Podcasts about userscape

Ian and Aaron discuss feedback on ads for the podcast, what the heck Ian does every day, updates on the Try Hard empire, & so much more.Sponsored by Mailtrap, LaraJobs, & Screencasting.com.Interested in sponsoring Mostly Technical?  Head to https://mostlytechnical.com/sponsor to learn more.(00:00) - Vibes From The People (09:03) - What Does Ian Even Do (23:59) - Fitting In Side Projects (34:11) - Sales Update (38:04) - Bootstrapper Syndrome (41:14) - Extra Heaviness (46:51) - Guest Instructor (58:57) - Laravel Cloud (01:05:54) - UserScape & Sons Links:Brian Casel on BlueskyLaraJobs Affiliate ProgramTinyMCEDay OneDependabotTogglOwl.soChris Fidao on BlueskyLaravel CloudNightwatch

In our very first episode, Matt had the pleasure of speaking with Ian Landsman, affectionately known as the 'Godfather of Laravel,' where they discussed his long history with Laravel and his business journey. Ian shared insights into his primary venture, UserScape, and its flagship product, HelpSpot, a help desk application he started 20 years ago. They also talked about taking a bet on Taylor and Laravel early on, bootstrapped startups, and more!Matt Stauffer Twitter - https://twitter.com/stauffermattIan Landsman Twitter - https://twitter.com/ianlandsmanTighten Website - https://tighten.com/HelpSpot - https://www.helpspot.com/UserScape - https://userscape.com/LaraJobs - https://larajobs.com/The SaaS Playbook - https://saasplaybook.com/The Startups For the Rest of Us Podcast (Rob Walling) - https://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/Gail Goodman's Talk - https://businessofsoftware.org/talk/how-to-negotiate-the-long-slow-saas-ramp-of-death/-----Editing and transcription sponsored by Tighten.

Ian Landsman and his team at Userscape work on HelpSpot, a well-established SaaS product for customer support.  And after well over 10 years in business, they decided to embark on a full rebuild of their app.Brian and Ian's conversation was recorded on November 3rd, 2023.Brian's update was recorded on December 8th, 2023. (00:00) - Rebuilding a SaaS with Ian Landsman (05:19) - Ian returns! (06:10) - Rebuild? Redesign? Relaunch? What is this? (07:07) - Is this a SaaS? (11:08) - Is this the first rebuild? (13:57) - Why rebuild? Why now? (20:20) - AI in customer support tools (25:18) - Killing vs. reworking features (28:37) - Thinking about competitors (31:57) - Roadmap and timeframe (33:05) - Founder designing vs delegating (36:51) - Rolling out the rebuild Instrumental ProductsHelping you build and ship products & transition a products-based business.✉️  Get my Instrumental Products newsletter

Ian Landsman's Twitter - https://twitter.com/ianlandsmanIan Landsman's Website - https://ianlandsman.com/HelpSpot - https://www.helpspot.com/UserScape - https://userscape.com/Matt's tweet thread about web3 - https://twitter.com/stauffermatt/status/1532344170119057411Photo Finish Live - https://photofinishhorseracing.com/Web3 Wikipedia Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3Bitcoin - https://bitcoin.org/en/Ethereum. - https://ethereum.org/en/Third Time - https://thirdtimegames.com/EA - https://www.ea.com/DraftKings - https://www.draftkings.com/Honeycomb Credit - https://www.honeycombcredit.com/Danielle Tubbs LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-tubbs-94622541Danielle Tubbs' TWL Episode - https://things-worth-learning.simplecast.com/episodes/following-your-wonder-with-danielle-tubbsStripe - https://stripe.com/Patio11 - https://twitter.com/patio11Solana - https://solana.com/Robinhood - https://robinhood.com/us/en/AngelList - https://angel.co/

Chris is leaving UserScape after 8 years, and working as a "Laravel Specialist" at Fly (fly.io). Aaron offered to interview me to talk about it!Aaron Francis (Twitter)Refine - Aaron's thingHelpSpot (UserScape)Fly.ioChris Fidao (Twitter)Chipper CI - Chris's thingCloudCasts - Chris's one-thing-too-many (that may pivot to being specific to Laravel/PHP)

