UPDATE: WorkWithDevs was a podcast project I have now sunsetted. It was, I believe, a solid idea. In all honesty, I realized I wasn’t motivated enough to work on it alone nights & weekends. You can still listen to the four Alpha episodes though! Last week, a family member…
On paper, software and web development is a structured, orderly process. But developing IRL? It's mostly chaos. Technical decisions, new stacks, social notifications, shoulder taps, calls, meetings, family duty, GIFs... SLACK! try{ Work(); } catch(ChaosOverloadException ex){ Logger.LogFatal("(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ ", ex); Tables.FlipAllOfThem(); }No wonder maintaining developer productivity is an everyday struggle.…
“What’s your business model?” “B2D.” “What?” “Business-to-developers. We’re selling our product to developers.” “Wait, why? The B2C market is HUGE. The B2B market is MONEY $$$.” Since we launched Snipcart in 2013, I went through countless variants of the above. Four years in and tens of thousands in MRR…
Has your customer support ever felt like a re-enactment of the Sisyphus myth? 40 opened tickets. You breathe in, roll up your sleeves: “Hold my coffee mug, I’m going in!” 5 hours later 15 opened tickets. You self-five yourself for all the issues solved amidst your ad-hoc to-dos. Content,…
Startups are scary. Exciting, sure. But scary nonetheless. Ask any founder who’s been up all night, obsessing over bugs, competition, funding, cashflow, or growth. Medium’s filled with their tales of woe. When we launched Snipcart in 2013, I remember being scared: “You’re going against Shopify. Or WooCommerce.…
I almost didn't publish this post. I went through with it because: 1) I've promised myself and a friend I'd eventually grow the balls to publicly discuss my anxiety. It's Bell Let's Talk day in Canada, so I couldn't wish for a better occasion. 2) I'm tired of only seeing…
I'm sitting in the Seattle-Tacoma airport, laptop on my thighs. My flight for Victoria BC is just about to leave. But a big BOOK NOW on my screen is absorbing all of my attention. "This is the final boarding call for flight 2364. All remaining passengers for this flight…
May 2016. I'm on a startup panel, standing in front of a crowd of business students. A few youngsters have that magnetic ambition in their eyes so common among 19-year-old business majors. The rest sport the more conservative "who the heck is this guy and when is he going to…
After running our SaaS, Snipcart, for two years, it was pricing that disrupted our small team’s harmony. It was pricing that triggered our first real argument. Our product manager had just come up with the suggestion to add a minimal fee to our percentage-based commission. And our lead engineer…
The last four posts I've written here were strictly about content marketing. In-depth, evergreen, and actionable articles. I just re-read them all, as a matter of fact. And I'm proud of the work I've done structuring my knowledge and experience into useful resources. I still regularly send these posts to…