Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

211: Battle Hardened Over Time

October 3rd, 2016 | Season 6 | 39 mins 45 secs

On Hound, Ben sends out announcements for pricing changes, questions when a decision is the "right" decision when it comes to customer feedback, and toys with per-seat pricing model feasibility. Derrick has a successful first week on-boarding the new dev-ops hire, offers Ben some advice on balancing features with price, and discusses some customer acquisition campaigns.

210: s/Walden/Andover

September 26th, 2016 | Season 6 | 32 mins 19 secs

Ben plans a camping trip, acquires a new Twitter account, releases his notes on giving great conference talks, and begins to tell users of Hound's new pricing. Derrick reacts to the announcement of Github Projects and what that means for Codetree, ships the new form design on Drip, and muses on the ramifications to Google's announced penalizing of intrusive mobile pop-ups.

209: Playlist Driven Development

September 19th, 2016 | Season 6 | 33 mins 54 secs

On Drip, Derrick deals with a high-bandwidth customer and hires a new devops team member. Meanwhile, Ben brainstorms new pricing structures for Hound.

208: Efficiency Starts With a Haircut

September 12th, 2016 | Season 6 | 40 mins 2 secs

Derrick switches domains from getdrip.com to drip.co, begins to update the design of the Drip widget, and tries to find balance in his varying roles as CTO. Ben hands off the reins of Upcase, switches to a low-tech project management solution, and mixes work and personal todos.

207: Database & Queue are Dirty Words (Derrick Reimer)

September 6th, 2016 | Season 6 | 33 mins 21 secs

Ben welcomes guest co-host Derrick Reimer, co-founder of Drip, getting to know his background and products for our first outside-thoughtbot view on SaaS strategy (as well as Ben's arm-twisty methods for getting him on the podcast in the first place)!

206: I'm Glad We Talked About This (Chad Pytel)

August 22nd, 2016 | Season 5 | 47 mins 13 secs

thoughtbot CEO Chad Pytel joins Ben to discuss our recent office closings and reasons necessitating this decision, what this means for the product team, and the future of thoughtbot. Also, a teaser of what to expect next from Giant Robots Podcast.

205: Bottling Calm

August 8th, 2016 | Season 5 | 42 mins 59 secs

Fresh back from vacation, Ben shifts his attention to a Hound project, adding in tiered plans and pricing. Chris begins to build out a drip sequence for content recommendations, prepares to roll off to return to client work, and leaves us with some final reflections, takeaways, and lessons learned while on Upcase.

204: Disinclined, For Simplicity's Sake

August 1st, 2016 | Season 5 | 56 mins 55 secs

Chris delves into marketing mode for the TDD course, removes more client-side analytics code, and starts redesigning the information architecture on Upcase. On FormKeep, Ben alerts users to site down-time, removes all pay-per-form logic from the codebase, and begins to set up trials sans credit-card.

203: Worry Beads on Business Chains

July 25th, 2016 | Season 5 | 45 mins 57 secs

Ben receives some insight on customer referrals for FormKeep, applies his pricing philosophy to Hound, and realizes a personal blind-spot when it comes to customer satisfaction. On Upcase, Chris patches an automated follow-up messaging bug leading to enhanced focus on server-side analytics, welcomes Tyson to the team to begin work on trail mapping course content, and soft launches the Fundamentals of TDD trail.

202: A Full 360

July 18th, 2016 | Season 5 | 41 mins 17 secs

Ben rants about bad jokes on twitter, doesn't ship any improved activation features on FormKeep this week, irons out some bugs on FormLinter, and begins an ad campaign. Chris contemplates shifting Upcase's business model, and walks through the impetus driving this decision.

201: The Difficulty is in Focusing

July 11th, 2016 | Season 5 | 48 mins 34 secs

Ben encounters a downed FormKeep and enables a monitoring service, completes the un-grandfathering process for accounts on old tiers, and begins work on improving activation flow. Chris sends out a survey to users and discovers a shift in the Upcase demographics.

200: Summertime Sadness

July 4th, 2016 | Season 5 | 46 mins 29 secs

Chris digs into the causes for a MRR drop, discovering usage trends with seasonality; and in the process gets a clearer picture of Upcase's user base. Also, he welcome Geoff to the project, and begins a new marketing initiative driven by user testimonials. Ben welcomes Tyson onto team Formkeep to begin redesigning on boarding, and continues FormLinter improvements / marketing.

199: Heartening Frustration

June 27th, 2016 | Season 5 | 51 mins 22 secs

This week, we ruminate on the meta-organization of project management. Ben embraces team feedback on FormLinter.com, reaches the end of Formkeep's grandfathered pricing window, and removes sandboxing to streamline plan structures. Chris contemplates Upcase's role as a product within thoughtbot, prepares to welcome on new team members (bye Gabe!), and restructures topic relationships to improve discoverability. Also, the return of Dance Talk!

198: Nailing Down the Why

June 20th, 2016 | Season 5 | 45 mins 28 secs

On Formkeep, Ben launches FormLinter to increase form accessibility and conversions, and looks forward to additional persons on thoughtbot product work. Chris continues marketing of the Bourbon Smash course, wrestles with metrics and analytics, and improves team logins on Upcase.

197: An Engine That Throws Off Money

June 13th, 2016 | Season 5 | 1 hr 8 mins

On Upcase, Chris releases the Bourbon course, restructures how new courses are highlighted, and discusses juggling the various factors that contribute to MRR. Ben takes on-boarding notes from a century old dance school to improve activation on Formkeep.

196: Anecdotal Driven Development

May 30th, 2016 | Season 5 | 49 mins 52 secs

Ben changes product activation flow, possibly for the worse, launches a new UI, and muses on new customer acquisition for Formkeep. On Upcase, Chris starts to see benefits from the domain transition, and brainstorms on how to un-bottleneck course releases.