[00:01:12] We start with Taylor explaining where Laravel came from.  [00:03:32] Taylor tells us what Laravel 1.0 looks like and more about validations happening at the controller layer.[00:07:18] After version 1 comes out, Jason asks Taylor if he's still at the trucking company and what the reception was like in the community.[00:11:16] We learn how the transition went for Taylor from working at UserScape and making Laravel his full-time job. [00:13:44] Taylor explains how he split his time between working on Forge and working on the framework itself.[00:15:13] Jason asks how the whole Rails framework on Lambda came about and what some of the technical challenges were.[00:17:02] We find out how Taylor makes code so appealing. [00:18:47] Jason brings up how there are a lot of first party packages in Laravel and asks Taylor if this blossomed over the years or if he realized he wanted all these things just baked into the framework.[00:23:39] Chris likes how Forge came out Taylor building his own stuff, and Taylor explains how the Ruby and JavaScript communities have such a wider variety of talented programmers. [00:26:09] We find out about what led Taylor into building Forge, Envoyer, Laravel Spark, Laravel Cashier, and Laravel Nova.[00:28:21] Find out what Taylor's favorite Laravel package is.[00:30:11] Taylor gives us examples of how Rails has influenced Laravel. [00:32:04] Chris wonders is Taylor was familiar with a lot of stuff when he started Laravel or if there's was a lot of learning along the way.[00:36:45] Jason asks Taylor about Laravel Mix, a wrapper around Webpack, and he explains how front-end development in the Laravel world and Rails world is in a period of exploration.[00:42:57] Find out about the Laravel Documentary that just came out! [00:45:01] What's next for Laravel?[00:47:43] If you want to try Laravel, find out the easiest way to get started, and Taylor tells us how starting his own business has been and the challenges.[00:53:45] Find out where you can follow Taylor online.Panelists:Jason CharnesChris OliverAndrew MasonGuest:Taylor OtwellSponsor:Hook RelayLinks:Ruby Radar NewsletterRuby Radar TwitterTaylor Otwell TwitterTaylor Otwell LinkedInTaylor Otwell GitHubLaravelUserScapeLaraConGetting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson and Matthew LindermanLaravel MixVue.js Documentary (YouTube)Laravel SailLaravel Origins: The Documentary (OfferZen)

Chris Fidao, Twitter: https://twitter.com/fideloperServers For Hackers: https://serversforhackers.com/UserScape: https://userscape.com/HelpSpot Cloud: https://www.helpspot.com/cloud-infrastructureForge: https://forge.laravel.com/Laravel Docs, Deployment: https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/deploymentWebhook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebhookUbuntu: https://ubuntu.com/Shared Hosting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_web_hosting_serviceEnvoyer: https://envoyer.io/Composer InstallZero Downtime DeploymentBash: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash_(Unix_shell)Laravel Docs, Envoy: https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/envoyFabric: https://www.fabfile.org/Laravel Docs, Blade: https://laravel.com/docs/8.x/bladeDocker: https://www.docker.com/AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/Serverless: https://www.serverless.com/Container: https://www.docker.com/resources/what-containerKubernetes: https://kubernetes.io/Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Services (EKS): https://aws.amazon.com/eksLambda: https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/Laravel Vapor: https://vapor.laravel.com/Laravel Docs, SSH: https://laravel.com/docs/4.2/sshUnderstanding Linux File Permissions: https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/understanding-linux-file-permissions/Supervisor: http://supervisord.org/Cron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CronThermostat: https://thermostat.io/Laravel Discord: https://twitter.com/taylorotwell/status/1037140531313340416 Episode SponsorshipTranscription sponsored by LarajobsEditing sponsored by Tighten

On today's episode of Bootstrapped Web, Brian and Jordan are joined by Ian Landsman from HelpSpot. Ian has made product after product over the years, from UserScape to HelpSpot to LaravelJobs and Thermostatio. You can find him on Twitter or you can learn more about him on his website. Brian, Jordan, and Ian are talking all about podcasts, business models, and privacy on the internet. They also go over the lessons they've all learned from previous products and projects they have been involved in. [tweetthis]“How many years, how many decades, can you keep pushing project management software when that space just gets so big and so competitive?” - Brian [/tweetthis] Here are today's conversation points: Ian's potential new podcast: structure or no structure?Hey, Clubhouse, and other email servicesThe hidden cost of privacy and complacency in a productPrevious products, projects, and the lessons learnedHow involved Ian, after being 15 years into HelpSpotWhat does feature development look like for Ian?Optimizing websites as supplementary platformsBusiness models: per user, paying per clientsAre demos worth it?Affiliate programs and consulting hang ups for ProcessKitThird party hosting and consulting companiesReal-time brainstorming about onboarding consultants [tweetthis]“Clubhouse jumped the shark from being exclusive to just being ‘annoyed that you couldn't get in and now you're resentful.' And then, of course, I got an invite and a DM a minute later. [laughs]” - Jordan [/tweetthis] Ian Landsman Clubhouse Hey SellerFlows ClickFunnels SunriseKPI Productize Audience Ops ProcessKit Carthook As always, thanks for tuning in. Head here to leave a review on iTunes.

