Podcast appearances and mentions of rob fitzpatrick

This podcast is brought to you by Outcomes Rocket, your exclusive healthcare marketing agency. Learn how to accelerate your growth by going to outcomesrocket.com Innovation and efficiency are opposing ideas, with a focus on cost-per-lesson-learned being key to effective innovation processes.  In this episode, Ty Hagler, Founder and Principal at Trig, shares how his company helps medical innovators navigate the journey from early-stage prototyping to commercialization. He discusses his background, from Olympic hopeful to Home Depot innovator, before founding Trig and discovering his passion for medical devices. Ty highlights their Med Design Training, which emphasizes understanding clinical needs as the "North Star" for any medical device company. He also shares a success story of Couplet Care, an infant bassinet designed for postpartum mothers, and offers insights on market validation, FDA clearance, and practical business tips for medical innovators. Tune in and learn how to reduce your cost-per-lesson-learned to a minimum and take what you're doing to the next level! Resources:  Connect and follow Ty Hagler on LinkedIn. Learn more about Trig on their LinkedIn and website. Buy Profit First by Mike Michalowicz here. Get The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick here. Fast Track Your Business Growth: Outcomes Rocket is a full-service marketing agency focused on helping healthcare organizations like yours maximize your impact and accelerate growth. Learn more at outcomesrocket.com

★ Unterstützt den Podcast via Patreon und erhaltet exklusive Bonusfolgen ★---Holt euch das Buch: Gumroad (10€ ebook) oder AmazonIn seinem Buch Der Mom Test beschreibt Rob Fitzpatrick wie ihr aus euren Kundengesprächen bessere und mehr Informationen extrahiert. Anhand von vielen Beispielen geht Rob Fitzpatrick darauf ein wie gute und wie schlechte Gespräche ablaufen und wie ihr verhindert letztere zu führen. Wir versuchen euch anhand eigener Beispiele das Thema näherzubringen und hoffen ihr habt viel Spaß an unseren Rollenspielen.- Simons zweiter Podcast: Digitales StandbeinSchwarz auf Weiß Rating:Verständlichkeit F 5/5 & S 5/5Umsetzbarkeit F 5/5 & S 4/5Würde ich weiterverschenken?  F Ja & S Ja---Feedback, Wünsche und Beschimpfungen könnt ihr uns gerne per Email schicken: feedback@swpodcast.deDu willst mehr lesen und dich mit Gleichgesinnten austauschen? Dann komm in unseren SW Podcast Buchclub Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Ideas on Stage podcast we spoke with Pedram Parasmand. Pedram brings 24 years of learning design and facilitation experience in the public, private, charity and education sectors. He has designed and delivered programmes ranging from culture change initiatives in Governmental bodies; Exec team development in companies like Kimberly-Clarke and Netflix; soft-skills and creativity workshops for managers in companies like Google and Siemens; to bootcamps for new starters in the digital start-up sector. As an ex-theoretical Physicist who loves systems and frameworks, he developed tools and templates to create a repeatable process to design, develop and facilitate transformational experiences. He now supports consultant coaches, trainers and facilitators to create more sales opportunities and scale their impact. In this episode we talked about the art and science of facilitating workshops. What You'll Learn:- The essential first step to designing workshops that engage and inspire- Common mistakes in facilitation- Why creating key moments in workshops can transform participant experiences- Six activity formats that boost engagement and participation- Tips for guiding activities, managing disruptions and sparking meaningful insights We hope you enjoy it! ———————Pedram Parasmand: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedramparasmand/ - Website: https://www.theskillslab.com/ Recommended books: - Performance-Focused Smile Sheets by Will Thalheimer - The Workshop Survival Guide by Rob Fitzpatrick and Devin Hunt- The Secrets of Facilitation by Michael Wilkinson ———————IDEAS ON STAGE RESOURCES - Books: ‘Confident Presenter’ (https://www.ideasonstage.com/resources/confident-presenter-book/) and ‘Business Presentation Revolution’ (https://www.ideasonstage.com/business-presentation-revolution/book/)- The Confident Presenter Scorecard: https://ideasonstage.com/score - Free Web Class: https://www.ideasonstage.com/uk/masterclass - Free Mini-Course: https://bit.ly/confident-presenter-mini-course #IdeasOnStagePodcast#WorkshopFacilitation#EngagingWorkshops#FacilitationSkills#WorkshopDesign

Chapter 1:Summary of The Mom Test"The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick is a practical guide on how to effectively gather customer feedback and validate business ideas through conversations. The core principle of the book is that many entrepreneurs fail to get honest and useful feedback because they ask biased questions or frame their ideas in a way that leads to misleading compliments, especially from friends and family.Key points include:1. Ask Good Questions: Instead of asking if someone would buy your product, focus on their experiences, problems, and behaviors. Questions should be open-ended and designed to elicit genuine insights rather than praise.2. Avoid Pitching: When you seek feedback, avoid discussing your idea initially. This prevents the conversation from becoming a sales pitch and encourages people to share their true thoughts.3. Listen Actively: Pay attention to what the other person says. Listen for pain points and needs that might indicate a viable market opportunity.4. Seek Specificity: Encourage interviewees to provide concrete examples rather than general opinions. This can help you understand the context of their experiences and challenges.5. Stay Engaged and Iterative: Use early conversations to iterate on your understanding of the problem and refine your ideas based on real feedback.The book emphasizes that the key to successful customer validation lies in asking the right questions, maintaining an open mindset, and prioritizing genuine conversations over superficial affirmations. By applying these principles, entrepreneurs can better gauge market needs and refine their products or services accordingly.Chapter 2:The Theme of The Mom Test"The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick is a practical guide on how to conduct effective customer interviews to validate business ideas. The book emphasizes the importance of asking the right questions to gain genuine insights into customer needs and preferences. Here are the key plot points, character development (in this context, more about the author's approach and perspective), and thematic ideas presented in the book: Key Plot Points1. Understanding the Problem: The book starts by establishing the common pitfalls entrepreneurs face when discussing their ideas with friends and family (the titular "Mom Test"). People often give positive feedback to avoid hurting feelings, which can lead to misconceptions about a business's viability.2. Asking the Right Questions: Fitzpatrick encourages readers to formulate questions that focus on real experiences rather than hypothetical scenarios. He outlines techniques to guide conversations that reveal truthful information from potential customers.3. The Importance of Listening: The narrative emphasizes the need for active listening during interviews. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to listen closely to what potential customers say and to observe their body language and emotions.4. Learning from Failure: The book discusses the inevitability of failure in the entrepreneurial journey and posits that failure can provide valuable learning experiences if approached correctly.5. Turning Insights into Actions: Fitzpatrick concludes by explaining how to leverage the insights gathered from customer interviews to refine business ideas and improve product development. Character DevelopmentWhile "The Mom Test" is not a narrative fiction with characters, Rob Fitzpatrick's voice and perspective serve as the central "character." His approach and development as a mentor to entrepreneurs are crucial throughout the book. - Tone of Awareness: Fitzpatrick's writing reflects awareness of common psychological biases and mistakes that entrepreneurs make. He evolves from the typical mindset of seeking validation to fostering genuine dialogue with potential users.- Guide and...

Did you like the episode? Send me a text and let me know!!Mastering Minimum Viable Products (MVP) with AI InsightsIn this episode of Business Conversations with Pi, host Scoob and his AI co-host Pi, developed by Anthropic, delve into critical topics for new entrepreneurs. They discuss what a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is, the importance of overcoming perfectionism, and strategies for launching an MVP effectively. They also provide valuable post-launch steps, recommend insightful books, and emphasize the importance of learning and iterating based on user feedback. Tune in for actionable advice and AI-enabled insights to help turn your startup dreams into reality."The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries: "Hooked" by Nir Eyal "The Startup Owner's Manual" by Steve Blank"The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick"Running Lean" by Ash Maurya00:00 Introduction to Business Conversations with Pi01:50 Defining the Minimum Viable Product (MVP)03:07 Strategies for Launching Your MVP05:02 Post-Launch Steps and Overcoming Perfectionism06:46 Recommended Reading for Entrepreneurs07:55 Final Thoughts and Encouragement08:29 Conclusion and Next Steps Thank you for being a Skoobeliever!! If you have questions about the show or you want to be a guest please contact me at one of these social mediasTwitter......... ..@djskoob2021 Facebook.........Facebook.com/skoobamiInstagram..... instagram.com/uepodcast2021tiktok....... @djskoob2021Email............... Uepodcast2021@gmail.comIf you would like to be coached on your entrepreneurial adventure please email me at for a 2 hour free discovery call! This is a $700 free gift to my Skoobelievers!! Contact me Now!! On Twitter @doittodaycoachdoingittodaycoaching@gmailcom

BONUS: Mastering Product Management in a Remote World, Insights from Tuple's Head of Product, Eli Goodman NOTE: We want to thank the folks at Tuple.app for being so generous with their stories, and supporting the podcast. Visit tuple.app/scrum and share them if you find the app useful! Remember, sharing is caring!   In this episode, Eli Goodman, Head of Product at Tuple, shares insights from his extensive experience in software development and product management. Having transitioned from engineering management to product leadership, Eli reveals the key strategies Tuple uses to develop its remote pair programming service, which is trusted by companies like Figma and Shopify. Tune in to discover how Tuple handles remote team dynamics, customer-driven development, and balances tech debt with client needs, all while maintaining a customer-centric focus. Introduction to Tuple and Why It's Unique Tuple, a remote pair programming service designed by engineers, solves a pain point that its founders, all pairing enthusiasts, experienced firsthand. They were unsatisfied with generic screen-sharing tools that disrupted the flow of coding collaboration. Tuple's product philosophy is about staying "one inch wide, one mile deep" to ensure the tool stays focused on enhancing the pairing experience without getting in the way. "The details matter. Generic screen-sharing tools just don't cut it for productive pairing." Managing a Remote Team at Tuple Managing a distributed team across the U.S. and Europe comes with its challenges. Eli highlights the importance of alignment and ensuring everyone is on the same page, despite working remotely. He emphasizes the role of Product Owners as "connective tissue" and the power of connecting team members with key initiatives. Through personal conversations, Eli uncovers what motivates his team, allowing him to support them without micromanaging. "What makes you proud? What brings you shame? Understanding these emotions helps uncover what drives our team." Ensuring Effective Communication in a Remote Environment Effective communication is the backbone of remote work, and Eli shares some of the practices that have helped Tuple's team stay aligned and collaborative. From using spontaneous pairing sessions to fostering a culture of checking in, Tuple has created a remote work environment where conversations are naturally sparked, and collaboration is effortless. "We have more space in our schedules for spontaneous pairing, which keeps collaboration flowing." Lessons Learned from Pairing Remotely One of the key insights Eli shares is how Tuple has evolved its remote pairing process. In the past, pairing might have felt like a formal meeting, but now it happens more spontaneously. Tuple's app facilitates this by offering the metaphor of a phone call—engineers can call each other at any time, making collaboration easy, especially when someone is deep into a task and needs quick support. "At Tuple, engineers only have three meetings a week, leaving the rest of the time open for pairing and creative work." Pairing Beyond Programming Tasks While pairing is typically associated with programming, Eli explains how Tuple uses pairing for other activities, like design or planning sessions. This practice has extended beyond coding, fostering a culture where team members collaborate on various tasks that benefit from shared perspectives and live problem-solving. "We've expanded pairing beyond coding, using it for activities like design reviews and project planning." Balancing Customer Feedback with Product Vision Responding to customer feedback is vital, but it can also lead to losing focus. Eli explains how Tuple balances this by capturing as much feedback as possible, using tools like Product Board to keep track of customer requests. However, instead of building every requested feature, Eli focuses on synthesizing broader patterns and emotional triggers that align with Tuple's long-term vision. "Focus on discovery as a product person. Understand the emotional context behind customer feedback—that's what drives great products." Tuple's Ideal Customer and Core Value Tuple's ideal customers are teams that value deep collaboration through pair programming. The platform's most important offering is the ability to make remote pairing seamless and intuitive, something traditional tools fail to deliver. "Tuple is built for teams that believe in the power of collaboration and want a tool that enhances their pairing experience, not disrupts it." Roadmapping: How to Prioritize the Right Work in Product Development Looking ahead, Eli shares Tuple's plans to continue investing in quality and lowering the barriers to remote pairing. One exciting potential direction includes creating a "social layer" within the app to help users feel more connected with their teammates. Another idea is incorporating non-human pairing agents that could assist with specific tasks. "We want to see if we can make it feel like you're right there with your teammates, lowering the barriers to start pairing." Recommended Resources Eli recommends The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, a must-read for anyone working in product management. The book teaches how to talk to customers in a way that gets honest, useful feedback rather than polite responses that don't help improve the product. "I thought caring about people was enough to talk to customers, but The Mom Test taught me what not to do during customer interviews." About Eli Goodman Eli Goodman has been working on software teams for 17 years. He's been a full-stack developer and engineering manager at both large and small companies, including Etsy and Headspace. A few years ago, Eli transitioned to product management and is now the Head of Product at Tuple, a remote pair programming service used by companies such as Figma, Shopify, and many others in the software industry. You can link with Eli Goodman on LinkedIn, or email Eli at Eli@Tuple.app.

Giving yourself permission to be a beginner might just be the best decision you'll ever make. Ever wondered what turning curiosity into passion looks like? Jordan Tarver's journey from solo backpacking through Europe to becoming a bestselling author and speaker will inspire you to take that leap of faith. And he's not just thriving professionally – Jordan has been alcohol-free for over 224 days, amplifying his creativity, energy, and confidence. In this episode, you'll hear his secrets to success and how he sold over 30,000 copies of his book across multiple countries.  A journal was what changed everything, setting off a chain of events to where he is today. Karolina and Jordan also unpack societal norms around drinking, and how breaking free can unlock your true potential. It's never too late to pivot and find what lights you up. Apply for the "Empowered AF 5X Coach Certification Program" – which includes FIVE certifications in different modalities and an all expenses paid weekend retreat! Don't miss your chance to apply now and join the Fall 2024 cohort, which starts in mid-October. IN THIS EPISODE: Jordan's solo European adventure that led to selling 30,000 copies of his bestselling book, “You Deserve This Sh!t” How 224 days of being alcohol-free fueled Jordan's creative fire, and unlocked his productivity and self-confidence Why giving yourself permission to fail can ACTUALLY lead to unexpected success The importance of cultivating passion through relentless curiosity and trying new things  How Jordan knew he wanted to work for himself, plus his early experiences with photography and brand partnerships   LINKS/RESOURCES MENTIONED: Lose your desire to drink and lean into your dream life with Karolina's book Euphoric: Ditch Alcohol and Gain a Happier, More Confident You. When you order today, you'll also unlock tons of resources and checklists to support you on your journey.  Applications are now open for The Empowered AF 5x Coach Certification. The next cohort starts in October! Learn more here and apply! Connect with Jordan on Instagram and TikTok and check out his bestselling book, You Deserve This Sh!t. Jordan also recommends the books, Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick, and Don't Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen. If you're still in the process of reevaluating alcohol on your own right now, I invite you to join Become Euphoric first, which will support you in reprogramming your subconscious mind. Loved the book? We'd be honored if you left a review! Follow @euphoric.af on Instagram. And as always, rate, review, and subscribe so we can continue spreading our message far and wide.

Here's the link to the (anonymous) survey - https://s.surveyplanet.com/z2yvlesg Thank you!!! (The book I mentioned is "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick)

Guest Julia Evans Panelists Richard Littauer | Amanda Casari Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer and co-host Amanda Casari talk to Julia Evans, a zine artist and programmer from Montreal. The discussion delves into Julia's journey in creating educational zines about technical topics like strace, Bash, and Git. Julia shares insights into her unique approach to making complex tools more accessible, how she uses feedback and beta readers to refine her work, and the importance of writing about stable technologies. The episode also touches on Julia's balance between art and sustainability, her collaborative work with her team, and highlights the significance of community-driven knowledge sharing. Press download to hear much more! [00:01:44] Julia explains her approach to creating zines, starting with the desire to simplify the usage of complex tools like strace. [00:03:14] Julia discusses her background as a programmer and the thematic focus of her zines, including making technical topics like Bash scripting more approachable. [00:04:54] Amanda praises Julia's method of demystifying technical concepts through zines. Julia shares the challenges of creating zines on complex topics like Git, discussing how user feedback helps refine content. [00:07:14] Julia details the iterative process of creating zines, including using beta readers and feedback tools to enhance the clarity and usefulness of her guides. [00:11:50] The discussion shifts to how Julia selects topics for her zines, focusing on technologies with strong backward compatibility guarantees, ensuring that the content remains relevant and accurate over time. [00:15:59] Richard questions Julia about her preference for creating zines over other formats like video tutorials or classes, despite the potential reach and educational impact of those mediums. She explains her preference for zines, highlighting her affinity for print and writing, and he challenge with video formats. [00:19:13] Julia discusses her transformative experience at the Recurse Center, which greatly enhanced her understanding of computer systems, inspiring her to help others feel like “wizards” who fully grasp their tools. [00:21:39] Julia mentions co-founding “bang bang con,” a conference focused on short, insightful talks about programming, and confirms the availability of these talks online. [00:22:46] Richard asks Julia about “weird stuff” she likes to do with computers. She describes creating a DNS server that open shares queries, reflecting her passion for making the invisible aspects of computing visible. [00:24:43] Julia reveals how she funds her zine-making and educational endeavors through sales, which has allowed her to focus full-time on this work and even hire help to manage operations, enhancing sustainability and enjoyment of her work. [00:26:05] Julia reflects on the unpredictability of her success, expressing hesitation to offer advice on replicating her business model due to its unconventional nature. [00:27:47] Julia shares her approach to team building and sustainability, focusing on treating and paying her collaborators well to endure ongoing successful partnerships. [00:28:44] Find out where you can purchase Julia's zines and find her online. Quotes [00:02:19] “I would have all these questions, what are people using this tool for?” [00:02:45] “I wanted to show people that this is not that big of a deal.” [00:06:26] “This is what I wish someone told me when I started using this tool.” [00:17:08] “I don't usually want to learn a book's worth of information about a topic. I'm a generalist.” [00:17:40] “My dream when learning about something is I just want to talk to someone who's really, really smart for two hours and they'll tell me everything I need to know.” [00:21:11] “You can do weird stuff!” [00:24:07] “I just thought it would be cool to make it, so I did.” [00:26:34] “Once I saw that I was working, I started to ask, is it sustainable? What do I need to learn about marketing to make it a sustainable business?” [00:28:29] “I try to be the last client to get fired. That's my dream.” Spotlight [00:29:43] Amanda's spotlight is she finally got to attend csv,conf,v8. [00:30:40] Richard's spotlight is Rafik Draoui. [00:31:26] Julia's spotlight is Atuin, a really nice way to search your shell history. Links SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter (https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Open Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute) (https://opencollective.com/sustainoss) Richard Littauer Socials (https://www.burntfen.com/2023-05-30/socials) Amanda Casari X/Twitter (https://x.com/amcasari?lang=en) Julia Evans Blog (https://jvns.ca/) Julia Evans Mastodon (https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk) Julia Evans X/Twitter (https://x.com/b0rk) Julia Evans GitHub (https://github.com/jvns) strace (https://strace.io/) Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick (https://writeusefulbooks.com/) Space Jam (https://www.spacejam.com/1996/jam.html) Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/) Sustain Podcast-Episode 146: Anjana Vakil on the Recurse Center, Outreachy, and Learning to Code (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/146) !!Con 2024 (bang bang con) (https://bangbangcon.com/) Gazouilli by Rafik Draoui (https://github.com/rafikdraoui/gazouilli) Wizard Zines (https://wizardzines.com/) Wizard Zine on strace (https://wizardzines.com/zines/strace/) New zine: How Git Works! by Julia Evans (https://jvns.ca/blog/2024/04/25/new-zine--how-git-works-/) Mess with dns (https://messwithdns.net/) Csv,conf,v8 (https://csvconf.com/) Rafik Draoui GitHub (https://github.com/rafikdraoui) Atuin (https://github.com/atuinsh/atuin) Credits Produced by Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest: Julia Evans.

