The Art of Product

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.

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’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!

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.

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!

Ben has turned out to be a terrific tweeter about Tuple on Twitter. So far, more than 750k impressions have been made regarding his post about the enterprise sales process. He also shared that Tuple’s scaling issues appear to be resolved and fixed. He gave a shout out to the team at You Need A Budget (https://www.youneedabudget.com) (YNAB) for consistent and concise support. Plus, Ben has started using Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net) flashcards to spark his memory and recall names via mnemonics. Derrick reminds us that the last ‘S’ in SaaS is service. He describes how to prevent and combat arrival fallacy and enjoy the journey. So, should he set goals, plan ahead, and look forward to the future of StaticKit? Or, is that too stressful? Will arrival points and milestones bring him happiness? No matter what, Derrick is looking forward to sharing insight about being a skeptic of frontend static Web pages by presenting at ZEIT’s Backendless Conf (https://backendlessconf.com/).

Ben describes how a recent Tuple tweet led to thousands of impressions and mentions, as well as possibly increased free trial sign-ups. Ben is experiencing the enterprise sales process where he could make a good deal of money from a large company, if he chooses to meet its numerous demands. Also, Tuple is making progress with scaling challenges by addressing related Heroku and Ruby issues. Tuple’s smallness is a strength! Derrick’s been working on API design for StaticKit’s payments plug-in, especially to handle European customer authentication regulations that Stripe is moving toward. However, complex and flexible API design can’t be rushed to meet requirements. Derrick hopes to move StaticKit’s interface to his Next.js application. Constantly learning new technologies is critical to know his customer base. So, Derrick was pleased to be invited to present at ZEIT’s Backendless Conf. (https://backendlessconf.com/)

Derrick shipped a few things for StaticKit, including Mailchimp and ConvertKit integrations. What’s next? Stripe integration. For now, Derrick is targeting more technical users comfortable with code. At some point, he will involve “no-code” users who can easily drop-in Derrick’s plug-in. He’s done all the hard work for them. Check out new content he created, such as guides and features-specific landing page for opt-in forms (https://t.co/cW3Eo0JCBS). Ben decided to take some time off and away from Tuple during the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s just one of the lifestyle perks of being part of a startup. Ben finally settled on transitioning away from Drip to Customer.io for Tuple’s transactional emails. However, Tuple continues to deal with scaling issues on the infrastructure side. Are problems due to capacity? Memory? Something’s wrong, but not sure what and why...TBD. Yet, November proved to be Tuple’s best month so far with record-breaking growth!

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 a revamped version of StaticKit’s homepage and plans to add a payments section soon. He’s eager to conduct another round of customer development calls. If you want to chat about your experience with static sites and help shape product direction for StaticKit, schedule a call with Derrick on Calendly. (https://calendly.com/derrickreimer/statickit-chat?month=2019-11) Ben already utilizes a checkout option for Tuple and shares some of its challenges. Also, Ben announced and shipped the release of a highly requested and expected Tuple feature—ability to start a Tuple session without sharing your screen. Despite Tuple’s burst of free trial signups, Ben described a decreased conversion rate to paying customers. Both Ben and Derrick share how design matters, especially when upgrading or switching browsers and operating systems that make your app look like a scam and sketchy!

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?

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/)

Derrick returned from JAMstack Conf with a jolt of energy and excitement thanks to face-to-face conversations and strategic connections with potential StaticKit customers. Ben expressed interest in once again speaking at developer conferences. After all, he has plenty of worthwhile information and lessons learned to share about Tuple. Today’s Topics Include: Frontend and Backend: Considerations for implementation/migration with StaticKit Main Objective at JAMstack: Market validation, not to make sales to customers Future Feature: Allows people to configure StaticKit account via config file Prevent UI Creep and Wall of Fields: Keep it elegant, but flexible and customizable Instant Gratification and Relief: Numbers are rising again after Tuple’s sign-up fluctuation Tuple Trick: Free, two-week trial for submitting email via invite box; stabilization and scaling are serious concerns due to more customers Ben’s optimism leads to deleted tweet about Tuple T-shirts How much MMR is enough? Never enough; bigger, brighter, more interesting future 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://statickit.com/) TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/) Using Tailwind CSS with Next.js (https://statickit.com/guides/next-js-tailwind) JAMstack Conf (https://jamstackconf.com) MicroConf (https://microconf.com/) Slack (https://slack.com/) Netlify (https://www.netlify.com/) WordPress (https://wordpress.com/) Drupal (https://www.drupal.org/) JSON (https://www.json.org/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Justin Jackson (https://twitter.com/mijustin) Shopify (https://www.shopify.com/) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Paul Jarvis (https://ofone.co) Jason Fried (https://twitter.com/jasonfried)

