The Art of Product

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 Ben Orenstein on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Tailwind CSS The Bootstrap Blog Drip GitHub Steve Schoger Screenhero MicroConf Thoughtbot Ruby on Rails

Derrick is still moving in the right direction with the product he is developing called, Level. He used Product Hunt’s Ship to set up a landing page. He plans to promote his upcoming product and control its launch. Also, Derrick published a blog post titled, Building Level #2: The Tech Stack. It summarizes his rationale and reasons why he chose specific technologies. Plus, he posted his and Ben’s conversation, Live Level #2: Branding and GraphQL Mutations, and created a Twitter handle for Level. Today’s Topics Include: Derrick plans to create bite-sized content to engage customers and build trust Fake videos and info products and other shenanigans Derrick has been splitting his time writing backend code and nailing down design Getting feedback on mockups Be aggressive by charging and collecting pre-payments Ben will be going to MicroConf; taking a plane ride with leg room If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Building Level #2: The Tech Stack Live Level #2: Branding and GraphQL Mutations Powered By Level on Twitter Steve Schoger Product Hunt’s Ship Level on Product Hunt Drip Codetree MicroConf

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 Ben Orenstein on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Level Live #1: Listing groups within spaces Level on GitHub Steve Schoger Drip

Derrick continues to talk with customers and gain insights about a team communication and management tool he is developing called, Level. Derrick is developing personal connections with people interested in his mission, and his conversations with customers is reinforcing patterns. Today, he shares the main problems with “Chat” functionality and why people are frustrated with the tools they use today. He is exploring possible solutions for Level to replace Slack and other tools. What issues do you experience? Today’s Topics Include: False sense of urgency; Derrick’s tool would allow you to filter notifications on whether they are urgent or not; and let users view messages at their own pace Chat is like a conveyor belt; if you don’t pick things up, they are going to fall or you are going to miss them Lack of Decent Threading: People do not find threads useful and difficult to encourage appropriate use of them No Mechanism for Tracking State of Conversation: Everything needs to be reviewed to find information and decisions; should offer Open, Closed, Request Review, and On Hold, and other statuses 3 Ways to Structure Messages: 1) Subject and body; 2) Body; or 3) Very small message in infinite timeline Derrick is clear on problems with existing tools, but less clear on exact solutions Simple nuances can make a tool friendlier and easier to use - it’s all in the details Derrick kicked off the Building Level series Ben and Derrick strategize on the best approach to getting teams to try Level Derrick is trying to make the barriers to using Level for low Level will most likely be an open source product with a commercially hosted version to generate revenue Ben and Derrick discuss when it is the best time to start developing Level publicly Ben decided to say “No” to speaking at MicroConf this year; saying “No” to something, is saying “No” to one thing, saying “Yes” to something is saying “No” to everything else If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Ben Orenstein Website; Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Building Level #1: Idea Validation Twist Drip HipChat Startup Stories Podcast Stripe Clearbit’s Reveal Derek Sivers MicroConf

As part of his new business journey, Derrick requested that customers schedule time to talk with him about Level, a team communication and management tool he is developing. Luckily, about 40 people signed up, and he has completed 14 of these calls. What are his customers saying? They confirm main pains they feel with current tools and are very willing to share their frustrations with existing tools. Derrick has not been surprised yet about their answers. In Ben’s world, he is spending time on slinging and reading about Haskell. He is full of questions. Both Ben and Derrick are learning a lot every day, which is fulfilling and exciting. Today’s Topics Include: Level will not be a project management tool, but may have some project management capabilities Derrick’s list of initial questions for customers: What is their company and role within it; the size of their team; what tools they use and when they adopted them; and the balance between chat, email, and project management in their organization Derrick also asks customers: Why are they interested in Level? What problems do they want it to solve? What’s working well for them with Slack, and what’s not? What aspects of Slack do they use and don’t use? Ideas for improvement have come from Derrick’s customers Continuous integration is the clear winner for usefulness Gauging willingness to switch to another tool, such as Level Customers expressed using Level on a pilot basis for specific teams or projects and in coordination with at least one other tool Being unable to post asynchronous, long-form discussions is a pain point for some customers Paying for a tool would not be a big deal Derrick plans to kick off his building Level series and build mock-ups for customers to view Positive use of minimalist user interfaces Debating whether to offer a pre-payment option for Level Ben uses Ansible for the deployment of Haskell code Ben is seeking a Dev Ops person to hire - must have strong opinions and can fix stuff SaaS Renaissance? More developers are starting SaaS companies - a trend already on the way out? Level will be SaaS but with an open source core Tools SaaS companies will want to have and buy Not Built Here Syndrome: Engineers who outsource non-essential parts to someone else Pricing Pages as a Service: Shopify’s checkout page feels natural but still represents the company Avoid rebuilding stuff If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Ben Orenstein Website; Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Basecamp and Getting Real Haskell Programming in Haskell book C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie (K&R for C) Ruby on Rails Ansible Drip Salesforce Product Hunt GitLab and Discourse Stripe Atlas Andrew Culver’s Bullet Train Adam Savage: One Day Builds MicroConf 2018

