Coincidently, I heard not one but two good examples today on how the disruptive nature of your product is affected by your choice of customer and the role that pricing plays in this.

Obviously the first example was from Paul in this episode – Gillette’s failure to exploit the disruptive potential of their Fusion product by positioning themselves as the expensive, premium product in the wet razor-blade market… instead of the cheap innovation to the high-end electric razor incumbents.

The second example was from Ash Maurya, who gave a talk at the Lean Startup Dublin meetup tonight. Ash talked about how to price an MVP and the role that pricing plays in creating desire for your product. The example he gave was Steve Jobs’ unavailing of the iPad. Steve stood on stage in front of a huge screen that displayed the price €999, and spoke about how superior the iPad was compared to a netbook. When the price of the iPad was finally revealed, €499 (“… half the price…”) , the crowd went wild. As Ash said, he could have sold the iPad as a larger iPhone, or a premium eReader. Instead he positioned it as the cheaper alternative to the netbook.

Although Ash was speaking about the effects of pricing on desire, I think it’s a nice example of a successful disruptive strategy to compliment Paul’s one.

Keep up the good,
Ciarán

http://anyfu.com/donnfelker
http://anyfu.com/lancejones
http://anyfu.com/joannawiebe

The pages really do look impressive. So much so I have abandoned any idea that I could be an expert on AnyFu.

On the other hand, I was listening to latest one on innovation while driving home. I must have stopped in three towns I was driving through, just to be able to take some notes on my phone while I could remember.

But yeah, it deserves its own wikipedia entry, someone should start – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techzing

I liked the Listener Questions – you guys should consider doing this as a regular segment or maybe even a whole episode of Listener Questions.

Here’s my question for you guys to answer on a future discussion show (maybe it was answered in a very early episode but I don’t really remember it being brought up): how did Jason and Justin first meet? What’s the story behind the podcast and how it got started?

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/steve_jobs_solved_the_innovato.html

Near the end, the author of the article calls out Christensen’s one big miss in terms of predicting disruption… Apple…

I enjoyed the interview, guys. And given the feedback above, it was a learning experience for all.

Paul, congrats on your Apple stock purchase. It was a very intelligent move, based on your contrarian view of the future.

I had enjoyed Thomas Thurston’s show, but I think this show widened the field by looking at attributes other than worse/cheaper/improving-fast, such as simplicity creating new unserved or under-served markets.
Although the Apple story is bit over-played these days, the focus on RIM and IBM was interesting too.

As a long time user of Pluggio, I also was also quite intrigued about Paul’s recommendations like more simplification, focus on making tweeting more approachable to a broader user base, as well as the suggestion to make it easier to filter and bubble tweets on topics you care a lot about. It’s true that you miss most of the tweet stream and an automated curation / tweets-you-must-see view would be super useful.

So hopefully this provides another positive counter-weight. Thanks for another show on the innovative disruption.

@Paul, I am definitely going to download/read the “Disruptive Confusion Unraveled!” ebook and subscribe to the paper.li!

@Helmut. Glad you got some value and saw that much of this is common sense. I do not profess to have all the answers. I do have a strong predictive analytic tool that accurately identifies disruptors and identifies success factors and weaknesses. I also have a strong track record of success with my clients in shaping disruptive innovations, although I was conscious of trying not make this a sales pitch for myself, or of disclosing confidential things about my clients. There is not a magic pill, but there are repeating patterns leading to market disruption which have been observed over long periods of time in many industries. You may be interested in downloading an ebook from my site which elaborates on the value of those predictions. (It requires registration, but I promise you won’t be badgered with marketing, and you can even put garbage in most of the fields if that makes you feel safer.) Follow this link to get it: tiny.cc/dsrpt_ebook

I probably did not stress enough that disruptive innovation is not a theory about products, but a theory about marketing, and how new products and services can capture a toehold and grow to replace and become the new dominant market incumbent. Regarding why I am not applying this to my own business, you can look at that two ways. The theory isn’t applicable to what I do. I’m not a developer, so I apply my market strategy, customer development and analysis skills through people that are. But, since I frequently take equity compensation, in a way I am applying it to my own businesses. Personally, I don’t wish to be a large business, so my goal is not to dominate a market but to work on fun and interesting projects. I’ve worked with a number of successful startups, and that suits me fine. That said, I am applying some disruptive concepts to create services that I intend to make freely available. I will let Justin + Jason know when you can sample them.