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/)

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 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)

Ben is finding it easier to plan meetings to talk about challenges, and how he appreciates consistency. He describes his recent experiences with NanoConf and TupleConf. Derrick understands how perspectives shift as a business goes through different stages. Everyone wants financial security, but they always have complicated problems to solve. Today’s Topics Include: Mini Mastermind Conferences: Growth Strategy for building rapport and trust while bringing in new people for new perspectives Lessons Learned: Capture what went well, what should change in the future TupleConf: Ben, Joel, and Spencer discussed high-level questions and risk of co-founder issues and ambitions How to Deal with Conflict: Know your strengths, weaknesses, and personality type Planning and Prioritization: How to clarify and activate energy to do lower/smaller tasks StaticKit Milestones: Derrick achieved expansion revenue, additional customers, and annual renewals Pricing Structure, Tiers, and Upgrades: Monthly vs.yearly subscriptions with no surprises Derrick shares future vision of StaticKit beyond static forms for positive user experience 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/) Big Snow Tiny Conf (https://bigsnowtinyconf.com) Build Your SaaS Podcast (https://saas.transistor.fm) CartHook (https://carthook.com) Brian Casel (https://briancasel.com/) WordPress (https://wordpress.com/) Gatsby (https://www.gatsbyjs.org/) Jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Netlify (https://www.netlify.com/) Stripe (https://stripe.com/) GitHub (https://github.com/)

Ben’s been adding variety to work by biking to breakfast and the beach, while working in-between during his stay on Martha’s Vineyard. He’s feeling lucky to work remotely, and still be able to connect with co-founders! Derrick enjoys a change of scenery from time-to-time during workdays, especially to kickstart his blood flow during an afternoon lull or breaking point. Today’s Topics Include: Writing code is like riding a bike: Tuple moving forward with adding single sign-on Caring about Code Quality: Ben’s higher level tests prove more valuable, less coupled Evolution of Testing: Derrick’s progress from test-driven development (TTD) to practical testing for StaticKit’s structure and features Devise Deal Breaker: Digested passwords in Tuple database wouldn’t need to be reset Pair programming proves powerful in preventing mistakes and being blocked Marketer? Developer? Sales? Ben’s possible future role and responsibilities with Tuple Hockeystick Metrics: First-paying StaticKit customer leads to 200% growth increase Content Marketing: Using Tailwind CSS with Next.js spikes StaticKit sign ups Self-serve Engine: Easily upgrade and deploy StaticKit from sandbox to live mode Prioritize Priorities: Ben encourages Derrick to focus on forms for StaticKit AoP Podcast: Is fanbase willing to pay for extra-special content? Share ideas with Ben and Derrick via Twitter 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/) AoP Episode 22: Finishing the Year Strong (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-22) Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com/) Next.js (https://nextjs.org/) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) (https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org) Thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com) RubyGems (https://rubygems.org) Devise (https://github.com/plataformatec/devise) DigitalOcean (https://www.digitalocean.com/) JSON (https://www.json.org/)

The true life of an entrepreneur! From backgrounds to beards, change is in the air for both Ben and Derrick. Ben is a 36-year-old man who is back living with his parents temporarily to save some cash. Ben considered himself a minimalist, until he realized just how much stuff he had to move. So, he hired movers. Derrick describes the importance of documenting lessons learned and accumulating knowledge. As a result, he got his first paying customer for StaticKit. A meager $10 in revenue is greater than zero. Today’s Topics Include: Tuple: All for One, or One for All? Ben seeks advice on whether to make significant changes to app to satisfy single prospect that requires single sign-on (SSO) support Authentication and Security Schemes: Increasing scope intimidates and impacts legacy engineering decisions Big Decisions equal Big Bucks: Good but challenging problem to have in business Free to paid options for Derrick’s StaticKit turns into inflexible data model Got one, get more: Freemium customer converts to first StaticKit paid subscriber Derrick’s Next Step with StaticKit: Default state of being sustainable and breaking even on personal expenses Solo Founder: Tricky to find good fit of founder to do everything and grow quickly Keep Shipping Away: Set weekly goals to achieve and celebrate wins 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/) G Suite (https://gsuite.google.com) Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) (https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com) Basecamp Shape Up (https://basecamp.com/shapeup) Thoughtbot (https://thoughtbot.com) RubyGems (https://rubygems.org) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Stripe (https://stripe.com) React (https://reactjs.org)