Viele Workshops sind mehr oder minder ein Frontalvortag von einer Person, die sich selbst eh viel zu gut findet. Das einzige "interaktive" Element dabei ist dann die Fragerunde am Ende. Nach 3h. Wenn eh schon alle eingeschlafen sind.DOCH SO SOLL ES NICHT SEIN.In ihrem Buch The Workshop Survival Guide, stellen die Autoren einen einfachen Schritt-für-Schritt-Prozess dar, wie ihr bessere Workshops planen und halten können. Mit regelmäßigen Pausen, Formatwechseln und einem elastischen Zeitplan. Für uns wirklich ein Augenöffner, wie man Workshops gut halten kann! Wenn ihr irgendwie in euerem Leben Workshops haltet MÜSST ihr diese Folge hören.Hier könnt ihr das Buch kaufen: The Workshop Survival Guide: How to design and teach educational workshops that work every time---Sponsor diese Woche: Gemsjaeger.ski - nachhaltige Holzski--- Du willst mehr lesen und dich mit Gleichgesinnten austauschen? Dann komm in unseren SW Podcast Buchclub

What's the secret to writing a book that requires little to no marketing to sell hundreds of thousands of copies and put millions of dollars in your pocket? That's what we're talking about today. Today's book on the 52 Book Challenge is Write Useful Books, A Modern Approach to Designing and Refining Recommendable Non -Fiction by Rob Fitzpatrick. The 52 Book Challenge: https://youtu.be/h3Fo9P4-su0?si=jNxCzvLdNZ6n-5KC

Be sure to visit https://dwtbpodcast.com for more information and add your name to start receiving their newsletter. If you'd like to support this show, rate, subscribe and leave a review on your podcast app.Books/Resources Mentioned:The 3.3 Rule, by John Briggs: https://a.co/d/fpODfBBWrite Useful Books, by Rob Fitzpatrick: https://www.amazon.com/Write-Useful-Books-recommendable-nonfiction-ebook/dp/B0983HFQX7The Resilience Plan, by Dr. MH Pelletier: https://a.co/d/3rvzPzPPickfu: https://pickfu.com Connect with AJ & Mike:AJ Harper: https://ajharper.comWrite A Must-Read: https://a.co/d/4H0xQ7GFree resources: https://writeamustread.comSocials:FB: https://www.facebook.com/AJHarperAuthorsLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjanetteharper/ Mike Michalowicz: https://mikemichalowicz.comAll books: https://mikemichalowicz.com/books/Socials: IG: https://www.instagram.com/mikemichalowicz/FB: https://www.facebook.com/MikeMichalowiczFanPage/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemichalowicz/

Exciting announcement! If you're keen on Mastering Product Growth and User onboarding, join the upcoming course in April. You will get personal guidance to create a stellar onboarding experience and frameworks to turn it into live. Get a 15% discount for your team (most value for PM + Product Designer together). Learn more and get early access → https://maven.com/forms/2c51ccWelcome to Growthmates — the place to connect with inspiring leaders to help you grow yourself and your product. Here you can learn how companies like Dropbox, Adobe, Amplitude, Canva, and many more are building excellent products and growth culture. Subscribe to get all episodes right to your inbox on katesyuma.substack.com.Listen now on Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube (new!).In this conversation, we invited Phil Vander Broek, Co-Founder at Dopt, previously Head of Growth and Business Platform Design at Dropbox. We decided to talk about User Onboarding and unpack all the truth we know about it. From this episode, you can learn: * How Dropbox approached User Onboarding and what they learned from experimenting with that* How Growth and Core teams collaboration looked at Dropbox* What Rituals can help in building a Growth Culture* and Best practices for User Onboarding from research with more than 80 companies. Beyond the Dropbox story, Phill shared his transition to becoming a Co-Founder at Dopt,  and how his design background helped him play a founder role. If you find it valuable, please share it with your network and leave us a good review. Follow Growthmates podcast updates on:* Substack Newsletter (for instant inbox delivery): https://katesyuma.substack.com/podcast* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthmates-podcast/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growthmates_/Where to find Phil Vander Broek, Co-Founder at Dopt:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipvanderbroek/ * Website: https://www.dopt.com/Where to find Kate Syuma, Growth Advisor (ex-Miro):* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterina-syuma/* Newsletter: https://katesyuma.substack.com* X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/kate_syumaWhere to find Oscar Torres, Product Designer at Miro:* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oscartorrestryme/* Website: https://www.oscartorres.me/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oscar_towers_/What we've covered in this episode:01:20 Approach to User Onboarding at Dropbox04:12 Surprising Behavioral Insights from User Onboarding Experiments11:57 Collaboration between Growth and Core Teams13:23 Rituals for Alignment and Building a Growth Culture21:44 Industry Trends in User Onboarding34:05 Transition to Entrepreneurship and Creating DOPT44:07 Insights and Learnings as a Founder46:28 The Connection Between AI and User Onboarding47:16 Favorite Example of User Onboarding47:29 Interactive Guides50:10 Tooltips vs Checklists51:10 Recommended Resources53:08 ConclusionResources referenced:* Product Led Onboarding playbook: https://blog.dopt.com/product-led-onboarding-playbook * The State of User Onboarding — report from 80+ companies: https://onboard.report/* The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick: https://www.momtestbook.com/* How to determine your activation metric from * I bet you are doing product activation all wrong from * Get early access to the Maven course on Onboarding and Activation (15% discount for teams): https://maven.com/forms/2c51cc If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to share it with your colleagues and like-minded friends. For sponsorship and other inquiries reach out to ekaterinasyuma@gmail.com.Subscribe to get more episodes right in your inbox: katesyuma.substack.comThanks for reading Kate's Syuma Newsletter & Growthmates! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit katesyuma.substack.com

Do you feel called to write, publish, and sell a book that makes consistent bank and has a huge impact over the long term? Or maybe you feel sick and tired of marketing, just want to sell, make an impact, and rest on your laurels. Either way, this episode Rob shares all the tips that will help you do just that.   Rob Fitzpatrick is the real deal when it comes to creating books, workshops, courses, and products that turn people into super-fans. Rob has been running businesses for the past 20 years and has authored three books about his learnings along the way, which have sold over 250K copies. Listen in this week as Eleanor quizzes Rob on how to create an evangelical customer base whose word-of-mouth does the work of selling for you.    Get full show notes and more information here: https://safimedia.co/ai26  

Lija Hogan is a principal on the Experience Research Strategy team at UserTesting. When she's not helping UserTesting customers understand the wide variety of topic areas they can cover using the platform, she teaches user research methods classes at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor.    Questions • Could you share with our listeners just a little bit about your journey? • Could you tell our listeners a little bit about what UserTesting is? And what do you do? • A survey was done that your company pioneered with 2000 adults. And I'd like you to just kind of talk to us a little bit about that survey and some of the key findings that came out of that survey that you believe can help organisations to have a better understanding of why AI is so important. •    Where do you see the technology going for 2024? If you were to pick like a single theme that you believe Chat GPT could help an organisation to tap into delivering a better customer experience, what theme would you say they would need to be focusing on if they were going to use Chat GPT as an integration or even any form of AI that your organisation has been exposed to and work with your clients on that you think is critical for 2024 and beyond? • Now, could you also share with our listeners, what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? • Could you also share with our listeners maybe one or two books that you've read, could be a book that you read very recently, or even one that you read a very long time ago, but it has had a very big impact on you. • Can you also share with our listeners what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. • Where can listeners find you online? • Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you got derailed, or you got off track, the quote can helps to just to get you back on track.   Highlights Lija's Journey Me: Could you share with our listeners just a little bit about your journey? In your own words, how you got to where you are today from where you're coming from?   Lija shared that it was a very roundabout journey. So, she started with the goal of becoming an academic librarian in Slavic and Eastern European studies. So, most people are very amused when they hear that because it's a very, very focused and targeted discipline that requires a lot of education.  And she started that path, actually, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor with a Master's Degree Programme in what she thought was going to be academic librarianship, but got bitten by the Human Computer Interaction bug really early there. And so, that was many years ago now. But that was really kind of the entry point to being focused on the user experience and the customer experience and just making really substantive connections between people to help them to transact together more effectively and efficiently.   About UserTesting Me: Now, you are at UserTesting, that's what we read in your bio. Could you tell our listeners a little bit about what UserTesting is? And what do you do?   Lija stated that that's a great question. So, she tends to think of UserTesting as being an enabling technology. So, essentially, it's a platform that enables their customers to connect with their own customers, their users, their employees, their potential users. And what it does is provide recording mechanisms across mobile and desktop, to enable people to have either self-guided, or live conversations with people who are looking for insights.  And they capture videos and audio and screen share, to really get into the perspectives of people around the world. And so, once you've gathered all the information, the platform also provides you with some strategies around sharing that information with your colleagues. And so, you can share videos, you can share quotes, and all sorts of other data to really understand where the gaps are in your experience, and also just to understand what you can do to optimize and de risk the solutions that you're building.   Survey Key Findings to Help Organizations Better Understand the Importance of AI Me: When you were originally presented to me as a guest for our podcast, a survey was shared with us that your company pioneered with 2000 adults. And I'd like you to just kind of talk to us a little bit about that survey and some of the key findings that came out of that survey that you believe can help organizations to have a better understanding of why AI is so important.   Lija shared that they've actually done a few surveys around AI. And this one, really, some of the significant findings were really around just the fact that people don't understand where AI is manifesting in their lives right now. So, to a certain extent, if you ask them directly, they are answering yes and no without a clear sense for what AI really is.  And she thinks one of the major findings that she had in working through that was just really leaning into the knowledge that AI is manifesting in all our lives in many ways, kind of in the background and behind the scenes. And it's already enabling us to, sometimes make better decisions, have access to more information, enrich the work that we're doing, the conversations that we're having. And that is an important benefit that we're all looking for in artificial intelligence.   Organizations Using Chat GPT to Deliver a Better Customer Experience Me: So, AI exists in many different forms, because it's a broad topic. But I think the one that people most connect with and use is probably Chat GPT. It's been a year since Chat GPT was launched, I can't believe it's a year already. Where do you see the technology going for 2024?  If you were to pick like a single theme that you believe Chat GPT could help an organization to tap into delivering a better customer experience, what theme would you say they would need to be focusing on if they were going to use Chat GPT as an integration or even any form of AI that your organization has been exposed to and work with your clients on that you think is critical for 2024 and beyond?   Lija stated that that's a great question, because she think it's really hard to say that there's a single thing, but there are probably multiple ones that she sees as being really important. The first is, we're still trying to figure out what's in and out of bounds with regard to how people are using large language models. So, she finds the examples that we're seeing coming out of the legal profession, right, or lawyers are asking a Chat GPT to write briefs and the platform is hallucinating and making up case law, which doesn't exist. And that's a problem.  So, we haven't yet caught up with creating guardrails and it's not necessarily about the technology so much as about how we reach practical consensus around what is allowable, given the constraints of the technology as it currently exists. And actually, not just as it currently exists, but with an eye towards the fact is probably going to become a lot more matured much more quickly. So, she thinks that's one.   The second is really a more recent development that she's seeing around DIY, Chat GPT and so essentially, people will be able to essentially create their own version of what a large language model can do given a certain use case that they've got in mind. So, she sees the proliferation of a lot of potential technologies use cases strategies that can be leveraged by people who are both technologically seasoned and who are not, who are learning as they go. And she thinks that will be very interesting.  The other main trend that she sees is the enterprise trying to make artificial intelligence safe for practical applications and business operations. And she says that because even just a few months after the launch of 3.5, back in November of last year, she was talking to UserTesting customers, a lot of their innovation teams were essentially doing tests to essentially say, within the context of our own, say, customers experience or customer support teams, how can we create an experience that is robust and safe and private and secure, and gives us confidence that we can triage some.  So, essentially enrich the in person interactions that we're having with people, but also ensure that we're providing good consistent information to those customers that we might be handling using some of those more automated chatbot style experiences that are powered by artificial intelligence.   App, Website or Tool that Lija Absolutely Can't Live Without in Her Business When asked about online resource that she cannot live without in her business, Lija stated that this probably is going to sound self-serving, but actually, it's UserTesting, believe it or not. UserTesting is really important because it's really a very open platform that lets you have both a highly structured as well as an unstructured conversation with the people that you want to work with or learn more from. And she thinks what's so valuable about it is you can test ideas, you can hear what's top of mind for people. And in this world where we've got access to so much data, just hearing stories brings you back down to earth and makes things very tangible and real and we need that now more than ever.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Lija When asked about books that have had an impact, Lija shared that one that she thinks has been most powerful and it's because she's an optimist. And she thinks that it really gave her a research based foundation to be able to say, this is why she's an optimist, is a great book by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, they're actually brothers, they're psychologists, called Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.  And the concept that she found really fascinating is their focus on not just problem solving, but actually finding those bright spots and going after those, like, where are things going right? And how can we essentially create more experience that look like those bright spots? So, she loves that idea because rather than being focused on all the negatives, it's basically saying how can we make whatever it is that we're doing look like the most positive experiences that we're providing? So, the other one, it's a really short book, it's probably less than 100 pages. But she loves it so much, it's called the The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you by Rob Fitzpatrick. And even though it's kind of like a flip book title, what she loves about it is, it's a very approachable set of strategies around having conversations with people when you're trying to figure out what to build and whether or not it's going to work for people.    What Lija is Really Excited About Now! When asked about something that she's really excited about, Lija stated that that is a really great question. Because there's so much, but she's actually, to the point of the books that they were talking about, the biggest area of focus that she has right now is how to listen better to all the partners that she's working with. And so, she's actually spending a lot of time reading books. So, the two that she talked about are two of them, but a number of books that are all about how does she listen better? And sometimes it's about asking better questions, that's what the Mom Test is about.  But sometimes it's actually saying like, “How do I recognize that people are in a special place right now and need to be acknowledged as having been heard?” But then also, how does she change how it is that she shows up in every way, in the writing that she does, in the talking with folks that she does, in the teaching that she does, in all the interactions to help to move things forward. So, she thinks that there are so many great examples that come from working with children, and psychology, and just even business best practice, to really help to listen and to come to consensus, and just make better decisions together. So, that's really given her a lot of joy right now.    Me: Are there any activities that you do with your team that kind of helps to strengthen their listening skills? Is there anything that you would like to share where that is concerned since that's an area that you'll be working on?   Lija shared that she thinks a couple of things. One is she actually thinks it's kind of twofold. One is she's been spending a lot more time doing one on ones that are very unstructured. And that has given her the platform across the team that she works with, the people that she works with to really say, “What's top of mind for you, and let's talk about it.” And sometimes they start talking about their dogs and cats. But a lot of the time, what that conversation changes into is, “I'm working on this, can I get your perspective on it?” or “I'm having this challenge, can we work through it together.”  And it's a great way to just stay close to what's happening in their world and their part of the organization, but then also take what it is that they're sharing, and see how she can help to pull in other people across the organization, other teams, and talk to other leaders in the organization about what they can do to address some of the themes and trends that she's seeing. And so, she thinks spending a little bit more time one on one with people has been probably providing a lot of the value that she's seeing driving those aha moments.    Me: That's brilliant, that kind of reinforces one of the things that Stephen Covey talks about in his book that the most important role of a leader is to grow and develop people. So, the fact that you are actually seeing the results, because of the one on one intervention that you're doing, the time you're investing with each person, and you're seeing it twofold in terms of the benefit with the customers, then it really does prove that that is a strategy that works.    Where Can We Find Lija Online LinkedIn – Lija Hogan   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Lija Uses  When asked about a quote or saying that she tends to revert to, Lija stated that that's a great question. So actually, this is totally nerdy, but there's a quote, it's at the beginning of one of the chapters of this is where it gets nerdy, Children of Dune by Frank Herbert. And so, the Dune series, there's a movie, a remake of a couple of movies that are out right now.   And the quote, and she's not going to remember it exactly, but it's really about fear and pain and kind of letting it wash through you. And understanding that it's there, but also understanding that it doesn't define you and it doesn't have to have long lasting negative implications. And so, it's basically, go with the flow, but in a way that leans into acknowledging that sometimes things are really hard and you just have to live through them and understand that it's hard, and figure out how you're going to come out on the other side. Change, but change in a way that acknowledges what's happened to you.    Me: Thank you so much, Lija, just want to thank you again for coming on our podcast today and sharing a little bit about your organisation and user testing, and all the value and brilliance that you're bringing to the customer experience space. As well as some of the research findings that came out of one of the surveys that you had done recently. And just the impact of AI, specifically Chat GPT even though we spoke about that in the episode and other different forms of AI as well. But just taking time out of your busy schedule and coming on here with us and sharing all of the great insights and experiences that you've had. I do believe our listeners will gain a great amount of value from this episode. So, thank you so much.    Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Links •     Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath •     The Mom Test: How to talk to customer & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you by Rob Fitzpatrick •     Children of Dune by Frank Herbert   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

This week's wheat/chaff separation process sifts the following from the rock and roll cornfield … … Tony Secunda, his gangsterish suits and the publicity stunt that backfired spectacularly. … our old Word magazine pal Rob Fitzpatrick talking about the Japanese composer Michiru Aoyama who's released an album a day since December 2021, each 20 minutes 20 seconds long. And the role of streaming in the ambient music boom. … the life of Denny Laine and the great “chamber pop” hit he wrote. ... why the Move's Flowers In The Rain has never earned the band a cent.   … how the death of John Lennon was the dawn of the ‘black border' magazine tribute. … Willie Nelson's way with a middle eight. … the last men standing in the Band On The Run album shoot.   … is there anyone still on the road older than “the French Bob Dylan” Hugues Aufray (94) and Marshall Allen 0f the Sun Ra Arkestra (99)? … and mentioned in dispatches - Harold Wilson, Frank Ifield, Ginger Baker's Air Force, ‘Ronnie & Clyde' and birthday guest Rob Collis and the best rock and roll movies.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's wheat/chaff separation process sifts the following from the rock and roll cornfield … … Tony Secunda, his gangsterish suits and the publicity stunt that backfired spectacularly. … our old Word magazine pal Rob Fitzpatrick talking about the Japanese composer Michiru Aoyama who's released an album a day since December 2021, each 20 minutes 20 seconds long. And the role of streaming in the ambient music boom. … the life of Denny Laine and the great “chamber pop” hit he wrote. ... why the Move's Flowers In The Rain has never earned the band a cent.   … how the death of John Lennon was the dawn of the ‘black border' magazine tribute. … Willie Nelson's way with a middle eight. … the last men standing in the Band On The Run album shoot.   … is there anyone still on the road older than “the French Bob Dylan” Hugues Aufray (94) and Marshall Allen 0f the Sun Ra Arkestra (99)? … and mentioned in dispatches - Harold Wilson, Frank Ifield, Ginger Baker's Air Force, ‘Ronnie & Clyde' and birthday guest Rob Collis and the best rock and roll movies.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's wheat/chaff separation process sifts the following from the rock and roll cornfield … … Tony Secunda, his gangsterish suits and the publicity stunt that backfired spectacularly. … our old Word magazine pal Rob Fitzpatrick talking about the Japanese composer Michiru Aoyama who's released an album a day since December 2021, each 20 minutes 20 seconds long. And the role of streaming in the ambient music boom. … the life of Denny Laine and the great “chamber pop” hit he wrote. ... why the Move's Flowers In The Rain has never earned the band a cent.   … how the death of John Lennon was the dawn of the ‘black border' magazine tribute. … Willie Nelson's way with a middle eight. … the last men standing in the Band On The Run album shoot.   … is there anyone still on the road older than “the French Bob Dylan” Hugues Aufray (94) and Marshall Allen 0f the Sun Ra Arkestra (99)? … and mentioned in dispatches - Harold Wilson, Frank Ifield, Ginger Baker's Air Force, ‘Ronnie & Clyde' and birthday guest Rob Collis and the best rock and roll movies.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you're shopping for books this Black Friday, here are the 15 most impactful books I read before and during my SaaS founder journey. From entrepreneurship to marketing and customer interaction, you'll have a lot to put on your Black Friday shopping list.My own work is available for 50% off on Gumroad for a few days, too. Use the code BFF for Zero to Sold, The Embedded Entrepreneur, and Find your Following.And now, let's grow your library with the likes of Rob Walling, John Warrillow, Michele Hansen, and many more:This episode is sponsored by Acquire.comThe blog post: The podcast episode: The video: https://youtu.be/F9iIxqtvNUIYou'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.comPodcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcastNewsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletterMy book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/My course Find Your Following: https://findyourfollowing.comHere are a few tools I use. Using my affiliate links will support my work at no additional cost to you.- Notion (which I use to organize, write, coordinate, and archive my podcast + newsletter): https://affiliate.notion.so/465mv1536drx- Riverside.fm (that's what I recorded this episode with): https://riverside.fm/?via=arvid- TweetHunter (for speedy scheduling and writing Tweets): http://tweethunter.io/?via=arvid- HypeFury (for massive Twitter analytics and scheduling): https://hypefury.com/?via=arvid60- AudioPen (for taking voice notes and getting amazing summaries): https://audiopen.ai/?aff=PXErZ- Descript (for word-based video editing, subtitles, and clips): https://www.descript.com/?lmref=3cf39Q- ConvertKit (for email lists, newsletters, even finding sponsors): https://convertkit.com?lmref=bN9CZw

