. Today’s Topics Include: How Derrick is refactoring and optimizing data model items Is having one identity the right way to go or do people want to establish different identities within different communities? Ben encourages Derrick to not automatically do the opposite of Slack Derrick is trying to envision what people may request and be able to customize Shifting from the anonymous to identified Web Why Derrick decided to rewrite some database migration history Derrick is developing Level’s registration and sign-up process Derrick is on a development roller coaster every day; getting back on the yoga train Development teams will become increasingly distributed, so the customer base for Ben’s alternative will only expand How Ben feels about the technology risk factor with his alternative tool Ben will be learning C++ to write the codebase and maintain it If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com/) The Bootstrap Blog (https://blog.getbootstrap.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) GitHub (https://github.com/) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Screenhero (https://screenhero.com/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com/) Ruby on Rails (http://rubyonrails.org/)

Derrick is dangerously close to shipping his MVP, but is also lamenting how long it's taking. He's committed to naming a public ship date by next recording time. Ben is on the hunt for an executive coach. The Tuple Boston team is eyeing their first real office space outside of Joel's condo.

Ben announced the release of a new version of Tuple. The app includes improvements to its Webcam feature and requires less CPU usage and bandwidth. Also, Ben decided to turn off payment notifications from Stripe. Thankfully, too many emails created too much noise. He understands the value of not sending lots of emails, but the right emails to educate Tuple’s target market. Tuple’s pricing page and corporate swag will be released soon. As a Superhuman user, Ben offered Derrick advice on implementing it via Chrome or Electron, as well as a setting to remove badges. In addition to Zapier, Derrick’s working on a Mailchimp integration for StaticKit. He stresses the importance of evolving product positioning to make compelling marketing. Yet, Derrick describes TinySeed’s growth goal that he got as ambitious and unlikely to be achieved.

Derrick shipped config file for StaticKit’s UI migration and shifted his focus to other areas of the product. He plans to deliberately and consistently test email messages to determine which generate response and interest in StaticKit. He continues to connect with TinySeed mentors. Ben understands the value mentors offer in helping entrepreneurs easily avoid bad ideas and pursue good ones. Also, he’s working on writing content for his October advisor update. What’s the next step following Tuple’s free trial? T-shirt? Should Ben think bigger and Shape Up?

Ben is having a successful push for the new cohort of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge. He is also looking to improve future iterations of the challenge and is preparing to move to a new home outside of Boston. Ben and Derrick discuss their quarterly personal goals on this episode and the philosophy behind goal setting: developing habits versus achieving specific results. Each list their specific goals for the first quarter of 2018, including fitness, mindfulness, reading, professional projects and career choices. Today’s Topics Include: Second cohort of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge Annual versus quarterly goals Effective goal setting: forming habits versus achieving goals Ben and Derrick’s specific goals for Q1 2018 Returning to the tech workforce If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge (https://www.codequalitychallenge.com/) RefactoringRails.io (http://refactoringrails.io/) Drip Proper Cloth (https://propercloth.com/) James Clear - Habits Guide (https://jamesclear.com/habits)

Derrick spent his birthday at the north shore of Lake Superior to disconnect and getaway. Yet, he found some time to brainstorm and problem solve for StaticKit. Ben’s back from Martha’s Vineyard, only to experience less positive updates for Tuple. For the first time, Tuple is shockingly “in the red” financially. So, he feels guilty about going away. Today’s Topics Include: Slow Growth: Substantially fewer Tuple trial signups than previous time periods Marketing and Sales Strategy: From being the new tool on the block to steady state where Ben has to earn new Tuple customers Bullseye Framework: Derrick re-read his go-to startup guide to select StaticKit’s repeatable traction channels Tuple’s Q4 objectives and key results (OKRs): Fill top of funnel to increase new email subscribers and trials to continue to grow Ben’s future plans to gather marketing and sales information/intelligence by advertising and appearing on dev-related podcasts Design Matters: Impacts people’s perception of product and builds trust Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) Using Tailwind CSS with Next.js (https://statickit.com/guides/next-js-tailwind)  Level (https://level.app/) Slack (https://slack.com/) Zoom (https://zoom.us/) Upcase by Thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com/upcase) Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares (https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Guide-Getting-Customers/dp/0976339609)  Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org) HubSpot (https://www.hubspot.com) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Adam Wathan (https://adamwathan.me/) Full Stack Radio (http://www.fullstackradio.com/) Syntax.fm (https://syntax.fm) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Elixir (https://elixir-lang.org) Recurly (https://recurly.com) Chargify (https://www.chargify.com)

Ben’s back from Tuple’s ski trip retreat, where survey responses were reviewed for strategic planning purposes. Turns out that those who value pair programming actively use Tuple. What’s Tuple doing well? Latency and low friction. What can be added, changed, or improved? Free text, and make the basics a bit more stable and reliable. Ben knows it’s expensive and annoying to run tests all the time, but it’s also possible to mess something up that’s good. From building Level, Derrick understands how minor deviations to features can become major annoyances for customers. However, he’s still on track with his goal to be intentional with the material he consumes by reading Digital Minimalism (https://www.calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/). Derrick’s feeling zen and reaping the benefits of dumbing down his devices but not getting sucked back in. Plus, he continues to make progress with StaticKit and has moved from prototype to production. Stay tuned!

Tuple launched a new marketing experiment this week. Derrick is continuing work on migrating SavvyCal to new hosting infrastructure.

Ben tells the story about a recent Tuple incident in production. The guys discuss how they're putting planning into action after last week's chat with Adam about Shape Up. Derrick gives an update about growth efforts for SavvyCal.

Derrick and Ben welcome Amir Salihefendić, founder and CEO of Doist. Ben was able to break away from Slack and uses Doist’s Twist app at Tuple for team communication. Also, Ben and Derrick share updates and experiences about their businesses that spark familiarity and advice from Amir based on his entrepreneurial adventures. Today’s Topics Include: Founder Therapy: Derrick helped talk Ben off the ledge and figure things out with Tuple Live and Learn: An entrepreneur starting a business is on a psychology rollercoaster Ben’s path forward to break past lull via positive momentum and mood Short-and-Simple Answer: Derrick should only focus on long-term goals for StaticKit Looking forward to new release of Todoist in a few weeks? New features added with emphasis on improving existing design and workflow 360 Review: Stop doing development, and focus time on CEO role and responsibilities Balancing Act: Difficult to start companies and launch multiple products; but worth long-term investment and effort Unless your target audience is college students and you enjoy fighting churn, Doist’s pricing strategy isn’t recommended Synchronous vs. Asynchronous: Working remotely may impact your mental health Links and resources: Doist (https://doist.com) Twist (https://twist.com) Todoist (https://todoist.com/?lang=en) Success Ten Years in the Making with Amir Salihefendic of Doist (https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/success-ten-years-in-the-making-with-amir-salihefendic-of-doist-c44b42761e) Slack (https://slack.com/) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Fooled by Randomness (https://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Markets-Incerto/dp/0812975219) Tyler Tringus (https://tylertringas.com/) Nathan Barry  (https://nathanbarry.com) MicroConf (https://microconf.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) jQuery (https://jquery.com/) Adam Wathan (https://adamwathan.me/) WeWork (https://www.wework.com/) Out of Beta Podcast (https://outofbeta.fm/) Bootstrapped Web Podcast (http://bootstrappedweb.com/) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/) Using Tailwind CSS with Next.js (https://statickit.com/guides/next-js-tailwind)  Level (https://level.app/)