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)

One of the benefits of having a podcast is being able to interview interesting people. Being a podcast guest is the best gig in the universe. Spew some knowledge, or just ramble. It’s time to celebrate the 100th episode of the Art of Product (AoP) podcast by catching up with previous guests to share updates and what’s next. Thanks for listening! Today’s Topics Include: Julian Shapiro: Running the growth agency, Bell Curve, was not rewarding but stressful; pivoted to Demand Curve to offer training to grow companies and teams Jason Cohen: Busy because of WP Engine’s multiple acquisitions, including buying Flywheel; he describes how acquisition accelerates or de-risks successful strategies Rob Walling: TinySeed continues to thrive and fun to work with ambitious and motivated founders building things; MicroConf moves from Vegas to Minneapolis in April 2020 Paul Jarvis: Re-recording videos and audio for MailChimp course and rebuilding Fathom Rahul Vohra: Superhuman achieved Series B and added employees; working on mental health and wellness by getting a super-sweet and super-dependent puppy Steve Schoger: Recycled redesigned Tuple site at Laracon and now working on Tailwind UI with Adam Wathan Links and resources: AoP Episode 61: Unconventional Growth Tactics with Julian Shapiro (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-61) Julian Shapiro (https://www.julian.com) Demand Curve (https://www.demandcurve.com/) Bell Curve (https://www.bellcurve.com/) Y Combinator (https://www.ycombinator.com/) AoP Episode 69: Sound, Actionable Advice with Jason Cohen (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-69) WP Engine (https://wpengine.com/) Flywheel (https://getflywheel.com/flywheel-is-joining-wpengine) Jason Cohen - Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business (https://vimeo.com/74338272) SmartBear (https://smartbear.com/) A Smart Bear Blog (https://blog.asmartbear.com/) AoP Episode 66: TinySeed Updates with Rob Walling (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-66) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) TinySeed (https://tinyseed.com/) Startups for the Rest of Us (https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Out of Beta Podcast: The first TinySeed founder retreat (https://player.fm/series/out-of-beta-2517215/the-first-tinyseed-founder-retreat) AoP Episode 93: Company of One with Paul Jarvis (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-93) Paul Jarvis (https://pjrvs.com/) Company of One (https://ofone.co/) MailChimp Course (https://pjrvs.com/wordpress-course/mailchimp/) Fathom (https://usefathom.com/) Camtasia (https://www.techsmith.com/video-editor.html) AoP Episode 91: Feeling Superhuman with Rahul Vohra (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-91) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Headway (http://headwaythemes.com/) AoP Episode 70: Refactoring UI: Concept to Launch (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-70) Steve Schoger - Refactoring UI: Tuple (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC9cYdbQ-_c) Laracon (https://laracon.net/) Justin Jackson’s Transistor (https://justinjackson.ca/) 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)

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/)

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)

While Ben’s on vacation, Derrick welcomes another podcast host who can commiserate with him about email automation. Jane Portman is a UI/UX expert and consultant who hosts the UI Breakfast Podcast and co-founded Userlist.io. She describes what it takes to create a customer messaging tool. Today’s Topics Include: Product Priorities: Slow, steady, and quality Lifestyle Business: Overall goal is to replace consulting with SaaS recurring revenue Challenges: Limited development time and resources; slow growth rate to adopt mission-critical product To Build, or Not to Build: Avoid feature creep by focusing on what to add or improve Playbook Post: 10 steps to successfully position a product Launch Process: People are waiting for the right time for the right tool for their business Customer Conversations: Pre-product interviews about problem to be solved; followed by product demos to grant access to beta version for feedback Finding Customers: Landing page, updates, stories, sign-ups, mailing list, and more We’re out of Beta! Simple and straight-forward product launch plan and strategy Generic Illustrations: Product design trend that has to end Email Experiences: Educate people on how to ethically use email to serve their business Links and resources: User Onboarding: The Ultimate Guide for SaaS Founders (https://userlist.com/user-onboarding/) UI Breakfast Podcast (https://uibreakfast.com) Userlist.io (http://userlist.io/) UI Breakfast on Twitter (https://twitter.com/uibreakfast) Userlist.io on Twitter (https://www.twitter.com/Userlistio) Behind the Scenes of Our Upcoming Public Launch (https://userlist.io/launch-strategy/) How We Used April Dunford’s 10-Step Method to Overhaul Positioning at Userlist (https://userlist.io/positioning-overhaul/) AoP Episode 91: Feeling Superhuman with Rahul Vohra (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-91) Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/) Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) MailChimp (https://mailchimp.com/) Humans of Flat Design on Twitter (https://twitter.com/humansofflat?lang=en) Paul Jarvis (https://pjrvs.com/) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.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)