It’s a Snow Day for Ben, and Derrick shares his woes about setting up his home office with two new, Dell monitors and his MacBook Pro featuring only two USB-C ports for a hub. You would think that laptops would offer more of a variety of ports. Other than that, things are going great for Derrick. On March 5, Derrick pushed out his manifesto via Twitter. In response, people shared, retweeted, and posted supportive thoughts and messages. Developers resonated with his message. And of course, there were a few skeptics who wondered how Derrick’s ideas were different from other team communication and management options. There will always be multiple tools that can be used, but Derrick has a particular approach to what he offers. Today’s Topics Include: Maker vs. Manager: A good way to draw a line between how different people feel about a tool “This is people problem, not a tool problem” There are a lot of people who just don’t get it. Tools help guide the way users use the product and how your team works Some tools generate stress and interruptions rather than constructive work progress Goal: Communication centralized in one place Email is now a black hole, and no longer for actionable items Important information can get lost in all the noise created by some tools Derrick plans to keep his email subscriber list warm by not over-emailing them without a product available yet Derrick has received 400 emails so far as a result of his Twitter push and plans to do outreach, development, and validation with customers Attribution Tracking App: Ben encouraged Derrick to request pre-pay for future products, like for the app he was thinking about building; pre-payments offers validation Derrick has not determined a price plan or how to sell the dream yet Derrick plans to keep thinking through product decisions on pen and paper Deliver on the promise of the tool guiding people to use good communication patterns Tools need to maintain connectedness Entrepreneurship Porn: Share your thoughts, ideas, process, and journey with others Engagement and Authenticity: A give-and-take between you and your subscribers Journal milestones; the more chronicling, the better Derrick’s prototype includes Phoenix, Elixir, and GraphQL Ben shares his experience with Haskell vs. Elm; he has more questions than answers at this point Haskell has a chance of being the gateway drug of functional programming languages Attend meet-ups and conferences to learn more about Haskell and Elm With programming languages, you need to be willing to make some sacrifices Ben is beginning to appreciate aspects of project management and positively influencing processes If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Ben Orenstein Website; Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Basecamp Twist Drip Calendly Jason Fried Startup Stories Podcast GraphQL Elixir Phoenix Haskell; Programming in Haskell book Elm Ruby on Rails Thoughtbot

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) Drip Slack Thoughtbot Rob Walling The Entrepreneur's Guide to Keeping Your S**t Together by Sherry Walling Zero to One book Ben Orenstein Website

Some significant changes are going on in our professional lives and today is full of updates. Ben shares some of the details of his new job at Mackey Research Management Software. It’s providing him with structure, people, team interaction, and new problems, as well as a distance from some other problems. Mackey is a company that makes a note-taking app for hedge funds and features a connection to databases of public companies. Derrick is moving on and away from Drip. While he knows the time is right to move on, there is emotional attachment especially since he was there from the start. Derrick wants to go from leading to doing, again. He’s leaving his “baby” that he co-founded in the best state possible. Derrick is putting together a manifesto about possible upcoming plans. Today’s Topics Include: Reasons for moving away from Rails Ride the wave of different languages Projects based on learning vs. productive; never stop learning to be relevant Change in pace and work environment is positive for Ben Flexibility is a benefit, but it is not for everyone Stress level difference between working at a job or running your own company If Ben likes Haskell, he’ll want to talk and teach about it Haskell has some brain-bender, mind-expander aspects With Haskell, it feels more like play than work for Ben - and you get paid for it Derrick has learned to delegate over the years; no longer a bottleneck New chief technology officer with top-level experience being hired to continue to grow Drip Derrick will post a manifesto on his website about his upcoming plans Derrick has been going through administrative tasks required as he transitions away from Drip Derrick says, even during the dead of winter, that he plans to stay in Minnesota A logo is being created for Art of Product; and Derrick is working on establishing a brand identity related to his new ventures If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Mackey Haskell Sherry Walling Mental Health for Startup Founders - Art of Product episode The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip Derrick Reimer Website Ben Orenstein Website

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 Zen Founder Zen Founder Podcast Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain MicroConf The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip

Ben has moved into his new apartment and had an interesting discussion about fitness with the movers. Derrick got back is Bod Pod results and is formulating his precise fitness goals for fat loss and muscle gain. Ben is still on the job market and had an interview last week. Ben and Derrick discuss successful interview techniques and experiences they’ve had in the past. In Drip news, Drip recently got a brand refresh, including a new logo, marketing site, color palette, new messaging, app skin, and more. They are working on focusing their marketing efforts to position Drip in the market as an Ecommerce CRM. Listen in as Derrick discusses the Drip refresh and the thinking behind it. Today’s Topics Include: Fitness and Derrick’s fitness goals Drip’s recent brand refresh Market positioning in Ecommerce Ben’s job search progress and interview tactics If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip

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 Bod Pod Precision Nutrition Ruby Rogues Episode 342: Interview with DHH The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip

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 RefactoringRails.io Drip Proper Cloth James Clear - Habits Guide

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 Discourse Steve Schoger @steveschoger Full Stack Radio podcast 78: Ben Orenstein - Our All-Time Favorite Refactorings RefactoringRails.io Drip

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 Running in Circles by Ryan Singer The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip

Ben introduces The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge and updates us on the progress of his first cohort. He has been receiving positive feedback and participants are engaging with the exercises and community forums. They discuss his work on the project and the future of Ben’s business and his audience moving forward. Derrick has hired an Elm engineer at Drip and they discuss the adoption of the Elm programming language in the industry. He also shares the hiring and pairing interview process of the candidate. Derrick attended an interesting invite-only conference, Chaos Engineering Day, and discusses Chaos Engineering and the implications for his business. This week Drip is focused on and fully prepped for Black Friday and shares his team wins surrounding the lead-up. Today’s Topics Include: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge first cohort launch and progress Discourse versus Slack discussion channels Community building and managing a group Plans for future challenge cohorts and Ben’s business Derrick’s successful hiring process for an Elm engineer Adopting Elm programming language in the industry Chaos Engineering and testing 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: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge Discourse Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday Principles of Chaos Engineering RefactoringRails.io Drip