Reading lots of books is great if you want to improve your writing. But if your ultimate aim is to improve aspects of yourself, your life or your business, reading becomes nothing but mere intellectual entertainment if you don't apply what you learn. So when I met Andrew Zavada and learned he's the co-founder of an online service that helps readers apply key ideas from bestselling nonfiction books, I could not resist inviting him on my podcast and YouTube Channel. I wanted to learn more about his business. Andrew wasn't sure though. “I don't know. English isn't my first language and I started learning it only a few years ago,” he said. I'm glad he didn't listen to his worries.  In Episode 117 of Stolaroid Stories, you'll hear him talk about Storist.me, a young startup that teaches you how to put books into practice. Storist.me provides book summaries of the best nonfiction books about business, personal development, problem solving, learning, creativity, communication, relationship, leadership and management. But this isn't just another platform where you can find book summaries for busy people. What makes Storist.me special is that it features real-life cases, quizzes, templates and interactive activities designed to help you turn words and sentences into actions. Storist.me helps you become Iron Man or Wonder Woman. Okay, maybe that's a bit too much. But you can try out Storist.me and see if it has that power too. Andrew has given my listeners free access to explore the platform and see how it works. (Scroll down to find a list of "Sorist" links to the books we mentioned in the podcast episode.) But wait, there's more. Andrew was so kind to give you a special discount: 60% off on the 12-month subscription. Use the following code (valid until the end of 2023): stolaroid Enough of me talking now. Go listen to the episode or watch us talk on ⁠my YouTube channel⁠ --https://youtu.be/Mhjd05ASlzI And if you find it useful, please get in touch to let me know. Links The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick -- https://a3.storist.me/#/courses/the-mom-test Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg  -- https://a3.storist.me/#/courses/nonviolent-communication Everything is Negotiable by Gavin Kennedy https://a3.storist.me/#/courses/everything-is-negotiable Ultralearning by Scott H. Young  https://a3.storist.me/#/courses/ultralearning Get in touch with Andrew on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-zavada/ Storist.me -- https://storist.me/

This may be the most useful podcast I've ever released. That's because it's with a guy who's an expert on something EVERY author wants: getting people to recommend your book.His name is Rob Fitzpatrick and he's a former programmer who dropped out of grad school to go to YCombinator with his first startup.It's that background—along with his nearly decade and a half of experience as an entrepreneur—that helps make sense of the fact that he's the guy who's seemingly cracked the code on how to write a book that everyone will recommend.He breaks down his process in his latest book, Write Useful Books, and we also get into our decidedly unique story of how we met (in short, he quoted my interview with Chris Voss in Write Useful Books and I didn't see that he credited me and I fired off an email and anyway, listen to the episode and you'll hear what happened next).But that's far less interesting than the methods he describes in this conversation—including how to find beta readers, what to ask them and how to use them to craft a book that's DEEP (Desirable, Effective, Engaging and Polished).How sure is he that his process works? Well, the results speak for themselves. His monthly earnings from his three books are roughly $25k a month, with 1000 copies a week being sold, and, in his words, "growing pretty steadily."I am not being hyperbolic when I say I think this is the most useful interview yet. (Even more than the Chris Voss one Rob quoted!) If I were you, I would literally study the transcript below. (That's what I'm doing.)WANT MORE INFO ABOUT THE POD AND OTHER STUFF? GO TO WWW.ONGOODAUTHORITYPOD.COM

Pony Express Studio is a company built by makers, for makers. That concept has driven their success, to the tune of $3.5M in annual recurring revenue. Founder Thibault Louis-Lucas shares insider insights on how to launch a startup with this kind of potential in today's episode. Thibault didn't hit on this 7-figure startup idea right away. He launched 9 other products that failed before he found success with Pony Express Studio. He's also worked as a web developer and the CTO of a marketing automation company. He'll share how these past experiences (and failures) helped him find success with tools like Tweet Hunter, Taplio, and ProductLift.As an active maker, Thibault is an expert in how to launch a product. We'll find out how he designs and builds the products for Pony Express, how he markets them once they're launched, and the metrics he tracks after launch to gauge its success. Anyone who wants to bring a new product to market the right way will want to hear Thibault's story and advice!Resources:Pony Express Studio - Learn more about Pony Express Studio on their websiteTwitter.com/tibo_maker - Connect with Tibo on XUpFlip HUB - Get knowledge and tools to succeed as a business owner  From Content Agency to $70K+/Month SaaS Company - UpFlip podcast episode 65 with the founder of WorkelloTweet Hunter - Tool to build and monetize a following on XTaplio -  AI-driven platform to grow engagement on LinkedInThe Mom Test - Book by Rob Fitzpatrick on how to tell if your business is a good ideaConnect with UpFlip: On Facebook On Instagram @UpFlipOfficial on Twitter For more insights to start, build, or grow a business, check out the resources on UpFlip.com or head to the UpFlip YouTube channel to see more interviews with business owners and experts. Thanks for listening!

Have you ever considered creating a workshop to teach others? Not just a single lecture that you're going to give once, but a workshop you can teach in different situations, over and over again? Buckle up, because Rob Fitzpatrick, co-author of The Workshop Survival Guide, is here to talk to Chris about the in's and out's of designing a great workshop, and why it's so important to treat it as your product. Rob shares some of the things he did wrong in his early workshop attempts, the iterations that led to his success, and what keeps an audience activated and engaged. This is a meaty, super sized conversation, because Rob has so many pearls of wisdom to share. A smooth running, educational, and engaging workshop is an art form, and this conversation will give you direct and actionable advice to make it look like you've been doing this for years.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Peter Ord, the CEO and creator of GUIDEcx, leads the team behind this innovative platform. GUIDEcx is a state-of-the-art solution designed to enhance client onboarding and implementation. Its primary focus is on improving client visibility and engagement, allowing you to efficiently manage projects, uphold transparency, and provide an exceptional client experience at every stage. Peter Ord's extensive expertise is further reflected in his role as a National Columnist for the Forbes Technology Council, as well as his prior experience as the Vice President of Sales at DealerSocket.On this episode of The Rollercoaster, Tyler and Peter discuss on how books have long been regarded as invaluable tools for acquiring knowledge and honing essential skills. When it comes to mastering the ability to build and ultimately deliver a successful product, there are several top recommendations that stand out. Three notable books worth exploring are:The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick challenges traditional feedback methods, guiding entrepreneurs and product developers to extract valuable insights by asking the right questions and actively listening. It equips them with effective tools to validate ideas and uncover hidden problems.The User Method by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden advocates user-centered design and agile methodologies. By prioritizing continuous feedback and user-centric approaches, it enables product teams to meet authentic user needs and aspirations.The Lean Startup by Eric Ries revolutionizes startups with a scientific approach to product development. It promotes a lean startup mindset, focusing on the build-measure-learn feedback loop.In any leadership role, whether as a parent or employer, the saying holds true: "It's easier to dampen a child's fire than to reignite it." This timeless wisdom stresses the importance of nurturing and harnessing natural passion and drive, rather than trying to revive it later. Like a flame, a child's enthusiasm burns brightly. As a leader, it's vital to recognize and embrace this inherent energy. By offering guidance, encouragement, and support, you can fuel their potential and ensure sustained motivation and growth.Embrace your entrepreneurial spirit and seize the moment to start a company. In the business world, the mantra is clear: "Just do it." Avoid hesitation and indecision, trusting your instincts and taking action. When pursuing entrepreneurship, it's easy to overthink and delay. However, true success lies in trusting your inner drive and having the courage to leap forward. Don't let fear or self-doubt hinder your potential. Starting a company requires determination, resilience, and a tolerance for uncertainty. Instead of overanalyzing, focus on planning, strategizing, and executing your ideas. Embrace the inherent risks, knowing that mistakes and failures are valuable learning experiences.Where to find Peter Ord:LinkedIn: Sirva SoundbitesExplores the latest trends and topics on global talent mobility and the future of work.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify-Where to find Tyler Hall: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylerchall/ Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-tyler-hall-archives-7018241874482122753/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/sirTHALL Work with Tyler: https://www.tylerchristianhall.com/