Is something bugging you? Need to get away from everything? Derrick can’t wait to once again ride rugged waters on Minnesota’s many lakes. Not unlike startups, it isn’t always easy to stay afloat when under pressure. Heeelllloooo! Are you there? Still interested? Ask and you shall receive. Ben shipped a major feature for Tuple. Drumroll please…video support. I’ll Tuple you! Today’s Topics Include: Sensible Deprivation: Some suffering can be good; makes you appreciate things more Get Over It, and Gain Confidence: Design and develop video support prototype Official Launch Date for Tuple: Some time in August; Ben’s still trying to shake the perception he’s charging people for beta product Security Vulnerabilities Happen: Ben’s reaction to recent issues with Zoom and Slack Mistakes Ben Might Make: Free Tuple trial to increase conversion and expansion Derrick’s Building Product: Initial version of StaticKit and form collection component Security ROI: Short-circuiting pushback with strong write-up for SOC 2 and ISO 27001 3+ Tuple team? Someday, Ben wants to hire a part-time designer and developer 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) Outward Bound (https://www.outwardbound.org) Zoom (https://zoom.us/) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Slack (https://slack.com/) Adam Watham (https://adamwathan.me/) Steve Schoger (https://twitter.com/steveschoger?lang=en) Laracon (http://laracon.us/) Elm (https://elm-lang.org/) React (https://reactjs.org/) Jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com) IS0 27001 (https://www.iso.org/isoiec-27001-information-security.html) SOC 2 (https://www.ssae-16.com/soc-2/) HackerOne (https://www.hackerone.com/)

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)

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/)

After a QuickTime error eradicated Paul Jarvis’s conversation with Ben and Derrick for an Art of Product episode, he’s back with an update on his recently published book, Company of One. Should Paul strike while the iron is hot? Despite the book’s success and being encouraged to write another one, Paul wants to take a necessary break before proposing a new book idea. Today’s Topics Include: Legally Binding Thumbs-up Emoji: How Paul sold rights for book to be in 13 languages Break between Building: Frustration of figuring things out, replaced with hammock thinking and relaxation Paul’s writing process fills fountain of ideas; ready to do a book on digital privacy Slack Support Group: Help yourself and others Level Failure Leads to Filtering Idea Criteria: Shouldn’t be mission-critical product; require more than a few decision makers; and native apps shouldn’t be a minimum requirement Company of One: Doesn’t necessarily refer to one person, but mindset Balance between technology you know and learning curve for something you don’t Software as a Service (SaaS) Business: Scale up or stay small? Derrick describes Company of One as what he aspires toward, but is open to possibility of co-founders Nothing Lasts Forever: Question growth, not stagnation Seek and scale support, especially when using third-party software Drumroll, Please: Ben announced plans for public launch of Tuple in August 2019 Links and resources: Paul Jarvis (https://pjrvs.com/) Company of One (https://ofone.co/) Company of One (Co1) Academy (https://ofone.co/learn/) Company of One Podcast (https://ofone.co/company-of-one-podcast/) Fathom (https://usefathom.com/) Paul Jarvis on Twitter (https://twitter.com/pjrvs/) Paul Jarvis’s WPComplete Plugin (https://wpcomplete.co/) Ingenx (https://www.ingenxtec.com/) The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs (https://ajjacobs.com/books/the-year-of-living-biblically/) Slack (https://slack.com/) Screenhero (https://screenhero.com/) Rob Walling (https://robwalling.com/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Finding My Next Bootstrapped Business Idea (https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/28/finding-my-next-bootstrapped-business-idea.html) DigitalOcean (https://www.digitalocean.com/) Heroku (https://www.heroku.com/) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/) Phoenix (https://phoenixframework.org/) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.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/) 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)