@nethy. Good summary, although achieving those things is easier said than done. I wouldn’t describe it as cliche — that pattern is what makes things disruptive. In other words, the definition of a low-end disruption is a low-priced innovation, addressing an undesirable (to incumbents), low-margin segment with features that incumbent customers consider inadequate. It has to appear to incumbents to not be competitive so that they don’t feel compelled to attack and defend their territory, which is why the innovation is ultimately able to succeed, grow strong, and then move upmarket.

One other thing that’s important is targeting an unmet or under-served need (targeting non-consumption is a subset of this). The question is how do you know which under-served needs customers will pay for a solution for, and how much they’re willing to pay. This is where the concept of a “job to be done” is important. Click this link to download a 2007 article (pdf) from Harvard Business Review that describes why this is an important attribute of disruptive innovations. (In the podcast, we discussed finding a job for which Pluggio is uniquely suited as the best candidate for hire, and how Pluggio could be enhanced to be the perfect and maybe only candidate for that job (content curation, in an ecosystem that includes social media and special interest publications designed by consultants, businesses, hobbyists). This is where that thought process for Pluggio comes from. If you’re inclined to more detailed “how to” guides, there is an excellent book by Anthony Ulwick “What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services”, which is where Christensen borrowed the original idea from.

@Mikael. Thanks for your constructive critique. I agree that more current and familiar examples would have improved the result. The reason we picked the Apple example is that when the iPhone was released in 2007, many people said it was not a disruptive innovation, that it would not be able to compete effectively in an already crowded market, and predicted incorrectly that it would flop, including Clayton Christensen (father of disruption theory) and Thomas Thurston (founder of Growth Science) who created a predictive modelling tool to identify disruptors. My model predicted the opposite, and I documented that in an extensive article published on the eve of the iPhone’s release. When I originally approached Jason and Justin about this, they were curious about how my analytics and view of disruption differed such that I could arrive at such a different conclusion based on the same data. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the iPhone would be a huge success, but at the time, it certainly wasn’t. (For those curious about how to apply these insights for investing, I put my money where my mouth is, purchasing a significant amount of Apple stock, which is now trading more than 600% higher.) It’s interesting that Steve Ballmer laughed at how ridiculous the notion of a phone from Apple was in 2007, yet today, less than 5 years later, the iPhone business alone is bigger than Microsoft, and far more profitable. Most entrepreneurs who listen to this show have a desire for this kind of breakthrough success for their products, so understanding the key factors that drive disruption, which factors work against disruptive success, and how to design products and services deliberately to be disruptive is critical for those individuals. It sounds like, based on other remarks, that perhaps we should have spent more time diagnosing Pluggio, and suggested enhancements to make it disruptive, which I would be happy to do.

@Matt. Thank you as well for the constructive feedback. I agree with most of what you said.

With guests like Rob Walling or Peter Cooper, who are used to being recorded and speaking to an audience, you can give them that kind of rope because they know how to time their own speaking, but with anyone lacking that experience you need to provide guardrails even if it means a few unappreciated interruptions. I think we did Paul a bit of a disservice by giving him as wide of a berth as we did, and I feel bad that he’s had to read so much negative feedback as I’m well-acquainted with the ill feeling you get in your stomach when you read that kind of stuff. I’ll try to do a better job in the future of providing more of a framework for future guests, but if you found anything positive from the interview that you’d be willing to share it would be nice to hear some of it if just to balance out the disappointment.

By the way, I think we’re going to take a break from interviews for the next couple weeks and get back to doing some discussion shows. I know I’ve been missing them and am just about to burst at the seems with unsupported theories, observations and opinions. Also, after putting as much work as we have into AnyFu over the past few weeks we definitely have some new insights to share, and besides I think we’re well overdue for a comprehensive debriefing.

And even if this wasn’t everyone’s favorite episode – come on, you guys have cranked out 170 freakin’ episodes by now – there’s no way they’ll all be on the same level and appeal to everyone. You’re doing a great show and I’m looking forward to the next ep.

