Slow & Steady

Benedikt and Benedicte chat with Lesley about her product Newsletter Glue.Lesley's websiteFollow Lesley on TwitterNewsletter Glue — Lesley's productWordPress GutenbergBenedicte's Tree Top Hut getawayPOW!Lesley Sim, co-founder of Newsletter Glue and fan of unique top-level domains, discusses product pivots, finding co-founders and freelancers, bootstrapping, WordPress, and more.Newsletter Glue is a plug-in that allows you to build and publish newsletters with the power of WordPress. The current offering is the result of a zoom-in pivot where Lesley solved one of her own problems. She works on the product remotely with her technical co-founder, Ahmed, and they've seen traction since the pivot.The three wrap up with weekly updates. Benedicte gets a new customer for POW!, Benedikt shares a meaningful win, and Lesley is riding a productive wave.

The third Monday of January may be a downer, but not for Benedikt and Benedicte!Blue MondayThe Great Gatsby with Queen Raae - REACT 168Benedikt: Tree data structure threadSmashing MagazineBenedikt is bathing in artificial light, exercising, and staying focused thanks to the new frontend developer, Leo, at Userlist. These factors, combined with a good year and small raise, have him beating the usual winter blues. Last week they helped a customer through a spam attack and he completed more integration work. Benedikt has enjoyed talking through the code with another developer. Benedicte, feeling confused about progress last week, is nonetheless keeping the engine alive. Schools are closing and childcare has been tricky but she had glimpses of "supermom". She completed her first non-hourly contract, started a draft for her Smashing Magazine article, kept up with yoga, and will even sneak in a short treehouse cabin trip this week. Like Benedikt, she has also enjoyed discussing code at a higher level with Ola as he comes up to speed.

Benedicte celebrates her birthday and Benedikt dives into backend work.Latest stream with Mirjam The Great Gatsby with Queen Raae - REACT 168While Benedicte enjoys a birthday tradition, the momentum from last week has slowed down. Not to fear — the Gatsby "engine" is proving a valuable way to keep things moving along. Routine, systems, and daily email writing were all "winners" for the week. A podcast appearance on React Round Up went well, too.Benedikt adjusts to working with Userlist's newest addition, Leo. Despite delegating tasks, Benedikt realized he is still spending time thinking about the delegated work. Otherwise, the onboarding is off to an excellent start and it has allowed Benedikt a chance to focus on the backend work. Exercise returns as a focus as well.Admire anyone that is working "slow and steady" on their business? Let us know and perhaps we'll have them on as a guest!

Welcome to the new year! Benedicte and Benedikt report on their year-end breaks and share a few goals for the coming year.YearCompass — reflect on the year and plan the next oneBenedicte enjoyed a great Christmas holiday and New Year's celebration. Between a trip to the mountains, sledding on toboggans, and watching the fireworks over Oslo, she felt invigorated to get started in 2022. Her encryption and privacy talk went well and she already has a podcast appearance and streams lined up to kick off the year.Benedikt's holidays were not quite as relaxing, but he still enjoyed some of the family time and took a trip to the Black Forest. One big win was onboarding Userlist's new frontend developer. Benedikt says he's a great fit, is learning the code, and it felt good that things were getting done while he was away. They also hired a new customer success manager from their previous short-list, who already jumped in and helped with a recent AWS outage.For 2021 review and 2022 goal setting Benedicte and Benedikt used the YearCompass framework. Benedicte's theme is "slow and steady". She has goals to avoid "shiny object" temptations and to keep progressing the things that are working for Queen Raae. She still has to decide on what that means for POW! — will it be the year that POW! becomes all that it can be? Benedikt isn't big on trackable or concrete goals either, though he wants Userlist to become profitable. Not profitable for just the sake of it, but to break even for longer-term financial stability.

In his last episode before taking a break, Brian gets some great news about his game, Backpack. Benedicte recovers from a few sick days. Benedikt shares some hiring lessons from Userlist.Let's help Mirjam settle on a Data Model #ConferenceBuddy v2.0 with Benedikt DeickePodcast: The Business of AuthorityBoardGameGeek — online resource and community for board gamesMegaMaker — a community for bootstrappers ProseMirror — tool for building rich-text editorsSanity.io Portable TextBrian is leaving on a high note. His game won FIRST PLACE in the board game design contest! His submission started as an accountability exercise and ended with real feedback, a cash prize, the option to publish, and credibility for future pitches. For JTBD.app, the future is still undecided. For now, Brian is having some conversations in the MegaMaker community and is staying open. Benedicte is recovering from a few sick days during a busy time. Thankfully, she had built up some buffer and won't miss her encryption talk this week. She has kept up with yoga despite the missed time and is celebrating non-hourly work. It's a great fit for how she wants to work and the flexibility is a benefit when working while feeling less than 100%. Benedikt will come on this week's livestream to help with data modeling decisions for ConferenceBuddy. While Jane was on vacation at Userlist, Benedikt focused on customer support and hiring. They have some promising frontend developer candidates moving through the later stages in the process despite a setback with the customer success manager role they previously hired for. Separately, Benedikt starts to regret a decision they made to use Markdown as the source of truth for messaging content and shares how he is thinking about moving forward.