The world received amazing news in the form of a great gift: Slack is making a major change in the market—it’s leaving! Ben and Derrick share their thoughts on Slack’s reasonable and rational decision to remove remote control functionality. What happens now? Try Tuple! Just sayin’, actually that’s what Tuple customers are suggesting. Today’s Topics Include: Improve Slack Calls: Reason for removing rarely used remote control feature Kicking marketing machine into gear: Customers’ kind words generated surge in requests for access to Tuple Slack and Screenhero Saga: Complete story of acquisition and pair programming will probably never be told Keep shipping, swinging, and taking shots by increasing luck surface area and learning from previous successes and failures Dear Dvorak user, is it time to switch? Tuple’s shipping international keyboard support Big deals keep coming in for Ben; it’s great to sometimes say, “No” Derrick’s writing cadence continues; flattered by onslaught of positivity from people Product/Founder Fit: Be passionate about product or business before building it Pressure to be Perfect: Don’t sweat the small stuff, just the details 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) Just Keep Shipping by Derrick Reimer (https://www.derrickreimer.com/essays/2019/05/31/just-keep-shipping.html) 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) 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/) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Zoom (https://zoom.us/) GitHub (https://github.com/) The Dvorak Keyboard (https://www.dvorak-keyboard.com/) Adam Watham (https://adamwathan.me/)

Derrick’s feeling “superhuman.” Fortunately, he’s a user and lover of the Superhuman product. Maybe that’s why today’s guest is Rahul Vohra, co-founder and CEO of Superhuman. Today’s Topics Include: Reason for Superhuman still being invite-only is not to increase user demand Sustainable Word-of-Mouth Growth Engine: If you don’t pick the users, you can’t responsibly work on their feedback Purpose of Product and Target Audience: Email is work, and work is email; designed to be meaningful and life changing for high-volume email senders Startup Details: Deliberately think through and consider everything deeply from scratch Don’t turn down money when bootstrapping to find perfect product market/customer fit Knack for knowing what people want, before they know they want something; and helping people realize they want something Without active or spending money on marketing, Superhuman’s waitlist keeps growing Superhuman’s Values: Create delight, be intentional, and remarkable quality Best founders, including Rahul, are unstoppable forces of nature; they leave debris and destruction in their wake Time tracking a day in the life of Rahul: 40% managery; 20% recruiting; 14% fundraising; and 11% product, community engagement, and deep thoughts Superhuman’s pricing is low, but generates high value; big fan of round numbers Business and product metrics: Activation, seat churn, net dollar churn, speed, and reliability rates Objective: Refine entire Superhuman experience to exhibit remarkable levels of quality through three key results - ARR, hiring, and product sentiment Generate roadmap and find balance to maintain lead over market and continue to grow Startup Growth: Pick weekly growth rate; you don’t have to grow faster than you want to Links and resources: Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Rahul Vohra on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra) Rahul Vohra on Twitter (https://twitter.com/rahulvohra) Rahul Vohra’s Email (mailto:[email protected]) Superhuman Product-Market Fit Survey (https://www.slideshare.net/marklittlewood/rahul-vohra-founderceo-superhuman-the-productmarket-fit-engine-122102118) Rahul Vohra on This Week in Startups with Jason McCabe Calacanis (https://www.facebook.com/jasoncalacanis/videos/2299819313590909/) Rapportive (http://www.rapportive.com/) TechCrunch (https://techcrunch.com/) Product Hunt (https://www.producthunt.com/) Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/) Google Docs (https://www.google.com/docs/about/) GitHub (https://github.com/) Startup = Growth - Paul Graham (http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.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/) 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) Tuple (https://tuple.app/)