In this episode, Edmund Gröpl, a retired engineer, discovers how life is often circular. He shares his in-depth knowledge of Zettelkasten (card file in German) and how he links sketchnotes using Obsidian. Edmund shares how he is integrating Zettlekasten and sketchnotes in a new book.Sponsored by ConceptsThis episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast is brought to you by Concepts, a perfect tool for sketchnoting, available on iOS, Windows, and Android.Concepts' vector-based drawing feature gives you the power to adjust your drawings — any time you like. You can nudge the curve of a line, swap out one brush for another, or change stroke thickness and color at any stage of your drawing — saving hours and hours of rework.Vectors provide clean, crisp, high-resolution output for your sketchnotes at any size you need — large or small. Never worry about fuzzy sketchnotes again.Concepts is a powerful, flexible tool that's ideal for sketchnoting.SEARCH “Concepts” in your favorite app store to give it a try.Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Edmund?Origin StoryEdmund's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find EdmundOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Edmund on LinkedinEdmund on InstagramEdmund on TwitterEdmund's eBookLinktreeBook: Zettelkasten by Niklas LuhmannHow To Take Smart NotesThe Back of the Napkin by Dan RoanWriting Useful Books by Rob FitzpatrickThe Sketchnote Handbook by Mike RohdeThe Sketchnote Army PodcastToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Neuland markersStaedtler markersiPad ProApple PencilConceptsMiroObsidianPowerBITipsBenefit from self-organized learning groups.Attend a LernOS sketchnoting circle.Zettelkasten with Obsidian is your second brain for sketchnoting.Take useful notes!CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde's bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with my friend Edmund Gropl. Edmund, how are you?Edmund Gropl: Hello, Mike. Nice to see you. And I put one sentence on paper. Thank you so much for having me.MR: You're so welcome. I'm glad to have you. I'm excited because I know that you're really into this intersection between Zettelkasten and sketch notes. I'm really curious to hear in the section where we talk about current projects, where you're at with that. Because I think one of the things that I struggle with is I produce lots of sketch notes, but the challenge I find is organizing them in a logical way.I think your episode, your interview with us may be really helpful for me to think about how do I do that in a good way. I've got some fits and starts. I'm really personally looking forward to learning and getting some ideas from you. Before we get to that, let's start first with who you are and what you do.EG: Hello, my name is Edmund. I'm here from Germany, living in the Frankfurt area. To make it short, I'm a husband, I'm a father, and I'm a grandfather.MR: Congratulations.EG: Thank you. Thank you very much. Husband since 41 years, father then 33 years, and a grandfather since 10 months.MR: Wow.EG: Both three are really exciting.MR: Well, then congratulations to you for setting an example for us for consistency and reliability, and loyalty. It's always good to see those qualities in people because we need that. We need those models and examples to follow. Talk to us a little bit about, you mentioned to me that you were an engineer. I don't know much more about that. Why don't you talk a little bit about your time as an engineer and your specialty and what was interesting to you in the work that you did?EG: If you're in business, it's very important to talk about your profession, about being an engineer. Since two years, I'm retired, and therefore I have a lot of time and I have my head free thinking for my own, not for the company, not for the customers. It's exciting, what is changing. Is it the same as I did years ago as an engineer, or is there's some new stuff?What I didn't expect that it's a really new phase in life, redefining yourself, and you are not a retired engineer. You are your person as your own. If I look at my hobbies, I love swimming, climbing, drawing, going outside, and so, and these are my hobbies. and it's all the stuff I mostly liked when I was a child.MR: Interesting.EG: Yes. It was climbing on trees. it was playing outside, it was swimming in the gym with my parents, it was drawing, not mathematics, and all the other stuff which came important to me afterwards. That's back to the roots and life seems to be a little bit like a mirror to see what was at the beginning comes back at the end.MR: Rediscovering childhood in a way.EG: Yeah. I didn't read it in a book, and it was not a plan. I had no idea what I would do as a retired engineer, but that was it. In the last years, I was working for a big company as a data scientist. I came here from Darmstadt near Frankfurt, and here it was the time when I came as a young man studying software and systems engineering.Therefore, my head is all full with these engineering tools and concepts and methods and all this way of thinking. Sketchnoting was for me, very surprising to get in contact with all the other guys worldwide. Artists, illustrators' facilitators, and so on and so on. It was really an enrichment of my life to have contact with different people with different professions and so on.That's in short to say about my life. It was one year ago. Do you remember, Mike? It was in March last year. There was a session from you in the internet about sketchnoting, in March 3rd or so?MR: Interesting. It's not one that comes to mind.EG: Eventbrite was the platform where you announced it.MR: It must have been interesting. That must have been—oh, that's a good question. We'll have to look and see. On the top of my head, I don't remember. The reason is there's been so many events that I've been doing that it's not surprising that I don't remember what it was.EG: I was really happy that I could watch your presentation about sketchnoting, about drawing, and all this stuff. Real life, it was Mike, personally. It was not a book, it was you in person. There were a lot of visitors in your presentation. There was this chat by, near all these pictures, and there was one of the participants from New York City. Her name was—there was only a short form, Caroline New York City and she posted Zettelkasten and Sonke Ahrens.I thought, okay, it was a session for Mike Rohde, it's about sketchnoting, there's some new stuff about sketchnoting. I have a whole bunch of literature about sketchnoting. I think all the books of all sketchnoters worldwide in different languages are on my bookshelf. I said, okay, Zettelkasten, it must be amazing. I bought this book, let me show you. It's a Kindle book, "How to Take Smart Notes."MR: Interesting.EG: Yes. Sketchnotes, smart notes, smart sketch notes. I started reading, and I was disappointed.MR: It was all text.EG: Yes. It's only text. The whole book is full of text. No sketchnotes at all.MR: Interesting.EG: And it was about note-taking. Then this boring stuff at the beginning, because only text, I said, okay, if it's not said what is the best way for note-taking, and I translate it in what is the best way for sketchnote taking or taking sketchnotes. I read all this book about note-taking with a sketchnote metaphor in mind, and that was an amazing book.This book from Sonke Ahrens it's not written from an engineer or from a writer, it's a German sociologist as well as this Niklas Luhmann. Let me say in short, who invented this Zettlekasten method.Sonke Ahrens explained it in his own language, and it's an amazing stuff. It's worth reading twice or three times this book. It's about 250 pages. What I learned reading one book about sketchnoting is not okay. I read the book, I'm now a sketchnoter.It needs a lot of practice. With the note-taking, it's the same as taking sketchnotes, it needs a lot of practice, but you need to know a lot of principles behind, and I say hidden principles. In the first moment, you couldn't see these principles.Mike, I looked at your book first. It was amazing, the sketchnotes, the ideas, but it needs maybe one or two years, I came back to your book and say, okay, now I understand it. You have no chance to understand it from the beginning. With note-taking, it's nearly the same.That is my hobby since one year. Since your online session about sketchnoting. To mix it a little bit up to say, okay, that's Sonke Ahrens and that's the Mike Rohde, put it together and that's my hobby since nearly one year. 362 days is my Zettlekasten hobby.MR: I had no idea that a workshop that I was teaching had sparked you along this path. That's really exciting to hear. That's pretty cool.I know we're gonna talk more about what Zettelkasten is, how you've overlapped it or integrated it with sketchnoting, but I think I wanna go back. We've gone back one year to last March.Now, let's go back to when you were a kid, and as you grew up in school and as you went to university, and as you worked in business as an engineer. I'm really curious, what were the moments in time, because you talked about when you were a kid, you liked drawing and now here you are again at the end drawing again in retirement years.What was it that kept drawing alive? Or maybe it didn't stay alive and it had to be resurrected later. Talk about your path from a little boy to now. What were those key moments that brought you to where you are now?EG: It's not drawing as a child, as a senior citizen, or so. It's at school first. I loved drawing most. Then they said, "Drawing is for small children. You are growing up and the really intelligent and clever ones, they can write and they can calculate. Drawing is only for the small ones."But that was at the beginning of the school, but in mathematics, there are also some specialties where you can draw with a pencil, with a ruler, with a circle. It's not freehand drawing, but it's visual. I learned in mathematics also in physics, that all the visual stuff was for me, easy to understand.For example, I'm really good in mathematics and physics and chemistry, for example. There was a lot of stuff I had to learn by heart that was not my idea. The visualization of elements, it was a little bit boring. Mathematics and physics was much more exciting too. In physics, to draw the experiments from the teacher on the sheet of paper and to say, okay, that's the motor, that's the battery and have it with symbols and the wires you can draw.This physical stuff was the way I learned. That was also a reason for becoming an engineer. Engineering is also stuff with drawings there. There are concepts, there are diagrams, all this visual stuff, and that helps a lot. Coming in my professional life, after I was a systems engineer from university, I had to communicate with others, with the colleagues, with my boss, with the customers.Then my drawings were these engineer drawings. I would not like to explain it too much in words. I will draw this system. We want to sell you this system that solves your problem, and so on. Or this process diagrams, flow diagrams and all this stuff. That was all visual. Therefore, I'm sure there are different styles of thinking maybe we are all born with. If you're more visual thinker, it's easier to become an engineer or an architect, and it's easier than to become a lawyer or something like this.MR: I know the physicist that I've spoken with Rob Dimeo and others who talk about physics is really dependent on visuals, and so, they find it a real natural companion to sketchnoting, which is pretty interesting that you mentioned it as well.EG: That's the side when I came to sketchnoting—and let me show you one book, I think one of my first sketch noting book was from Dan Roam.MR: "The Back of the Napkin." Yep. Great book.EG: It was a lot about the concepts itself. And I understand the concepts with a mind of an engineer, but years later, after Dan Roam, that was your book, I had a sketchnoting workshop over five days learning sketchnoting from a guy from Berlin, if I remember, Dick Hanaman.MR: Dick Hanaman. Okay.EG: Dick Hanaman from Berlin, he's giving sketchnoting workshops.MR: Great.EG: That was one of the books he recommended. With this book and with this workshop, I learned the stuff behind it, what does it mean to draw a line in this or in this way, why are there thicker and thinner lines, how to focus the attention on a special part of the drawing, and that was not in this book. Then came the book of Mike Rohde. I was happy to understand after years what drawing really means. I was working for a big company with more than 200,000 employees.MR: Oh, wow.EG: There's an internal platform or an internal community of self-organized learning. If you have some interesting stuff in engineering, in whatever, in the internet, you can post that you will held a session via Zoom or a special tool to show others, oh, there's interesting stuff for you about databases, proclaiming, and so on. And I offered Sketchnoting sessions, and it was two weeks after my first sketchnoting workshop and I held this session with 400 colleagues.MR: No pressure. Edmund, no pressure.EG: It was a feeling like flying in the air.MR: Wow.EG: I was able to draw a sticky man and write my name on paper. It was not only one session, it was repeatable. Week after week. That was really a nice feeling to say, oh, that's the right direction, and therefore I banned all my PowerPoint from my presentations, used the flip chart with the Neuland markers. It is the only ones I can use because I can use them for drawing and for writing. If the paper is white, the pen is black. What we had in the company before was you can't use this stuff. I always had my own Neuland markers with me.MR: Me too.EG: And the corporate material or markers most times they were old, two or three years old.MR: Dry.EG: Dry. You have to throw them away. That was it all with Neuland. Also, as an engineer, drawing on a whiteboard, it was the same with the dry markers years before, but with the Neuland markers for the whiteboard, I was the king. If we had a meeting, blah, blah, blah, this and this. Then Edmund uses his Neuland marker, went to the whiteboard, and explained how it works.MR: What we just talk about, Edmund would visualize it for you.EG: Yeah. It was amazing. It was all I think a little bit by excellent. It was not planned in my career.MR: Organic, maybe a good way to describe it, which is always good because you follow it because it's interesting. You didn't follow it because somebody told you to, or you had to because of your job. You did it because you were interested and you came to love it, it seems like.EG: Most of the stuff by accident, and what was the term I got from the internet? Serendipity. To be open to see things you wouldn't expect. As I told you, it was the same with Zettelkasten. It was, you were sketchnoting session in the internet.MR: That's funny.EG: The girl from New York said, Zettlekasten and Sonke Ahrens. Really cool stuff.MR: You just never know what's going to send you in the new direction.EG: Yeah.MR: Which is great. That's a great thing about life, right, if you're open to it. Which I would argue that people that stay in the sketch note community are very open and interested and curious people, I think by nature. Probably something else you share in common when you go to an event with other sketch noters, everybody's curious and loves to learn and loves to share. Those combination of things seem consistent to me. That makes a great community because there's just endless things you can learn about and endless things to do, which is exciting.EG: It's really my experience learning and talking with sketch noters, it's just another family. It's not the engineering style. It's another mindset. And I love it. They are from different professions. That's a big difference to my typical work as an engineer or as a data scientist.MR: You also have the international component, so not only are they from different walks of life and different interests, but they're also from different countries. Even then you have another perspective change, right? Even in countries in Europe as well as the United States and around the world, everyone has a little bit different view on things so you can learn some new things from those people from other places. At least that's what I've experienced. My life is so much richer because of the community for sure.EG: In this community, I really love this sharing mindset and this lifelong learning. And being curious, there's new stuff. There's a new app for drawing, could you please tell me a little bit about it? For these digital tools, they freely give away a digital brush set.MR: Right. Yeah, it's a great community, and we're glad you're part of it. Thank you for your contributions for sure. Speaking of contributions, I'd like to hear a little bit more about Zettelkasten, how it integrates or overlaps with sketchnoting.Probably, the best place to be would be to give us some history. Where did the term Zettelkasten—it seems to me like a German word from what I've done. Maybe take it from there and give us a backstory. Obviously, we know how you came across it. How do you then apply the Zettelkasten idea with sketchnoting?EG: You are right. Zettlekasten is a German word, and I think if you translate it right, it's a slip box. Typically, a slip box is a wooden box, small ones with a lot of note cards. This German, this Niklas Luhmann, this professor from Germany, a sociologist from Germany from the last century. He had a wooden Zettleksten with about 90,000 notes he'd taken in his life.MR: Wow. He must have had more than one box for that.EG: Yeah. It's a small format, and there's only written down his idea he got while reading a book while reading an article. Not reading in the internet. That wasn't invented at that time. When he was ready with creating this note card, he put it in a Zettelkasten.MR: A slip box. Yep.EG: In the slip box, yes. But you would say, okay, what's the way coming back to this Zettel or to this note card some days, weeks, or months or years later? That was the system we all know if you're familiar with the internet, he put a number on top of his note card, an identificater, an ID. It was written the date and the time when he created this note. And whenever he put some ideas on paper, he linked this note with another ID of another note card.For example, if you would say ideas not art, and put it only here on this note card, then he should put a link to the note card of Mike Rohde, with a Mike Rohde Id and maybe a must be an ID from this book.MR: Got it.EG: Then he put it in his Zettelkasten. Later on, if he was working on an idea, he want to write an article, or was writing a book yet idea, okay, there are some note cards. They're important for this stuff. I got them from my Zettelkasten. With these two or three cards, there are a lot of connections to the other note cards in the Zettelkasten.MR: Then you pull those note cards, right?EG: He put this on his desk, rearrange it a little bit.MR: Card sorting. Yeah.EG: Card sorting and say, okay, all the ideas are on the table. It's an easy stuff for writing. He was never sitting with a blank sheet of paper. Always starts with his notes. Note cards he captured days, months, or years ago. Niklas Luhman, it is said he was very productive in his life. I'm not good in remembering numbers, about 400 articles and 90 books. It's unbelievable for a lifetime.MR: Wow. The thing that makes me wonder is there must have been some kind of index. When you do the ID on the card, you must have to also—I think about the bullet journal. When you put entries into your book, you're supposed to add that to the index so that you can find it later.Is there an index component to this as well? Or do you have to just rifle through your slips? How would you know by the ID whether it's the thing you need, you'd almost need some organizing structure where you would say things about this are these numbers and things about that, or something. Tell me about that.EG: You have different types of notes in your Zettelkasten. The main part of the Zettelkasten are so-called permanent notes. Let me say there's a phrase to call them atomic notes because on one Zettel, there's only one idea. There's not an article or a story. One idea. Okay. And there are other types of notes. For example, structure notes and structure notes says, okay, that's my topic. That's about—MR: Gardening. Let's say.EG: It's about gardening. On this structure notes, you say in gardening, you need tools plants and whatever, soil and you put a list of important stuff for gardening. What are the 10 most important tools for gardening? Put it on this paper. And link it with a note card you already have in your Zettelkasten.MR: Got it. There is some manual, identification and crosslinking and such that you would do. That makes sense.EG: In book writing, it's an index. This structure notes are indexes and there are table of content. You have some structures like the structures in a mind map. In outlining of an article, for example, you have some main ideas, some sub ideas, and so. These structures are on special cards, but on the structure notes, they are only structure information, no content. The ideas are on separate permanent notes, and you have the structure notes.MR: In the physical box of cards, box of slips, I would assume, maybe in the back is where all the content notes are or the idea notes. And maybe in the front is where the indexes and structure notes live. You would maybe first go to the front part of the box to look for topics and say, "Okay, I need card number, this, and card number that and this."And based on that, then you'd go in the back and pull those because they would be in some order, then you could pull 'em all out and then lay them out and do what you will, and then return it all back to the box, assuming you didn't add some notes. If you added notes, then those would go in. Indexes would be updated and the new slips would be put maybe in the back, I suppose.EG: Yeah. These are the main types of notes. How to create the note, if I'm reading a book and I'm note-taking, I use my Zettels, and if there's important information on page 56, I put my idea with this important idea from the book on the literature note card. Literature note card only means it's the content I read in the book with my own words. It has an unique identifier, and with a digital tool, it would be a title.You don't need these numbers anymore. From a hindsight, you have to order and to sort them ad you have no search function. Today, you only have the title, you have the content in your own words, and you have a link to the source. Literature note—MR: Easily do with these tools that exist now, right? Linking is easier.EG: Yes, the only must with the literature note is to have a backlink to the source itself.MR: The book itself and the page number itself.EG: The book also to the author. And the literature note is not a permanent note. Maybe on the same day or little bit later, you will take you a literature note, look at it and say, "Okay, are there any connections in my mind, which may be important?"Maybe it's a phrase from your book, Mike to focus attention in your sketch note. And you said, okay, there's a connection to attention, and there are a lot of note cards, they are connected to attention. You put this on your—if you are started to link your literature note with other already existing permanent notes, then you transform this literature note to a permanent note. And the literature note vanish.MR: Doesn't need to be kept yet.EG: Yeah. With a linking to other notes, you have two possibilities. One is the link, like a hyperlink in the internet and the other possibility to link to other concepts, ideas, or whatever is tagging as you do it in Instagram, in Twitter, and—.MR: The hashtag.EG: —whatever. It's all the stuff we already know, but did it on paper. We are really lucky to have the computers and you have modern tools for this idea of note-taking. My favorite tool is called Obsidian. It's one of the favorite tools from a lot of writers. Starting with a steep curve in, if you ask at Google trends about Obsidian, it's a very slow line and rising high in the last month or years.It's a really great community. It's a little bit this sharing style, like the sketch noters. If you are in an Obsidian community with other guys using this tool and using the Zettelkasten method, and you ask a question, you are sure there's an answer within a few minutes. They really help each other. What is behind as I said to you in the beginning using sketchnoting seems to be easy, but you need a lot of experience.MR: It's a learning curve. Yeah, for sure.EG: It's not so steep learning curve. The same is with notetaking. It seems to be easy, as I told you, only a few types of notes. Use it on paper or use it on the PC with Obsidian tool, but it's really learning, learning, learning. In my professional life, most part, I need a lot of time in my business for note taking, with sketch notes without sketch notes.What, for me, was fascinating. If you have a note card, you can draw on it. There's no need. Like Niklas Luhmann, I think he wasn't a visual thinker. I do not know him personally, but only writing text or note cards. He couldn't have read your book in this time.MR: Yeah. Yeah.EG: There was no drawing at all. Unbelievable. But today, I think use a note card, put your drawings on it, and you have a mixture of sketch noting and note-taking with a Zettelkasten method integrated in the Obsidian tool.MR: Tell us a little bit how you do that, because that's the part where—I've got a text editing tool. I use Ulysses for writing. It can do some linking, but it's not optimized like Obsidian is, which I've considered, but for now, it's been great for writing. I use folders and structures.It also does tagging, so I could do some of it, but I'm really curious to see like bringing in the visuals into Obsidian. I would guess that you could attach images. You could do a drawing, take a photo and attach it to one of these cards and then use your linking and tagging to make sense of how it fits in the greater whole. Talk to us a little bit about how you make that work.EG: It's a little bit like linking a drawing to a note card. It's like building a webpage, there's the written stuff, and then there's a link to a jpeg or PNG or whatever file. For me, that's the same for drawing. I typically us my iPad with the Concepts app. I can export it in this—MR: It's an image.EG: Yeah. It's an image at the special formats. Then they are linked in the Zettelkasten tool. I can reuse. Also, it's only a link to the image. There's one place, they are all images. It's big box with thousands of images. And there's one link to one note. If I use the same image in another note, there's only a link to this image.MR: One link. Got it.EG: One link and one—you say you have a tool using folders.MR: Right.EG: I was trained my whole life working with folders. I'm not sure if it's a German invention to put all stuff in folders. I had these folders before the PC was invented. In the living room, wherever you look, there were folders with different Zettels here. And it was a nice feeling putting all the stuff in the folders. It looks pretty. When I had the idea, coming back to an idea, which was the right folder, where did I put it in? and I lost a lot of time my life for searching.MR: Searching for things.EG: The most confusing thing was this folder structure with sub-folders and sub-sub-folders. It was this tree-like structure, and you never which branch and which leaf and couldn't find it. What was really hard for me, learning the Zettelkasten method there, I would say no folders. All these permanent notes are in one folder. That's a crazy feeling. If you do it at the beginning and you'll say, okay are there the right links? Do I have a link to the source? Do I have a link to the author?And then you put it in this box, in this permanent note box, and it vanishes, and it's gone. From your life, you have no experience, is there a chance to get it back? Although I knew it's easy to get it back. There's a perfect search function, full text searching in this tool. You can look at the links. You have a craft view. You have a crafted representation of this network. You can filter this craft view, and it's really easy with all these tools coming back to an idea. But using folders the whole life—MR: It's very comfortingEG: It's a brainwash to put something in this black hole.MR: Like putting it in the sea.EG: I will never get it back.MR: Interesting. Well, I suppose, if I were to think of the one thing that's close to folders in this method would be tagging. You could have multiple tags. In a way, you're marking it in a folder, but it can be in more than one folder. That's the beauty of tagging where with a folder, there's only one, and if you can't find that folder, it's lost.I guess now with tools like Ulysses as an example, I can do searches and find things. Ideally, and probably the way I would go about it is probably use tagging to start tagging. Then I guess the challenge around tagging that I've seen in my lifetime is being consistent with tagging. Because maybe one tag is icon and then you accidentally say icons and now you have two tags.So, forming a manageable set of tags is probably a challenge because if the tags get out of control, then you could potentially have more processing stuff. You probably have to be disciplined about tagging, I suppose. To have a pretty structured tagging organization otherwise could get outta control, just like folders could.EG: It's really important point you talked about, this tagging and what you need at most at the beginning of working with a Zettelkasten, to have some kind of architecture for your text. What is important, what needs to be tagged in which way and not to have an idea of all the text from A to Z, but you have this taking architecture.For example, I have texts about hashtag type. And in Obsidian you have not only one level of tagging, but two levels of tagging. You can say hashtag type slash note slash sketchnote.MR: So, modify in a way.EG: Slash book. It's not about the content of the note, but it's more a little bit like metadata. If you come back, for example, oh I'm not sure what it was, but it was from a book, and then I could use this hashtag-type book. And then I have a list of books, and then I say, okay, but only the last two weeks. Then the list is very short and say, "Okay, that it was."You can find things and have no—you wouldn't be able to have a prompt, a search phrase. In Google, for example, you need some phrases to find the stuff. With your tagging architecture, you can search for stuff where you have forgotten the phrase.MR: So, probably tags for someone who, like you and me, have been trained to use folders for our whole lives, and that's a comfort for us. Probably the bridging mechanism to Zettelkasten might be tagging and then linking as well. Because in a way, tagging becomes like your representation of what the folder means. It's a metadata. It's the thing that defines the category.EG: In my architecture, I have for example, this taking of types, and as a process engineer, one of my jobs in the past, there was input, computation, and output. Then I have the tech input, and I can say it's from the internet, it's from the book, it's from YouTube. Sometimes, I only have an idea where it comes from. And other texts are about output to say, okay, I put it to Twitter, to LinkedIn, to Instagram or whatever. That's not about the content of the note, but only where it comes from, where it goes to.In this architecture, there several metadata sets I can extend at the end. The list of output, it's infinity to extend it, but this main structure it's very important to have it at the beginning, but when you have hundreds or thousands of notes and you have to change all this text, it's not so much fun.In Obsidian, there's a plugin. There's a plugin, if you say icon or icons, you can say, please change all text icons to icon, and that's makes it easy.MR: Yeah. Interesting. Is there so you think the Sonke Ahren's book is a good place for someone to start who's maybe interested. Are there other resources you might recommend? Are there classes or YouTube videos or something that might be helpful to get people started on this? Secondarily, once they've established the base, is that a Zettelkasten structure then is there reference for how to integrate visuals into it?Because it sounds like a lot of what I've seen is more text oriented, like linking and writing and so forth, it's all text, and there's not so much emphasis on integrating images. I think for sketch and visual thinkers, having that additional information would be useful. In addition, like once you set up the structure, then how do we integrate images into it would be helpful.Some of the things you've hinted at like there's a big folder that has all the images in it, and then you just link to it. And I suppose that's part of the whole box, right? So, you have one folder that's got all the text and it's all linked together, and then one box with images or something, and then you link them together.EG: I have one folder. The folder is called visuals. They're all my images. I have a folder, as I said, a permanent notes. They're all this permanent notes stuff. Other stuff, for example, I collect a lot of PDF files. Maybe I have books in PDF format or table of content from a book I have on paper in PDF, and all this stuff of value in my assets folder and I can link them easily.MR: All between each other.EG: Some of the sketch notes I have in PDF formats from others.MR: I see.EG: Assets for example, are the sketch notes from others I collected as an example, as a source of inspiration. In the visuals, I have these drawings from myself. As Niklas Luhmann did writing it down with your own words, it's drawing with your own pencil.MR: Yeah, same thing. Just a visual interpretation.EG: There's no difference. Therefore, the only difficulty with this book of Sonke Ahren, believe me, there are no pictures.MR: Yeah. Exactly.EG: Most of the sketch noters can draw, and therefore, it should be possible.MR: Now, I know that you offer, as part of your show notes that you pre-sent to me, there's something about an e-book. Is the e-book address using Zettelkasten for visuals and sketch notes? Is that what the book is about?EG: Yes. My idea was using the Mike Rohde book and using the book from Sonke Ahrens, put it together, but not to repeat it. But to say, what does it mean if you put it together? I give a lot of hints and advices how to structure the folders, how to use the architecture for the tagging.MR: That sounds like exactly—EG: That's more important. If it's more, oh, sketchnoting, then there's a link maybe to your book or maybe a link to a YouTube video. All the details are links to the internet, to some Zettelkasten videos or to sketchnote videos, or other material. And it's one overview. It's a book, would say a structure note with a lot of sketch notes and with links to all this stuff you need to put together.MR: Got it.EG: It's a book full of references.MR: So basically, if someone is listening to this and getting excited about the idea of, say, picking up Obsidian, which by the way is free for personal use, sets up Zettelkasten so that they can manage their sketch notes. That this would be the next step would be to get the book that you've created in order to structure it and start working with it and integrating it. Would that be the right way to think about it?EG: And the idea of my book is not writing it and publishing it in two or three years. I'm fascinated from this idea learning in public and publishing all the stuff. If I'm sitting here at the weekend writing a chapter in this book, then it's published in a pre-published version. I published already 15 versions. Most, it's one more chapter, some more links, and so on. It's growing and growing. What is really nice, the sketch noters and the Zettelkasten community, they all help me writing this book.MR: Oh, great.EG: I don't understand this sketch note. What do you mean with a sentence? I got feedback and okay, it's not printed this book. It's a PDF. It's on GitHub. It's freely available and all this feedback, there's an update and I can improve it. I earned my money as an IT engineer with HR projects. And we put running software to a customer a few days after he agreed with us the contract, and we were improving and improving. Today, it's possible also with books.MR: It's a mindset. It's a living book in a lot of ways. It's almost like software documentation, right? As you build the tool, like pieces are removed and replaced or depreciated, or things or features are added. In software, you have to document this stuff so that it's tracked, and you can go back in time and look at the old version and see, oh, that's right. We had that feature, and because of this and that, we removed it. It's no longer in the documentation.I suppose, in this case, you're doing more adding, but I suspect at some point maybe something would disappear or whatever, and you might have to replace it or something. Like a link, say somebody website in five years goes away, you might have to find a new link to that or something.EG: With Zettelkasten, I started in March '22, with your even bright workshop.MR: That's funny.EG: And then I started writing the book because the idea is not to take notes and to put all these Zettels, as I said in this box. It's a black hole. What do you need? That's very important for all who want to start with the Zettelkasten. You need the goal. What do you want to do with all these ideas in this box?MR: Right. How's it gonna be applied?EG: That's not the final destination. That's an asset. As a proof of concept, I have to write a book. Otherwise, all these ideas would vanish in this Zettelkasten box. And they're beautifully linked, nicely teched, but it doesn't make any sense. What I found in the internet, I think nearly as great as the sketch noting book from Mike Rohde, as great as Sonke Ahrens Zettelkasten it's about "Writing Useful Books." It's from Rob Fitzpatrick. You see, it's full of highlighted text, every page full of nuggets.Yes, yes, yes, the idea that non-fiction books are problem-solving books. You need to know the problems of your potential readers and to show them on the first page, which problem are you looking at, and how you can help them. And if you read the table of contents, there are a lot of promises from the author, how he could help you to solve your problem. And then, this as very short in writing, as you see, it's a small book.MR: Yeah. It's quite thin.EG: Quite thin, but full of value. Other books 500, 600 pages. I stopped in the middle of the book. I had no time in life to read it to the end. And that's the third book in my project, using the contents here of these right useful books to get the Zettels out of the Zettelkasten to create project notes, to create consistent chapters and sub-chapters, and to deliver result from all this syncing behind.MR: I think the other challenge too, that it's important to have a purpose would be if you just did the Zettlekasten just to do it without a purpose in mind, it would just go into an ocean. I think eventually your motivation to maintain it because it takes work to do the linking and all this, even if you get into a rhythm, it takes work. Just like sketchnoting, it takes more work to do sketch notes 'cause you have to really think about it and you're analyzing. So, it takes effort.Unless you have a purpose for it, eventually you're gonna, "Uh, I don't want to put a link, I'm tired, I don't wanna write a link, or I don't wanna do a tag." Then the next thing you know, then you're not adding thing. You know what I mean? It's like, would degrade ‘cause you didn't have a purpose for it.By having a purpose, like in your case, writing a book, it meant that you had something that you were doing. And now everything that goes into your Zettelkasten is likely for future additions of the book, or maybe now some new project that the Zettelkasten serves a purpose for, I would guess.EG: As a process engineer, in my Zettelkasten, I measure the input, I measure the output, I can measure the productivity, the relation between output and input, and I can see is it working. Is the process working? Are there some bottlenecks in the Zettelkasten? What takes the most of my valuable time? Is there connection between the idea at the input to the book at the output? Is it a little bit complicated or is it directly connected? How long does it take to get one idea in and one idea out? If I take this book, it's from 2012. If I would use one concept to improve my output, that 10 years between your idea, your shared to my idea, I shared.MR: The application.EG: Yes. And my idea is to shorten it a little bit. Reading a book, reading another book, connected and having an output and an output of value to solve a problem of my readers. That's more than note taking.MR: It's another level up.EG: It's a philosophy that connects really the organizational part with the Zettelkasten, the visual part with the sketch notes and the value part from "Creating Useful Books" from Rob Fitzpatrick.MR: Overlap of three things.EG: Combining three things and say, okay. That's for me, it makes sense. It's not only a machine, I'm focused on the wheels, didn't have a look at the motor, but I want tto build this car, and it's really working. You can use it.MR: Well, this is great. Thank you, Edmund. And you know, if you've been listening to this discussion, you're getting ideas in the end of the show, of course, have contact information for Edmund so you can reach out directly, but we'll also have links to his book and the other books that he's mentioned so you can do your own work and download obsidian and those kind of things, and try it out. I think this has been very helpful. I'm hoping that it will inspire some people to maybe organize their sketch notes using this method. That would be great.EG: I hope it solves one or another problem from all these guys taking notes their whole life, being a student, being a professional. And so, take their notes, but having ideas to improve this process. Taking sketch notes, not only the written stuff. Remember the old stuff, finding back to old ideas, combining with news, and having the chance to give the ideas a chance. They can meet in a Zettelkasten although they came from very different sources.MR: Right. The opportunities are pretty great there. Well, this has been interesting. Let's shift a little bit now. We'll talk a little bit about tools now. Let's start with analog tools and then we'll talk about digital tools. You've hinted at some of these things already, but let's go more in detail. Starting with analogEG: I already mentioned it I only used this Neuland and the reasons I gave you.MR: They're all there.EG: The only Markers, they really work in a professional context. That are my fine liners on paper. Is it?MR: Yeah. The little guys. Yes. Staedtler,EG: It's Staedtler. I think it's from Germany, but it's a way. The Neuland markers they also sell the Staedtler stuff.MR: Yes.EG: It's the same is only a branded Neuland on it. But it's the same. Perfect quality for me. That was my life before I got an iPad.MR: Tell us about how the iPad changed you. You mentioned that you've made a shift from one application to another. I'd love to hear not only what those two tools were, but then the rationale for switching and what led you to the new tool that you're using now.EG: With my iPad, I looked at the internet and to all the sketch notes and they told me there's only one tool you can use, it's Procreate. I had a lot of experience with Photoshop in the past, and it was not so difficult to understand how to use the Procreate tool. But I struggled a little bit with my canvas. Is it designed for a letter format or for a large poster? It is pixel-based the Procreate and enlarging your drawing means there is all this—MR: The jackety edges.EG: Yeah. It's not so nice. The Procreate, if you say, okay, I'm not sure which format is the best, I plan for the highest resolution and can reduce it if I need. But then the fights were getting bigger and bigger. With a Concept app, it's a vector-based format. I can resize as I like it. At the beginning, at the end, and the canvas is infinite. If there's not enough place, there's place for an extra drawing and I put it together.What I learned is, it's very easy to handle an object library in the Concepts app. Most of my life, I was working with PowerPoint. PowerPoint means use it as a tool putting different visual objects together. This PowerPoint style of working I can use with a Concepts app. If I drawing a house or a special icon, some eggs are very easy, a square or triangle. I can put it on the surface as well.But if it's a little bit more complicated, a stopwatch or so with some details, it costs me a few minutes to do it well. Then I can go to the library, put it together, and it's all my shape. It looks like freshly drawn from Edmund. It's not a library I bought.MR: You made it yourself.EG: I can say from Microsoft. I would say, okay, there are a lot of visuals, but they are not from me. And it makes it very personal to use my own icons, my own drawings. What I have to learn is to write my name with nice letters. And that's not so easy, it takes me most of the time to learn this architect's handwriting.It's all in Concepts. It's now not so difficult to, produce nicely looking stuff. Not only for me but also for others. Also, I'm not an illustrator. I'm not a professional artist. And graceful enough, that was the phrase I got from Mauro Toselli.He said, "The sketch notes must be graceful enough, not more." There's no need for, but if they're really ugly, someone would say, okay, it's hard to read. I do not really understand. Is it a horse or a dog or so? It must be graceful enough. That's possible very easily with pre-drawn objects I use most times.MR: Interesting.EG: Therefore, if you say there's a better tool, okay, I will have a look at it, but at the moment, I'm pretty happy with my Concepts app.MR: That's good. That's good. We'd like to hear that. It's always about finding what fits the way you work. Some people, Procreate just works the way they like to, and they don't have these challenges of sizing in vectors, and it works fine for them, which is great. But if you have other needs, it's great that there are other software out there that can do what you need to do. It's important that we have variety, and we definitely. We are very lucky that the iPad has lots of options available to us.EG: It's the same iPad, it's the same pencil, and everyone can use the tool which fits to his own personal styles.MR: Yeah, I still use the app Paper, by WeTransfer, which hasn't really changed too much, but I've become pretty fluent with it, so I can work really quickly. If I do illustrations, I have to move to another tool like Procreate or Concepts. But for really super quick ideas, for me, it's just really efficient.I've learned that in my career when I'm faced with a heavy deadline, it's wise for me to choose a tool that I'm fluent in because I'm speedier in that tool than if I tried the perfect tool for it, but I don't have familiarity with it yet. That's a lesson I've learnedEG: As I learned in my profession, whatever tool you are using, you have to use it really professionally, and you have—it's not only starting with the tool and being very fluent or very efficient, you must know your tool very well.MR: Yes. Yep. Well, that's great to hear. Really simple tool set both on the analog and digital side. Let's shift a little bit more, and let's talk about your tips. The three tips that you might share. I always frame this, imagine someone's listening, they are visual thinker, whatever that means to them. And they're excited about the space, just like we talked about our excitement about the community, but maybe they've hit a plateau or they just feel they need a little bit of inspiration. What would be three things that Edmund would tell them to kind of encourage them and break them out of maybe being stuck?EG: Starting with sketch notes, that was always the question, how to find a personal motivation going on improving your skills. One of the motivation as I showed you are books. I love it to learn from books. But what is even better learning from other people? With my company where there's self-organized learning groups, we're growing up. I learned this self-organized learning groups are the best to improve yourself.One of your podcasts Mike, there's a team about LernOS. They had a 12-week journey, different stuff. There's also a learning journey for sketch notes, and you have self-organized meetings every week and having a Zoom meeting or so, sharing my report or whatever.It's little bit like there are some examples, some exercises you can do together, but you can do as a homework for the next meeting. That's the way I like to learn. It's better than sitting with a blank sheet of paper at home and reading the book and—MR: Struggling. Yeah.EG: Struggling.MR: That, by the way was for those listening is season eight was an episode with Karl Damke and Raffaelina Rossetti.EG: Rossetti. Raffaelina Rossetti is her name. Yeah.MR: You can learn about that movement there in the podcast.EG: There's a link to the internet also where the Sketchnoting Guide is, and so, and it's amazing stuff. Getting the right people for the sketchnoting Circle. That's my next advice. Typically, they are distributed around the world. That's not your neighbor, the sketch noter, or the other neighbor on the other side of the street. They're somewhere in this internet universe.Some years ago, I found this Sketchnote Army Slack platform you established, Mike. And there's one folder with announcement of LernOS sketchnoting groups, and that's sub organized to find others. They're interested to have on Friday afternoon five o'clock or so, the next 12-week we want to join this sketch noting journey. And they're from different countries, different professions, different skills in drawing that's not only the beginners or the specialists. It's like these schools and former times they are the small and the older, the grownup children, and they help each other.MR: The one-room schoolhouse, we would say in the United States. Back in the days.EG: This one-room schoolhouse you have in the Slack rooms. You find all these people and it's this mindset sharing things, learning together, and so, you would never find them in real life.MR: Yeah. That's two points. That's number two.EG: Two points. The last one, I want to repeat, Zettelkasten is my second brain. Zettelkasten it's also your second brain. You have a lot of experience in note-taking, different tools, but looking at this concept to get a step higher in efficiency, in effective note taking, and making things easier than they are.MR: Great. Well, those are three great tips. Thanks so much for sharing those. And definitely, encourage you to do all those things, both the LernOS and explore Zettelkasten. So Edmund, what's the best way for people to reach out if they have questions about Zettelkasten and sketchnoting or something else, what's the best place to go?EG: Mike, you said you are sharing some links about me.MR: Yes. We'll definitely share links.EG: It's very easy because I look at my posts nearly every day in LinkedIn. In Instagram, you'll see some of the sketch notes, the newer ones. Most of them are sketch notes before they are published in the ebook. On Twitter, there's a chance for communication very fast. Is it one year ago, Mike we had this discussion about sketch note manifesto?MR: Yes. That's been around. I think Mauro has been talking about this for years.EG: Yes. That was an idea from him and I mixed it a little bit up with atrial development. Then we had a discussion about it. That's the style of communicating and Twitter. And yeah. I also have this in your link list a Linktree. Yeah. All the other stuff are from Masterton or from the forums about Zettelkasten. There's a Zettelkasten forum and Obsidian forum. Also, there are new ideas I discussed with others, and they also get the feedback. I'm learning with all these guys.MR: I'll look on the Link tree. You have several links here, LinkedIn, Instagram, medium, Pinterest, Masterdom, and on Twitter, and eBook.EG: On all platforms, there are links to the GitHub platform. There's the PDF file of the actual version of this e-book, "How to Take Useful Notes."MR: Yeah, I see it here. We've got links for all these things, everyone. So we'll put 'em in the show notes so you can see and jump and look at all these things that Edmund has been talking about. Especially, if you really want to get into this Zettelkasten with Obsidian and using your sketch notes, making a way to organize 'em.I'm inspired, I'm gonna do some looking at this because I think there's an opportunity for me to level up, like all the work I've done and make some sense of it. It might be interesting to see, looking back over it what connections there are. Maybe it's a big job though, Edmund. I don't know. That could be a lifetime just organizing all this junk I've made.EG: I will tell you the story. Maybe I published the story about the new situation before Mike Rohde's podcast and afterwards. Or is it worth a sketch note to say, that was my life before and that was the life after?MR: Yeah. Well, as a process engineer, you're gonna wanna know what's the input, which is doing the podcast. And the output is, are you suddenly getting more downloads of your book? And questions about doing Zettelkasting with sketch notes. That would be ideal because you're a pioneer in this space. I think Chris Wilson is another person in the space that's explored, we talked about in his interview, he was starting to play with Obsidian.EG: I listened to this podcast from him. It was the first time I saw some sketch noter using the Zettelkasten.MR: You two need to get together and do a workshop for everybody, so you can sort of walk them through. That could be interestingEG: If you know a female sketch noter from Denmark, Ingrid LiLL.MR: Oh yeah, of course. Yeah.EG: He is also starting with the Zettelkasten.MR: Oh, there you go. Now you have three people to your merry band, so you can maybe do some kind of a teaching.EG: It's a very small community.MR: That's okay. Sketchnoting community is small, but getting bigger every day. So you have to start somewhere, Edmund, you have to start somewhere.EG: It's the 1% of the sketch noters using Zettelkasten.MR: Yeah, exactly. That's okay. If it works for you, then you can do itEG: All things I believe ever starting small.MR: Yes. The best things start small. Well, Edmund—go ahead.EG: No, no.MR: I was just gonna say thank you so much for your participation. I see you on LinkedIn and Instagram and Twitter. You're always so kind and you have such kind words, and I just love that. You could have easily retired and just gone to Majorca and like, just enjoyed your life and not done any of this work, but yet you choose curiosity and sharing and giving, and I really appreciate that and I admire that. So, thank you for giving back to the community and making it a better place. That's so much what we need.EG: Thank you for having me.MR: You're so welcome.EG: It was really fun. Also, the story in the beginning you told before the podcast, it was a wonderful evening.MR: Yeah. I told him my German experiences that made me fall in love with Germans and Germany. Maybe I'll tell that story sometime. Well, everyone, this has been another episode of "The Sketchnote Army Podcast." So until the next episode, we will talk to you soon.EG: Thank you. Have a nice evening. Bye-bye, Mikey.MR: See ya.