Btw, is there a way to set up a recurring donation? Just thought it would make sense with an automatic “latte-a-month” donation (or whatever level one would like), instead of you guys having to remind us forgetful long-time listeners to pitch in.

I would be more interested to hear Paul’s feedback for Pluggio because I found it a bit hard to draw practical conclusions from the information. I found myself feeling the same way when you interviewed Joanna Weibe until she started giving Justin direct feedback on his headlines.

Also, Jason – why not bring up Uber? They are certainly seem disruptive and the audience is familiar with them. I had trouble understanding some of the conclusions Paul was making because I am not familiar with the rise of the 90s-era tech companies (IBM, Oracle, Motorola), only the fall. Maybe trying to work in some more recent examples (Dropbox, Airbnb, etc) would have helped.

Anyways – hope this kind of feedback is helpful! Looking forward to the next discussion show.

A gentle suggestion: if you suspect that a show isn’t up to you usual high standard, you don’t have to publish it (even though feelings of the interviewee may be hurt). But techzing has a hard earned reputation that deserves protecting.

Long time listeners will know that this episode is not your greatest and won’t think less of the show. But I would hate first time listeners getting the wrong idea and not giving you a second chance.

Anyway, thanks for putting in the effort, I know you both put on a lot of effort into this, for little cash reward, so comments like these (including mine) might be a bit of a downer, so don’t take it to heart!

Looking forward to the next great episode.

Cheers,

James.

Are the trolls getting more innovative to disrupt techzing? Or did the guys make a rarely seen fumble?

I haven’t listened to the episode, but I’m willing to give it ten minutes to find out.

I was clinically dead at 09:11 in.

( 9 minutes and he is still talking without any interaction from you guys .. )

Good episode.

A lot of technology sucks, especially at first. Features develop around limitations that might no longer exists. Features get added randomly or as they become possible. etc. etc.

There are often opportunities to make better products by simplifying & getting better at the core. One of the most straightforward example is the flipcam. 1hr battery, 1 hr recording. play. record. That’s it. Everyone could understand (and afford it).

It could have been 4X as expensive (mid range) with larger replaceable batteries, more memory, resolution, etc etc. It might have been as successful, if it had still been as simple. The question is, would they have made it that simple if they weren’t making it that cheap? Cheap goes well with simple. It requires it, justifies it. If you try to answer the question of “how do I make a computer for under $100 that some people will like?” any good answers you find will probably be innovative.

Maybe cheaper/worse is just a proxy for some more general rule about simplifying and reinventing or something. But, it’s still worth noticing how many disruptive products do fall into the cliche disruptive technology category – cheaper/worse/simpler/competing with non consumption… Maybe it’s not that great an idea to replace this rule of thumb with “it depends”. Just this once Jason

Just personal point of view from a very skeptical person. None the less excellent comment sense points of view brought to life during the interview.

Good job guys.

Justin was little harsh on Nozbe so here is some info:

Nozbe has a free plan and only serious limit is that maximum number of projects at one time is 5.

You could have downgraded to free plan and your few dozen notes would be just fine

Nozbe is best used as tool for “Getting things done”…

For a simple to-do list use big text file or paper and pen

In case you’re interested, here are the profiles for our first three approved experts:

http://anyfu.com/donnfelker
http://anyfu.com/lancejones
http://anyfu.com/joannawiebe

If you don’t mind, send me the email of the person who needs a Microsoft Workflow expert and I’ll see if I can get one registered on the site. Like you said, it’s a great way to entice an expert to register – “Hey, so and so wants to hire you. Register now!”

Fair enough. I think most people would rather see that get over the line and you guys launch it while doing the podcast. I am very curious to see it launch actually as there was someone I know looking for for an expert in Microsoft Workflow and I wanted to point them at AnyFu.

Actually thinking on that, it might be worth searching over twitter looking for people in “Technology” lists who tweet “Looking for expert in”. Pretty direct marketing strategy if you have the people on AnyFu. That said I am certain one of you have through of that already.

I honestly never meant to denigrate any other part of the country when I was advising young hackers to give the Bay Area a shot, and if it came across that way I sincerely apologize. From my perspective it was really no different than telling as aspiring painter to go to Paris or an aspiring actor to go to Hollywood. In fact, Justin and I actually live in LA, which is six hours south of SF and is practically considered a different state by those who live in northern California.

