Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots
About the show
A podcast about the design, development, and business of great software. Each week thoughtbot is joined by the people who build and nurture the products we love.
Episodes
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195: The Storm Before the Calm
May 23rd, 2016 | Season 5 | 1 hr 7 mins
Ben delays a new feature until an easier implementation can be reached, adds additional event tracking for better site usage feedback, takes a medium to large digression to rant about Javascript, and makes headway on Formkeep's UI refactor. On Upcase, Chris steps back from the content spotlight, takes a hit to traffic from the domain transition, and tests all things email.
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194: Changing Your Internet Home
May 16th, 2016 | Season 5 | 49 mins
Chris transitions Upcase to thoughtbot.com/upcase for SEO and branding purposes, and introduces reactivate & resubscribe functionality. Ben publishes a blog post on Formkeep's pricing history, optimizes the initial form setup page, and begins work to implement a no credit card up-front trial.
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193: This Episode Has Been Brought to You By the Letter 'S'
May 9th, 2016 | Season 5 | 45 mins 19 secs
Ben switches from Mandrill to Sendgrid, turns a corner on his guarantee vs trial test, and begins the process of overhauling Formkeep's UI. Meanwhile, on Upcase, Chris utilizes an interesting method for A/B Testing, teases a secret project, and increases SEO by changing out the header.
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192: The High End of Reasonable
May 2nd, 2016 | Season 5 | 50 mins 55 secs
Ben and Chris muse on the nature of weather-related happiness. Also, Ben works on instrumenting Formkeep's activation funnel, utilizes a monitoring utility to optimize sign-up flow, and vows to almost certainly not toy with pricing any more. Meanwhile on Upcase, Chris confronts multiple root causes for a dip in MRR, updates content displays, and overhauls the checkout.
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191: I've Done it Once, I'm an Expert
April 25th, 2016 | Season 5 | 47 mins 14 secs
Ben and Chris discuss taxes and financial (as well as bedtime) routines. On Upcase, Chris showcases "The Weekly Iteration" on the site, reveals a long-term dream for the platform, and patches a critical security issue. Ben adds a bunch of features to cut down on support requests, does some UX cleanup, and performs other general tasks to improve usability on Formkeep.
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190: An Unkempt Backlog
April 19th, 2016 | Season 5 | 55 mins 33 secs
Chris makes progress on Upcase's to-dos in order to shift focus to after-the-funnel improvements, and makes a renewed vow to talk to customers for direct feedback. Meanwhile, Ben attends a conference, and while he picked up some great strategies for Formkeep on-boarding, he mostly just wants to fix the airline industry.
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189: Swimming Against a Stream of Complexity
April 11th, 2016 | Season 5 | 48 mins 35 secs
Chris keeps improving MRR on Upcase, patches a Javascript problem with a Javascript solution, and implements benefit focused text on course descriptions. On Formkeep, Ben discovers a flaw in an A/B test, deals with squirrely payment code, and prepares for a conference talk.
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188: I Have a Spreadsheet!
April 4th, 2016 | Season 5 | 45 mins 34 secs
Ben decides to A/B test pricing, begins grandfathering existing customers to the new tiers, teases new features on Formkeep, and recounts some interesting customer interactions. Meanwhile, Chris drives conversions through e-mail and Twitter, identifies unique customer segments, and brings in more of the thoughtbot voice to Upcase.
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187: Missed You!
March 28th, 2016 | Season 5 | 54 mins 20 secs
Chris welcomes a new member to team Upcase, confronts a drop in MRR, and looks forward to increased content production. On Formkeep, Ben introduces tiered pricing and trials, considers tier differentiators, and muses on what next to implement.
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186: Learning Through Experimentation (Ryan Buckley)
March 14th, 2016 | Season 5 | 37 mins 12 secs
Ben and Chris welcome on Ryan Buckley, co-founder of Scripted, for an honest discussion on the shortcomings, pain-points, and benefits that arise from restructuring a product's focus.
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185: The Funnel is Just the Beginning (Lincoln Murphy)
March 7th, 2016 | Season 5 | 30 mins 12 secs
Ben welcomes SaaS growth and customer success pioneer Lincoln Murphy to discuss the true importance of providing value to existing customers and focusing on their success, as every tactic you undertake as a business is predicated on understanding their desired outcome. He also delves into how focusing on customer type is beneficial for both consumers and producers, as well as gives Ben some feedback about Formkeep.
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184: I Love You, Businesses!
February 29th, 2016 | Season 5 | 50 mins 41 secs
Ben accidentally launches a Vim course, debates a B2B vs B2C focus, and feels out different Formkeep pricing tiers. Chris welcomes back a handful of former subscribers to Upcase, continues to work on content production, and integrates relevant content into broader thoughtbot docs.
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183: Embarrassing Trailing White-Space
February 22nd, 2016 | Season 5 | 49 mins 22 secs
Chris converts with email campaigns, lays out a time-table to churn out a ton of content, and tries to analyze a dip in revenue. Meanwhile, Ben tests the definition of what constitutes a "conference", focuses on how to enrich Formkeep for specific use cases, and makes headway on tiered pricing.
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182: The Weight of Javascript
February 15th, 2016 | Season 5 | 49 mins 15 secs
Ben finalizes Formkeep's Ember removal, toys with the idea of manual on boarding, and positions himself to begin experimenting with plans and pricing. Meanwhile, Chris deals with credit card fraud, too many inodes on Upcase's server, and finishes the changes required to offer free videos.
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181: Tying Your Work to Impact (Brian Balfour)
February 8th, 2016 | Season 5 | 42 mins 12 secs
Chris talks with growth expert Brian Balfour on starting and sustaining SaaS business, and his team's approach to addressing growth issues.
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180: We Don't Deal With Paper
February 1st, 2016 | Season 5 | 48 mins 3 secs
Chris gets a surprise while reviewing Upcase's Q4 profit & loss statement, gains some insight into e-mail marketing, wrestles with the added complexity of adding github auth-to-access, and brainstorms new community-driven projects. Meanwhile, Ben gets his hands dirty with Formkeep's Ember removal, is tempted by the siren's call of distraction, and gets an open review from the Bootstrapped Web podcast. Also, Chris does a live user-test of Formkeep's new user activation flow.