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Justin and Jason discuss how they lost a show due to a software malfunction, the challenge of running a larger company, how outsourcing services and infrastructure make it possible to scale a company more quickly, a high-quality and inexpensive freelance sys admin found by Justin, a talented designer recommended by Patrick McKenzie, startup ideas – The Recommended and AnyFu.com, Jason’s idea to generate a version of Iterations using AppIgnite, when it makes sense to release early and when it doesn’t, why perseverance is the most important attribute for an entrepreneur, whether it’s possible for Google and other large companies to expand their brand, Jason’s adjustment to using a Mac, TDD and when automated testing makes sense, the audacity of attempting to create a library or framework from scratch and why it’s important to try at least once.
Bwahahaha…. The first 10 seconds put a big smile on my face.
EPIC intro – please make that the official one!
yeah, that intro was amazing….a little long but amazing
@Sam Howley, @ericzoo, @Brad – Thanks very much for the kind words. It was a lot of fun making that intro, maybe I’ll spoof a few other shows in that way. I was thinking twighlight zone might be a good one….
+1 to how awesome the intro was. At first I was thinking “Hmmm wrong podcast” followed by grinning like an idiot on the train. Good stuff!
BTW totally agree on the framework. You should make your own at least once. I remember seeing a quote somewhere along the lines of,
“If you alway build your own framework you aren’t qualified to be a CTO. If you haven’t built your own framework at least once you aren’t qualified to be a CTO.”
I wish I could find the orginal quote, as it was quite good.
About Gooble buying YouTube: it just made sense. They want developers dreaming about becoming they next YouTube and getting bought for a billion dollars, because this means there is a constant influx of new and innovative web applications that just make the web as a whole more attractive and more valuable. Do you remember how desktop applications basically stagnated back in the 90’s because everybody knew that Microsoft would enter any promising new market and destroy all the competition?
Hey, funny you mentioned test-driven development in this episode… I used to work at Google for a couple of years as a computational linguist and it was pretty much the norm there to use this method. As my code was mostly automation I was creating for my own use, I didn’t have to do it and I always thought I was lucky to escape this giant waste of time. I left Google a few weeks ago to launch my own project and I thought I would maybe give tests a try in order to implement best practices from day one (a.k.a the kind of thing I’ve usually forgotten about after a week). Well, a few weeks in, my feeling is that I’ve been a giant idiot to wait that long before embracing test-driven development. Writing tests as you go is really fast and it makes debugging, documenting and rewriting functions soooo much easier. Honestly, I couldn’t see myself not writing tests as I code anymore. Like Jason, I always think I know better than anyone else what’s best for me… except sometimes I obviously don’t 🙂
(For those interested, I mostly use python and django, tests are a part of the framework and are therefore really easy to run)
Oh and as long as I’m commenting: Justin, what happened to the group of people you were gathering a while ago to pitch one of your ideas ?
Thanks for the show guys!
Loved the intro.
@bcurdy–good to see another djangonaut/pythonista!
Another great show.
Looks like bcurdy might be an ideal guest, ex google employee, has his own podcast (in two languages) and has his own start up.
Jason, I see your logic in creating Appignite hype by recreating “Iterations” But what is the point of driving traffic to your email submission form without a product? The web has a short memory, by the time you release the hype is dead, and you’re sending emails to a bunch of peeps who were once interested but have now forgotten what it is.
“Release-early, release-often” is not “cargo cult.” Do I need to replay the “market disruption” episode for you again? Remember “release cheap and dirty, and improve quality as you go”
I can’t believe you’re not building Appignite with automated testing. You are essentially making your customers beta testers…that’s not going to end well. Although perhaps I’ll make my first million selling test harnesses to Appignite customers.
As long as “Appignite” is vapor-ware we should call it “App-tease.” It doesn’t get respect until the talk stops and release starts!
@Neville
In terms of driving traffic to an email submission form, Rob Walling makes a pretty good case for it in this post:
http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2010/10/14/startup-marketing-part-6-why-you-should-start-marketing-the-day-you-start-coding/
Basically, if you launch with only 50 people on your email list (assuming you provide a discount that expires after a few days) you might make 2 sales (assuming 4% conversion) and that’s going to suck for your morale. But if you have 1,000 people on your email list and make 40 sales, that’s going to be like psychological rocket fuel. And if you have 10,000 and make 400 sales, then you’re off to the races.
I already have about 700 on the email list and have done little work in terms of building it up. I’m going to do some more blogging and a few other things that will hopefully push that number to at least 2-3K. If things work really well I think it might be possible to get something in the neighborhood of 5K and that would be a big deal for a bootstrapped web app.
I absolutely agree that “release-early, release-often” makes sense as a general rule, but I’m just not willing to release non-functional, buggy code. AppIgnite is a big project and has required a lot more work than most of the bootstrapped stuff you see being pushed out these days and that’s why it’s taking so long.
While I may not adhere to the orthodoxy of TDD, I do test my code extensively and will build in some more automated testing where it makes sense and doesn’t slow down development unnecessarily.
“App-tease” … – I suppose that’s fair enough. I’m just trying my best to get something out there that works and is useful as quickly as I can. Hopefully, it won’t take much longer and it will be able to earn some credibility, but I don’t expect it to receive any respect before then.
@Jason, “no respect” but “lots of love!” The truth is I’m really excited about Appignite and anxious to use it, every time you talk about it I get more excited. I’m ready to build something! Make me an Alpha user! I’ll even do black-box testing for ya!
@Neville – Thanks, I really do appreciate that. 😉 I promise you’ll be in my first batch of alpha users along with Justin and my wife. 😉
Say, did you ever add the contact info for Patrick McKenzie’s designer to the show notes?
William
@William – Oops, thanks for reminding me. Here’s the link to her site: http://www.gursimran.com. I’ll also add it to the show notes.
It’s great to hear experiences about freelancing/consulting and related things. Books rarely explain much about that side of software world.
Btw, I’d like to write an iTunes review, but Apple doesn’t make it easy unless I tie my credit card to the iTunes account (which I don’t want to do). There are people outside US who are not under the control of apple ;). Maybe I’ll just have to take the next option and write a blog entry.
@Juha – No problem, we’ll take a blog post any day! Thanks so much for helping to spread the word. 😉
LOL
I really liked the intro.
Hey Justin and Jason,
Funny to hear your idea about AnyFu.com.
Actually we are building a website exactly like that:
Check us out: http://www.minutebox.com
We are about to launch and still have a lot to do and to learn.
Would be great to get some comments from you guys.
Cheers
Josh
Awesome. I’ve been wanting a service like this to exist for ages. Will take a look and also do La Critique next discussion show.
We are waiting for Paypal’s approval of using their new API before we are ready to go. Will keep you posted and welcome the La Critique. 🙂
Cheers
Josh