On today’s episode of Bootstrapped Web, Brian and Jordan are joined by Ian Landsman from HelpSpot. Ian has made product after product over the years, from UserScape to HelpSpot to LaravelJobs and Thermostatio. You can find him on Twitter or you can learn more about him on his website. Brian, Jordan, and Ian are talking … Continue reading Talkin shop with Ian Landsman

In this episode, Adam gets some advice from Ian Landsman of Userscape on marketing and positioning a new Tailwind CSS components directory project he's working on with Steve Schoger. Topics include: Building website templates vs. a UI kit Should the product be positioned as a UI library or an educational resource? One-time purchase pricing vs. subscription pricing vs. some combination of the two Why marketing features can sometimes be better than marketing benefits "Dribbble but with code" Sponsors: Cloudinary, sign up and get 300,000 images/videos, 10GB of storage and 20GB of monthly bandwidth for free DigitalOcean, get your free $50 credit at do.co/fullstack Links: Tailwind CSS Tweet previewing the Tailwind component directory Article on Sketch pricing model MegaMaker Club Thermostat, the NPS survey software Ian is working on

Today, I'm talking with , the founder of UserScape. UserScape are the creators of HelpSpot, web based and most recently Thermostat, to help you retain your best customers and win back critics. Ian was also the co-host of the which is how I first came across his work years ago as I was getting into the software world.  He recently published an article titled, , that details his approach to getting Thermostat off the ground and that's what he came on the show to talk about today. The bootstrapped world has already pushed back against the idea of “VC” levels of speed, but Ian talks about pushing it back even further. He first started working on Thermostat in early 2017 but didn't want to pull team members off HelpSpot for too long or put in crazy hours himself, so he knew it would be a long process and he was OK with that. In our chat today, we dig into Ian's “Windup” strategy, why it was the right fit for him and his team, who it wouldn't be right for, and how he's approaching the path going forward. We also get a little off track at the end when I find out about Ian's passion for poker. With the stage I'm at now, still building my first company, I'm much closer to the “growth at all costs” stage than to Ian's strategy and came into the conversation skeptical, to be honest. But talking with Ian really made me think about balance and that at the end of the day, it all comes down to what's right for you. Ian has a ton of experience as an entrepreneur and hearing his sustainable approach to the journey is something all founders can learn from.

Jake and Michael are joined by the Godfather of Laravel, Ian Landsman, to talk all about hiring developers and the latest platform to do so, LaraTalent.