Also, while there may be a number of very good reasons to go to the Bay Area – the primary one being to hook into the startup world, there are also plenty of very valid reasons not to go – family, friends, or just the fact that you love where you live. I certainly had a chance to move up to SF last year to work for Uber and one of the main reasons that I decided not to was that I simply prefer living in Pasadena. So, there you have it.

Anyway, we’ll be looking for you in the comments.

I actually saw Jonathan’s 1st comment before I got a chance to listen to the show and was also bummed about the content. But @Jonathan I give you credit for apologizing. Now you really will need to write a lot of insightful comments on TZ to make it up!

Jason and Justin, as you suggested a while ago in an episode, just focus on the positive contributions and keep it up, you’re on a roll!

The discussion on the value proposition of stripe, especially the pricing was very enlightening. The main points were:
– competitors keep all the various fees and surcharge opaque (e.g. gateway fee, PCI fee, international card fee, Amex, etc.)
– Stripe sort of finds a middle point to make pricing match fair value (i.e. does not for failed charge attempts)
– the high degree of integration does save time and money since other competitors often still only provide paper channel statements and reports making it difficult to reconcile fees and so on.
– Patrick indicated they plan on improving the pricing as companies scale

Being a Rubyist I found it cool that the platform was built on core Ruby and Sinatra.
Overall I think that the focus that Stripe has on developers and easy integration is quite fascinating. So thanks for inviting Patrick.

@matt S- point taken, you are correct, thank you. I am actually not like that normally, but now in everyone’s eyes I am.
@Ben Boyter – you’re that was a troll post, and I’m sorry
@Alfie – I agree it is a good show

@Jason – I am sorry for the nastiness of the post and that I lashed out like that. Had no reason to direct that rage at you and actually visited here today to remove my post.

Feel free to delete whatever comments here you want to clean up the mess I left.

-Jon

You guys have done a couple of great shows in such a sort time period. Maybe a bit of a break is deserved? Let the dust settle and let the hot heads move on… the last thing we want is to have TechZing become more of an obligation rather than a bit of fun.

I just hope the sudden rise in hostility isn’t a trend because it sure takes the fun out of doing the show.

If so, Congrats guys! You now have trolls to go with the fans.

Please take a minute and read this post.

What are you trying to accomplish with this kind of post? You offer no constructive criticism or any form of evidence refuting Jason’s opinions. I am pretty floored that a podcast could incite such a strong negative reaction – but you aren’t strengthening your position with the kind of comment you decided to leave.

You rail against Jason for his stereotyping of West coast programmers, then proceed to make your own sweeping and unsubstantiated claims about how all people in Silicon Valley are assholes. To me, your post is just mean-spirited and ends up reflecting poorly on you – not Jason.

My advice is that if you don’t agree with show and don’t want to contribute to an intelligent discussion, simple don’t listen. Trolling the comments of a tech podcast is certainly not a productive use of your time, nor Justin and Jason’s time.

~David~

OK….and as a suggestion for a timely tech topic to discuss on your next “discussion style” show, here goes:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/112915336632820293699/posts/B1Kde61Q7pg

@Path & @Hipster….. if a THIEF steals your wallet and immediately / voluntarily confesses their crime to the police, but the police don’t explain to the self-confessed THIEF exactly what the THIEF’S “user data privacy rights” are prior to receiving the THIEF’S confession, then the police are prohibited by law from “using the THIEF’S data (confession)”. The police can’t merely “admit they dropped the ball and promise to revamp their systems and to never make the mistake again”…..BUT…..meanwhile, still use the THIEF’S confession against the THIEF in court. So why should you (@path & @hipster) benefit from having violated Apple’s and your users’ data privacy expectations / agreements? You should immediately suspend new user signups and any plans for a “user data app dev summit”…..unless and until you erase your user database (not your user’s contact list….I’m talking about erasing YOUR APP’s backend user database) and start over…..launching your app all over again with zero users……on the same leveled playing field the more honorable (and in this case….disadvantaged) app dev’s have ALWAYS stuck to. Oh…..and if you do erase / start over from scratch…..then the “user data app dev summit” is a FANTASTIC IDEA and would be a great forum from which to relaunch (and to announce your “first” user sign ups!).

