I’ve been on various podcasts talking about my book, Deploy Empathy, since its launch, including: SaaS Club Inside Intercom Indie Hackers Build Your SaaS UI Breakfast Startups for the Rest of US and more! You can listen to the full tour on the playlist below.
Misc
GOTO:Aarhus 2022
I gave a Deploy Empathy workshop and talk at GOTO:Aarhus 2022 in Aarhus, Denmark.
The Power of Thinking Inside the Box
Think back to the last time you had a new idea. It was exciting and energizing, right? You were probably so excited that you jumped to a whiteboard to sketch the idea or shot off an email about it to a close friend. The possibilities! But now let’s picture that idea differently. Imagine it lives in this little box. But your idea doesn’t live in this box alone. Instead, ideas
Why I Love Product
Several months ago, I was drafting an internal job description for a new position on our Product team. Among the many qualities I thought this person should have, I listed Passionate about product. It seemed like an obvious thing to include. Of course someone who wanted to work in product would love product and immediately know what it meant to be passionate about product. But my manager at the time, who
Product vs Packaging
Great packaging is what pulls people in, but a superior core product is what will make them stay. In the physical world, it’s pretty clear what is packaging and what is the actual product. Take soap: the packaging is the plastic, and the core product is the soap itself. The packaging may influence your decision to buy the product — it may market the product to you — but ultimately
Parenthood: It’s a Feature, Not a Bug
You can’t be a parent and an entrepreneur — right? In the tech community, there’s a stereotype — unfairly magnified by the media — that the ideal entrepreneur is young, unattached, and capable of working 20-hour days for months or years on end without letting anything get in the way of their product. It’s true that creating and running a company requires unrelenting devotion and long, difficult hours of work,
I’m Not a Real Entrepreneur
Okay, I’m going to come out and just say it. I’m not a real entrepreneur. (It’s true.) Sure, I have a successful side project that’s a SaaS. And I’ve started a few revenue-generating projects before this too — hey, something that generates revenue is a business, right? I like to think I’m an entrepreneurially-minded person who has ideas and makes them happen. But I’m not a Real Entrepreneur, and here’s why:
Working at an Agency Doesn’t Have to Suck
A thread on Reddit last week titled “Does web development at an agency always have to suck?” ignited a lot of conversation about the difficulties of agency life for many developers and designers. The poster cited how their agency seems to have a complete disregard for process, management, or good development practices. Their project manager just forwards email from the client, doesn’t properly scope out projects, and has a complete lack
14 things I’ve learned about launching side projects
Note: I wrote this in 2014, six months after launching Geocodio. Side projects are an alluring prospect for many developers: you can have total control over a project, try new things, and reap all of the profits. No pesky product managers or dealing with other people’s code. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Here are a few of the lessons we’ve learned since launching Geocodio in January: Take care of the the