Ben and Derrick were hoping to share a great conversation they had with author, designer, and consultant Paul Jarvis. But, without warning, all was lost when Paul’s audio for the episode could not be saved. The plan is to have Paul back on the show in a few weeks. Everything else is going pretty well for Derrick, who provides an update on Level. He met his goal and launched the Level Early Access Program two weeks ago. When it comes to testing Tuple, Ben plans to prioritize people early on who have good bandwidth and help guide them to be successful when using the tool. Today’s Topics Include: Takeaway and Wake-up Call: Derrick has 6 teams in the early access program; some are using Level a lot, some are not - people are busy and running their own business Quality feedback for Level testing; offers unknowns, guidance, and clarifications Derrick’s working on a feature to make sure users remember to check back into Level because it’s designed to be unobtrusive and not bother you Make a good first impression; capture users’ vision and maintain their interest Derrick addressed people’s questions about how Level works and will solve their problems via storytelling with concrete, mechanical product details Derrick is battling perfection, but wants to generate pre-order revenue and set a rolling launch deadline for Level - ideally in January, to highlight new tools in the new year Ben is doing a podcast tour to promote Tuple, which had its best week for sign ups so far Tuple also experienced a technical breakthrough - it crushed latency; trust your team to get things done Tuple adventure is predicated on a value proposition that Tuple can be better than off-the-shelf products because of its key differentiators Ben is not your everyday developer; recently took a leap and hit the bigtime being a backup singer for Josh Groban! Links and resources: Paul Jarvis (https://pjrvs.com/) Trello (https://trello.com/) Elixir (https://elixir-lang.org/) Slack (https://slack.com/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) CodeNewbie Podcast (https://www.codenewbie.org/podcast) Bits and Trees Podcast (https://podcast.bitsandtrees.com/6) Full Stack Radio Podcast (http://www.fullstackradio.com/101) Ruby Testing Podcast (http://www.rubytestingpodcast.com/) Bootstrapped Web Podcast (http://bootstrappedweb.com/ben-orenstein-joins-us-talk-bootstrapping/) Swift (https://developer.apple.com/swift/) JSON (https://www.json.org/) Postmark (https://postmarkapp.com/) Screenhero (https://screenhero.com/) Josh Groban (http://www.joshgroban.com/) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide)

Even if a product, such as Tuple, is good and people don’t need to be convinced to buy it, there’s still plenty of work to be done. It involves communication, coordination, and collaboration. Ben’s perfect sales pitch and ultimate goal: Sell once, revenue forever. Ben picks his guest co-host’s brain about big deals with major companies. Luckily, Matt Wensing is willing to share his enterprise sales experience, including setting price points, hiring salespeople, and developing documentation. Matt is the founder and CEO of Summit, Out of Beta podcast host, and Riskpulse founder.

Ben recently had a Tuple team retreat. He is still in hiring mode. The Tuple product team is progressing on their Linux integration. Derrick ran a product-market fit survey for SavvyCal, and the results are... tune in to find out. He's pondering how to approach a freemium play.

Derrick continues to reinvent himself with his new product, Level, and sporting a, “I work for myself beard.” He took a vacation to canoe and camp instead of code. It’s always a refreshing experience for him to get away from work from time to time. Now, Derrick is back to writing code and organizing tasks in Levelland. Ben also went on vacation, but before doing so, he realized no sales for Tuple had come in that week. So, he made an effort to call prospective clients and was able to sell six annual licenses. Now, like Derrick, he is working on things that are hard to achieve. But if they can make them happen, then they will be really good. Today’s Topics Include: If feeling overwhelmed, write everything down, break into chunks, and organize them Find a visible way to make sure you are making progress and staying on track Ben wants to talk to other CEOs of small companies to find out what are they focused on and paying attention to because there is so much to do Don’t beat up yourself over mistakes, just keep making progress AoP podcast is like therapy and leaning on each other for support during this journey; staying sane during the new company/product process Prioritize Properly: Get sleep or you’re operating at a fraction at what you could be Break up your day and work schedule into 2-3 hour segments; if you need to get something done, spend less time doing it Teams contacted Ben about participating in the Tuple alpha; spots are still available, so contact him Company or founder retreats are a way to get creative, think outside the box, and bond over shared challenges and struggles Ben’s team, Sam Deane, including has been cranking away on its native app to create the initial set-up, layout, and architecture Ben tweeted about how to get up to speed on Mac OS development; considered corporate overlord’s job to create education and training, so it doesn’t get done Looking back on a year if AoP: Derrick overcame his fear of the microphone, and they’re keeping it real; humbled and happy that people find it useful Links and resources: Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Hill Charts on Basecamp (https://basecamp.com/features/hill-charts) Trello (https://trello.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Sketch (https://www.sketchapp.com/) Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots (http://giantrobots.fm/episodes) Microconf (https://www.microconf.com/)

Ben and Derrick chat through a cool new feature Tuple (https://tuple.app/) is shaping up. They also discuss Tuple's ambitious marketing bets.

There’s no need to ask them who they are, what they do, businesses and products they built because listeners know them through their stories. After a lot of random, but worthwhile conversations, they’re getting good at being podcast co-hosts. How long does it take to listen to all episodes of Ben and Derrick’s Art of Product (AoP) podcast? Who knew it would be binge-worthy? One more down, one to go before they reach Episode 100! Today’s Topics Include: Tuple 1.0: App is available, despite instant self-serve checkout setback Tuple customers are expanding their use, but there’s still room for more users One-time lump sum: Tuple pricing model that makes sense StaticKit Beta: Start small with kernel of a product to keep funnel constrained Marketing Research and Product Risk: StaticKit to stand on its own or grow Drip and Deleted Emails: Save copies to maintain confidence in critical path Negative Churn: Influence users to upgrade pricing for expansion revenue Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) Level (https://level.app/) Level Retrospective (https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-away-from-the-product-i-spent-a-year-building.html) Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto) Giant Robots Podcast (https://giantrobots.fm/) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Userlist  (https://userlist.io/) Adam Wathan on Twitter (https://twitter.com/adamwathan) Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com/) Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/) Ray Ozzie (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rayozzie) WordPress (https://wordpress.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Refactoring Rails (https://www.refactoringrails.io/)

Stripe's Technical Advisor to the CTO, Penelope Phippen (https://www.linkedin.com/in/penelope-phippen-4103142b/) stops by and Ben tries to get her to divulge company secrets.