I'm back telling you about what I read last month, and what's worth reading. This month's books include... Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 2 Hour Workshop Blueprint by Leanne Hughes (no rating as this was an early draft copy) Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I Wanna Be Yours by John Cooper Clarke (audiobook) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rob Fitzpatrick is a serial entrepreneur, a writer, a community leader, and a very curious human being. I talk to Rob about building an incredibly complicated business, the world of self-publishing, what AI tools can and will do for humanity, and how to build communities that can run by themselves.00:00:00 Rob Fitzpatrick00:03:38 The challenges of building the Useful Books business00:10:01 A rare breed00:14:47 The passion discount00:21:12 What's changed in self-publishing?00:26:43 What's your pet peeve of the publishing industry?00:32:48 Knowledge production00:39:06 Short-term wins are not going to be around for long00:42:21 Different voices for the same content00:47:39 Prose be gone00:54:26 Staying accountable in an accountability community00:57:45 Late-stage communities01:02:26 Rob's passion and the purpose of communitiesBrandon Sanderson's class on Indie Publishing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHdYX418PaAThe blog post: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/rob-fitzpatrick-tinkerers-thinkers-and-teachers/The podcast episode: https://share.transistor.fm/s/fd014e11The video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqPF3a0px68You'll find my weekly article on my blog: https://thebootstrappedfounder.comPodcast: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/podcastNewsletter: https://thebootstrappedfounder.com/newsletterMy book Zero to Sold: https://zerotosold.com/My book The Embedded Entrepreneur: https://embeddedentrepreneur.com/My course Find your Following: https://findyourfollowing.comFind me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/arvidkahl/This interview is sponsored by Acquire.com