Ben and Derrick welcome Rob Fitzpatrick, author of The Mom Test: How to talk to customers and learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you. It’s not your typical non-fiction business book, but short and straight to the point. It should be a mandatory prerequisite for anyone embarking on the startup journey. Derrick’s Level Retrospective describes how Rob’s book had a major impact on his most recent startup experience. People want to be supportive, so it’s difficult to get unbiased feedback during customer validation. Derrick already knew this to be correct, but underestimated the degree to which everyone lies. So, he felt betrayed by early validation efforts proved to be radically different from reality. Today’s Topics Include: Don’t ask anyone if your business is a good idea because everyone is biased Burden of truth should be put on yourself, not your customers Entrepreneur’s Superpower: Getting support before it’s deserved because passion pollutes feedback Founder Fit: Does your business idea merge with your product and lifestyle goals? Founder Centric: Cashflow-positive education and training agency for startups Product-Market Fit: People share their problems via a proposed solution; when customers send feature requests, get to root of the problem Statistical significance of sample size is a trap; reach point of diminishing returns to move forward with product, and focus on number of/hours spent on conversations Entrepreneurs and customers think every problem matters, but they don’t What to do next to pivot in the right direction and niche down Links and resources: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick (https://www.amazon.com/Mom-Test-customers-business-everyone/dp/1492180742) Rob Fitzpatrick (https://robfitz.com/) The Workshop Survival by Rob Fitzpatrick (https://www.workshopsurvival.com/) Founder Centric (http://www.foundercentric.com/) Steve Blank (https://steveblank.com/) Paul Graham (http://www.paulgraham.com/) Skype (https://www.skype.com/en/) Slack (https://slack.com/) Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/) Superhuman Product-Market Fit Survey (https://www.slideshare.net/marklittlewood/rahul-vohra-founderceo-superhuman-the-productmarket-fit-engine-122102118) Songkick (https://www.songkick.com/) Spin Selling by Neil Rackham (https://www.amazon.com/Neil-Rackham/e/B000APLFJK/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1) Drip (https://www.drip.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/) 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) Tuple (https://tuple.app/)

Ben announced a medium-sized step forward for Tuple. A bug where the video portion would freeze at the start of or during a call was replicated and resolved. It was a double bonus: Fixed the bug and made the Tuple app faster. Derrick’s contemplative mode continued as he tried to figure out the future of Level. He retreated to think and disconnect. He sought clarity on what to do and is confident that he has made the best decision. Today’s Topics Include: Dynamic Duos: Problem solving doesn’t require understanding of programming language Fear not! Tuple continues to consistently update dependencies and perform QA Tuple’s dashboard of latest version of call quality rating is highest so far Story of Level: How it started; goals, processes, and mistakes made; and what resources are available or needed to make it sustainable and successful Derrick’s Decision: Not the right path for him to be on, so it’s the end of the road for Level Go big, or stay small? Launch something valuable that you can charge your market for, then you can expand from there Product Market Founder Fit: Is the business the way you want to shape your life? Do No Disturb Derrick: Convinced to cultivate a capability to slow down and carry on 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) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Ruby (https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/) Zoom (https://zoom.us/) WebRTC (https://webrtc.org/) Company of One by Paul Jarvis (https://ofone.co/) Rob Walling’s Stairstep Approach to Bootstrapping (https://robwalling.com/2015/03/26/the-stairstep-approach-to-bootstrapping/) Superhuman Product Market Fit Survey (https://www.slideshare.net/marklittlewood/rahul-vohra-founderceo-superhuman-the-productmarket-fit-engine-122102118)

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/)

Ben boldly admitted to doing a “weird” thing. He started listening to “us.” Not necessarily for quality control, but to spark his memory about topics Derrick and he talked about in previous AoP episodes. As a result, Ben’s become addicted to listening to people building companies podcasts. Unfortunately, there’s just not that many of them. Derrick also admitted to listening regularly to previous AoP episodes. But more so during the early days of the podcast, when he was apprehensive about his own ability on the microphone and wanted to find ways to improve. Today’s Topics Include: Cool Podcast with Cold Open: Hit “Play” and start talking Autophagy: Putting a twist-tie on snack cabinet sucks, but benefits your body and brain Tuple’s most requested feature: Multi-way calls Successful Meta-habit: Surveys serve as way to get feedback on product features Potential strategies for setting a launch date for Tuple Art of Building a Product and Company: Word-of-mouth, referrals, affiliate programs Derrick’s Level Launch: Warm email reminder to whet people’s appetite Mini-funnel Metrics for Level Launch: 500 given access to Level via email 70% open rate for email 182 created user account 41 created a team Onboarding Process for Level: Step 1: Create user account Step 2: Demo account is activated Fork in the Road: Optimize each phase and equip people to make it through funnel to get feedback on Level Derrick’s Top 2 Priorities for Level: Documentation and more manual outreach Derrick gets Ben “Pricing” Orenstein’s advice on who needs Level the most Derrick’s Plan for Level: Repeat, refine, and resend 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/) The Art of Product: Episode 78 - Ultraworking with Sebastian Marshall (https://artofproductpodcast.com/episode-78) Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide (https://tuple.app/pair-programming-guide) Derrick’s Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) 113: Justin Jackson - Growing Transistor to $10,000/month (http://www.fullstackradio.com/113) GitHub (https://github.com/) Clearbit (https://clearbit.com/)

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/)

The hype about Tuple is real! Ben’s been busy adding a bunch of new customers. He’s selling and delivering the dream. Derrick is back after mentally struggling in the midst of moving, which meant a week of zero productivity on Level. Now, he’s in a better place, mentally and literally. Today’s Topics Include: Ludicrous Mode: Full-resolution, uncompressed video stream option added to Tuple Tuple’s lack of scaling challenges due to peer-to-peer connections Tuple’s conversion rate for email list Ben’s “I’m bad at sales” email message and demo video Things to do and features to add in the future for Tuple Tuple achieves semi-milestone of customer renewals Ben’s fear of public availability to post Tuple’s pricing Bandwidth forces AoP podcast back to one episode per week Derrick ships fun and addictive emoji reactions feature in Level Inviting more people to increase Level’s sample size and address skepticism 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/) Heroku Dynos (https://www.heroku.com/dynos) Spaceballs (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094012/) Adam Wathan on Twitter (https://twitter.com/adamwathan/status/1115621251769225217) Ruby on Rails Action Cable Server (https://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/action_cable_overview.html) Technical Debt - Our Approach to Building Cool Tech Profitably (https://founderquest.transistor.fm/episodes/technical-debt) Steve Schoger - Refactoring UI: Tuple (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC9cYdbQ-_c) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Soapbox from Wistia (https://wistia.com/soapbox) Superhuman (https://superhuman.com/) Jason Fried (https://twitter.com/jasonfried)

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 and Derrick are back from MicroConf. There were plenty of solid talks and takeaways to help them think, theorize, and hypothesize about moving forward with their products. Also, Ben presented 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: Ben stuck to plan of not going to many talks; made connections and socialized Growth-adjacent trend of not buying tickets to conference, but hanging out with others Ben crushed it when MCing Starter Edition; being part of conference at organization level MicroConf’s Unofficial Mantra: Charge more; pricing is powerful lever to pull for ROI, and businesses know they should do it, but don’t; if they do, it’s too small Tuple has stabilized, and it’s time to generate revenue; started emailing list Retro on financial situation; nothing to worry about yet, but not feeling rich Links and resources: MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) MicroConf Recap (https://microconf.gen.co/) Ben Orenstein at MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/starter/speakers/ben-orenstein/) Honeybadger (https://www.honeybadger.io/) Wistia (https://wistia.com/) Jason Cohen (https://blog.asmartbear.com/) Hiten Shah (https://hitenism.com/) Chris Gimmer (https://chrisgimmer.com/) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/) Drip (https://www.drip.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 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/)

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’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)

Ben shares that Tuple is now out of alpha and into beta, which is an arbitrary marker of stability and feature ability. The move is working as planned by serving as a way for customers to choose to opt in or out, depending on if they want it now or wait until it’s launched. Derrick choose to steer away from such labels with Level, but understands they might have been beneficial to clearly denote the product’s progress. Today’s Topics Include: Ben’s in onboarding mode with Tuple; spent February selling, people pre-pay first month Where are these people coming from? Inbound interest via email list Derrick’s next high-level thing to do is proactively recruit key teams, but how? No more free trials for Level; Derrick has no qualms about asking people to pay for it Tuple’s always testing new pricing, so some prices were tweaked recently Two New Tuple Things: Ability to control resolution of call from guest side, and retrospective added to discuss how product and company are better than last week Notifications feature in Level finally shipped on Friday; Derrick’s responding to feedback Level’s Potential Golden Metric: Switching rate from Slack If it’s not worth paying for, why not? Feeling ready and right, not forcing a decision 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/) Clearbit Enrichment (https://clearbit.com/enrichment) Patrick McKenzie on Twitter (https://twitter.com/patio11) Brian Casel on Twitter (https://twitter.com/CasJam)