Ben launched Habits for Hackers, a workshop that cultivates habits that lead to an impressive and fulfilling dev career. He incorporates books written by others and makes that content applicable to participants. He’s going to figure out the rest of the details for the course while flying by the seat of his pants. For now, Ben’s just bathing in the dopamine of watching numbers happen! Derrick has been doing some launching, too. He announced that the end of January will be the beginning of the Level launch and Level can now be pre-ordered (generated about $2,000 so far). Derrick admits that he’s always derailed pretty heavily on launch days. He doesn’t even think about trying to get much productive stuff done. Today’s Topics Include: Tuple had a good week and useful coaching call; find and reach out to experts via useful blog posts and mailing lists Ben’s team has experienced some wins when working on reducing the latency of Tuple, but discovered reducing latency and reducing perceived latency are about the same Ben and Derrick are recognizing areas where they will some day shift their focus Derrick recognizes the revenue potential due to who is signing up for Level (teams vs. entire companies); shipped an improved call to action - save your place in line How Derrick determined the price point for Level; pricing is relative and psychology Ben is reluctant to commit to pricing for Tuple; always trying new numbers to gauge tolerance on how much people are willing to pay for it After a launch, Derrick and Ben feel wiped out because then it’s time to do the hard stuff; create a prioritized list and set a deadline to avoid distractions Ben picked a date for Tuple’s alpha to start - Jan. 7; rather than just take someone’s money, he wants to make sure they are the right fit and would offer worthwhile feedback Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto) The Level Journal (https://leveljournal.com/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) Habits for Hackers (https://www.habitsforhackers.com/) Atomic Habits (https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits) Deep Work (https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692) Jason Fried (https://twitter.com/jasonfried) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Slack (https://slack.com/) How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit (https://firstround.com/review/how-superhuman-built-an-engine-to-find-product-market-fit/) Tailwind (https://www.tailwindcss.com/) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Adam Wathan (https://adamwathan.me/) Sketch (https://www.sketchapp.com/) Mod&dot (https://mod-dot.com/teaser/)

Ben talks to Brian Lovin, a designer, podcaster, writer, and software tinkerer.

Ben and Derrick chat about their ambitions for building their companies and planning for the new year.

Ben has officially launched his course Refactoring Rails. He is pleased with his choice of back-end tools including Gumroad for fulfillment. Ben shares his course launch metrics including email success rate, sales numbers and revenue. Early feedback has been positive and the Ruby community has been very supportive. He also discusses his expectations and take away lessons from the overall launch. Ben will be continuing his Ruby tour in the coming weeks. Derrick announces Drip’s new project teased last episode: a visual email editor. Due to Drip’s widening customer base, there is an increased demand for visual and polished marketing emails. Their designer has been working on mockups and the team is analyzing the current tools available and have some great ideas for improving usability. Drip is still looking for a front-end engineer with Elm experience to help build the tool. Today’s Topics Include: Refactoring Rails launch and email strategy Ben’s launch metrics Ruby speaking tour The new visual email editor project at Drip Building out a new project Learning new skills as a developer Choosing programming languages Derrick’s review of Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code Editor If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Gumroad (https://gumroad.com/) Heroku (https://devcenter.heroku.com/) Elm "Teaching Elm to Beginners" by Richard Feldman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-GhUxeYc1U) Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code Editor (https://code.visualstudio.com/) RefactoringRails.io (http://refactoringrails.io/) Drip

Ben is back home from the Vineyard and Derrick is back to 100%. Tuple is hiring a Product Designer (https://tuple.app/jobs/product-designer) and considering adding a bit more structure to their product planning process. Derrick recently shipped a new marketing site update

Derrick and Ben have descended upon Las Vegas for MicroConf and an audience hungry for valuable tips on how to successfully start and grow a business. Ben will have two Starter Edition sessions: Q & A with Rob Walling and Idea to Validation to Launch: The First 365 Days of Tuple. Today’s Topics Include: MicroConf Goals: Connect with people, spend quality time with friends; don’t feel guilty or FOMO about not going to all talks Ben’s seeking a designer to replace super-successful Steve Schoger Optimism to Realism: Derrick’s shift in mindset about Level at 2018 vs. 2019 MicroConf Sharing wisdom and giving advice - all of the fun, and none of the hard work Not knowing what makes someone a good fit for Level; let people vote with their dollars Getting more founders into therapy to help their mental health Derrick’s mentor role for TinySeed: The Startup Accelerator Designed for Bootstrappers Tuple’s theme of recurring and expansion charges, but also one churn so far Links and resources: MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Ben Orenstein at MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/starter/speakers/ben-orenstein/) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Sam Harris (https://samharris.org/) Wistia Soapbox (https://wistia.com/soapbox) TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/)

Ben is living his best life with walks on the beach and wonderful weather. On the Tuple side, he shipped some code, got a pull request (PR) merged, and is now on the devise authentication gem. Derrick’s been busy, too. StaticKit’s official integration with ZEIT went live. ZEIT is one of two major hosting providers in the static site ecosystem. Also, an initiative with Zapier is in the works. Today’s Topics Include: Derrick did it his way: Integrations can be a powerful marketing channel Zapier Integration: Derrick’s waiting on approval to be listed publicly in its directory Positive Pace: Derrick invests his previous product efforts with marketing impact Pricing Pros and Cons: Free vs. paid tiers for forms or submissions per Website Personal Response: Derrick receives notification when someone new signs up with StaticKit to offer support Derrick joined TinySeed, a startup accelerator that helps bootstrappers grow their company faster through funds Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) Using Tailwind CSS with Next.js (https://statickit.com/guides/next-js-tailwind)  Level (https://level.app/) Devise Authentication Gem (https://rubygems.org/gems/devise/versions/4.2.0) ZEIT (https://zeit.co/) Zapier (https://zapier.com/) Netlify (https://www.netlify.com/) FormKeep (https://formkeep.com) Salesforce (https://www.salesforce.com/) Slack (https://slack.com/) Adam Wathan (https://adamwathan.me/) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/) JAMstack Conf (https://jamstackconf.com)

Derrick recounts his last day at Drip - from being locked out, the elevator breaking, turning in parking passes, wearing a shirt saying “Quit Your Day Job,” to happy hour. Although he has a feeling of being free now, he is bummed about not seeing his co-workers every day. However, he is excited to share his plans and personal mission for the near future - a project called, Level, based on balance, not chaos. Today’s Topics Include: Derrick’s Manifesto: What he is now doing and thinking Building a prototype to get rid of Slack in the workplace Wants to develop ways to improve team communication Parts of Slack are awesome, while others are not Chat is not an effective communication mode for teams Important conversations can get lost in the chatter Snoozing is stressful; can be taken negatively and feel like being ignored Inbox should be included and organized by threads Anything that is important and needs to be addressed should be in a thread Slack is not meant for actionable items, but people use it for that Derrick’s tool will have both sync and async, which can be married; will be difficult to misuse it Some tools become addictive and disruptive to human nature Pushing through notification barriers and specifying priority; a list that prioritizes items and deadlines Step 1 to creating such a tool: Do your homework by talking to teams of developers Ben’s March will consist of meditating, squats, and handstands - while working on goals; Derrick wants to achieve reading and personal fitness goals every day, as well as shipping something open source If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: The War on Developer Productivity (And How I Intend to Win It) (http://www.derrickreimer.com/posts/the-war-on-developer-productivity/) Drip Slack (https://slack.com/) Thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com/) Rob Walling (https://www.drip.com/about) The Entrepreneur's Guide to Keeping Your S**t Together by Sherry Walling (https://zenfounder.com/entrepreneurs-guide-keeping-st-together/) Zero to One book (http://zerotoonebook.com/about) Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/)

Derrick is driving toward the first milestone of using Mighty Cal (https://mightycal.com/) for his own scheduling and is facing the reality of setting ambitious goals for the week. The Tuple team moved into their new office, which spurred on a healthy conversation about the value of working in-person and accessing the remote talent pool.