As a corollary, ya’ know who could insure that such a transparent, honorable corrective action happened…….and could insure it was completed within the next 24 hours?@path’s and @hipster’s Angel and/or Venture investors. What’s been heard publicly from all of them? So far…..not much.

How is any of this different than allowing the financial institutions that violated all manner of “user agreements” while contributing to the Economic Crisis in 2008 to just apologize, reshuffle a few “C-level” employees, and then keep right on going….thus effectively penalizing any financial institutions who operated within the parameters of the law all along?

~D~

I was worried about the SSN stuff until you mentioned you could use an LLC’s EIN.

I have moved all my domains except one from GoDaddy to NameCheap. It was painless and I’ve been doing it over the course of this past year as domains expired. I didn’t do it because of SOPA — I did it because I got sick of their stupid commercials. I went with NameCheap after seeing so them many times on Hacker News.

Great work on keep up the podcast. I always learn about some new stuff.
With respect to Anyfu, I would love to be part of BETA Group and be the expert. (We can connect offline to detailed out my experties)

FYI,
When I tried to signup, your registration page for anyfu resulted in error.

Thanks
Kashi

Jusssssst kiddddding!!!!!

The Stripe interview will be live within the next hour or so

Surely there must be enough there to continue the podcast.

Like you a big reason I made the change was being inspired by listening to TechZing, so thanks Jason and Justin! Hearing you talk about the details of your projects and those of people you interview made me realise the value of having a go and putting something out there. I’m a lot better informed now about all the marketing and strategy beyond coding the product.

You have just experienced first hand feedback from a unhappy customer (the show is free, are we still customers?). I would not take axure’s comments to the extreme that make you consider canceling the show but rather look at all the people that are supporting your show by leaving great comments on this post.

I think it will be OK for you not to be fully “prepared” for several of your past 167 shows, you have done your best to take time off your busy schedule to record a podcast with Justin and, in my personal opinion that is one of the relaxed things I found about your show, it is a show about you and your point of view. Not some one just reciting what they “investigated” for the past 2 weeks. If anything, some of the shows have brought up items to light that I end up doing more research on.

@Axure,

Was it necessary to be so harsh on a blog comment? I believe that if you have such strong feelings about the show the best would be to email them directly and I am sure they would have been more than happy to interact with you through directly (I have done it and they are great guys).

Also, since you are listener since podcast #80 you would have noticed that the guys do their best to be prepared for the show, you would know by now about all their responsibilities that each of them have and the things they put aside to put up a podcast for all of us to listen to on a regular basis. But again since you seem to be so knowledgable on the Podcast business why don’t you share with us your podcast so that we all can listen to it and learn how “it is done”?

I’ll admit, I skip over parts of your podcasts at times, but I do that with every podcast. And I can’t get used to 2x like Rob. I also go in spurts where I don’t check Hacker News for a couple weeks or throw out a Wired magazine. I just don’t have time to keep up 100%. But that’s only because at times I’m focused on only learning things that’ll help my startup ventures and cutting out all other info consumption.

But then there’s times I want to relax and listen to the latest tech news from the likes of TZ and TWIG. Heck I didn’t hear about Facebook going public until late (like 30 minutes ago).

So fellas if you want to change up your format from time to time go ahead. If you don’t that’s fine too. If it feels natural start off with startup stuff the first half and misc tech news the second half, and possibly put time markers in the podcast description (I’ve seen this elsewhere). But if that’s too much trouble forget it. In the end it’s your call and all about what you enjoy doing and how you do it.

Thanks for all the great episodes!

-Phil

P.S. Great meeting you guys at MicroConf last year. Hope to see you there again for round 2.

@Jason, I was really surprised to see you not defend yourself! Perhaps it is because you hold yourself to such a high standard that you think the same thing as @Axure. I think that it’s often the way that people who achieve great things are their own worst critics. And let me be clear – Techzing is GREAT! It is the only show that I keep coming back for more. I’ve listened to Mixergy, No Agenda, This American Life and This Week in Science – Techzing is the one I love the most and listen to every time!

I don’t think that you were serious about quitting, but just in case, let me say “don’t you f’ing dare!!!!”

Can’t wait for the next episode!

-James

*What are you two doing in the pub? Jason doesn’t touch the stuff and Justin you shouldn’t be drinking!