“I had one job, which was to get the data right. Why was that so freaking hard?” asked Barr Moses, co-founder and CEO of Monte Carlo, the world's first data observability platform, discussing what motivated her to create the product. Having worked with data for 15 years, she realized so many people across the industry couldn't seem to get it right, nor did they have a systematic, scalable way to make sure data was accurate. In the world we're living in, where so many people have access to data, just a few minutes of inaccurate data can lead to poor customer experience and millions of dollars in lost revenue. It's a problem Barr says will only get worse over time, as data becomes more important to infrastructure.  Barr explains what it was like to create a whole new category, something from nothing, even when some people were telling her it would never work and that she was throwing her career away. She knew there was a company to be built there, and she wanted to be the one to do it and be proud of the journey along the way—which she admits is a lot of hard work. Category creation is really solving customer problems, and in so doing, the customer becomes co-creator of the category because they have the answers. Customer happiness is at the heart of the whole operation. Barr expands upon this and other codified values that make up the foundation of Monte Carlo. Barr reveals what the two main rules any business should have, from the beginning and forever. Find out why it's important that people around you pass “The Mom Test,” what the odds are that data will ever be 100% accurate, and what it's like to be married to your co-founder.  Quotes: “The idea of data being wrong would get a really strong reaction. It resonated. I think that was the first ‘aha' moment. People that I didn't even know would say, ‘Hell, yes, I have that problem, please help me solve it now. So that was the very first lightbulb moment.” (9:52-10:17 | Barr) “We're not looking for someone to say, ‘Hey we have 100 percent confidence.' We're looking for someone to say, ‘Hey, this data is important enough for us to invest something in making sure that it's accurate.' It's about treating the issue with the diligence it deserves." (15:53-16:07 | Barr) “Think about application reliability: A couple of decades ago, nobody cared if your app was up or down. But then Netflix is down for 45 minutes in 2016 because of duplicate data. Netflix being down is a hell of a problem.” (16:07-16:26 | Barr) “Customers don't give a shit about you creating a new category or not. They literally don't care. They care about, ‘Are you solving a real problem for me?' Helping people and solving their problem is way more important.” (32:58-33:20 | Barr) “Our measure of success isn't years or weeks, it's literally minutes. Every minute that you're spending on something should be high-value.” (39:50-40:00 | Barr)  Connect with Brendan Dell:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926    Connect with Barr Moses: LinkedIn: @barrmoses barr@montecarlodata.com Check out Barr Moses recommended books: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick https://www.indiebound.org/search/book?keys=The+Mom+Test   Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown  https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781592408412   The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison and Craig Walsh https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781591843474 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm  Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Nadia Odunayo is the Founder and CEO of The StoryGraph, a new website and app for avid book readers because life's too short for a book you're not in the mood for. The StoryGraph helps you track your reading and choose your next book based on your mood, favorite topics, and themes. Victoria talks to Nadia about coming up with a product based on the concept of mood, what you're in the mood for to read, i.e., this book made me feel this way. How do I find a book that makes me feel similar? They also talk about keeping yourself open to feedback, the ability to flow and change direction, and developing a reviewing system that keeps biases in check. StoryGraph (https://thestorygraph.com/) Follow StoryGraph on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-storygraph-limited/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/the.storygraph/), or Twitter (https://twitter.com/thestorygraph). Follow Nadia Odunayo on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nodunayo/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/nodunayo). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is The Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Nadia Odunayo, Founder and CEO of StoryGraph, a new website and app for avid book readers because life's too short for a book you're not in the mood for. StoryGraph helps you track your reading and choose your next book based on your mood and your favorite topics and themes. Nadia, thank you for joining me. NADIA: Thank you for having me. VICTORIA: And you are a repeat guest at Giant Robots. But for those who missed that episode, tell me a little bit about your journey. And how did this all get started? NADIA: Okay. Yeah, so that first time was in 2015, and that was not too long after I had just got into tech. I did a bootcamp in London in 2014, Makers Academy, and that's where I learned to code. My degree was in philosophy, politics, and economics, so rather different. I worked at Pivotal for about a year and a half after I graduated from Makers Academy. And during my time at Pivotal, I got into conference speaking, and my first talk was around game theory. So I took my favorite topic in economics, game theory, and I combined that with distributed systems because that's what I was working on at the time in Pivotal on their Cloud Foundry PaaS. I think I gave it at RailsConf, and I think someone there recommended me to Giant Robots. And so Ben Orenstein interviewed me, and it was all about different types of conference talks and that kind of thing. So after Pivotal, I left and started a hybrid kind of consultancy/product company with a colleague, did that for about a year, left that, worked for about a year with my friend, Saron Yitbarek, on her company CodeNewbie. And then, when that partnership ended, I essentially had five years of runway from money that I got from the company that I started after Pivotal because we did some consulting with a bank. I'd always been entrepreneurial. I'd been doing various entrepreneurial things since secondary school, actually, high school. It was time for me to just have time on my side projects. And so I started hacking away on one of my side projects at the beginning of 2019 in January, and I haven't stopped since. That's what the StoryGraph has developed into. VICTORIA: Wonderful. And yes, I saw that the very early stages of StoryGraph started as a creative writing e-publication. Is that right? NADIA: So what happened was when I was at university, I started a creative writing e-publication, came up with the name The StoryGraph. Because we had won or we were going for some grant funding or something like that, I set up a corporate entity. And when I stopped working on that e-publication, I remember my mom saying to me, "Don't shut down the entity. I really like the name. I feel like you'll use it for something," that was in 2012. And so fast forward to 2019, and the side project that I was working on was called Read Lists. And it was very specifically focused on tracking and sharing progress through reading lists on a dashboard. But when I was doing customer research, and the scope of the project grew, Read Lists didn't fit anymore. And that's when I realized, oh, I can use The StoryGraph thing again. And so it's basically had two different lives or two different forms, the StoryGraph company. VICTORIA: That's wonderful. And I'm reading about StoryGraph and how it's an Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads. Can you talk a little bit more about the product and why people would want to use it? NADIA: So, as I said, it started life as a very specific focused side project. And I just had so much fun working on it and working in the book space. I'd always been a reader since I was a kid such that I said to myself, I need to find a way to make me building a books product a full-time thing. And so that's when customer research came in because the only way that you're going to make sure that you don't build something that people don't want is by talking to people. As I was doing customer research and figuring out, are there pain points amongst readers, people who track their reading? What would happen was the pain points that came up drove me towards building a more fully fledged reading, tracking, and recommendations product. It actually started as a very focused recommendations product. And then, we got to the point where we needed to build more around it for it to be a compelling product. And as it was growing, we never advertised ourselves as a Goodreads alternative or as an Amazon-free alternative to what was out there. But that was clearly a pain point in the market. There were tweets about us saying, "Finally a Goodreads alternative. It's small; it's independent; it's Amazon-free. And so thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of people have come to us because of that. VICTORIA: Wow. NADIA: And so it got to the point...mainly when we launched our payment plan, and we were trying to figure out the reasons why people were pre-ordering the plan, it was at that point where we decided to lean into the Amazon-free Goodreads alternative because that was what the market wanted. VICTORIA: Was that surprising for you? Or were there other things that came out of your research on your marketplace that kind of were different than what you thought it would be going in? NADIA: I think the most interesting thing about the product development journey was that I at least originally felt like I was building a product that wasn't for me. So what I mean by that is in my earliest rounds of research, what I was finding was that people still didn't think that they had one place to get consistently good book recommendations. And so then I started to explore, well, how do you even give somebody consistently good book recommendations? And one of the factors that kept on coming up was this concept of mood, what you're in the mood for. This book made me feel this way. How do I find a book that makes me feel similar? And so it got to the point where I said to myself, oh wow, I'm building a product for mood readers right now; that seems to be the gap, that seems to be the thing that nothing out there yet had properly attacked. And I had never considered myself a mood reader. I just thought I'm a planner. I'm an organized person. I typically decide what book I want to read, and then I read it. And so there was a point where I was concerned, and I thought, wait, am I now building something that is not for me? But then, as I started to work and do more research and talk to more and more people and thinking about my reading experiences, I developed the hypothesis or the viewpoint rather that I think everybody's a mood reader; it's just the scale. Because there are probably some books that I may have rated lowly in the past that if I had read it in a different frame of mind, or at a different time in my life, different circumstance, it probably would have resonated with me a lot more. Now, that's not to say that's true for every single book. There are some books that are just not going to work for you, no matter what. But I do think we're all on the scale of mood reading. And sometimes we say a book is a bad book, but we just read it at not the right time. And so I think the most surprising thing for me is going on that journey of realizing that, oh, I am a mood reader too. VICTORIA: [laughs] NADIA: And I ended up building an app that's a lot less focused on just the pure ratings. I was someone who, on Goodreads, if it had less than four stars, I'm not interested. And the ethos of the product is more about, well, hang on; these ratings are very subjective. And someone else's two, three-star could be your next five-star. What are the factors that really matter? Do you want something dark, adventurous? Are you looking for something funny, light? And then what kind of topics do you want to discover? And then it doesn't matter if the five people before you thought it was average; you might think it's excellent. VICTORIA: Yeah, it reminds me thinking about how bias can come in with authors and writing as well. So a simple five-star system might be more susceptible to bias against different genders or different types of names. Whereas if you have more complex numbers or complex rating systems, it might be easier to have different types of authors stand out in a different way. NADIA: That actually relates to what was going through my mind when I was developing the reviewing system on StoryGraph. You can just, if you want, leave your star rating and say no more, but the star rating is lower down on the page. And up front, we say this book would be great for someone who's in the mood for something...and then you've got checkboxes. And how would you rate the pace of the book? And if it's a fiction book, we ask you, "Are the characters lovable?" Is there a flawed narrator? Is it plot-driven or character-driven?" Questions like that because the thinking is it doesn't matter whether you are going to give the book two stars in your own personal star rating. You can still help someone else find a book that's good for them because they will be looking at the summary on the StoryGraph book page, and they'll go, "Oh wow, 80% of people said it's lovable. There's a diverse range of characters, and it's funny. So the topics fit things I'm interested in, so I care less about the average rating being like 3.5 because everything else seems perfect. Let me see for myself." And actually, we've also had a lot of feedback from people saying that "Oh, normally, I never know how to review a book or what to say. And this system has really helped me, almost give me prompts to get started about explaining the book, reviewing it for other people to help them decide if it's for them. So that's great." VICTORIA: That makes sense to me because I read a lot of books, maybe not as much as I would like to recently. But not all books that I love I can easily recommend to friends, but it's hard for me to say why. [laughs] You know, like, "This is a very complicated book." So I love it. I'll have to check it out later. It's been four years since you've been full-time or since 2019, almost five then. NADIA: Yes. VICTORIA: If you could travel back in time to when you first started to make this a full-time role, what advice would you give yourself now, having all of this foresight? NADIA: Have patience, trust the process because I can sometimes be impatient with, ah, I want this to happen now. I want this to pick up now. I want these features done now. I'm a solo dev on the project. I started it solo. I have a co-founder now, but I'm still the solo dev. And there were so many things, especially now that we've got a much larger user base, that people complained about or say is not quite right. And that can be really tough to just have to keep hearing when you're like, I know, but I don't have the resource to fix it right now or to improve it. But I think one of the things is, yeah, having faith in the process. Keep going through the cycles of listening to the customers, prioritizing the work, getting the work done, getting the feedback, and just keep going through that loop. And the product will keep getting better. Because sometimes it can feel, particularly in the first year when I was so low, you sometimes have moments of doubt. Or if a customer research round doesn't go super well, you start to wonder, is this only a nice-to-have? And is this going to go anywhere? And so that's one piece of advice. And I think the other one is knowing that there are several right paths because I think sometimes I would agonize over I want to do the right thing. I want to make sure I make the right choice right now. And, I mean, there are some things that are not good to do. You want to make sure that you're setting up your customer interviews in a non-leading way. You want to make sure that there are certain standards in the product in terms of the technical side and all that kind of stuff, so there's that. But I think it's understanding that you kind of just have to make a decision. And if you set yourself up to be able to be adaptive and responsive to change, then you'll be fine. Because you can always change course if the response you're getting back or the data you're getting back is going in the wrong direction. VICTORIA: I love that. And I want to pull on that thread about being open to changing your mind. I think that many founders start the company because they're so excited about this idea and this problem that they found. But how do you keep yourself open to feedback and keeping that ability to flow and to change direction? NADIA: I mean, I didn't set out to build a Goodreads alternative, and here I am. VICTORIA: [laughs] NADIA: I just wanted to build this specific side project or this specific...it was a companion app, in fact. Like, the first version of the thing I built, the first thing you had to do was sign in and connect your Goodreads account so that we could pull in your shelves and start creating the dashboards. So as a solo bootstrapping founder, building a Goodreads alternative was not something that I thought was going to lead to success. But through years of experience, and just hearing other people's stories, and research, I just learned that it's such a hard space just running a startup in general, and 90% of startups fail. And I just said to myself that, okay, the only way I can kind of survive for longer is if I am open to feedback, I'm open to change course, I'm patient, and I trust the process. These are the things I can do to just increase my chances of success. And so that's why I kind of feel it's imperative if you want to go down this route and you want to be successful, it's vital that you're open to completely changing the product, completely changing your direction, completely going back on a decision. You'll either lose customers or you'll run out of money, whatever it is. And so yeah, you've got to just basically be quite ruthless in the things that are just going to minimize your chances of failing. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And now, I have a two-part question for you. What's the wind in your sails? Like, the thing that keeps you going and keeps you motivated to keep working on this? And then, conversely, what's kind of holding you back? What are the obstacles and challenges that you're facing? NADIA: I think this kind of role...so I'm like founder, CEO, and developer. In general, I think I thrive under pressure and pushing myself, and trying to always be better and improve. So I'm always trying to be like, how can I improve my productivity? Or how can I run the company better? All these kinds of things. So I feel like I'm getting to explore maximizing my full potential as someone in the world of work through doing this. So that just intrinsically is motivating to me. I love books, and I love reading. I think it's such an amazing hobby. And the fact that I get to make other readers happy is awesome. So even just as the product has grown, the messages that we get about if someone got a perfect recommendation from StoryGraph, or they hadn't read for years, and now an easy form of, you know, what are you in the mood for? Check a few boxes, and we'll show you some books that fit, whatever it is. That's just so...it's so awesome just to be able to enhance readers' lives that way in terms of the things they're reading and getting them excited about reading again or keeping them excited. So those are the things that keep me going, both the personal nature of enjoying my work and enjoying trying to be the best founder and CEO that I can and building a great product. It's always great when you build something, and people just enjoy using it and like using it. So I'm always incentivized to keep making the product better, the experience better. I'm currently mid a redesign. And I'm just so excited to get it out because it's going to touch on a lot of repeated pain points that we've been having for years. And I just can't wait for everyone to see it and see that we've listened to them. And we're making progress still like three and a bit years on since we launched out of beta. What's tough? Previously, what's been tough is navigating, remaining independent, and bootstrapped with just personally trying to make money to just live my life. So I had five years of runway. And it was this tricky situation about when I had a couple of years left, I'm thinking, wow, I really like doing this, but I'm going to need to start earning money soon. But I also don't want to get investment. I don't want to stop doing this. I can't stop doing this. We've got hundreds of thousands of customers. And so kind of trying to balance my personal needs and life situations with the work I've been doing because I've been working so hard on it for so long that in the last couple of years, it's gotten to a point where it's like, how do I craft the life I want out of a product that is very not set up to be an indie bootstrapped product? [laughs] Typically, you want to do a B2B. You want to start earning money from your product as early as possible. And I feel like I've landed in a product that's typically funded, VC-backed, that kind of thing. So kind of navigating that has been a fun challenge. There's not been anything that's kind of demoralized me or held me back, or made me think I shouldn't do it. And it's just kind of been a fun challenge trying to...yeah, just navigate that. And we've been doing things like we're currently in the process of transitioning our...we have a Plus Plan. And when we launched it, it was essentially a grab bag of features. We're completely changing the feature set. And we right now have six and a half thousand people who are on that plan. But we don't have product market fit on that plan, and I can tell from when I do certain surveys the responses I get back. And so we're completely transitioning that to focus in on our most popular feature, which is the stats that we offer. And so that's kind of scary, but it's part of making that Plus Plan more sticky and easier to sell because it's going to be for your power users who love data. So they want all the data when they are reading. And then the other thing is, okay, what kind of business avenue can we start which fits in with the ethos of the product but brings in more revenue for StoryGraph? And so, we launched a giveaway segment in our app where publishers and authors can pay to list competitions for users to win copies of their books. And it's essentially a win-win-win because publishers and authors get another channel to market their books. Users get to win free books, and readers love winning free books. And StoryGraph has another revenue source that helps us stay independent and profitable, and sustainable in the long run. VICTORIA: That's wonderful. And there are two tracks I want to follow up on there; one is your decision not to seek funding; if you could just tell me a little more about the reasoning and your thought process behind that. And you've already touched on a little bit of the other ways you're looking at monetizing the app. NADIA: Since I was a teenager, I've always been interested in business, economics, entrepreneurship. I've always felt very entrepreneurial. I've read so many founder stories and startup stories over the years. And you hear about venture capitalists who come in, and even if it's fine for the first year or two, ultimately, they want a return. And at some point, that could come at odds with your mission or your goals for your company. And when I think about two things, the kind of life I want and also the nature of the product I'm building as well, VC just doesn't fit. And I know there are so many different funding programs and styles right now, a lot more friendlier [laughs] than VC. But I'm just focusing on VC because when I was younger, I used to think that was a marker of success. VC funding that was the track I thought I was going to go down, and that was what I kind of idolized as, oh my gosh, yes, getting a funding round of millions and millions and then building this huge company. That was how I used to be, so it's so interesting how I've completely gone to the other side. That idea that you could have mismatched goals and how it's ruined companies, once you take the first round of funding and you grow and expand, then you've got to keep taking more to just stay alive until some liquidation event. That just doesn't appeal to me. And I just think there's something ultimately very powerful and valuable about building a product without giving up any ownership to anybody else and being able to make it into something that people love, and that's profitable, and can give the people who run it great lifestyles. I just think that's a mark of an excellent product, and I just want to build one of those. And then I think also the nature of the product itself being a book tracking app. I think the product has done well because it is run and built so closely by myself and Rob. And so it's like, people talk about how, oh, you can tell it's built for readers by readers by people who care. And I run the company's Instagram, and it's not just me talking about the product. I'm talking with a bunch of our users about books and what we're reading. And it really feels like it's just got such a great community feel. And I worry that that can get lost with certain types of investment that I've previously thought that I wanted in my life. And so, yeah, that's the reason why I've kind of strayed away from the investment world. And then it's gotten to the point, like, now we're at the point where we don't need funding because we've been able to get to profitability by ourselves. So we don't need any type of funding. And we're just going to try and keep doing things to keep making the product better, to convert more people to the Plus Plan. And, hopefully, our giveaways platform grows in the way we want such that our goal is to just stay profitable and independent forever for as long as possible. And we think that way, we're going to have the most fun running the company, and the product is going to be the best it can be because there's not going to be competing incentives or goals for the product. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And it sounds like, in reality, in the real case, you had a team, and you had the skills yourself to be able to move the product forward without having to take on funding or take on additional support, which is awesome. And I actually really like your background. I also have a degree in economics. So I'm curious if the economics and philosophy, all of that, really lends itself to your skills as a founder. Is that accurate? NADIA: I don't think so. VICTORIA: [laughs] NADIA: I love my degree. I get sad when I meet econ grads or econ majors, and they're like, "Oh, I hated it. Oh, it was so boring," or whatever. I'm like, "No, it was so great." I'm a big microeconomics fan, so I was all about...I didn't like macro that much. I was all about the game theory and the microeconomic theory, that kind of stuff. I don't think there's anything that really ties into my skills as a founder. I feel like that's more to do with my upbringing and personality than what I studied. But, I mean, one of the reasons I did love my degree is because there are elements that do crop up. It's such a widely applicable...the subjects I did are so widely applicable, philosophy, different ways of seeing the world and thinking and approaching different people. And then, obviously, economics that's essentially behavior, and how markets work, and incentives, and all that kind of stuff. And when you get to pricing and all those sorts of things, and business, and then politics as well, I mean, everything is politics, right? People interacting. So there are definitely things and conversations I had at university, which I see things crop up day to day that I can tie back to it. But yeah, I think it doesn't really...my specific degree, I don't think it's made me a better founder than I would have been if I'd studied, I don't know, English or Math or something. VICTORIA: Right, yeah. I think economics is one of those where it's kind of so broadly applicable. You're kind of using it, but you don't even realize it sometimes. [laughs] NADIA: Yeah. MID-ROLL AD: thoughtbot is thrilled to announce our own incubator launching this year. If you are a non-technical founding team with a business idea that involves a web or mobile app, we encourage you to apply for our eight-week program. We'll help you move forward with confidence in your team, your product vision, and a roadmap for getting you there. Learn more and apply at tbot.io/incubator. VICTORIA: So what made you decide to go to a bootcamp right after finishing school? NADIA: So I'd always been entrepreneurial. I remember...I don't know where exactly it started from, whether I got it from my mom. I know she's always been very entrepreneurial and into business. The earliest memory I have of doing something that was very specifically business-oriented was in what we call sixth form in the UK, which is essentially the last two years of high school before you go to university or college; we had this scheme called Young Enterprise. And essentially, you got into teams of people, small teams, or they could be quite big, actually. It could be up to 20 people. And you started a business, and there were trade shows, and pitch meetings, and all that kind of stuff, so I remember getting involved in all that sort of stuff at school. But I'd always been on the investment banking track because when I was young...so my parents...we come from a poor background. And so my parents were very much like, you know, try and find high-paying careers to go into so that you can pay for whatever you want and you have a much better lifestyle. So I had gotten onto the investment banking track from the age of 14 when I went with a friend...at the school, I went to, there was a Take Your Daughter to Work Day. My dad said, "Oh, you want to go to try and find someone whose parent works in an investment bank or something like that. That's like a great career to go into." And so I went with a friend's dad to UBS. And I remember being blown away, like, wow, this is so fascinating. Because I think everything seems so impressive when you're 14, and you're walking into a space like that, and everything seems very lively. And everyone's walking around dressed sharp. They've got their BlackBerries. So from the age of 14 until 20, it would have been, I was very much I am going to work in an investment bank. And I did all the things that you would do, like all the schemes, the spring programs. And it got to my final internship. And I just remember at the internship being rather disillusioned and disappointed by the experience. I remember thinking, is this it? I was studying at Oxford, and I put so much into my studies. And I remember thinking; I'm working so hard. And this is what I come to? Is this it? And so around the time as well, I was also meeting a lot of people in the entrepreneurship space, social enterprises, people doing their own ventures. And I just remember thinking, oh, I feel like I've got to go down that track. And I ended up winning a place on a coding course. It was set up specifically to help more women get into tech. And it was called Code First Girls. I won a place that started...it was just part-time. What I did was I actually...I got the banking job from Deutsche Bank, it was, but I decided to turn it down. It was a very risky decision. I turned it down, and I stayed in Oxford after graduating and worked in the academic office for a while. And then, twice a week, I would go to London and do this coding course. And during it, on Twitter, I remember seeing a competition for a full-paid place at this bootcamp called Makers Academy. And I just thought to myself, having tech skills, I'd heard the feedback that it's a very powerful thing to have. And I remember thinking I should go for this competition. And I went for the competition, and I won a free place at the bootcamp. If I didn't win a free place at the bootcamp, I'm not sure what would have happened because I'm not sure whether at that point I would have thought, oh, paying £8,000 to go to a software bootcamp is what I should do. I'm not sure I would have got there. So that's how I got there, essentially. I won a competition for a bootcamp after having a taste of what coding was like and seeing how freeing it was to just be able to have a computer and an internet connection and build something. VICTORIA: Oh, that's wonderful. I love that story. And I've spent a lot of time with Women Who Code and trying to get women excited about coding. And that's exactly the story is that once you have it, it's a tool in your toolset. And if you want to build something, you can make it happen. And that's why it's important to continue the education and get access for people who might not normally have it. And you continue to do some of that work as well, right? You're involved in organizations like this? NADIA: Like Code First Girls? No. I did some years ago. I would go and attend Rails Girls workshops and be a mentor at them, at those. And while I was at Pivotal, I helped with events like codebar, which were essentially evenings where people who were learning to code or more junior could come and pair with someone more senior on whatever project they wanted to. So I did a bunch of that stuff in the years after leaving Makers Academy. And I was even a TA for a short time for a couple of weeks at Makers Academy as well after I graduated. But in more recent years, I haven't done much in that space, but I would love to do more at some point. I don't have the bandwidth to right now. [laughs] VICTORIA: And you're still a major speaker going and keynoting events all around the world. Have you done any recently, or have any coming up that you're excited about? NADIA: So before the pandemic, my last talk, I keynoted RubyWorld in Japan. That was in November 2019. And then the pandemic hit, and 2020 June, July was when StoryGraph had some viral tweets, and so we kicked off. And amongst all of that, I was being invited to speak at remote events, but it just didn't make sense for me. Not only was I so busy with work, but I put a lot of hours into my talks. And part of the fun is being there, hallway track, meeting people, being on stage. And so it just didn't appeal to me to spend so much time developing the talk to just deliver it at home. And so, I just spent all the time on StoryGraph. And I remember when events started happening again; I wondered whether I would even be invited to speak because I felt more detached from the Ruby community. Most of the conferences that I did were in the Ruby community. StoryGraph is built on Rails. Yeah, I just thought maybe I'll get back to that later. But all of a sudden, I had a series of amazing invitations. Andrew Culver started up The Rails SaaS Conference in LA in October, and I was invited to speak at that. And then, I was invited to keynote RubyConf, that was recently held in Houston, Texas, and also invited to keynote the satellite conference, RubyConf Mini in Providence, that happened a couple of weeks earlier. And so I had a very busy October and November, a lot of travel. I developed two new talks, a Ruby talk and a StoryGraph talk. It was my first ever time giving a talk on StoryGraph. It was a lot of work and amongst a lot of StoryGraph work that I needed to do. All of the talks went well, and it was so much fun to be back on the circuit again. And I'm looking forward to whatever speaking things crop up this year. VICTORIA: That's wonderful. I'm excited. I'll have to see if I can find a recording and get caught up myself. Going back to an earlier question, you mentioned quite a few times about market research and talking to the customers. And I'm just curious if you have a method or a set of tools that you use to run those experiments and collect that feedback and information. NADIA: Yes. So I remember one of the first things I did years ago was I read "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick. And that's great for just getting the foundation of when you talk to customers; you don't want to lead them on in any shape or form. You just want to get the raw truth and go from there. So that's the underpinning of everything I do. And then, I learned from friends I made through Pivotal about how you put together a script for a customer research. You can't just have bullet points or whatever. You should have a script. And the foundation of that script is a hypothesis about what you're trying to find out in that round of research. And once you figure out your hypothesis, then you can put together the questions you want to ask and understand how you're going to measure the output. So the first ever thing I was trying to find out when I first started interviewing people was just very general. It was just like, are there any pain points? I was just trying to figure out are there any pain points among the avid reader group of people? And then I remember the results from that were, "No place for consistent, high-quality recommendations." And so then I said, okay, how are people finding recommendations now, or what are the factors that lead to people thinking a book was great for them? And that's how I ended up getting to the moods and pace. But when I do my interviews, I record them all. I watch them back. And I condense everything on sticky notes. And I use a virtual tool. And I try to take word for word. When I summarize, I still just try and use their specific words as much as possible. So I'm not adding my own editing over what they say. Every single interviewee has a different color. And I essentially group them into themes, and that's how I unlock whatever the answers are for that round. And then I use that...I might have been trying to find out what to build next or whether we should go down a certain product direction or not. And so, depending on the outcome, that helps me make up my mind about what to do. So that's the high-level process that I follow. VICTORIA: Well, that sounds very methodical, and interesting for me to hear your perspective on that. And you mentioned that you do have a redesign coming out soon for StoryGraph. Are there any other particular products or features that you're really excited to talk about coming up soon? NADIA: Yeah, I'm so excited about the redesign because we're bringing out...it's not just a UI improvement; it's a user experience improvement as well. So there are a lot of little features that have been asked for over the years. And actually, it was trying to deliver one of them that sparked the whole redesign. So people really want a marked as finished button. There's no way to mark as finished. You just toggle a book back to read. And some people find this quite counterintuitive, or it doesn't quite explain what they're doing. And so when I came to deliver the mark as finished button, this was months and months ago now, I realized that the book pane was just becoming so cluttered, and I was trying to fight with it to squeeze in this link. And I remember thinking; this is not the only thing people want to see on the book pane. They also want to see when they read the book without having to go into the book page. They also want to be able to add it to their next queue. And I just said, you know what? I need to redesign this whole thing. And so I was able to luckily work with Saron Yitbarek, who is married to my co-founder, Rob. There's a funny story about all of that. And she helped me do this redesign based on all my customer research. And so I'm just so excited to get it out because the other thing that we're bringing with it is dark mode, which is our most requested feature in history. And it's funny because I've always felt like, ah, that's a nice-to-have. But obviously, for some people, it's not a nice-to-have; it's an accessibility issue. And even me, I'm quite strict with my bedtime. I try and be offline an hour before bed. In bed by 11, up at 6, and even me if I want to track my pages, I'm like, ooh, this is a bit bright. And my phone itself is set on adaptive, so it's light mode during the day and dark mode during the night. And even me, I can see why people really want this and why it would just improve their experience, especially if everything else on your phone is dark. So I'm really excited to get that out, mainly for the UX improvements. And the other thing I'm really excited to do is transition the Plus Plan to being the advanced stats package rather than the random selection of features right now. Because not only will the people who pay us get more complex stats functionalities such that they feel like, wow, the subscription fee that I pay not only does it still make me feel like I'm supporting an alternative to Goodreads, an independent alternative to Goodreads I also get such value from these extra features. But the other thing is what I found from my customer research is that if you're a Plus customer, there's often one or two of the Plus features that you love and that you don't really use the others. But they're all really great features. And so what I'm really excited about is that we're going to make all the non-stats features free for everybody. And so I'm so excited for, like, we have a feature where if you put in a group of usernames, we look at all of your to-read lists and suggest great books for you to buddy-read together. Now, there's a bunch of Plus users who aren't social and don't care about it. But there's going to be a bunch of our free users who are so excited about that feature, probably will use it with their book clubs, things like that. We have up-next suggestions where we suggest what you should pick up next from your to-read pile based on a range of factors. It could be, oh, you're behind on your reading goal; here's a fast-paced book. Or this book is very similar to the one that you just finished, so if you want something the same, pick up this one. And, again, that's behind a paywall right now, and I'm just so excited for everybody to be able to use that. When I remember starting out with StoryGraph, I remember thinking, wow, the way this is going, wouldn't it be so cool if we could just suggest books that would be the next perfect read for you? Because a lot of people have a pile of books by their bedside table or on their shelves, and they're just like, well, which one should I start with? And this tool literally helps you to do that. And so I can't wait for everyone to be able to try it. And so that's why I'm excited about that transition because the Plus Plan will be better, and the free product will be better. VICTORIA: That sounds amazing. And I'm thinking in my head like, oh, I should start a book club with thoughtbot. Because there are some engineering management and other types of books we want to read, so maybe we could use StoryGraph to manage that and keep ourselves motivated to actually finish them. [laughs] NADIA: Cool. VICTORIA: No, this is wonderful. And what books are on your reading list coming up? NADIA: Yes. I am excited to read...I'm not sure...I'm blanking on the series' name. But the first book is called "The Poppy War." I don't know whether it's called "The Burning God" or if that's the third book in the series. But it's this very popular trilogy, and I'm excited to read that soon. I'm doing a slow chronological read of Toni Morrison's fiction. I recently read "Song of Solomon," which was great, really, really good. And so I'm excited to read more of her novels this year. I'm also on a kind of narrative nonfiction kick right now. I love narrative nonfiction. So I just finished reading "American Kingpin," which is about Silk Road. And I've picked up "Black Edge," which is about SAC Capital and Steve Cohen and that whole hedge fund insider trading situation. So I'm probably going to look for more of the same afterwards. VICTORIA: Well, that's very exciting. And it's inspiring that as a founder, you also still have time to read [laughs] and probably because StoryGraph makes it easy and motivating for you to do so. NADIA: Yeah, everyone thought that my reading would tank once I started the company, but, in fact, it's multiplied severalfold. And a couple of reasons; one is it's very important in general for me to make time for me because I'm in a situation that could easily become very stressful and could lead to burnout. So I make sure that I make time for me to read and to go to dance class regularly, which is my other main hobby. But then, secondly, I feel like I can justify it as work. Because I say, wow, me being a reader and being able to communicate with people on Instagram and on Twitter about books, not just the product, adds legitimacy to me as the founder and developer of this product. And so it's important that I keep reading. And it also helps the product be better because I understand what features are needed. So, for example, I never used to listen to audiobooks. I'm a big podcast person; I love music. So between those two, when does audio fit in? And also, I didn't like the idea that I could just be absent-minded sometimes with some podcasts, but with a book, you don't want spoilers. It could get confusing. But I started listening to audiobooks because we had a large audiobook user base. And they would ask for certain features, and it was really hard for me to relate and to understand their needs. And now that I have started listening to audiobooks as well, we made some great audiobook listeners-focused additions to the app last year, including you can track your minutes. So you can literally get you read this many pages in a day, but you also listened to this many minutes. You can set an hours goal for the year, so not just a reading goal or a pages goal. You can set an hours goal. Or maybe you're someone like me, where audiobooks are the smaller proportion of your reading, and you just want it all calculated as pages. And so I've got it on the setting where it's like, even when I track an audiobook in StoryGraph, convert it to pages for me, and I just have my nice, all-round page number at the end of the year. VICTORIA: That's so cool. Really interesting. And I've had such a nice time chatting with you today. Is there anything else that you'd like to share as a final takeaway for our listeners? NADIA: If you are someone who wants to start a company, maybe you want to bootstrap, you've got a product idea, I think it's honestly just trust the process. It will take time. But if you trust the process, you listen to customers and really listen to them...research ways to talk to customers, and don't cut corners with the process. There have been so many times when I've done a whole round of research, and then I say, oh, do I have to go through all these now and actually do a synthesis? I think anecdotally; I can figure out what the gist was; no, do the research. You don't know what insights you're going to find. And I think if you just trust that process...and I think the other thing is before you get to that stage, start building up a runway. Having a runway is so powerful. And so whether it's saving a bit more or diverting funds from something else if you have a runway and you can give yourself a couple of years, a few years without worrying about your next paycheck, that is incredibly valuable to getting started on your bootstrapping journey. VICTORIA: Thank you. That's so wonderful. And I appreciate you coming on today to be with us. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Mastodon at Victoria Guido. This podcast is brought to by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thank you for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot, your expert strategy, design, development, and product management partner. We bring digital products from idea to success and teach you how because we care. Learn more at thoughtbot.com. Special Guest: Nadia Odunayo.