Ben is back from retreat #2 for Tuple. It may not have been as good as the first retreat, but was still above baseline productivity. The team worked on refactoring the app. Then, he went to CocoaHeads, which is for MacOS X and iOS developers to discuss Apple's Cocoa and CocoaTouch. Derrick will be speaking about Level at the local Elixir meetup. He is excited to dive deeper into using Elixir and reading books about it. Then, he plans to share what he learns and encourage others to not be intimidated by more powerful concepts in Elixir. Today’s Topics Include: Ben talks about climbing; if he’s not good at something, that makes him feel bad, so he needs to overcome such a feeling Derrick has been trying to figure out strategically how to provide a valuable service around Level’s open source code base; needs to put in the effort of learning how it’ll work Importance of developing DevOps skills, knowledge - whether it’s you or in-house experts As Derrick rapidly builds features for Level, he is tempted to either skimp on full-comprehensive testing or taking extra steps to refactor features into their ideal form Derrick and Ben both are figuring out where they should be and where they should focus their time and efforts as they create their new products Speed and quality are not traded off for one another; code has to be good to be added to and changed later quickly Share what you’ve done with others to be reviewed and receive feedback; plus share your thoughts via Twitter with Ben and Derrick on how they can improve their podcast! Links and resources: Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) CocoaHeads (http://cocoaheads.org/) Elixir (https://elixir-lang.org/) Thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com/) Discourse (https://discourse.org/) Docker (https://www.docker.com/)

Recently, Ben felt gloriously empty and described how nice it was to have nothing going on. In his stomach, that is. He successfully finished a 48-hour fast. It was difficult, but pleasurable. Now, he’s back to craving calories, eating, and work! Derrick had a challenging week with feelings of uncertainty. He invited more people to try Level, but got similar results. He fears that people may not progress with the product. Will people actually make the jump to Level? Today’s Topics Include: April showered Ben with 66 sign ups of paid trials for Tuple Magic Number is 3: Multiple developers mean Tuple will soon ship multiway calls feature Derrick’s going back to customer development roots to proactively learn and listen Tactical errors with validation to confirm assumptions about how to solve Slack problem Derrick’s envyable or dire position? Worst-case scenario and what’s next Startups fail, the struggle is real, and the pivot is time honored for a reason Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Derrick’s Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick (http://momtestbook.com/)

Today’s special episode features guest Sherry Walling, author of The Entrepreneur's Guide to Keeping Your S**t Together, to be released February 21, 2018. Sherry explains how her book came to life and her experience self-publishing. We also talk about the common mental health issues for entrepreneurial founders in the community today. Today’s Topics Include: Mental health within the Founders community Sherry’s new book and her writing process Struggles during the publishing process Traditional versus self publishing on Amazon Strengths and ‘shadows’ of entrepreneurs Personality self-knowledge and introversion/extraversion If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Keeping Your S**t Together by Sherry Walling (https://zenfounder.com/entrepreneurs-guide-keeping-st-together/) Zen Founder (https://zenfounder.com/) Zen Founder Podcast (https://zenfounder.com/category/episodes/) Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain (https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0307352153) MicroConf (http://www.microconf.com/) The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge (https://www.codequalitychallenge.com/) RefactoringRails.io (http://refactoringrails.io/) Drip

When’s the last time you read a manual or document to know how to use product features and functions? Ben’s new mantra: Write it down! Rather than repeat expertise, reuse content. Currently, Tuple’s most unreliable part is its online users list. Beat the competition by doing what others can’t do Ben and special guest, Adam Wathan (https://adamwathan.me/), address product pricing and licensing questions. Adam hosts Full Stack Radio, created Tailwind CSS, and authored Refactoring UI. He encourages writing simple and succinct stories despite complex information. Also, Adam describes how products on the market look sexy, but may not work well under the hood.

He’s back! Ben returns from traveling to Hong Kong. He shared his rails knowledge by helping someone who is building a business and using a rails app. He made performance improvements and refactored items. Derrick is also doing some Vim tutoring. Learning something new does not take long or a lot of money, and gets easier. Of course, both Ben and Derrick continue to work on their new products, as well. Derrick is creating Level, an open source team communication and management tool. Ben is starting Tuple, a pair programming tool alternative for Screenhero. Today’s Topics Include: How to do file browser for projects in Vim: CtrlP; baked-in and plug-ins options for Vim Build and code, but talking to customers can impact your course and business Derrick is posting small, hot tips on Twitter that are nuggets of valuable knowledge Likes and retweets growing Derrick’s number of followers Ben needs to tweet more to market to developers for his new product - Tuple Derrick continues to work on Level; categorizing communication and how to present it Notion of urgency is big issue with Slack that Derrick needs to address with Level Brainstorming sometimes needs conversation, and sometimes long periods of silence Controlling distractions and creating checklists are part of Derrick’s daily routine Derrick is improving the copywriting and calls to action on Level’s landing page Ben plans to incentivize people via annual plan upsells Derrick is considering a referral tracking mechanism as an incentive Big transitions and uncertainty generate anxiety for Ben, but he now has strategies to deal with it Trying to create a thing that did not exist before is different than something that already exists; it is harder and more stressful, and you’ll feel pain and be unsure Ben’s role as external-facing sales and marketing vs. product development and coding Structuring to make yourself happy, but keeping staff happy, too; everyone should like what they are doing Links and resources: Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Vim (https://www.vim.org/) CtrlP (https://github.com/kien/ctrlp.vim) Your First vimrc Should be Nearly Empty (http://www.benorenstein.com/blog/your-first-vimrc-should-be-nearly-empty) Thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Momentum (https://momentumdash.com/) Mathias Meyer (https://twitter.com/roidrage?lang=en) Reboot Podcast - How You Walk Through the World with Seth Godin (https://www.reboot.io/episode/83-walk-world-seth-godin/)

Ben and Derrick are together again, at MicroConf and working on their new products and businesses. From making T-shirts to thinking about finding funds, things are continuing to move forward. Derrick is focusing on Level, an open source team communication and management tool. Ben is considering the name, Tuple, for his pair programming tool alternative for Screenhero. He is focusing on all things business-related, from equity to entity options. Today’s Topics Include: What’s equity? Ben determines how to break up partnership percentages for his company Each partner will have their moment in the sun, and contribute more or less at various times Forming an entity; should Ben’s business be an LLC, corporation, private company...? Domain scheme options when it comes to handles and extensions Ben’s next milestone is to do a small alpha, and charge people to use it Embedding iframes, custom domain options, and promotions How cagey to be about technology being used; the secret sauce and general public licenses Learning how to pitch a product and what resonates with people Tools can be improved, and education on how to use them needs to be provided Is Slack the problem, or the people who use it? On premise vs. Cloud options; the pros and cons If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Angel Funds (https://angel.co/angel-funds) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) WebRTC (https://webrtc.org/) Andrew Culver (https://github.com/andrewculver)

Derrick is continuing to manually onboard Mighty Cal users and is incorporating their feedback into the product. He is driving towards optimizing self-service onboarding to enable opening up signups more broadly. Ben is considering hiring a someone to optimize trial conversions. They discuss OKRs and what skills this person might need.