I can’t thank you enough.

And if someone doesn’t like the format or the content of the show, nobody is forcing them to listen to it.

Thanks for doing the podcast – I’ve been listening for the past twenty shows or so, and I’m really enjoying it!

As someone working on a startup, I find the discussions of the business, marketing and technology aspects of anyfu, pluggio and appignite very interesting. One request – can you go back to doing updates on these projects at the top of each show (I’m less interested in the tech and political news discussions

@Ruben Gamez
“You might as well use text to speech on Google News and have a computer read you stuff if that’s all you’re looking for. ”

But I already do (almost) exactly that! Except, I use the best TTS software in the world (Expressivo) and my news source is an RSS reader of my own invention.

@Brendan Houng
“is the only show where I compulsively check for new episodes.”

Amen to that!
(We must be pumping up TZ’s web stats pretty badly.

Honestly there aren’t many cool podcasts like this one, the depth on the topics and dev talk is really fun. Even when Jason is just speculating that’s valuable to me, that’s what we do we speculate, I like to hear the opinion of someone else on a topic, I don’t want to hear to a science report.

I think that your podcast doesn’t go huge on listeners because it’s good meat, and not everybody has good taste. Yeah if you start asking your guests “Hey man, how did you make your millions tell us your secret!” then you might get tons of listeners, but do you really want those listeners?
They’re the ones that don’t care about the process they want to eat the cake early.

You’re doing just fine, love your show.

http://itunes.apple.com//podcast/techzing-tech-podcast/id318567721

/us/ – 44 ratings
/gb/ – 15 ratings
/au/ – 7 ratings

Weird.

You guys have a lot of personality and a great vibe on the show and it’s one of the few podcasts that I really enjoy listening to because of it. It’s why 1000+ people listen to you every week.

For me, the topics are just an excuse to listen to you guys have fun conversations and bs about stuff. Researching topics for hours to have long/detailed conversations about the facts isn’t what makes TechZing great. It’s also not what people connect with (the type of people you want in your audience anyways).

I like the balance between discussion of your own projects, startups in general and tech stories. I haven’t listened to this episode yet but I think the last few discussion shows have shifted the balance a bit too far towards news stories (for my taste). Still really enjoyable though and I’ve heard about a lot of stories I would have missed otherwise.

If you don’t feel like you have enough prep time to talk about 15 news items, only bring 5 – and if you still don’t have time, just bring yourself and talk with Justin about your projects/consulting.

No one said every episode had to be 90 minutes – if you two are in the middle of a busy week, try a half and hour show with just AnyFu/Pluggio updates. I’d prefer shorter episodes until things settle down to you overworking yourself and shutting the whole thing down.

Yeah, you miss a fact now and than, but at least from time to time I can say too myself: “See, I know something they don’t ”

I started listening techzing few years ago as a way “to get some value from these ‘experts’ “.

But now, to me, you are more like buddies in a pub!
I’ll sit with you for a few hours and listen to what ever you have to say (even if it’s bollocks ).
After years of hearing your voice I simply enjoy your “company”

Keep on rocking!

@Jason: Thumbs up for you man, your endurance is inspiration for many of us!

So if that means that sometimes you are not as prepared as you would like, or that I decide to skip a topic here and there because I’m not interested, I am personally ok with that. I would certainly rather TZ stay on the air than you guys shut it down because you feel pressure to invest what may amount to a personally impractical amount of time into prep work.

Keep on keepin on, yo!

However I think the interviews are the real value. You guys get into better detail than Mixergy (I like those interviews too).

Thanks for doing the podcasts.

P.S. please don’t take your microphone home

OK, so it’s a hobby, as I said, that’s totally fine.

@jmlsmn, it’s not so much about the time on the air, as it is about saying something sensible (i.e. providing value for the audience) in whatever time frame you choose.

Don’t let it get in your head. A lot of us appreciate the work you do and that you guys are cool enough and brave enough to put it out there for the world to hear.

Looking forward to meeting you guys at MicroConf and buying you a pint.

But I agree that the show would be much better, I would be better anyway, if I had a few hours to prepare for each show rather than the measly 20 minute scramble I allot myself just before we start recording.