This week is all about how we interact with customers – and we have a great guest who knows a whole lot about it.In fact, he literally wrote the book on it. Author Rob Fitzpatrick has been helping small businesses and entrepreneurs reach their goals for years. He's written several books, including “The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers & Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You.” This is something he knows and cares about – and he was kind enough to spend nearly an hour breaking it all down with UpdateAI's Josh Schachter! Topics covered in their Unchurned conversation include:Creating the “perfect customers” for software productsWhy how you frame a conversation is criticalWhy talking to customers should be like “surgery”How to find “overlap” between CS and learning about the customer The value in being “sneaky” in meetings Living the remote life in EuropeThere's plenty more they discussed, too, so be sure to listen to the full episode! 

Ryan Paul Gibson is the founder of content lift. Ryan explains how customer research can drive sales, how to make the case for marketing budget, and how to do customer research interviews that don't suck.He has worn business development hats, works alongside demand gen marketers, and really understands what it's like for organizations that are navigating uncertain times right now.Ryan also contextualizes this type of work and shares examples like The Mom Test by entrepreneur and writer Rob Fitzpatrick. Jump ahead with the following chapter markers: (00:00) - Intro (00:28) - De-risking marketing (01:27) - Arguing for your budget (03:12) - Aligning with sales (05:18) - Customer research (08:39) - Beyond personas (10:39) - Research amidst uncertainty (13:16) - Outro Find Ryan Paul Gibson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-paul-gibson/Learn more about content lift: https://contentlift.io

How do you know what to do when you're just starting out?  In 2007, Rob Fitzpatrick and his two co-founders, were in their early twenties. They were programmers just out of academia and had an idea for a business. They were accepted to YCombinator in the same cohort as teams like Dropbox and Songkick. They got deals with big companies like Sony Music, MTV, and the BBC, were on national talk shows, got great press coverage and moved to London to be in the centre of their industry. But they died in their fourth year… What went wrong? Listen to find out.  If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear it. What would make the show better? hello@secretleaders.com  Sponsor links: quickbooks.co.uk/secretleaders

From a business growth perspective, choosing the right SaaS pricing model and strategy is a must. Most business owners I have worked with treat it almost like an afterthought, but the reality is an effective pricing strategy is vital for business success. In this episode, I'm joined by Corey Haines, the creator of SwipeWell, Swipe Files, and Copywriting Prompts, to deconstruct SaaS pricing models and strategies. Corey is a a marketer, entrepreneur, podcaster, and investor. In addition to launching several SaaS businesses, he's consulted with dozens of startups on marketing and growth including SavvyCal, Evercast, Riverside.fm, and Holloway. He's also the host of the weekly Default Alive podcast, where he talks about his journey on bootstrapping his startups. Tune in to learn: The importance of SaaS pricing How to approach SaaS pricing when you're just starting out The most common SaaS pricing models How to choose the right SaaS pricing model for your business The different SaaS pricing strategies to keep in mind Productivity hacks for busy entrepreneurs ...and lots more. A must-listen episode for SaaS entrepreneurs and marketers out there. -=-=-=-=- Tools and resources discussed in the episode: SwipeWell - https://www.swipewell.app/ CoreyHaines.co - Learn more about our guest Corey Haines here - https://www.coreyhaines.co/ SaaS Pricing Models & Strategies Demystified (Corey Haines' blog post) - https://baremetrics.com/blog/saas-pricing-models Semrush - Get 1-month free trial to Semrush: https://www.99signals.com/go/semrush-pro-offer/ Ahrefs - https://ahrefs.com/ Recommended business books for entrepreneurs: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, Obviously Awesome by April Dunford, and Super Thinking by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann -=-=-=-=- BONUS RESOURCES + FREE DOWNLOADS If you're a fan of the podcast, here are some FREE online marketing resources from my blog, 99signals, to help you level up your marketing skills: The Ultimate Guide to Link Building (https://resources.99signals.com/link-building-ebook) - Learn 25 powerful strategies to build high quality backlinks, improve search engine rankings, and drive targeted traffic to your site. Top-rated articles at 99signals (https://www.99signals.com/best/) - This page contains a list of all the top-rated articles on my blog. It's a great place to get started if you're visiting 99signals for the first time. -=-=-=-=- Visit https://www.99signals.com for more insights on SEO, blogging, and marketing. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sandeep-mallya/message

WRITE USEFUL BOOKS ou ESCREVA LIVROS ÚTEIS de Rob Fitzpatrick Uma abordagem moderna para o design e o refino de obras de não-ficção recomendáveis Write Useful Books - https://amzn.to/3xvGfXU O Teste da Mãe - Como conversar com clientes e descobrir se sua ideia é boa, mesmo com todos mentindo para você https://amzn.to/3diVCfp Workshop Survival Guide - https://amzn.to/3eRp2kZ Comente abaixo o que achou deste livro! ________________________________

Asking the wrong questions of consumers can lead us down the wrong path. People try to please others, so we can't just ask questions like “do you like my idea?” To discuss that topic and how we can do better, Jennifer Vogel is joined by Rob Fitzpatrick, author of “The Mom Test” on this episode. Join us and check out Rob's book here: https://lnkd.in/gn8Z58Su Catch previous episodes: https://site.voxpopme.com/reel-talk-market-research-podcast/ "Reel Talk" is presented to you by Voxpopme, the leader in video surveys. Learn more about using video surveys in your market research here: http://site.voxpopme.com. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/customer-insights-show/message

Crear un producto requiere de un proceso adecuado y una serie de pasos que deben ser ejecutados al detalle, sin impulsos de correr contra el reloj. Para saber más acerca de este tema, en este episodio invitamos a Gustavo Grande, director de programas empresariales de StartUP FIU. A lo largo de los años, Gustavo ha ayudado a numerosas startups y empresas establecidas a desarrollar nuevos productos y una mejor estrategia para sus negocios. Gustavo nos comenta que “un producto no es necesariamente el negocio, sino que es uno de los componentes de un negocio”. “Si estamos desarrollando un producto lo primero que tenemos que entender es el problema que existe y cómo se lo podemos resolver a un usuario. De allí, la experiencia, los procesos y todo va a surgir desde el punto de vista del usuario. Si no existe un problema, no tiene sentido invertir en una solución”, explica nuestro invitado. Tal como sostiene Gustavo, hay ciertos indicadores en función del usuario que un emprendedor debe tener en cuenta. Los clientes a veces tienen un problema y son consientes de ello, pero otras veces no es así. “Como seres humanos pensamos que somos racionales, pero muchas veces no existen razones lógicas a nuestros pensamientos y comportamientos, porque están más ligados a las emociones”, asevera Gustavo, y eso influye constantemente en la elección y armado de un producto. “La persona tiene que estar buscando una solución. La forma más fácil de identificar si un problema representa un carácter de urgencia o prioridad para alguien es preguntándole si lo ha buscado en Google”, afirma nuestro especialista, y agrega que hay que tener en cuenta “si la persona está buscando una solución con diferentes herramientas”. Lo último a considerar es si los usuarios tienen un presupuesto, porque a veces las personas están conscientes del problema, pero si no tienen presupuesto no van a comprar nuestro producto. “Y ahí llegamos a otro error de los emprendedores que, al principio, no entienden el concepto de competir por valor, sino que empiezan a competir con el precio y lo bajan, lo cual impacta tanto en su estructura de costos como en sus márgenes de rentabilidad que, más adelante, no les permite reinvertir en la escalabilidad de su negocio. Como el producto es un componente fundamental del negocio, el precio también lo es”, enseña Gustavo. Saber estos indicadores es fundamental al momento de empezar a considerar el desarrollo de un producto físico o digital. Gustavo hace referencia al libro Working Backwards, de Bill Carr y Colin Bryar. Los autores dicen que hay que trabajar desde donde se origina la cadena de valor, y eso es el punto de vista del cliente. “A veces decimos que los clientes siempre tienen la razón, pero al mismo tiempo no saben lo que no saben o lo que es posible. Es importante entender cómo hacemos las preguntas para poder sacar lo que es esencial para el desarrollo de un producto o servicio”, remarca nuestro invitado. Para acercarse lo más posible al acierto, Gustavo vuelve a adentrarse en las técnicas de otro libro llamado The Mom Test, de Rob Fitzpatrick, el cual se basa en un método científico en el que hay una hipótesis, un producto, testeamos y validamos la hipótesis o no. “Pero él decía que en ese proceso hay que entender que existen factores humanos que hay que tener en cuenta”, resalta Gustavo, y esto es claro en el libro ya que se presenta un hijo ante su madre para mostrarle una idea de producto, pero no obtiene la devolución objetiva que necesita. “Hay elementos que el emprendedor tiene y uno es el tema del ego, porque el producto para un vendedor es su bebé y al no querer ponerse vulnerable, está poniendo en riesgo la objetividad”, recalca Gustavo. “Cuando uno hace preguntas no tiene que hacer preguntas hipotéticas del futuro, sino que tiene que hacer preguntas en función del comportamiento y las emociones del pasado. De esa forma obtenemos data real. Tenemos que hacer preguntas de las emociones, hábitos y del comportamiento del día a día”, expone nuestro especialista, dejando en claro que la conversación con el cliente es clave y es uno de los métodos para recabar información. “Hay una metodología conocida como Design Thinking, que habla de la empatía. Existe la empatía cognitiva que es cuando no podemos vivir una situación de alguien pero podemos activar nuestra empatía al colocarnos en situaciones en las que hemos experimentado las mismas emociones. Luego viene la empatía emocional, que es cuando hemos pasado por las mismas situaciones y podemos conectarnos más profundamente. Y luego está la empatía que nos lleva a la acción, que no sólo nos permite entender las emociones sino también querer ayudar en lo que necesita esa persona en ese momento. Y hay diferentes formas de hacer esto: una es simplemente escuchando a esa persona, la otra es haciendo preguntas, la otra es observando su comportamiento y la otra es compartiendo un día con el usuario. Estas son las técnicas que existen para que uno colecte data y saber en qué contexto el usuario se encuentra al momento de sufrir ese problema y así encontrar una solución para él”, desarrolla Gustavo. El proceso de colectar data es fundamental y no hay métodos o herramientas únicas para llevarlo a cabo. Lo que sí hay que considerar es el número de personas a las que vamos a entrevistar. “Lo que estamos tratando de entender es cuáles son los puntos en común que tiene un grupo de personas para poder servirle a la mayoría de ellos. De lo contrario, cada persona va a tener una necesidad diferente y, al momento de desarrollar un producto, vamos a tener una lista extensa y vamos a perder tiempo, dinero y energía para lanzarlo al mercado”, asegura nuestro invitado. Cuando estamos desarrollando un producto lo más importante es que lo podamos testear lo antes posible, es decir, que con la información que tenemos y con al menos 100 personas entrevistadas “podamos identificar tres elementos comunes con los que les vamos a aliviar del 50 al 80 por ciento de los problemas al 100 por ciento de esos usuarios”. “Desarrollamos nada más esos tres o menos elementos, lanzamos el prototipo, colectamos data y, en base a esa información, vemos cuál es el patrón de comportamiento para saber qué tenemos que modificar de nuestro producto”, enumera Gustavo. Según nuestro especialista, cuando hablamos del prototipo no necesariamente tiene que ser el producto terminado, sino “aquello que podamos producir con la menor cantidad de recursos en el período de tiempo más corto”. No hay un tiempo exacto, ya que es relativo y depende del negocio en el que nos adentremos. “Usualmente son tres, seis, doce o 18 meses lo que la gente dice que es el tiempo para desarrollar un producto o servicio, pero va a depender del tipo de negocio, de nuestra capacidad y de nuestra resiliencia para aceptar el fracaso y el feedback”, expresa Gustavo. Sea cual sea el resultado del prototipo, nuestro invitado opina que nunca es negativo ni positivo, porque “si el resultado no valida la hipótesis que tenemos, igualmente nos está dando una información”. “Cuando pasa eso puede no validar nuestra hipótesis desde el punto de vista micro, es decir, características concretas del producto, o desde el punto de vista macro, donde ya hablamos del cambio de target del público”, aclara nuestro invitado. Este tipo de procesos aparecen miles de veces en un emprendimiento y esto involucra a las pequeñas, medianas y grandes empresas. Fuera del producto, hay otros componentes de un modelo de negocio que no debemos olvidar, y Gustavo hace referencia a Ash Maurya, quien creó el Lean Canvas, que “es un mapa mental que nos permite identificar los componentes del modelo de negocio que son claves, y se basa en entender cuál es el problema, las soluciones que existen en el mercado, nuestro segmento de mercado, dentro de ese segmento cuál es nuestro usuario principal, la propuesta de valor, nuestra solución en función de esa propuesta de valor, cuál es nuestro componente secreto que nadie va a poder replicar, y en función de eso cuáles son nuestros recursos, las actividades principales en las que nos vamos a enfocar, los canales de comunicación, nuestra relación con el cliente, nuestra estructura de costo y forma de generar ingresos”.  Un lanzamiento de producto exitoso no sólo depende de que el producto sea el correcto para la audiencia indicada, sino de estar acompañado por una estrategia de marketing acorde a las expectativas que se tienen. Sí, hay muchas variantes que cambian dependiendo del tipo de producto o servicio, pero la mayoría de los lanzamientos exitosos siguen los pasos que nombró Gustavo durante este episodio. LinkedIn: Gustavo Grande Instagram: @grande.gustavo

