The Art of Product

If you listen regularly to the Art of Product podcast, then you’re probably familiar with the ongoing joke: How long does it take before we mention Steve Schoger and Adam Wathan? Well, today is your lucky day because not only do Derrick and Ben mention them, but Adam is once again their special guest. Adam is a software developer, writer, speaker, and entrepreneur. Also, he is the creator of Nitpick CI, host of the Full Stack Radio podcast, and author of Refactoring UI and Refactoring to Collections. He describes the process of successfully making, promoting, and selling courses on the Internet. Plus, Steve makes a special appearance to share his side of the story! Today’s Topics Include: Concept and Collaboration: How Adam and Steve work together to create courses Be genuinely helpful by offering free, good content for people to know, like, and trust you Build an audience/authority on a topic to make people want to learn from you Understand difference between what you care about vs. what your audience cares about Care about quality and effort put into all aspects; utilize Steve’s design tips on Twitter Signals and validation that your content resonates with and is helpful to your audience What Makes a Successful Partnership: Similar values, but complementary skills Promotion via email, newsletter, social media, case studies, and screencasts to grow number of subscribers/followers Courses: Parts and Pieces (Books, Videos, and More) and Pricing to Make ROI Launching Products and Surpassing Sales Expectations Links and resources: Adam Wathan Nitpick CI Refactoring UI Refactoring to Collections Full Stack Radio Podcast Adam Wathan’s MicroConf Presentation Adam Wathan on GitHub Adam Wathan’s Email Adam Wathan on Twitter 7 Practical Tips for Cheating at Design Steve Schoger Steve Schoger on YouTube Heroicons Steve Schoger on Twitter Wes Bos Bootstrap Stripe An eBook pricing model that resulted in $100,000 in sales Art of Product on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Tuple

Derrick is away, so Ben welcomes Jason Cohen, CTO of WP Engine and four-time entrepreneur. Jason knows a thing or two about startups and mentoring them to achieve profitability and growth. Jason is a straight talker and tells it like it is to get to solutions sooner. He encourages bootstrap founders to find an advisor who aligns with their goals. You need to know how to take advice and use advice that is right for you and your business. Even if you get great advice, think for yourself! Today’s Topics Include: Advice is not enough; luck, execution, and other pieces are involved Be honest and know what qualities investors want Jason characterizes a company as a learning machine that’s constantly failing, not doing the right thing, and has no resources; but has agility to learn and react quickly Embrace your humanity and smallness; don’t lie about being big Share the good and bad about your startup journey for others to feel connected to and support it When making decisions, apply filters to cut out things; constraints are useful Universal Rule of Success: You’re all in and apply a lot of energy; makes you more productive and fulfilled Many paths lead to success and failure; pick ones that naturally fit you A good engineer can build features (not risky), but can they do everything else - probably not (risky); identify how a company’s priorities need to change to address risk To be sustainable, get help and became an expert in something - not everything Product success depends on use cases and maturity of company (convince customers how good it is now and will get even better); if product isn’t good, then business won’t last Jason shares ideas and options regarding Ben’s Tuple product When bootstrapping, getting money is challenging because you’re not on people’s radar Links and resources: WP Engine A Smart Bear Blog Can you bootstrap a company on the side? (Part 1 with Jason Cohen) Jason Cohen - Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business Capital Factory Paul Graham SmartBear Peter Thiel Adwords Slack Hangouts Marco Silicon Valley Successes Podcast Art of Product on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Tuple

