Talking Businessly – Details, episodes & analysis

Erin is an outstanding product manager who is fairly new to the agency world. She shares her feedback on our process. We brainstorm how to position and sell our product management services. 

Daniel got a 3D printer. John got a new iPhone that he feels meh about. We are feeling out how to consult when there are issues way outside of our control. Getting uncomfortably explicit is awkward in the moment, but makes everyone happy later. John has a wild story about Emily Belz's article. 

Spring is here. John was on the Over Engineered podcast to discuss running product processes on small teams. We are sunsetting Papercuts. We do a quick retro about why, and what we learned. John did a heroic refactor on the new client app. Daniel is making home improvements

John got married. We got paid by a delinquent client. John spoke at PHP x Philly. The client management app is getting really good, which can now invoice clients. Finally, John thinks tv is maybe bad.

You need to build vertically, not horizontally.

Also: Point Break is a good movie (Broey Deschanel's analysis). We helped a client dismiss a scammy wordpress agency. Squarespace is good. Daniel bought a suit. John is making a DJ set, and thanks Daniel for being the reason he learned to do that.

Why do old special effects look good? Pennsylvania needs better websites. John wants to speak a lot more. We are building our PM business, but don't have an obvious blueprint to follow. 

We empanel Bossman Chris. Daniel and Chris survived Philly's Super Bowl celebration. We recap Laracon EU, and give high praise to Amsterdam. Chris counsels us on how to be a great place to work.

We talk retro video games. Daniel is wiring up his whole home. John preps for his Laracon talk. We recap what we learned from an uncomfortable client moment. We finalize our OKRs. John was on Joe Tannenbaum's podcast talking about games. John talks about doing jiu jitsu against the Dutch. 

John built the MVP client app! Daniel watched Survivor. We brainstorm what we want out of our 2025 OKRs. 

We talk about how it will work to have another PM around, the paradox of project scoping, good interview questions, and the power of learning from retros. On a less businessly note, we also talk Survivor, Pecking Order, gas leaks, soothing YouTube videos, cable management, and trying to feed our notes into ChatGPT.