Slow & Steady

Michael Christofides of pgMustard chats with Benedikt and Benedicte about gardening, pgMustard, PostgreSQL, and doing marketing for SaaS.pgMustardPostgreSQLTalk Python to Me Episode #366Follow Michael on TwitterWhile a relatively older database system, many companies still use PostgreSQL for its reliability and flexibility. However, many users find it difficult to figure out the problem when their database slows down.Seeing this as a great pain point for their customers, Michael pitched an idea for a tool at his old workplace but unfortunately got rejected. He held on to this tool idea and launched pgMustard in April 2019.pgMustard helps speed up slow database queries for PostgreSQL. But unlike other tools in the space, pgMustard pinpoints users to the source of the problem and even gives suggestions on how to move forward with it.Michael, Benedicte, and Benedikt talk about gardening, Supabase, working at Userlist, SEO, and more!

Benedikt finally launches the new pricing. Benedicte talks about their ideas for the next season of the stream.Michael from pgMustardBenedicte had another "boring week" job-wise: regular work, emails, and the stream. On the marketing sales front, she started to follow some of the bigger plugins on GitHub to see what issues will arise. And with the final stream of the season this week, Benedicte shares that they are already thinking of new ideas to try out for the next season. Benedikt just launched the new pricing for Userlist and is a bit anxious about how it will turn out. The team also made great progress on their WYSIWYG editor. While building a good user experience is always a fun and exciting challenge for Benedikt, he shares that he needs to focus on backend work more.

Benedicte is feeling calm after an ordinary week. She is getting ready for summer and, beyond the routine activities, she has figured out solutions for the Cloudinary plugins. Now that the "fun" part is over, she will implement the solutions over the next two weeks. Oslo has been warm and Benedicte is taking full advantage. Her talk is approaching in late June and she is prepared to be... unprepared and stressed.Benedikt has enjoyed good weather as well and planned some local sightseeing recently. The new pricing at Userlist is close, but it is tricky. The team is having difficulty getting the proration the way they want it. After diving into the Stripe Apps, Benedikt is also finding that effort more complex than expected. To kick off yet another, large, infrastructure-like  project, Benedikt and Leo meet and start researching on a new WYSIWYG editor. 

Benedicte and Ola win the Gatsby gig! Benedikt spies a new opportunity.CloudinaryStructured ContentGather's Escape The IslandIntroducing Stripe AppsBenedicte and Ola hear back on their proposal — they'll be working with Cloudinary on their existing plugins! Benedicte is already digging through the code to tackle any bugs before summer starts. Speaking of Gatsby, she takes a moment to rant about community-based support. POW! picks up a few new customers despite Benedicte not focusing on that in the short term and Structure Content came to Oslo.Benedikt celebrates as Userlist passes a $15k MRR milestone following a few preceding months of slower growth. The new pricing feature is coming along nicely and he's looking forward to the rollout. Benedikt is also excited about Stripe releasing their new Stripe Apps, a new way to build Stripe integrations. There aren't many companies in the new app marketplace, so it presents an exciting opportunity for Userlist. He would have to learn some React though...

Pierre de Wulf, Co-founder of ScrapingBee, talks about growing with a small team and leveraging communities. He discusses transitioning from PricingBot to ScrapingBee, securing funding from TinySeed during the pandemic, and the impact of community involvement, support, acquisition, and SEO.

We're back! Benedicte waits to hear back on a Gatsby proposal. Benedikt returns from vacation.Norway's Constitution DayBenedicte sent out a proposal for more project-based Gatsby work and is anxious to hear back. She made progress on her article for Smashing Magazine as well and is looking forward to feedback on the draft. She is finding it difficult to narrow down exactly what level of expertise the audience will have and knows that meeting her audience at their technical level will be critical when writing her book. Reluctantly, Benedicte places POW! on the back burner, at least for a few months. Leaning into the Gatsby work feels more important. Norway just celebrated Constitution Day, so Oslo was a party! Endless ice cream included.Benedikt took a vacation last week. While the computer came with him, he didn't do anything more than a few notification checks — no fires to put out! Userlist finally, officially launched the new signup flow and they haven't seen any errors in the rollout. They are also getting closer to launching the new pricing plan as well, something that will likely be wrapped up by the end of the quarter. Benedikt might have some bandwidth to work on the Stripe integration, but it's unclear how much work remains there. Finally, Userlist grows again as the new community advocate just came aboard!