Derrick continues to make progress and work toward his self-imposed deadline for Level. He was able to implement and ship batched notifications for the product, which replaces the instantaneous push notifications you would get from a chat tool. It’ll probably be one of the key features to sell as part of the “Level” way. But he’s wondering how to leverage interesting features in marketing. Ben has been thinking about the same thing with Tuple. He wants to make some features of his product be a seperate, discrete entity that deserves its own spotlight. Capitalize on features! Today’s Topics Include: Craft a narrative around “why we did this and the choices we made” for features Tuple offers two modes: Navigator and Copilot Avoid labeling every single feature as a big deal; strike a careful balance Derrick’s working on reactions feature for Level; encourages thoughtful responses Difference between like and acknowledge notifications; making them stateful Derrick closed pre-orders for Level on Dec. 14 and figuring out pricing paradigm Derrick plans to do individual onboarding to set users up for success with Level People are willing to pre-pay; optimize for meaningful engagement and feedback When something is not going well and you don’t know how to fix it, know you’re not alone Ben’s Bad Day: Pairing session revealed bugs and latency issues with Tuple Coping strategies for dealing with catastrophes; don’t freak out, blow out of proportion Tuple’s Week: Added 200 to mailing list, chasing leads, and improving product Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Tuple Stripe Screenhero Slack Basecamp iOS Superhuman Drip

Derrick had an interesting week with Level. He focused on important features that will be a part of the product, including notifications dependent on team members’ jobs. Some may want more asynchronous and unobtrusive notifications than others. Level distinguishes configurable notifications based on different roles on a team. Notification policies seem simple on the surface, but are actually very complicated. Ben announced that November was Tuple’s best month ever for marketing! But now, he is approaching the alpha for Tuple and will focus his attention on product management. Ben wants to figure out what works and what doesn’t. After all, when you can see the wrong thing, the right thing becomes so much easier. Today’s Topics Include: Derrick gained clarity on how things should work in Level by writing code and playing with different ideas When in doubt about design, Derrick takes a screenshot of Level to put on Twitter and get feedback; keeps people invested in the process Derrick is developing a thick skin and trying to not be defensive about design comments Level will offer opt-ins and education that help users protect their time and priorities Ben plans to pair with people using Tuple to identify UX annoyances Tuple is about to crack the 3,000 people milestone on its mailing list Level received new refers and spikes in traffic; awareness is building How to continue to grow your tribe? Opportunities to have an audience when you’re doing interesting stuff Level’s content strategy will focus on high-quality content, not high-volume content; Derrick plans to commit to cadence of consistency Can spend time on something, and years later, people still go to it as a valuable reference Ben wants to open up sales for the Habits for Hackers course, but limit the number of spots available; he’s considering a reverse auction Derrick’s been considering creative ways to structure pre-orders and pre-sales for Level; trying to decide whether to turn off pre-orders Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Tuple Habits for Hackers Steve Schoger Adam Wathan 103: Steve Schoger - Design Q&A + Refactoring UI Details Slack Dense Discovery SitePoint Product Hunt Hacker News Rob Walling Paul Jarvis Brian Casel Code that says why it does

Ben and Derrick are joined by Rob Walling to share updates - their favorite part of most podcasts! It’s been a good week in Tuple marketing land. Thanks to Ben’s tweet announcing the release date for its alpha, his launch list goal was reached. He was surprised by how willing people were to help out when he asked them to do it. Rob is working on TinySeed, a startup accelerator for bootstrappers. Derrick provided a pre-order update on Level and plans to do direct outreach to those who ordered it to determine their level of interest for validation. Today’s Topics Include: Managing Mental State: Jubilation followed by fear; developers tend to turn something positive into a negative Ben’s customized onboarding experience with Superhuman to be set up for success TinySeed takes a sane approach to work and build stuff that everyone can benefit from Believing in and making a big commitment to your startup; if it fails, that’ll be a bummer Frequent Feedback: Know where you’re going Angel investing has given Rob a specific skill set from how to pick founders/companies to being their advisor More money doesn’t make you move faster, especially when it comes to SaaS startups TinySeed follows the dividends/cash for equity approach when milestones are met to align everybody; forced accountability through meetings Derrick is working on Level’s onboarding flow and laying a foundation for future tutorials for users to embrace a different way of working Derrick’s addressing the legal side of Level, such as privacy policies/terms of service Chat is junk food - it’s a bad thing, but you still want it; Level is more like the vegetables and what you actually need Links and resources: Rob Walling Startups for the Rest of Us Drip Brian Casel Chad Fowler Superhuman Business of Software The Product Market Fit Engine Reportive TinySeed MicroConf HubSpot SparkToro Paul Graham Joanna Wiebe Snapterms Stripe Atlas Slack Art of Product on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Tuple

