The Art of Product

Ben has moved into his new apartment and had an interesting discussion about fitness with the movers. Derrick got back is Bod Pod results and is formulating his precise fitness goals for fat loss and muscle gain. Ben is still on the job market and had an interview last week. Ben and Derrick discuss successful interview techniques and experiences they’ve had in the past. In Drip news, Drip recently got a brand refresh, including a new logo, marketing site, color palette, new messaging, app skin, and more. They are working on focusing their marketing efforts to position Drip in the market as an Ecommerce CRM. Listen in as Derrick discusses the Drip refresh and the thinking behind it. Today’s Topics Include: Fitness and Derrick’s fitness goals Drip’s recent brand refresh Market positioning in Ecommerce Ben’s job search progress and interview tactics If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip

Ben and Derrick welcome the New Year with this first episode of 2018. Derrick provides an update on his fitness goals for the first quarter of 2018 and plans his Bod Pod evaluation this week. Derrick also shares his strategy improving and maintaining Drip software features. Ben is launching the second cohort of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge this week, and this cohort is even larger than the first. He shares how this cohort will be different, and thoughts on adding a fee to increase accountability and participation. He is also thinking about future extensions of the challenge into a monetized product. Today’s Topics Include: 2018 Q1 Goal updates The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge second cohort launch Increasing accountability in the Challenge Monetization strategies for courses following a free challenge Drip software and features Navigation-driven development and app workflows Ruby losing popularity If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Nike Training Club App Bod Pod Precision Nutrition Ruby Rogues Episode 342: Interview with DHH The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip

Ben is having a successful push for the new cohort of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge. He is also looking to improve future iterations of the challenge and is preparing to move to a new home outside of Boston. Ben and Derrick discuss their quarterly personal goals on this episode and the philosophy behind goal setting: developing habits versus achieving specific results. Each list their specific goals for the first quarter of 2018, including fitness, mindfulness, reading, professional projects and career choices. Today’s Topics Include: Second cohort of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge Annual versus quarterly goals Effective goal setting: forming habits versus achieving goals Ben and Derrick’s specific goals for Q1 2018 Returning to the tech workforce If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip Proper Cloth James Clear - Habits Guide

Ben is entering the last week of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge. He has enjoyed getting the challenges out each day and seeing participants engage with the content. In the future he is deciding whether to personalize the programming languages or to remain language agnostic. The next cohort of the Challenge will start January 3, 2018, and Ben’s looking forward to iterating and improving each cohort of the Challenge. He also discussed a connection he made with Discourse, and explores options for forum management in the future. Drip is working on their visual email builder with the help of their new Elm developer. The team has just completed several product structure tests using a prototype, which was a greatly helpful experience to the developers. Ben and Derrick discuss their experiences with product usability testing. Today’s Topics Include: Approaching the end of The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge Challenge results and stats on participation The next Challenge cohort begins January 3, 2018 Positive customer experience with Discourse Drip’s visual email builder project Product usability testing If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge Discourse Steve Schoger @steveschoger Full Stack Radio podcast 78: Ben Orenstein - Our All-Time Favorite Refactorings RefactoringRails.io Drip

Drip successfully sailed through Black Friday and Cyber Monday unscathed with no queue backups or problems. Derrick has been thinking about shifting the Drip team structures after Black Friday weekend and is considering adopting more efficient workflows and processes. Ben and Derrick discuss different team structures, including those at Basecamp and Spotify. They also talk about team size, communication overhead, and growing revenue versus growing team size in business. Today’s Topics Include: Drip’s Black Friday success Team structure and restructuring teams at Drip Work processes and discussing article Running in Circles by Ryan Singer Mutable requirements and engineering feedback Uphill Strategies and task deadlines Spotify “squads” and team structures Communication overhead with large teams Be sure to stick around at the end of the episode for Ben and Derrick’s post-show chat. If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: HQ Trivia App Running in Circles by Ryan Singer The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip

Ben introduces The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge and updates us on the progress of his first cohort. He has been receiving positive feedback and participants are engaging with the exercises and community forums. They discuss his work on the project and the future of Ben’s business and his audience moving forward. Derrick has hired an Elm engineer at Drip and they discuss the adoption of the Elm programming language in the industry. He also shares the hiring and pairing interview process of the candidate. Derrick attended an interesting invite-only conference, Chaos Engineering Day, and discusses Chaos Engineering and the implications for his business. This week Drip is focused on and fully prepped for Black Friday and shares his team wins surrounding the lead-up. Today’s Topics Include: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge first cohort launch and progress Discourse versus Slack discussion channels Community building and managing a group Plans for future challenge cohorts and Ben’s business Derrick’s successful hiring process for an Elm engineer Adopting Elm programming language in the industry Chaos Engineering and testing Be sure to stick around at the end of the episode for Ben and Derrick’s post-show chat. If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge Discourse Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday Principles of Chaos Engineering RefactoringRails.io Drip

Ben and Derrick are joined by guest Adam Wathan, an esteemed software developer, writer, speaker and entrepreneur from Ontario, Canada. He is the creator of Tailwind CSS, author of Refactoring to Collections and host of the Full Stack Radio podcast. Listen in as he shares how he built his own products over time and became an independent entrepreneur, and talks about his new project Tailwind CSS. Today’s Topics Include: Starting his first side projects and products Adam’s successful marketing channels and strategies Lessons learned from past product launches Experience with pricing plans and tiers Adam’s current projects and products, including Tailwind CSS CSS programming, utility and presentation If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Tailwind CSS Test-Driven Laravel Refactoring to Collections Full Stack Radio Adam on Twitter @adamwathan The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip

Ben keeps us posted on the Refactoring Rails course launch progress and shares his continuing sales metrics and marketing strategies. He is considering experimenting with free samples, bundling and cross-promoting going forward. For his next project, Ben is creating a new course called The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge, which goes live on November 13, 2017. He has received a lot of feedback on the idea and is iterating on the outline, including content and pricing strategies for the future. He shares his plans for the course and Derrick gives his advice on the project. Today’s Topics Include: Refactoring Rails launch progression and marketing strategies Ben’s new project: The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge Comparing course formats and iterating on ideas using targeted feedback The power of building your audience and list Lead generation versus sales value Programming language agnostic course strategy If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Tiny Marketing Wins course The 30-Day Code Quality Challenge RefactoringRails.io Drip

Ben’s course sales are still going strong, and he shares his updated sales metrics and the purchasing trends of his customers. He also spoke on the Ruby on Rails podcast recently to discuss the course and his experience making it. Ben is scheduled to give a talk at the DC Ruby Users Group on February 16, 2018. He is now trying to think of what’s next for himself in the big picture. Derrick and the Drip team are preparing for Black Friday. They built models to predict peak hours and optimize their servers. As a result they had a super successful test send at over 4,000 emails per second, putting them in a great position leading up to the big day. The team is still working on load testing to search for more unknown factors in simulation to shore up the system even more. Today’s Topics Include: Screenhero shutting down Refactoring Rails launch progress Selling products versus services Work-life balance and project madness Salaried jobs and optimizing work experience Drip prep for Black Friday If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Use together - Screen Sharing Tool Ruby on Rails: Episode 236 featuring Ben Orenstein Seeking Wisdom: Episode 95 featuring Brad Stulberg The Tropical MBA Podcast SendGrid RefactoringRails.io Drip

Ben has officially launched his course Refactoring Rails. He is pleased with his choice of back-end tools including Gumroad for fulfillment. Ben shares his course launch metrics including email success rate, sales numbers and revenue. Early feedback has been positive and the Ruby community has been very supportive. He also discusses his expectations and take away lessons from the overall launch. Ben will be continuing his Ruby tour in the coming weeks. Derrick announces Drip’s new project teased last episode: a visual email editor. Due to Drip’s widening customer base, there is an increased demand for visual and polished marketing emails. Their designer has been working on mockups and the team is analyzing the current tools available and have some great ideas for improving usability. Drip is still looking for a front-end engineer with Elm experience to help build the tool. Today’s Topics Include: Refactoring Rails launch and email strategy Ben’s launch metrics Ruby speaking tour The new visual email editor project at Drip Building out a new project Learning new skills as a developer Choosing programming languages Derrick’s review of Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code Editor If you’re enjoying the show please give us your ratings and reviews in iTunes. Links and resources: Gumroad Heroku Elm "Teaching Elm to Beginners" by Richard Feldman Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code Editor RefactoringRails.io Drip