Ben and Derrick are recovering from days of being in Las Vegas for MicroConf. They spent time reconnecting with old friends, and making new friends. Knowledge floats around, and you can soak it all in. MicroConf has a culture of extreme transparency, helpfulness, friendliness, and wealth of value. Talks at the conference generated actionable items for and awe from attendees. Derrick especially enjoyed copywriting and injecting humor sessions. Ben was impressed, too. His favorite talk was from Justin Mares on “How We’ve Taken FOMO 20 to 80k MRR in 18 Months,” where Mares talked about a difficult task and what worked and didn’t. Today’s Topics Include: Show up every day and try to make your business better Growth regrets and scaling challenges for Derrick with Drip; does slow and steady win the race? Growth and Derrick’s new product Level; he plans to focus in on software developers Don’t be afraid to go into large markets with your products and services to grow Ben met up with the “guy” whose research he is using for his new company and the problems he plans to tackle Ben plans to use WebRTC, unless or until an alternative appears Ben has been thinking about positioning, and how it will affect his UX, pricing, and other factors Ben settled on a name for his new business: Tuple (it was meant to be and nerdy enough for developers to get it) Derrick battles for domains and wins Level.app If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) WebRTC (https://webrtc.org/)

Ben and Derrick strategize about how to allocate time and energy and staying in tune with customers.

Ben and Derrick hang out with Tuple co-founders Spencer and Joel and talk shop. They discuss what it's really like to work with Ben, how they approach learning deeply technical things, ways they are preparing for a new engineering hire, and that time they hard-coded user IDs into Tuple.

If you listen regularly to the Art of Product podcast, then you’re probably familiar with the ongoing joke: How long does it take before we mention Steve Schoger and Adam Wathan? Well, today is your lucky day because not only do Derrick and Ben mention them, but Adam is once again their special guest. Adam is a software developer, writer, speaker, and entrepreneur. Also, he is the creator of Nitpick CI, host of the Full Stack Radio podcast, and author of Refactoring UI and Refactoring to Collections. He describes the process of successfully making, promoting, and selling courses on the Internet. Plus, Steve makes a special appearance to share his side of the story! Today’s Topics Include: Concept and Collaboration: How Adam and Steve work together to create courses Be genuinely helpful by offering free, good content for people to know, like, and trust you Build an audience/authority on a topic to make people want to learn from you Understand difference between what you care about vs. what your audience cares about Care about quality and effort put into all aspects; utilize Steve’s design tips on Twitter Signals and validation that your content resonates with and is helpful to your audience What Makes a Successful Partnership: Similar values, but complementary skills Promotion via email, newsletter, social media, case studies, and screencasts to grow number of subscribers/followers Courses: Parts and Pieces (Books, Videos, and More) and Pricing to Make ROI Launching Products and Surpassing Sales Expectations Links and resources: Adam Wathan (https://adamwathan.me/) Nitpick CI (https://nitpick-ci.com/) Refactoring UI (https://refactoringui.com/book/) Refactoring to Collections (https://adamwathan.me/refactoring-to-collections/) Full Stack Radio Podcast (http://www.fullstackradio.com/) Adam Wathan’s MicroConf Presentation (https://microconf.gen.co/adam-wathan/) Adam Wathan on GitHub (https://github.com/adamwathan) Adam Wathan’s Email (mailto:adam.wathan@gmail.com) Adam Wathan on Twitter (https://twitter.com/adamwathan) 7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design (https://medium.com/refactoring-ui/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at-design-40c736799886) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Steve Schoger on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxqiDtkXtOCNJdckODHk9YA) Heroicons (http://www.heroicons.com/) Steve Schoger on Twitter (https://twitter.com/steveschoger) Wes Bos (https://wesbos.com/) Bootstrap (https://getbootstrap.com/) Stripe (https://stripe.com/) An eBook pricing model that resulted in $100,000 in sales (https://blog.asmartbear.com/selling-ebook.html) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/)

Ben & Derrick have an impromptu chat with Adam Wathan about all things business.

Ben is away, so Derrick invited a special guest for this episode. Rob Walling was the co-founder of Drip and is the co-host of MicroConf. Rob recently removed Slack from his phone, and is waiting for Derrick’s Level product. Level is an open source team communication tool that Derrick hopes will replace Slack among software teams. Others are looking forward to Level, as well, and wondering how many clients Level is going to be available on: Mobile, desktop...As Derrick continues to work on Level, the two also reminisce about their days together at Drip. Today’s Topics Include: Derrick is planning to use Electron to build a desktop app for Level Some follow a pure approach and go native, but it can be more difficult than expected Bursting and psychological safety concepts allow people to express their ideas What if? Be creative as a team, encourage everyone to collaborate, and make the environment comfortable for magic to happen Individual vs. group brainstorming: Which works better? How do other companies do it? Derrick plans to show polished, not raw sketches of Level to make it reviewable Derrick has been building the product, writing code, nuking the database, and creating videos to show slices of Level being made Derrick used Stripe Atlas to form an LLC for Level Stripe is inspiring; believe that you can transition an industry, make things happen, and win the hearts and minds of developers Derrick and Rob discuss the pros/cons of fundstrapping vs. bootstrapping Rob shares feedback and reviews from listeners of his podcast Rob and Derrick share their thoughts on cryptocurrency investing If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Rob Walling on Twitter (https://twitter.com/robwalling) Startups for the Rest of Us (http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/) Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Electron (https://electronjs.org/) PhoneGap (http://phonegap.com/) Twist (https://twistapp.com/?lang=en) WorkLife podcast (https://www.ted.com/read/ted-podcasts/worklife) Gusto (https://gusto.com/) Zenefits (https://www.zenefits.com/) The Pixar Touch (https://www.amazon.com/Pixar-Touch-Making-Company/dp/0307278298) Lost and Founder by Rand Fishkin (https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Founder-Painfully-Honest-Startup/dp/0735213321)

This week Ben has been managing his projects and to-do list with OmniFocus, which helps as his business and stress level continue to increase. He has outlined and will be recording his last video about form objects and is glad to be approaching the finish line on the course. He also experimented with adding a Call to Action button in his emails but wants to get more data comparing metrics to get the best strategy with different email clients. Derrick has been in the trenches working on scaling Drip this week by strategizing on architecture with the backend team. They have onboarded one of their biggest customers and are working with them to segment and filter subscribers to be more efficient. He discussed the importance of legacy code base and how it is re-invented and improved over time. While their backend has become more complicated and fast-paced, he and his team are committed to keeping high quality and continue shipping things out quickly. Today’s Topics Include: Working around a schedule and dealing with notifications Email data metrics and call to action tests Scaling backend architecture Brain-dumping to address issues Defining legacy in a code base and continuous re-evaluation Consistency in a code base Moving fast and increasing complexity while maintaining high quality If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: RefactoringRails.io Drip Omnifocus Pocket Final Cut Pro Github AdBlock

We're back! The Tuple client redesign shipped and Derrick is going to help out with an overhaul of the Tuple onboarding process. Ben asked for users to record their first-run experience in exchange for a discount and has learned a ton about what could be improved. The Tuple team is considering how best to plan out their roadmap this quarter.