Ben launched Habits for Hackers, a workshop that cultivates habits that lead to an impressive and fulfilling dev career. He incorporates books written by others and makes that content applicable to participants. He’s going to figure out the rest of the details for the course while flying by the seat of his pants. For now, Ben’s just bathing in the dopamine of watching numbers happen! Derrick has been doing some launching, too. He announced that the end of January will be the beginning of the Level launch and Level can now be pre-ordered (generated about $2,000 so far). Derrick admits that he’s always derailed pretty heavily on launch days. He doesn’t even think about trying to get much productive stuff done. Today’s Topics Include: Tuple had a good week and useful coaching call; find and reach out to experts via useful blog posts and mailing lists Ben’s team has experienced some wins when working on reducing the latency of Tuple, but discovered reducing latency and reducing perceived latency are about the same Ben and Derrick are recognizing areas where they will some day shift their focus Derrick recognizes the revenue potential due to who is signing up for Level (teams vs. entire companies); shipped an improved call to action - save your place in line How Derrick determined the price point for Level; pricing is relative and psychology Ben is reluctant to commit to pricing for Tuple; always trying new numbers to gauge tolerance on how much people are willing to pay for it After a launch, Derrick and Ben feel wiped out because then it’s time to do the hard stuff; create a prioritized list and set a deadline to avoid distractions Ben picked a date for Tuple’s alpha to start - Jan. 7; rather than just take someone’s money, he wants to make sure they are the right fit and would offer worthwhile feedback Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Level Manifesto The Level Journal Tuple Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide Habits for Hackers Atomic Habits Deep Work Jason Fried Drip Slack How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit Tailwind Steve Schoger Adam Wathan Sketch Mod&dot

Derrick shipped Level’s Daily Digest feature, which includes a summary of unread/read posts, sampling of posts/replies, and call to action. Also, thanks to Derrick killing it on Twitter, Art of Product’s social media presence is now legit! Branding and awareness of Ben’s Tuple pair programming tool has garnered interest from well-known companies. So, it’s time to set a deadline for Tuple’s alpha. Today’s Topics Include: Ups and downs of building a feature Good Brain Hacking: Know yourself and have a strategy; try something from your toolbox to change your perspective Ben designed the Habits for Hackers course; the experience was 50% amazing and 50% arduous - getting better at design through a trial-and-error method Ben’s Design Tips: Copy existing things, read design tweets and watch refactoring UI videos from Steve Schoger, and have friends who will tell you when something isn’t good Your success is a lagging indicator of your habits; Ben wants to be held accountable for practicing good development/work habits Links and resources: Art of Product on Twitter Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Level Manifesto The Level Journal Tuple Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide Habits for Hackers Postmark Ruby on Rails GitHub Elixir Tailwind Steve Schoger Steve Schoger’s Refactoring UI Adam Wathan Sketch The Bike Shed Atomic Habits