The problem is that I have a very bad habit of taking on too many things at once, and that’s the case now with doing the show on top of a full-time consulting gig with Uber, two ongoing side-projects – Appignite and AnyFu, raising three little kids, coaching soccer, etc. I guess the first thing to cut would be the podcast, so maybe that’s just what needs to happen. As my dad always said, “If you’re not going to do something right, then don’t do it at all.”

To me, unfortunately, this is the weakest side of TechZing Discussion shows: The fact that you don’t put much effort into researching the stories you’re talking about (with occasional exceptions). Sometimes it’s just irritating when you pretend to know something about a topic and toss around inaccurate assertions and “facts”. (And that’s mainly Jason. Justin thankfully is more reserved.) Or admit that you don’t know much, and yet decide to discuss a topic by repeating hearsay, vaguely remembered details and opine on that basis.

Sorry for the tough love, but you can’t honestly expect to get gazillions of new listeners, when you don’t bother to do your homework.

Of course, I realize that researching a story requires much more time than just listing a bunch of links / headlines as show topics and skimming through the articles, 30 seconds each. So maybe you should ask yourselves whether you want this show to go somewhere or is it just a hobby. It’s totally OK if you don’t have the time because of AnyFu and other commitments. Just don’t be surprised that the audience numbers are – and will remain – flat.

Hearing about other people’s startups and going in depth on the stories behind the is really inspiring. I’m looking forward to some more discussion of Justin and Jason’s projects, I’m missing the Pluggio updates!

Loved the format and the guests.

More like this please!

thank you for going into all the detail.

Great job to all!

To put it into perspective of how hooked I was to this episode, I sat in my car on the driveway for 20 minutes after getting home just so I could hear the end of it.

Great job!

I got the feeling that at some points of the conversation was driven more by the Kaggle guys than by Justin and Jason. The topic and the company are indeed really interesting, but If I had to compare, I enjoyed much more Rob Walling’s interview, felt much more engage to it and I guess Jason & Justin did too.

Great guests, great story telling and very interesting topics.

I was already thinking it was one of the “best of techzing episodes” and then Jeremy casually said name of the company that he sold – FastMail !

As an loyal Fastmail (and Opera) user for almost 10 years I felt like the coolness factor of your guests just jumped up exponentially

There is something universally true in what Anthony and Jeremy said about big part of it beeing the passion and dedication of people who get involved in those competitions “for sake of it”.

Thank you Internet for places like Techzing, Kaggle, StartupGuild

ps. Loved how the focus was switching from one guest to another. Getting a different perspective on same topic was valuable. You should invite two guests in one show more often.

BTW, when pitching potential interviewees, you should probably send them a link to this one, saying “If you want to know what our show is like, check out this recent episode.”

Also, guys, you really need a redesign of this website. If you don’t have time for this, just hire someone. But don’t let it hang until you have some spare time in some indefinite future.

2 hours, but no boring bits

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calculator.html

Happy new year guys… from Switzerland!

Jason often bemoans the monotony of the treadmill/bike so it seems like kettlebells could be mixed into his normal routine for a nice break. And yes, one will break a sweat with them. There’s nothing fru-fru about them — a kettlebell is an iron cannonball with a handle.

I thought the convenience of kettlebells would appeal to Justin along with the combo of cardio and strength training in one workout. It’s a very efficient use of time.

Anyway, kettlebells have worked for me and I enjoy (and look forward to!) my workouts. YMMV

I too was thinking the same things as I was listening to this part of the show, eventually though, I just skipped to the end since I like Jason the entrepreneur much better the Doom and Gloom Jason which he brings to the show at times.

It’s going to be part of my strategy for some time to come, although there are more suggestions than my blog can handle!

One interesting thing that comes to mind is how HitTail acts as a complex system with feedback to the content creator (if that’s the correct terminology for it).

What I mean is that the tool gives you feedback, and you write more on those key terms. In turn, you’ll get a slightly different set of keyword suggestions coming from traffic to that newer content.

Over time, the suggestions could take you in a direction away from your original topic.

At least the owner just applies common sense. It’s usually immediately obvious to me if I should follow up on a suggestion or not, since I know the content I want to cover. So there’s no harm to it, but it’s just an interesting little thing to think that HitTail could bring your content to slightly different topics over time.

Anyway, I’d recommend it to anyone who produces content online regularly.