Jo York is a provost of the Hotspur School of Defence, which is based in the north east of England, and an entrepreneur in her work life, as well as an avid listener of this show. Jo talks about her home town of Knaresborough, with its annual Bed Race. There are pictures here: https://www.bedrace.co.uk/gallery/2022-race And this is the fabulous Yorkshire-accented raven at Knaresborough castle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf42vpQMJ9o Jo works with start-up businesses and has started her own businesses too, so we talk about what makes a good idea for a viable enterprise and how to go about it. The book Guy mentions is Don't Trust Your Gut, by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz and the book Jo recommends is The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers and Learn If Your Business is a Good Idea when Everyone is Lying to You, by Rob Fitzpatrick. Check out Jo's cutting square website at: https://cuttingsquare.com/ This interactive cutting square tells you where to aim your next blow. There is a left-handed and right-handed option, and you can set the tempo. For more information about the host Guy Windsor and his work, as well as transcriptions of all the episodes, check out his website at https://swordschool.com/podcast  

"When people are actively looking for a product like yours, and you're not marketing it, you are actually doing an act of disservice. You are starving them of something that they need, that they could use. By not marketing, you're putting a ceiling on your potential." – Corey Haines. Are you currently creating or marketing a product in the SaaS space? If so, you will love and learn so much from this week's episode with SaaS marketing expert Corey Haines. Corey is a marketer, entrepreneur, podcaster, investor, and soon to be an author who is on a mission to help people and their products, services, and content get the recognition that they truly deserve. Corey is the mastermind and creator behind the popular Swipe Files and has consulted with numerous start-ups on growth and marketing, including SavvyCal, Evercast and Holloway, to name but a few. Throughout this episode, Corey shares his go-to research methods, the importance of live customer experience feedback, marketing cheat codes, and reveals his three tried and true methods guaranteed to bring your first customers through the door. Key points throughout include:  An introduction to Corey Haines. Obtaining Swipe Well's first customers and the creation of Swipe Files. Communicating with potential buyers on social media platforms.Dripping marketing: striking the right amount of marketing ahead of product launching. The key to mapping out appropriate marketing methods.Overcoming the fear of marketing. How avoiding marketing is an act of disservice. Methods for understanding your customer's needs. The power of asking why and the benefit of running polls.Navigating through career challenges and failures. Advertising conversion: does it really work?Corey's business book recommendations.Lessons to be learned from activating a landing page. Corey's advice on obtaining your first ten customers."You do need marketing. You have to treat it as an investment, something that's going to pay dividends later." - Corey Haines. COMING SOON! Join the waitlist to get your hands on Corey's forthcoming marketing handbook Founding Marketing  HERE. We do not doubt that this book will feature on many guests' recommended lists in future First 10 podcast episodes. "Without promotion, something terrible happens. Nothing! – PT Barnum. Connect with Corey Haines:https://www.coreyhaines.co/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/corey-haines/ https://twitter.com/coreyhainesco https://www.swipefiles.com/ https://www.defaultalive.fm/ https://www.swipefiles.com/foundingmarketing Connect with First 10 Podcast host Conor McCarthy: https://www.first10podcast.comhttps://twitter.com/TheFirst10Podhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/comccart/ Resources:The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

Turning What You Know Into a Best-Seller    In this episode of She Talks Business, Rob Fitzpatick joins us to discuss his best-seller, Write Useful Books.   Have you always wanted to write a book, but have no idea what you would even write about? This is a common experience for entrepreneurs and business owners, and it was Rob's experience too.   What he realized was that the best things he could write about were the things he knew how to do best, and the skills he was learning from scratch.   In episode 67, learn how a “how-to book” on sales changed the path of Rob's career and brought him to write his very first book.    Rob now has $600k in royalties and so much rich insight—you don't want to miss this episode. Let's dive in!     What's in This Episode Tips for taking negative feedback  Writing for reader empathy  The recommendation loop  Beta reader communities  Habits of people who write good books     What To Do Next Visit lisalarter.com/e67 for all resources from this episode.

Robby has a chat with Greg Foster, the Co-founder and CTO of Graphite, an open-source CLI and code review dashboard built for engineers who want to write and review smaller pull requests, stay unblocked, and ship faster. Based on his tons of infrastructure engineering, he highlights getting modules and interfaces right as one of the ways to create clean maintainable software.They cover a variety of topics including a technical introduction to Graphite's tooling, the challenges that come with SOAs versus monolithics especially for small teams, why monorepos might be a better approach for your software team's workflow, types of metrics a team should track, and how can we, as software developers, help the product team understand the value of investing time in maintenance tasks to keep output optimal. Stay tuned for more!Book Recommendations:A Philosophy of Software Design By John Ousterhout - https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/39996759-a-philosophy-of-software-designThe Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick - http://momtestbook.com/Helpful LinksGreg on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorymfoster/Greg on Twitter - https://twitter.com/gregmfosterGraphite Website - https://graphite.dev/Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Rob Fitzpatrick is the author of The Mom Test, and he'll help you fight the good fight to bring your ideas into the world.-----You can also read this episode here.Sign up here to get upcoming audio essays emailed to youFollow the MTTM journey on Twitter or LinkedIn!If you haven't already would you do me a favor and take ~40 seconds to rate/review the show on Apple Podcasts ? It really helps. (Scroll to bottom of page for rate/review links.)Links & resources mentionedSend episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via emailRob Fitzpatrick - Twitter, websiteBooks:The Mom TestThe Workshop Survival GuideWrite Useful BooksNonfiction Author's CommunityRelated episodes#56 Ash Maurya: The Innovator's Gift#54 David Kadavy: Creative Self-ActualizationPeople & orgsSherry WallingBooksThe Entrepreneur's Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t TogetherRocket FuelPartnering: Forge the Deep Connections That Make Great Things HappenFour Thousand Weeks: Time Management for MortalsMind Management, Not Time ManagementOther resources mentionedThe shape of an idea - Rob FitzpatrickEffectuationTrends.vcThe new biz model for indie creators? Gluing it all together with an Outcome-Oriented Community.

Good morning everyone! Welcome to the Motivated Entrepreneurs podcast. I'm your host, Dean Booty.   Today we have a book review and it's called "The Mom Test" by Rob Fitzpatrick. The Mom Test is a quick, practical guide that will save you time, money, and heartbreak. They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question, and everyone will lie to you at least a little. As a matter of fact, it's not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It's your responsibility to find it, and it's worth doing right. Talking to customers is one of the foundational skills of both customer development and lean startup. We all know we're supposed to do it, but nobody seems willing to admit that it's easy to screw up and hard to do right. This book is going to show you how customer conversations go wrong, and how you can do better. Give a listen. Listen on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2VkXGHq Listen on Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/39TYebQ Motivated Entrepreneurs Website: https://motivatedentrepreneurs.co.uk/ Please Like, Share, and Subscribe to Motivated Entrepreneurs Youtube Channel: https://bit.ly/3eA64u5   Enjoy, Dean

Jesse J. Anderson's journey to bookdom is unlike any other guest I've had on the show.  For one, he's not launching a book to help build his business.  Also, that book—Refocus: A Practical Guide to Adult ADHD—hasn't launched yet. In fact, he hasn't even finished writing it.  Why, then, you may ask, would I have him on the show?  Well, part of the reason is entirely selfish: he's writing a book in public and I want to write my next book in public so this is simply a shameless attempt to get some intel.  If you're wondering what "writing a book in public" even means, you may want to go back to the Rob Fitzpatrick episode, where he breaks down the process he documents in his book, Write Useful Books. If you don't have that kind of time, I'll tell you: it's essentially getting feedback from your readers while you're writing the book. Jesse is in fact doing it using software Rob designed for that very process and, as of this recording, he's about three-quarters of the way done with writing.  Jesse has also built up an impressive Twitter following by releasing Twitter threads of book chapters—a topic he dove into in detail.  When he's not writing books in public, Jesse is a designer and developer who has made it his mission to help others better understand what ADHD really is.  WANT 4 QUICK TIDBITS EVERY THURSDAY TO HELP YOU GET YOUR BOOK LAUNCHED? GO TO WWW.LAUNCHPADWEEKLY.COM.

When it comes to finding the right guest to be on your show, you have to do the legwork of research to see how they fit into your podcast sphere. Who is this person? What do they have to say? And what is their experience and knowledge that they're going to bring to the table for your listener?  Today's episode is going to highlight some really important aspects of how finding “good” guests is integral to your show. Joining me today is the host of Podcasting Made Simple and the founder of podmatch.com, Alex Sanfilippo. He shares some clever insights from his journey in podcasting as a host and professionally as well in the podcasting space. Tune in to hear about: How to evaluate your audience and hone in on your ideal listener. The importance of having a strong “why” before starting your podcast. Alex's exact pitching process landing him A-list authors to be guests on his podcast. Resources mentioned in this episode: NetGalley https://www.netgalley.com/  Pod Match https://podmatch.com/  PodcastSOP https://podcastsop.com/  Pod Pros https://podpros.com/  The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick https://bookshop.org/books/the-mom-test-how-to-talk-to-customers-learn-if-your-business-is-a-good-idea-when-everyone-is-lying-to-you/9781492180746 The Practice by Seth Godin https://bookshop.org/books/the-practice-shipping-creative-work/9780593328972 How to Be a Podcast Guest - EP 39 https://www.organizedsound.ca/how-to-be-a-podcast-guest-episode-39/ Engage with Alex: https://www.instagram.com/ajsanfilippo/ https://www.instagram.com/podpros_com/  https://www.facebook.com/PodcastingPros  Check out his podcast "Podcasting Made Simple" https://podcasting.buzzsprout.com/ Connect with Mary! Find more secrets and the full transcript at http://www.VisibleVoicePodcast.com/ Send feedback with a voicemail message at https://www.speakpipe.com/visiblevoice or email Mary with your thoughts at VisibleVoicePodcast@gmail.com Keep in touch on Instagram at @OrganizedSoundProductions https://www.instagram.com/organizedsoundproductions/ To learn more about or work with Mary, click on over at https://www.organizedsound.ca.

This may be the most useful podcast I've ever released. That's because it's with a guy who's an expert on something EVERY author wants: getting people to recommend your book. His name is Rob Fitzpatrick and he's a former programmer who dropped out of grad school to go to YCombinator with his first startup. It's that background—along with his nearly decade and a half of experience as an entrepreneur—that helps make sense of the fact that he's the guy who's seemingly cracked the code on how to write a book that everyone will recommend. He breaks down his process in his latest book, Write Useful Books, and we also get into our decidedly unique story of how we met (in short, he quoted my interview with Chris Voss in Write Useful Books and I didn't see that he credited me and I fired off an email and anyway, listen to the episode and you'll hear what happened next). But that's far less interesting than the methods he describes in this conversation—including how to find beta readers, what to ask them and how to use them to craft a book that's DEEP (Desirable, Effective, Engaging and Polished). How sure is he that his process works? Well, the results speak for themselves. His monthly earnings from his three books are roughly $25k a month, with 1000 copies a week being sold, and, in his words, "growing pretty steadily." I am not being hyperbolic when I say I think this is the most useful interview yet. (Even more than the Chris Voss one Rob quoted!) If I were you, I would literally study the transcript below. (That's what I'm doing.) WANT 4 PUBLISHING-RELATED THINGS FROM ME EVERY THURSDAY? GO TO WWW.LEGACYLAUNCHPADPUB.COM/NEWSLETTER. 

Hear all the music on our rolling playlist: https://bit.ly/CultBunk Dr Catherine Anne Davies, AKA Welsh multi-instrumentalist The Anchoress, joins us on the rerelease of The Art of Losing – and for an album whose central theme is loss, there are as many bangers as you can wave a stick at. Plus, death on the installment plan - podcast producer Rob Fitzpatrick talks about series two of Upload on Amazon Prime, and Classic Objects, the new album from Norwegian musician and novelist Jenny Hval. And there's a buzz around Balkan cinema, as Siân and Jelena see award-winning Kosovan post-conflict movie HIVE. “My songs are not Nick Cave mournful ballads, but Dylan Thomas rages against the dying of the light.” - Catherine Anne Davies “I thought that rock stars couldn't have PhDs. But I'm also proud of myself for my lyrics rhyming Monopoly and misogyny.” - Catherine Anne Davies “Amazon Prime series often poke fun at the platform that sustains them.” - Sian Pattenden “Religion was the way we made sense of life and death, and now we do it with TV.” - Catherine Anne Davies “I found a sonic freedom and enjoyment in Jenny Hval's Classic Objects.” - Rob Fitzpatrick Written and presented by Siân Pattenden and Alex Andreou. Audio production by Alex Rees. Theme music: ‘Bunker Theme (Juntos Mix)' by Kenny Dickinson. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. The Culture Bunker is a Podmasters production.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jamie walks us through the importance of sustainability for businesses, the process of creating brand authority, building a dynamic team based on shared values, and balancing the needs of various stakeholders.Jamie McCroskery is the founder and CEO of Bluebird Climate, a company striving to improve corporate sustainability efforts while quantifying a product's environmental impact. Prior to launching Bluebird Climate, Jamie worked as a Product Manager at Glossier and Dropbox. Jamie credits his corporate experience with teaching him how to develop a product and assemble an all-star team.Who is Jamie McCroskery, and why did he start his startup Bluebird Climate? [0:30]Glass vs Plastic? The best way to be sustainable varies and often depends on a company's specific needs as well as their own supply chain [3:08]What is Bluebird Climate, and how do you help businesses improve sustainability? [4:02]The two most important metrics for sustainability — carbon emissions and circularity (waste) [7:16]Can already-established brands find ways to improve sustainability with their traditional pipeline and business model?  [9:50]Sway, which aims to create a plastic replacement out of seaweed is an example of a company using Bluebird Climate to tell sustainable stories. [10:00]Focus on the easy wins — don't reinvent the wheel [12:32]Why is storytelling focused on sustainability a successful tool for driving conversion? [14:30]Customers care about sustainability and want brands to focus on reducing carbon waste [17:59]What is a public benefit corporation (B corp), and why structure your company this way? [18:40]What is the Bluebird certification, and how do you cultivate brand authority? [22:55]How do you balance marketing to various stakeholders like customers, retailers, vendors, and brands? [27:01]Supply chains can be a convoluted mess [31:30]How to recruit a team of experts using personal networks [33:50]Entering a space with passion and motivation is essential for finding a great team [38:20]Funding decisions should take into account your time and trajectory — investors may take a cut, but this allow you to more quickly determine if you'll make it [39:28]How a corporate background helped Jamie better lead his company [43:22]Creating a client base, simple marketing, and growing your brand [46:00]Day-to-day challenges are hard. Be sure to create a well-defined mission in order to hire the best team and tackle problems that will appear [51:05]What does future growth look like for Bluebird Climate [55:40]? Less can be more when starting out [1:00:05]Jamie's advice: Put your idea out there to get feedback, have a vision for your company's values and goals, and determine what resources you will need to be successful [1:01:07]If you are curious about improving your own business's sustainability, reachout to Jamie at jamie@bluebirdclimate.com or check out Bluebird Climate's website bluebirdclimate.com.Jamie's Recommended Books“Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth” by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares“The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzpatrick and Robfitz Ltd“The Founder's Dilemma”  by Noam Wasserman“The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben HorowitzGet more exciting entrepreneur content and podcast exclusives on StartupSavant.com. Watch Startup Savant founder interviews on YouTube and follow us on social media: Instagram TwitterLinkedIn

Rob Fitzpatrick is an entrepreneur and author of the popular book, The Mom Test. In this episode of Specified Growth Podcast, Rob talks about how to go about getting the best feedback from people when you're starting a new business or product line. He also discusses the right types of questions to ask, what not to do when searching for feedback, and much more. Please reach out if you have any feedback or questions. Enjoy!    Twitter: @TatsuyaNakagawa Instagram: @tats_talks LinkedIn: Tatsuya Nakagawa  YouTube: Tats Talks www.tatstalk.com www.castagra.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This was a delightful conversation, and one that made me laugh more than any in recent memory. Rob Fitzpatrick shares the journey from showering under a 5-gallon bucket in a warehouse scheduled for demolition to running a satisficing lifestyle business with $20k/mo in book revenue and a growing community.Links: https://www.robfitz.com/home http://writeusefulbooks.com