Ben and Derrick were hoping to share a great conversation they had with author, designer, and consultant Paul Jarvis. But, without warning, all was lost when Paul’s audio for the episode could not be saved. The plan is to have Paul back on the show in a few weeks. Everything else is going pretty well for Derrick, who provides an update on Level. He met his goal and launched the Level Early Access Program two weeks ago. When it comes to testing Tuple, Ben plans to prioritize people early on who have good bandwidth and help guide them to be successful when using the tool. Today’s Topics Include: Takeaway and Wake-up Call: Derrick has 6 teams in the early access program; some are using Level a lot, some are not - people are busy and running their own business Quality feedback for Level testing; offers unknowns, guidance, and clarifications Derrick’s working on a feature to make sure users remember to check back into Level because it’s designed to be unobtrusive and not bother you Make a good first impression; capture users’ vision and maintain their interest Derrick addressed people’s questions about how Level works and will solve their problems via storytelling with concrete, mechanical product details Derrick is battling perfection, but wants to generate pre-order revenue and set a rolling launch deadline for Level - ideally in January, to highlight new tools in the new year Ben is doing a podcast tour to promote Tuple, which had its best week for sign ups so far Tuple also experienced a technical breakthrough - it crushed latency; trust your team to get things done Tuple adventure is predicated on a value proposition that Tuple can be better than off-the-shelf products because of its key differentiators Ben is not your everyday developer; recently took a leap and hit the bigtime being a backup singer for Josh Groban! Links and resources: Paul Jarvis Trello Elixir Slack MicroConf Drip CodeNewbie Podcast Bits and Trees Podcast Full Stack Radio Podcast Ruby Testing Podcast Bootstrapped Web Podcast Swift JSON Postmark Screenhero Josh Groban Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Level Manifesto Tuple Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide

Derrick had a productive week with Level. His deadline of late October to have alpha users try it was looming. So, he has been a bit stressed out. But thanks to relaxation techniques that work for him, Derrick was able to talk himself off the edge! Ben understands the needs for coping techniques. When little things in his personal life aren’t under control, it’s much harder for him to be productive at work. Every thing’s interconnected. Today’s Topics Include: Battle between work and personal life What makes you happy? Avoid negativity and realize things are going to be ok Ben’s Failure State: When he doesn’t know what to do for a goal Make list of known ingredients needed and check off tasks to push you through Ben’s team did a retrospective for Tuple; marketing is going well and additions have been made to the Tuple Pair Programming Guide Limiting handle reservations and duplicate updates/emails to opt in or opening up handle reservations that cost something Who’s serious about your product? Is filtering the funnel good? Creating sales or a sales team for Level; how Drip did it Suffering from and dealing with Imposter Syndrome Links and resources: Efficiency Starts with a Haircut Elm Steve Schoger Adam Wathan Drip Rob Walling Patrick McKenzie Stripe MicroConf Sherry Walling of ZenFounder Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Tuple Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide

Ben is working on marketing plans for Tuple and it’s associated Pair Programming Guide. So, what does someone he admires think of his growth and content marketing plans? In this episode, Ben’s special guest is Julian Shapiro, who shares lesser known growth tactics he has used in his content marketing to be successful. Today’s Topics Include: Write content that’s best for your target audience; what do you want them to get out of it? Goal: To have people read your content or buy your product Content marketing in the form of in-depth guides is effective in building a presence and getting people to trust you to pay a high price for your product An audience is an asset; you can identify how much they can be monetized for whatever you want to build in the future Content needs to be more than good; establish credibility, awareness, and knowledge Focus on getting new email subscribers or prepare for the launch of Tuple? Capture people’s interest when you have it Tuple’s Approach to Growth: Release product to a small group to get feedback, release to another group for further testing, repeat, and then expand scope of growth efforts Push content to address objections; why customers need/should care about something How do you apply growth marketing to a giant piece of content? Ads don’t work; A/B test to optimize content; pitch a product, but don’t jeopardize your integrity Non-paid promotion of content - get on Hacker News; never ask someone to upvote, but use a title that expresses deep annoyance and grief about the state of tech SEO is easier with small pieces of content; don’t go for low-hanging fruit, but head turns Part of the magic of Tuple - making it fast to address latency and not feel like a hack Growth should be a core competency of any startup Links and resources: Julian Shapiro Julian Shapiro on Twitter Bell Curve Bell Curve Training Gary Vaynerchuk Tim Ferriss Hacker News TechCrunch Screenhero Superhuman Derrick Reimer Website Derrick Reimer on Twitter Ben Orenstein Website Ben Orenstein on Twitter Level Tuple Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide