The Business of Laravel Building Ghostable & Finding Ideas by Listening Well | Joe Rucci, Founder of Ghostable & Co-founder of Curricula
Dec 2, 2025
Joe Rucci, founder of Ghostable and co-founder of Curricula, shares his entrepreneurial journey and insights from his experiences. He discusses the pivotal role Laravel played in his projects and how listening to people can inspire great business ideas. Joe candidly reflects on the challenges of moving from founder to employee after an acquisition and reveals how AI aids his solo work at Ghostable. He also emphasizes the importance of a supportive community and the evolution of his technical stack to enhance product development.
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Laravel Enabled Rapid Solo Engineering
- Laravel's documentation and ergonomics made it Joe Rucci's choice to build Curricula in 2015.
- He credits Laravel for enabling a solo developer to ship and scale the product early on.
Drawing Cartoons By Day, Coding By Night
- For the first year of Curricula Joe split days drawing educational cartoons and nights building the Laravel LMS.
- He storyboarded cartoons by day and coded the platform by night to deliver engaging security training.
Hire Lean And Hire Senior
- Grow engineering headcount cautiously and only when the business needs it.
- Hire a small number of excellent engineers rather than many juniors to avoid burning cash and slowdowns.