The gang is all here! In addition to updates, they discuss the "sawdust" metaphor — packaging the byproducts of your primary service and putting them to good use. Brian announces he will be taking a break from the show.Blogging For Devs CommunityGo Rails — learn Ruby on RailsBenedicte's new pluginYoga accountability Twitter threadConference Buddy — an app by Mirjam AulbachNow Hiring: Frontend Developer (Ember.js) at UserlistWhile he feels conflicted, Brian plans to take a three-month break from the show. He's tired of the march to grow his MRR and doesn't feel like he has meaningful updates. He is enjoying his role at GitLab and wants to spend his free time away from building a SaaS — namely on projects like board games. Last week will be his final episode before the break.Benedicte has updates on several fronts — a new plugin, a yoga accountability partner, and her first non-hourly gig! She plans to have Benedikt on an upcoming stream to talk databases after the next authentication stream. She also needs to unfollow some Twitter accounts to follow some new ones... without making 5000 clicks.Benedikt's time has been spent almost entirely in hiring for the frontend development position at Userlist. They had to say "no" to the previous round of candidates and it isn't easy. In between hiring, he has snuck in some small features and bug requests. The good news in causing stupid bugs? They are easy fixes. Usually.

Not sponsored, but Benedikt and Benedicte rave about Stripe a little. The Userlist team grew by one while Benedikt was on vacation. Benedicte gets a small POW! win.Conference Buddy — an app by Mirjam AulbachStream: Use a plugin to accept Stripe donations of any amount Stripe — making payments easy, NOT sponsored :)Smashing Magazine — for web designers and developersBenedikt took last week off but didn't unplug 100%. He moved hiring forward on the frontend developer role. The pipeline is filling up and he expects to wrap up soon. While he was out, and completing some projects around the house, the customer success role was filled. Benedicte fills Benedikt in on her newest streaming plans — ones that will cover authentication and privacy in the context of Mirjam's app, Conference Buddy. She celebrates a small win for POW! as a user inquires about yearly pricing. After they shower Stripe with praise, Benedicte gives Benedikt an update on holiday baking!

Brian is back! He returns from the Grand Canyon trip and reflects on his time spent while disconnected. Benedicte gives a progress update on her Gatsby work and her plans for streaming in the coming months.Queen Raae GitHub: gatsby-plugin-let-it-snowConference Buddy — an app by Mirjam AulbachStream: Use a plugin to accept Stripe donations of any amount semantic-release: Benedicte's "tech crush"Benedicte catches up with Brian after he returns from his trip to the Grand Canyon. She is feeling focused, hitting a good rhythm, and is cranking out code! She has a lot of excitement around the NPM package semantic-release this week and is headed in the right direction for her Gatsby-authority business. She shares her latest YouTube livestream plans as she wraps up season two of Gatsby Deep Dives with Queen Raae and the Nattermob Pirates.Without cell service or internet connectivity, Brian had time to reflect while having a blast backpacking the Grand Canyon. The headline? He might be ready for a break from bootstrapping. Certainly not a "forever" break, but perhaps some time for hobbies to be just that — hobbies. To be continued...

Benedikt and Benedicte pair up for another week without Brian. Benedikt continues to interview at Userlist which offers learning opportunities. Benedicte shares both a change in plans for the end of this year and a broad goal for 2022.Queen Raae GitHub: gatsby-plugin-let-it-snow"Let it Snow" in actionNow Hiring: Frontend Developer (Ember.js) at UserlistRewardful: affiliate & referral setup for SaaS companies using StripeBenedicte is feeling creative after working on a short, fun Gatsby plugin, "Let it Snow". On the topic of plugins, there has been a change in plans. After canceling the launch of the pay-what-you-want bootcamp last week, she plans to rework the bootcamp offerings in favor of creating Gatsby plugins. The new strategy is to offer these plugins and have additional paid, asynchronous coursework available for those who want to customize or dive deeper.Benedikt moves ahead with hiring at Userlist for the frontend developer position. Questions still remain about the process and he ponders the best way to structure a paid test project. After preparing the test project for interviews, he spent time on a rejuvenating task — improving the integration architecture. The Rewardful integration is scheduled to launch today!Finally, in a shared win of mutual accountability, Benedicte continues yoga and Benedikt continues walking.

With Brian away, Benedikt and Benedicte discuss the nuances of why hiring can be difficult. Benedikt shares how the search for open roles at Userlist is going. Benedicte is scheduling the remaining Gatsby bootcamps and is open to experimenting with offerings and formats in the future. The two discuss valuable aspects of different educational content formats. Finally, winter is coming and Benedikt is not particularly excited about it.Now Hiring: Customer Success Manager at UserlistNow Hiring: Frontend Developer (Ember.js) at UserlistDevelop and deploy a pay-what-you-want feature with StripeBREATH - A 30 Day Yoga JourneyBenedikt gives an update on hiring efforts at Userlist. The number of applications for the frontend developer position is well below the number of applications for the customer success position. Benedikt weighs waiting to hire someone who is an excellent fit versus hiring someone more quickly. Benedicte agrees that either way, it's important to find a personality that is willing to jump into the fold at a startup. If you are interested in this role, please apply or forward it to someone that might be.Benedicte has scheduled the second of three Gatsby mini bootcamps and is finalizing the schedule for the third. As discussed previously, there is room for experimentation. Specificity in the content is important for making the learning relevant but a few questions remain. Are takeaway coding examples the valuable piece? How about asynchronous content delivery? Besides Gatsby, she hopes to sneak in some coding on POW! soon.Winter is coming and Benedikt isn't thrilled. The two discuss some strategies for coping with less sunlight at higher latitudes — Vitamin D, sun lamps, and exercise. After a few days away from yoga, Benedicte is starting a new 30-day journey herself.