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’s been checking in with Tuple users to find out how things are going. Things aren’t working perfectly with the product. Before this feedback, he was feeling pretty good about things. It’s not the feedback’s fault, but Ben focusing too much on it. Derrick can empathize with Ben because of his experience with Level. It takes just one negative outcome to have an irrational impact on your mental state. Reset your perspective! Today’s Topics Include: Considering additional indicators within Tuple to gain feedback Ready to buy another seat? Tuple’s first expansion revenue Having a healthy level of stress vs. being in a state of complacency or false optimism As a coping mechanism, Ben reached his goal to mediate every day for a month Don’t let negativity infect everything else; improvement and growth are important Onboarding process and positive changes between original and revised product versions Oh no! Say it isn’t so; Tuple’s using Slack for feedback dialogue Lack of sleep didn’t stop Derrick from shipping performance improvements to Level Derrick expresses gratitude for open source technology that he’s using to build Level Tuple team finally getting a paycheck, a well-earned achievement; Derrick did the opposite and transferred a bucket of cash into Level’s account Getting to the next level of swag; trials and T-shirts to put credit card on file Product advice and ideas for notifications and posts in Level’s Inbox Selling annual deals to specific people, companies; we’re in this together for the long haul Trying to find time to write and talk about journey of starting a new product and company 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/) Zoom (https://zoom.us/) DataLoader (https://github.com/facebook/dataloader) Waking Up with Sam Harris (https://wakingup.com/) Elixir (https://elixir-lang.org/) Elm (https://elm-lang.org/) Stripe (https://stripe.com/) Honeybadger (https://www.honeybadger.io/) Heroku (https://www.heroku.com/) Jason Cohen (https://twitter.com/asmartbear) MicroConf (https://www.microconf.com/) Brian Casel (https://briancasel.com/)

Derrick’s been on a startup roller coaster. It’s been one of those weeks for him. So, he’s grateful for Scotch! He just factors it into Level’s budget. Along the same lines, Tuple bought lunch today for its staff. It feels free, but Ben doesn’t think you can write off such expenses, even if you talk about business between bites. Today’s Topics Include: Boring numbers stuff and stress of assembling financials for 2018 taxes Ben’s goal to meditate every day in February to feel centered in the startup world Spotify surfacing new music helps re-energize Derrick’s work day Tuple’s Goals: Focus on stability in February; onboard additional teams and return to feature development in March Don’t assume; ask users what they want and make sure you clearly understand them Derrick shares Level updates on Startups for the Rest of Us podcast Do metrics matter? Derrick’s on an information diet to uncloud his brain No Twitter for Ben before noon because it’s too much of a distraction Performance overhaul and interface update to improve users’ impression of Level Tuple’s recent improvements include proxy server support and a feedback button Ben’s Tuple Onboarding Calls: Fun to show people the product for the first time Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick’s Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto) 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/) Waking Up with Sam Harris (https://wakingup.com/) Headspace (https://www.headspace.com/) Naughty Professor on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/artist/5oVhfa2J5GiPx2x0YTuJjI) Episode 429: Building a Launch List of 5,900 and Grinding Out Customer Development (https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-429-building-a-launch-list-of-5900-and-grinding-out-customer-development) Drip (https://www.drip.com/) Ruby on Rails (https://rubyonrails.org/)

Ben is thankful for Tuple’s success so far. It is helping companies improve efficiency and countries improve the quality of their residents’ lives. Derrick also expresses gratitude for companies being interested in his product, Level. He is setting up a specific team in Level and addressing concerns to convert them. Today’s Topics Include: People want to work at Tuple, and specifically for Ben; it’s flattering, but Tuple is not hiring Tuple beat out a competitor during a company’s trial use Tuple will be given to Watsi, a non-profit that does crowdfunding for medical procedures in third-world countries and is developing a platform for countries to manage healthcare Core Competency: Keep your brain sane during challenges and changes Vice vs. Virtue: Coach and convince champions that Level may not be immediately gratifying, but a virtuous and better way to work Tuple is no longer offering free trials; pain of purchase and pre-qualification put up front Calls to action, connections, and surveys help identify ideal prospects and leads Links and resources: Watsi (https://watsi.org/) YNAB (https://www.youneedabudget.com/) Ultraworking (https://www.ultraworking.com/lights) Art of Product on Twitter (https://twitter.com/artofproductpod) Derrick Reimer (http://www.derrickreimer.com) Website Derrick’s Level Manifesto (https://level.app/manifesto) 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/)

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/)

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)

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 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/)