Ben has been busy. The alpha launch date for Tuple was Jan. 7. He was nervous about it, but so far, it’s going well. One participant said, “I’m sort of surprised you’re calling this an ‘alpha,’ because everything seems to work!” Ben was glad to hear it, but admits that’s not totally true. He’s still far from where he wants to be with Tuple, but is definitely on the right track. Derrick has been hard at work, too. He continues to develop Level and knows that there will be ups and downs with customers, functionality, etc. But, he continues to move forward and strives to help others solve problems associated with team communication. Today’s Topics Include: Importance of manually onboarding people via calls about product Setting expectations and communication efforts for a rolling roll out Users understand that bugs will happen and offer friendly feedback Experimenting with pricing models for product’s current and future releases Tuple’s performance dashboard displays key details; caring about things that matter Bandwidth: Do fewer things and do them well to be able to compete Level’s future strategies and goals regarding customers and feedback If a product can solve a user’s problem, then it’s good enough to give to them Poor execution and explanation of Drip’s price increase Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Calendly (https://calendly.com/) Screenhero (https://screenhero.com/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Jason Fried (https://twitter.com/jasonfried) Jason Cohen (https://twitter.com/asmartbear) Brian Casel (https://briancasel.com/)

Derrick is joined by Peter Suhm, founder of Reform, to share some updates and do some masterminding.

In the last episode of 2019, Derrick and Ben focus on reflections and projections. Should they set goals for the coming year when it comes to Tuple and StaticKit? After all, nobody can predict the future, and hard work doesn’t always lead to perfect products and startups. But it’s been an amazing year for Tuple, which went from zero to hundreds of customers. What’s next? Adding cross-platform operating systems and going with freemium pricing model? Always looking ahead, how good are Tuple founders at predicting the future? Time will tell, once they receive their delay emails. Derrick describes how goals can lead to unhealthy behavior. Recently, he spent time with TinySeed mentor, Dr. Sherry Walling, talking about burnout and other mental health aspects for founders of startups. What are the early signs of burnout? Burning the candle at both ends. So, Derrick’s goal is to be less stressed by having more fun and enjoying the journey. Next year is going to be an interesting one for both Derrick and Ben!

Summer is in full swing. Ben spent a fun and productive day talking about work at a Red Sox game. It was an own-your-own business startup moment. Derrick can see clearly now, thanks to SMILE laser eye surgery. But he’s still seeking clarity on whether to make the masses happy, or stick to core concerns to attract specific customers when creating a new product. Today’s Topics Include: Tuple Grows Up: New version of marketing site getting ready to launch Cha Ching: Confirmation of biggest single Tuple invoice sent for payment How much wisdom is there in the crowd? Can you trust it? Remote Control: Tuple customers give up control to use driver/navigator pairing Self-serve Sign-up: Tuple strives for automation, learning, and feedback Time for a Truce: Trash talking, name calling stops for Slack to send customers to Tuple Soon to be released: Derrick’s StaticKit, a modern approach for embedding dynamic forms onto static sites Links and resources: StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) Art of Product Podcast Episode 91: Feeling Superhuman with Rahul Vohra (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-91) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) Level (https://level.app/) Level Retrospective (https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-away-from-the-product-i-spent-a-year-building.html) Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto) Jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/) Middleman (https://middlemanapp.com/) Gatsby (https://www.gatsbyjs.org/) Hugo (https://gohugo.io/) Next (https://nextjs.org/) React (https://reactjs.org/) Superhuman Product-Market Fit Survey (https://www.slideshare.net/marklittlewood/rahul-vohra-founderceo-superhuman-the-productmarket-fit-engine-122102118) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Stripe (https://stripe.com/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Slack (https://slack.com/) Removal of remote screen control in Slack calls (https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/360022908874-Removal-of-remote-screen-control-in-Slack-calls) Screenhero (https://screenhero.com/) Netlify (https://www.netlify.com/) Zeit (https://zeit.co/) Mailchimp (https://mailchimp.com/) ConvertKit (https://convertkit.com/) JSON (https://www.json.org/) Zapier (https://zapier.com/) FormKeep (https://formkeep.com/) Heroku (https://www.heroku.com/) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/) Medium (https://medium.com/) Phoenix (https://phoenixframework.org/)

Rob Walling joins Derrick once again as a guest co-host while Ben is traveling in Hong Kong. Rob was Derrick's co-founder at Drip, runs MicroConf, and hosts the Startups For the Rest of Us podcast. Derrick and Rob discuss the latest Level updates and strategize how best to approach previewing product mockups to potential customers. They discuss how the early phase of a startup is very fulfilling because you can be very creative, but also stressful because of risk and uncertainty. Rob gets Derrick's feedback about offering one-on-one founder consulting in his spare time. Links and resources: Rob Walling on Twitter (https://twitter.com/robwalling) Startups for the Rest of Us (http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/) Derrick Reimer Website (http://www.derrickreimer.com/) Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Ben Orenstein Website (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k) Level Live #3: A Fireside Chat with Rob Walling (https://youtu.be/lDb-93uWVLw) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Twist (https://twistapp.com/?lang=en) Basecamp (https://basecamp.com/) Soylent (https://www.soylent.com/)

Derrick is still traveling. So, Ben’s co-host for this episode is Honeybadger Co-founder Ben Curtis. Honeybadger offers an application health monitoring tool featuring an easy-to-use platform with exception, uptime, and check-in monitoring. Since its creation about seven years ago, Honeybadger’s three founders - Curtis along with Starr Horne and Joshua Wood - cranked out all the work. However, the company added a marketing person a few months ago and recently hired its first developer. Today’s Topics Include: Honeybadger has kept headcount low to optimize profit-per-employee; eventually needed help with marketing and other tasks Downside of contractors is they’re not committed to being around for very long; wanted someone who was dedicated to making Honeybadger more successful Bringing new people in is risky, but Curtis kind of wishes they would’ve done it sooner Documenting processes is essential to transfer knowledge to new team members and discover opportunities for improvement and automation Setting expectations regarding time; Curtis makes conscious choice to only work 20-30 hours per week in Honeybadger’s relaxed and asynchronous office environment Honeybadger took about three years to achieve a stable infrastructure, where things weren’t regularly blowing up and breaking Moment Honeybadger Made It: Able to offer health insurance and living the dream by getting paid well to do exactly what they want to do and exactly how they want to do it What can you afford to pay yourself when starting a business? Establish schedule and roadmap to set goal to pay yourself regularly, even if amount is meager Honeybadger’s biggest costs are for hosting, health insurance, and salaries; company has grown through word-of-mouth, not paid marketing and advertising Gorilla Marketing: Free marketing and fantastic response rate for Honeybadger’s T-shirt giveaway to get customers’ credit card numbers; Burger Bus was also a success Be authentic to create brand recognition; you’re your target audience - what do you like? Honeybadger’s mission is to give developers the best tools, so they can have a better day; customer service is one of the company’s core guiding principles Links and resources: Honeybadger (https://www.honeybadger.io/) Starting & Sustaining Podcast Episode with Ben Curtis, Co-founder of Honeybadger (https://interviews.startingandsustaining.com/ben-curtis) Notion (https://www.notion.so/) Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/) Tropical MBA Podcast (http://www.tropicalmba.com/podcasts/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) RailsConf (https://railsconf.com/) Postmark (https://postmarkapp.com/) Printfection (https://www.printfection.com/) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/)