Benedicte is anxious about an inbound lead for new Gatsby work. Benedikt is almost done with the new signup flow implementation.Userlist — Now Hiring: Community AdvocateWrite Useful Books by Rob FitzpatrickWeb Scraping with Pierre of ScrapingBeeScrapingBee — a web scraping toolReact NorwayBenedicte has an inbound lead for some potential Gatsby work. It's exciting, but she's anxious to see what comes of it. She talks about Rob Fitzpatrick's book, Write Useful Books, and the difference in the effort needed to produce different types of content — short books, livestreams, produced video, etc. In other updates, Pierre, founder of Scraping Bee, will join Queen Raae on stream this week and Benedicte will speak at React Norway this summer!Benedikt is (almost!) done with the new signup flow and he reflects on the complexity and work estimation. He's satisfied with the implementation but still hopes to learn how to better recognize and estimate these larger efforts in the future. Benedikt's planned Friday administration work got pushed in favor of some recreational coding — creating a password strength indicator for Userlist. Although he feels a little guilty, it was a fun break. Speaking of fun... Benedikt is taking a week off!Finally, Userlist is hiring a part-time Community Advocate. Check out the job description in the show notes above.

Benedikt closes in on a major feature implementation. Benedicte gets some feedback on 1:1 calls and POW!Rails AutoscaleDataCaterUsing DataCater to connect your app to UserlistSmashing Magazine Person of the WeekPOW! Reddit threadGatsby Webinar on Plugins (2019)Unified.jsBenedikt and the Userlist team are getting pretty close to finishing the new signup flow. Or they were... Benedicte points out a potential edge case. Either way, they've made progress and benefitted from treating the effort as a major feature instead of trying to cut corners. Benedikt celebrated a relaxing Easter recently as well — largely offline thanks to the maturing team and product. He cleared his inbox and recorded a video for Userlist with a friend who runs DataCater. If you have any suggestions for Heroku alternatives, send Benedikt a DM. He's finding it harder to stay a big fan amidst recent outages.Benedicte is feeling appreciated, and for a good reason! She was named Smashing Magazine's "Person of the Week" and has received lots of love. No coding on POW! to report back this week, but plans are coming together and she received some feedback around product preferences on a Reddit thread. In addition to POW! feedback, she also got some on her Gatsby calls. The "emergency" branding might not resonate with everyone, but she finds the calls rewarding. Benedicte plans to do more selling and outreach for Queen Raae services. Surprise! Things don't sell themselves. As a reward for completing other work, she has been working with markdown, trees, and other fun tools.

Anna Maste is the founder of Subscribe Sense, a business she started after exiting Boondockers Welcome.Subscribe Sense — Anna's new business Boondockers WelcomeMusic video funFollow Anna on TwitterSmart Subscriber — Shai Schechter's email toolRightMessage — Brennan Dunn's & Shai Schechter's email toolDeploy Empathy — a book by Michele HansenBenedikt and Benedicte host Anna Maste, founder of Subscribe Sense. Subscribe Sense is an email tool created to ensure subscribers to your mailing lists are confirming their subscriptions with a double opt-in. Before exiting her previous business Boondockers Welcome, Anna realized that she had leads who had not confirmed their signup to her lists. Subscribe Sense aims to increase confirmation rates.Benedikt and Anna talk about some of the opportunities and dangers when working with email providers. Userlist has had to ask similar questions about handling emails and user behavior. The three discuss how Anna's previous exit played out, what her expectations are for Subscribe Sense post-exit, how she delineates development and marketing work, and how education and software stacks play a role in getting to an MVP.Not to mention, Anna can make a killer parody music video!

Benedikt is working on a new signup flow for Userlist. Benedicte has fun at MicroConf.Adam McCrea of Rails AutoscaleAndrew Culver of Bullet TrainDr. Sherry WallingMichael Christofides of pgMustardLlama Life has raised a pre-seed funding round!Benedicte returns from MicroConf ending several weeks of travel. Physically, she's tired. Mentally, she's energized! She made the most of quick stops in New York City, met some listeners at the conferences, and embraces something very scary... improv. The Gatsby emails keep going out and she gets feedback on POW! from the women at MicroConf. Benedikt poses the question: "How important is the encryption in POW!'s value proposition?"Benedikt and Leo work together on a new signup flow for Userlist that Jane designed. This work touched some of the oldest code in the codebase so it felt good to give it an update. Changing the Stripe implementation to modernize it was a win as well. Not sponsored! Userlist hired a new Customer Success Engineer — Michael from pgMustard. He's off to the races and even answered an inquiry with the knowledge he had from listening to this podcast.To wrap up, recent Slow & Steady guests are getting funded. Coincidence? Come on the show and find out!