Open Threads

Daniel Vassallo, a former Amazon employee turned self-employment aficionado, delves into his journey of building community-driven businesses. He shares insights on transitioning from corporate life to cultivating a personal brand and launching the Small Bets initiative. Vassallo discusses the importance of adaptability in community engagement, the challenges of self-promotion, and the dynamic nature of pricing models. He emphasizes leveraging small projects for financial freedom and highlights the power of collaboration in nurturing vibrant learning communities.

Joel Hooks, founder of egghead.io and badass.dev, shares insights on the future of developer education. He discusses the shift from front-end to full-stack development, reflecting on how technology shapes skillsets. Joel highlights the importance of effective content creation, audience engagement, and the role of social media in growth strategies. He also dives into the iterative process of creating educational content and the complexities of launching projects. Finally, he examines AI's transformative impact on learning, emphasizing the need for human curation amid tech advancements.

Chris Oliver, the creator behind GoRails, Jumpstart, HatchBox and his new product, SellRepo, joins me to talk bootstrapping his Ruby on Rails training business and related tools with only a team of 3!  A great wide-ranging conversation.Recorded on September 4th, 2024Note:  Sorry!  My short intro audio is left speaker only... But that's fixed after the first minute!

In this engaging conversation, Josh Pigford, founder of Maybe and ToolStash, dives deep into the world of programmatic SEO. He shares his innovative AI-driven content marketing strategies and how they transformed his projects. Josh discusses the balance of creativity and accountability in managing multiple endeavors and how AI tools revolutionize productivity. He also explores the evolution of ToolStash into a tech-driven marketplace and highlights the importance of adapting content strategies amid Google updates. A treasure trove of insights awaits!

Mike McAllister is a designer of brands, websites, products, and WordPress goodness... Here in part 2 of our conversation, we dive into Mike's current work on OllieWP, a new product that brings great design to the WordPress ecosystem.We also talked about the balance of working on products with taking on selective design consulting partnerships with clients.This conversation was recorded on March 6th, 2024

Mike McAllister has an incredible track record as a designer of brands, websites, products, and WordPress goodness... In part 1, we talked about Mike's experience building a successful WordPress products business that was acquired by WPEngine, and what he learned from the transition between indie product founder to acquihired in a large organization.In part 2, we'll dive into Mike's current work on OllieWP, a new product for designing in blocks in WordPress.This conversation was recorded on March 6th, 2024

Here's my conversation with Shawn Adrian, co-founder of Input Logic, a product design and development agency.  They're also launching their own product in 2024 in the AI journaling space, called Stilo.ai.This conversation was recorded on March 5th, 2024.

Daniel Coulbourne is the cofounder of Thunk.dev and the co-host of the Talking Businessly podcast.  We had a great conversation about the "80/20 model" in software development consulting, striking a balance between working with clients and building your own products and projects. This conversation was recorded on February 27th, 2024.

Jack McDade is the creator of the new course, Radical Design. He's also the founder of Statamic CMS.  In this contuation of our conversation, we talked about Jack's unique approach to designing things and how he strikes a balance between fun refreshing projects like this, and running a successful product company.Brian and Jack's conversation was recorded on February 20th, 2024.

Jack McDade is the founder of Statamic CMS and the creator of the new course, Radical Design.  In this conversation, Jack shared his story of going from film maker to full stack designer and developer to building a website CMS product.Brian and Jack's conversation was recorded on February 20th, 2024.