Derrick had an interesting week with Level. He focused on important features that will be a part of the product, including notifications dependent on team members’ jobs. Some may want more asynchronous and unobtrusive notifications than others. Level distinguishes configurable notifications based on different roles on a team. Notification policies seem simple on the surface, but are actually very complicated. Ben announced that November was Tuple’s best month ever for marketing! But now, he is approaching the alpha for Tuple and will focus his attention on product management. Ben wants to figure out what works and what doesn’t. After all, when you can see the wrong thing, the right thing becomes so much easier. Today’s Topics Include: Derrick gained clarity on how things should work in Level by writing code and playing with different ideas When in doubt about design, Derrick takes a screenshot of Level to put on Twitter and get feedback; keeps people invested in the process Derrick is developing a thick skin and trying to not be defensive about design comments Level will offer opt-ins and education that help users protect their time and priorities Ben plans to pair with people using Tuple to identify UX annoyances Tuple is about to crack the 3,000 people milestone on its mailing list Level received new refers and spikes in traffic; awareness is building How to continue to grow your tribe? Opportunities to have an audience when you’re doing interesting stuff Level’s content strategy will focus on high-quality content, not high-volume content; Derrick plans to commit to cadence of consistency Can spend time on something, and years later, people still go to it as a valuable reference Ben wants to open up sales for the Habits for Hackers course, but limit the number of spots available; he’s considering a reverse auction Derrick’s been considering creative ways to structure pre-orders and pre-sales for Level; trying to decide whether to turn off pre-orders Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Habits for Hackers (https://www.habitsforhackers.com/) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Adam Wathan (https://adamwathan.me/) 103: Steve Schoger - Design Q&A + Refactoring UI Details (http://www.fullstackradio.com/103) Slack (https://slack.com/) Dense Discovery (https://www.densediscovery.com/archive/) SitePoint (https://www.sitepoint.com/newsletter/) Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/) Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Paul Jarvis (https://pjrvs.com/) Brian Casel (https://productizeandscale.com/) Code that says why it does (https://robots.thoughtbot.com/code-that-says-why-it-does)

Ben and Derrick chat about joy of shipping features quickly that customers love. They also discuss architecting software to minimize painful changes in the future. The Tuple team is making progress on the Linux client and SavvyCal is working on an Outlook integration.

Derrick’s short notice about not co-hosting this episode because of being on a plane, and Ben not knowing or planning what to discuss, who and what’s left? Updates and reports on Tuple and Tailwind. Welcome back Adam Wathan! Today’s Topics Include: Today’s Trend: Advisor/investor/founder journals and reports of accomplishments Serves as a way to stay in touch, build relationships, ask questions, and get feedback Three Tuple Reports Later: Things are still going good Programming meets Business: Gary Bernhardt commits to being future podcast guest Successful Tuple Shipments: Significant use of Webcam feature Pricing Options: Ben expresses concern over free trials or pre-paid plans to capture credit cards and emails Invite-only vs. Public Launch: Continue as is, or open Tuple up to all Tuple Update: Revenue is growing quickly, receiving 70-100 support tickets weekly, and room to add customers Tailwind Update: Adam launched first set of videos for Tailwind CSS course Tailwind Subscription/Price Structure: Yet to be determined Adam’s Prediction: Education and documentation determine open source winner Links and resources: Adam Wathan on Twitter (https://twitter.com/adamwathan) Full Stack Radio (http://www.fullstackradio.com/) Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com/) Refactoring UI by Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger (https://refactoringui.com/) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Tyler Tringas on Twitter (https://twitter.com/tylertringas?lang=en) Brian Casel (https://briancasel.com/) Gary Bernhardt on Twitter (https://twitter.com/garybernhardt) ExecuteProgram.com (https://www.executeprogram.com/) David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) on Twitter (https://twitter.com/dhh) Giant Robots Episode 26: Deep into the psyche of Gary Bernhardt (https://giantrobots.fm/episodes/26) Giant Robots Episode 27: Fabulous new mistakes with Joe Ferris (https://giantrobots.fm/episodes/27) Giant Robots Episode 28: Farther, further, faster with David Heinemeier Hansson (https://giantrobots.fm/episodes/28) Node.js (https://nodejs.org/) React (https://reactjs.org/) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/) Zoom (https://zoom.us/) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Screenhero (https://screenhero.com/) Slack (https://slack.com/) GitHub (https://github.com/) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) StaticKit (https://www.statickit.com/) Level (https://level.app/) Level Retrospective (https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/17/im-walking-away-from-the-product-i-spent-a-year-building.html) Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto)

Ben had another good week. He signed up 25 new trials and about five conversions for Tuple. Are you one of the 500 chosen by Derrick to get access to Level? Be sure to check your Inbox on Monday for an email from him to find out. Also, Ben and Derrick welcome Adam Wathan as a co-host for this episode. Adam’s working on getting release 1.0 of Tailwind out the door with awesome documentation. Today’s Topics Include: Happiness vs. Harassment: Tuple’s paid trial process Will people pay for Level? Get free feedback first or make them pay upfront? Demo Option: Click around, view dummy posts to get sense of how Level works Refactoring UI: Could it be a perennial seller? How much should you share about your startup in your tweets? Focus on being best option; don’t brag about your success Trying to sell a theme via Tailwind; adding vs. creating new products Holy Grail of Software Business: Rob Walling’s stairstep approach to recurring revenue Growth rate required to stay alive? Keep product relevant to what market wants SaaS is definitely not all roses! Super Fast Email Services/Features: Snippets, Superhuman, Help Scout, and Shortcuts Links and resources: Adam Wathan on Twitter (https://twitter.com/adamwathan) Refactoring UI by Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger (https://refactoringui.com/) Steve Schoger (https://www.steveschoger.com/) Stripe (https://stripe.com/) Jason Cohen - Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business (https://vimeo.com/74338272) Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts (https://www.amazon.com/Perennial-Seller-Making-Marketing-Lasts/dp/0143109014) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com/) Bootstrap (https://getbootstrap.com/) Justin Jackson Playing with Tailwind CSS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwUT0MmnrQw) Justin Jackson’s MegaMaker Club (https://megamaker.co/club/) Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/) Rob Walling’s Stairstep Approach to Bootstrapping (https://robwalling.com/2015/03/26/the-stairstep-approach-to-bootstrapping/) Upcase by Thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com/upcase) Paul Jarvis (https://pjrvs.com/) Heroku Dynos (https://www.heroku.com/dynos) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/) Elixir (https://elixir-lang.org/) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Help Scout (https://www.helpscout.com/) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/)

Who’s the mystery voice that only gets better as you listen to this episode? Actually, you’re probably already familiar with the work of the man behind the microphone. Derrick is busy moving to a new home, so Ben’s co-host is Brian Casel of BootstrappedWeb, ProcessKit, Audience Ops, and Sunrise KPI. Today’s Topics Include: Ben and Brian just got back from MicroConf; it’s an annual gathering of “all our people” Some talks were among their favorites, but others were mediocre and missed the mark Brian’s goal was to meet 5-10 new people doing interesting things, and reconnect and catch up with others he’s known for years Brian is an Art of Product (AoP) podcast listener and wants Ben and Derrick to not hold back, dig in, challenge each other, and ask more questions Are more people listening to Ben and Derrick’s podcast? Fireside metrics reveal that a lot of Tuple or Level customers come from listening to it More bootstrappers need to start a podcast and find friends to share ups and downs What happened when Ben pushed Brian to learn how to code? ProcessKit - best thing Brian’s built on the Web Phenomenon of how programmers love complexity ProcessKit pricing and customer research; Ben’s advice to get people to buy/use it Tuple Update: App is great; Ben’s been emailing list, and people are buying it Links and resources: Brian Casel (https://briancasel.com/) BootstrappedWeb Podcast (http://bootstrappedweb.com/) ProcessKit (https://processkit.com/) Brian Casel on Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/@casjam) Audience Ops (https://audienceops.com/) Ops Calendar (https://opscalendar.com) Big Snow Tiny Conf (https://bigsnowtinyconf.com/) Sunrise KPI (https://betalist.com/startups/sunrise-kpi) Art of Product Podcast Episode 58 with Brian Casel: Evolving Roles as a Startup Founder (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-58) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) MicroConf Recap (https://microconf.gen.co/) Chris Savage: How an Offer to Sell Wistia Inspired Us to Take On $17M in Debt (https://microconf.gen.co/chris-savage/) Jason Fried: Q+A with Jason Fried (https://microconf.gen.co/jason-fried/) Patrick Campbell: Pricing (https://microconf.gen.co/patrick-campbell-starter/) Joanna Wiebe: Money Words: Seven of the words and phrases we use most often in high-converting copy (https://microconf.gen.co/joanna-wiebe/) Fireside (https://fireside.fm/) Transistor (https://transistor.baremetrics.com/) Castos (https://castos.com/) Blubrry (https://create.blubrry.com) AJAX JavaScript (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)) Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com/) Honeybadger (https://www.honeybadger.io/) React (https://reactjs.org/) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/) Vue.js (https://vuejs.org/) Stimulus JavaScript (https://stimulusjs.org/) Vanilla JavaScript (http://vanilla-js.com/) FollowUp.cc (https://followup.cc/) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide)

Ben is hanging out with two new team members in the office this week. The Tuple team is preparing to ship some big performance upgrades. Derrick launched the SavvyCal iCloud integration on Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/posts/savvycal-for-icloud)

Ben never wants to stop working on his startup company, Tuple. Despite some stress, it’s successful and satisfying. However, team members may be added to take over some of Ben’s responsibilities. Based on the book, The Great CEO Within, Ben continues to provide feedback and to document standard operating procedures, policies, and other information to handle the challenge of knowledge management. Derrick emphasizes the importance of documentation, support, and smooth transitions. You don’t know what other people don’t know. Derrick wants to be doing what he’s doing with his startup, StaticKit, but is feeling weary and may be willing to eventually step aside. While attending a TinySeed Retreat, he was reminded of how face-to-face meetings are worthwhile, and it’s good to surround yourself with successful people who share similar experiences.

Do you lack energy or motivation at work? Ben tried a new service called, Work Gym from Ultraworking. He found it worthwhile and got a lot of work done on Tuple that he had been putting off for quite awhile. Tuple is about to reach a major milestone - recent PR deployments mean no more global list of online users. Derrick has also been addressing how to set up companies, teams, and individual users interested in trying Level. So, he hasn’t intentionally built any billing model into the backend of Level, yet Today’s Topics Include: Prioritizing tasks and trying to be comfortable with the lack of knowing everything Ben and Derrick find value in sales and onboarding calls, although the take up time Doesn’t matter if something isn’t right, right now; keep experimenting, learning, and testing to figure out what works People are willing to pre-pay to be placed on the newly created Tuple trials wait list Tuple Status: Stability is going up, bugs are being fixed, and crashing occurs less often Tuple plans to deploy a fix where users don’t have to enter a keychain password every time to update the app and support for them to choose which display they want to share Results from Superhuman Product Market Fit Survey sent to Tuple users Ben’s Bad Idea: He decided not to do Habits for Hackers due to lack of pricing and bids Derrick continues to do onboarding calls with Level users and reach out to those who were invited and pre-paid, but have not scheduled a demo Derrick shipped an integration for users to post a message to an endpoint that will be directly posted to a channel or another person in Level to centralize relevant notifications Links and resources: Ultraworking (https://www.ultraworking.com/) Ultraworking’s Cycles Template (https://www.ultraworking.com/cycles) Zoom (https://zoom.us/) Superhuman Product Market Fit Survey (https://www.slideshare.net/marklittlewood/rahul-vohra-founderceo-superhuman-the-productmarket-fit-engine-122102118) Habits for Hackers (https://www.habitsforhackers.com/) Zapier (https://zapier.com/) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter (https://twitter.com/derrickreimer) Ben Orenstein (http://www.benorenstein.com/) Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter (https://twitter.com/r00k?lang=en) Level (https://level.app/) Tuple (https://tuple.app/)

Derrick shipped the next part of team functionality, which opened the door for expansion revenue. Ben is zeroing in on hiring a pairing coach for Tuple customers. In his down time, Ben is taking up playing the piano - something his childhood self would be appalled about.

The Code Quality Challenge (https://tuple.app/code-quality-challenge) Tuple's open CTO position (https://tuple.app/jobs/cto) Kevin Shen's Dream Studio Course (https://dreamstudiocourse.com/)

Ben keeps us posted on the Refactoring Rails course launch progress and shares his continuing sales metrics and marketing strategies. He is considering experimenting with free samples, bundling and cross-promoting going forward. For his next project, Ben is creating a new course called The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge, which goes live on November 13, 2017. He has received a lot of feedback on the idea and is iterating on the outline, including content and pricing strategies for the future. He shares his plans for the course and Derrick gives his advice on the project. Today’s Topics Include: Refactoring Rails launch progression and marketing strategies Ben’s new project: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge Comparing course formats and iterating on ideas using targeted feedback The power of building your audience and list Lead generation versus sales value Programming language agnostic course strategy If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Tiny Marketing Wins course (https://tinymarketingwins.com/) The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge (https://www.codequalitychallenge.com/) RefactoringRails.io (http://refactoringrails.io/) Drip