An interview with Abigail Otwell, wife of Laravel creator Taylor Otwell and co-owner of Laravel LLC. Editing sponsored by Larajobs Transcription sponsored by GoTranscript.com [music] Matt Stauffer: Welcome back to the Laravel Podcast. Today, we're going to be talking to Abigail Otwell, the woman behind the man behind Laravel. Stay tuned. [music] Matt Stauffer: Welcome back to the latest episode of Laravel Podcast, season three, where I interview the people you know, or I interview the people you don't know, but either way, I'm interviewing people who you should know. This one is the most interesting one yet, which is kind of crazy to say, since we've had all sorts of interesting people, including the founder of Laravel, because what we have right here is what would you say -- I feel like there's some phrase that people use when they talk about behind every something there's a woman -- I don't know, whatever. This is the woman- Abigail Otwell: Behind every great man, there's a great woman? Matt Stauffer: There's a something woman. Abigail Otwell: Something. Matt Stauffer: Right? Abigail Otwell: Something like that. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: I feel like it's something that's funnier, or stronger, or more -- whatever, but this is true here as well. I would say, and I'm interested to hear how Abigail feels about this and how Taylor feels about this, but it is very likely that without the support of Abigail Otwell, who I have here today, there would be no Laravel because I know that we're going to learn more today about what that story looks like. Obviously, you wouldn't say that because you're humble and all those things, but I think that's very likely the case. The goal today is to learn about Miss Abigail Otwell. Can you say "Hi" to the people, and for those who don't know you tell -- I ask this to everybody, tell us a little bit about yourself and who you are and then, we'll get digging into the backstory. Abigail Otwell: Hey. Well, let me think. I am Abigail Otwell and I live in Arkansas, and I have not lived here my whole life. I was born in Connecticut and raised in Pennsylvania, and moved to Oklahoma. When I was 16, my family moved to Oklahoma. I met Taylor a month before I turned 18 and we dated for a few months, and we were engaged for 30 days before we got married- [laughs] Matt Stauffer: Yes. [laughs] That's awesome. Abigail Otwell: -and we started on this crazy journey together, but it's been really great. We've really just had a great time, just a great life. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: I like it. You just gave us the broad overview and we're going to spend the next 45 minutes digging in deep into that. Abigail Otwell: [laughs] Matt Stauffer: If you meet somebody at the store today, that's not the story you give them. You meet somebody at the store and they say, "Hey. Oh, you've got these young kids, but what do you do?" How do you answer that question for people? Abigail Otwell: That's kind of tough for me because I feel like some people, when I say -- I feel like I'd say, "I'm just a stay-at-home mom," or whatever, but it's a big job. Matt Stauffer: There's no "just" on that one. Abigail Otwell: No. I feel like now, the kids are in school, it's even harder for me to figure out what to say to that because it's like, "What do you all day?" [laughs] But somehow, the days just fly by, just stay busy and yes. I tell them I'm a stay-at-home mom and I do sew. I used to take orders -- I sometimes decide to take orders, then I get kind of burned out because it's a lot of work and just a lot of time away from other stuff that I'd rather be doing. I really love sewing for my daughter, but I don't know, I'm not really into mass manufacturing it. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: That was actually going to be my next question about sewing because I know that, at one point, that was kind of -- You would be sewing on the couch and he'd be coding the couch, you guys have mentioned that issue before. When you were sewing -- I don't know anything about custom sewing, were you using, in design and development terms, were you the designer and the developer, or were you using somebody else's designs and you were mainly just doing implementation? Abigail Otwell: Well, some of both. The first time I took orders, I was actually using a pattern I had made up myself by just sketching from a dress that I had and I took like 36 orders for that dress. That was part of being burned out, I think, because it was one design and there was 30-some of the same fabric, so yes, that was a lot. But that's really a lot of -- When he was coding and I was sewing was because I had so many orders to finish. But for the most part, I used patterns as a framework, so to speak. Matt Stauffer: I like that. Abigail Otwell: [laughs] And I just kind of throw the directions out in certain parts of the pattern and then I just go from there. I almost never stick completely to a pattern. Matt Stauffer: So there's a little bit of everything. You are using tools or frameworks to help you get started, but then there's a creative aspect, but there's also a production aspect. It's when you spend too much time in production, like you mentioned, 32 orders, that it just like, "Do I really want to keep doing this?" Abigail Otwell: Right, yes, it does get to be a lot. Matt Stauffer: Have you ever done any boys' clothes or it's been all dresses and bell bottoms and stuff? Abigail Otwell: Well, I did some- Matt Stauffer: -and blouses. Abigail Otwell: [laughs] I did some -- Well, I've done some -- a few things for James. I made him a Prince Charming costume when we went to Walt Disney World. Matt Stauffer: Oh, cool. Abigail Otwell: He didn't really want to wear it, but I kind of made him wear it. [laughter] Matt Stauffer: Mom. Abigail Otwell: Then, he got kissed by Cinderella and it was all over. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: Nice. Abigail Otwell: He still hates that costume. Matt Stauffer: That's awesome. Abigail Otwell: I've done a few things for him, but not a whole lot of boy stuff. Boys are just kind of boring when it comes to clothes. There's just- Matt Stauffer: Right, especially now because it's all just basically Under Armour everything. Abigail Otwell: Yes, he's all about- Matt Stauffer: Just match your colors. Abigail Otwell: -all the Under Armour and Nike you can imagine, so yes. Matt Stauffer: Yes. Okay, so we'll go more there in a bit, but I want to get into the backstory a bit. I tell everybody this, but you are in control of where we go and don't go. Abigail Otwell: Okay. Matt Stauffer: I'm just going to ask some questions. You moved around a lot when you were a kid. First question I always ask people in that context is, military? Abigail Otwell: No, we just moved around a lot. I'm trying to think, I think the longest I ever lived in one place growing up was four years. Matt Stauffer: Wow. Abigail Otwell: It was just constant moving and changing and meeting people. I don't know, I like living in one place, I really love to travel, but I'm okay just -- I mean, it's okay. I like that my kids have friends and have a lot more of a just steady- Matt Stauffer: Stable, yes. Abigail Otwell: -stable life than I did. Yes, I don't miss the moving part, I hate moving. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: I was just going to ask, what sort of impact do you think moving around so much made on you long term? Do you feel like you have a sense of that? Abigail Otwell: Yes. I was just talking to Taylor about this the other day, actually. I feel like it's hard if you don't live in the same place you grew up in. I was homeschooled, so I didn't go to school. I didn't go to college, so I feel like there's a lot of friendships that you make, lasting friendships that you tend to make. Like old friends that you can't really force once you're an adult. I feel like I don't have that because we did move around so much. I'm 22 hours from where I grew up, so it's not like -- Even the people I did know there, it's hard to keep in contact and keep real close when you're so far away. Matt Stauffer: Yes. You would say, "Oh, I go back home and see the people I went to middle school with. I go back home and see the people I went to high school with." None of that being around you. Abigail Otwell: No, no. Matt Stauffer: Yes, making friends as a grown-up turns out to be- Abigail Otwell: It's extremely difficult. Matt Stauffer: Yes, it's a lot of work. Abigail Otwell: It's frustrating, too. I don't know, it's just like I don't want to come off as too desperate, but sometimes, I'm like, "Hey, you want to go out to dinner? Because I really need a friend." [laughs] Matt Stauffer: You need friends, yes. Abigail Otwell: Yes. Matt Stauffer: All right. You were just shy of 18 and you met the strapping young gentleman, [laughs] who has brought this conversation together. What were your first impressions of young Taylor? Abigail Otwell: That he was really quiet. It wasn't exactly love at first sight. Him and my dad were really more friends before we became friends. I listened to them talk a lot and they had a lot of deep conversations. It was interesting, sometimes I would join in. But once we got to know him more and his personality started to come out, because -- I think a lot of people just think of him as quiet, but he is hilarious. He's really, really funny. I think once his personality came out more, I was like, "I really like him." [laughs] Matt Stauffer: Cool. Abigail Otwell: Yes. Matt Stauffer: How techy are you? No, first of all, how techy were you then, and how techy are you now? Abigail Otwell: Well, my family was not techy at all. Not at all. I was kind of the tech person of our family, but that was really just emails and phones. We didn't even have smartphones. I remember when he came over and he had the -- I think it was the first iPhone. We were like, "What is that?" [laughter] Abigail Otwell: Oh my gosh, yes. Matt Stauffer: One of the first questions I always ask everybody is, what was your first access to computers? I'm going to ask you too. When was the first time you had access to a computer? Abigail Otwell: Yes, we got our first computer when I was 12, and that's back when there was dial-up and somebody picked up the phone and ruined your internet connection. My mom was really big into selling stuff on eBay back then, so I would often do all the posting for her. We used PayPal too back then, which was also pretty rough. Matt Stauffer: Okay, wow. Abigail Otwell: I remember I learned all the HTML for the eBay listings. Matt Stauffer: Wait, how old were you at this point? Abigail Otwell: 12. Matt Stauffer: You were 12 years old and you were writing -- Okay, so this is an unexpected part of this interview, where at 12 years old, you were writing HTML. This is destiny then- Abigail Otwell: [laughs] It really didn't go much further than that, but I learned how to make different sized fonts, different color fonts, spacing. Because you had to do all that manually back then on eBay. Matt Stauffer: In eBay, yes. Abigail Otwell: Yes, I learned- Matt Stauffer: You were using the color property, it was before CSS probably. Abigail Otwell: Right, right. Matt Stauffer: All right. Okay. While your family didn't have a lot of computers and stuff around, you did have a computer, you were writing HTML, you were selling stuff with PayPal on eBay. For the average 12-year-old home-schooler back in the '90s or whatever, you were pretty technically savvy. Abigail Otwell: Right, right, yes. Matt Stauffer: I'm guessing that that being the case, that still wasn't necessarily something that you and Taylor connected on, right? Abigail Otwell: Not really, no, not really. Matt Stauffer: When you were 12, what did you want to be when you grew up? Abigail Otwell: I really wanted to be a midwife or a doula, and I still do [laughs] actually. When I was in my teens, I read all the books to become a licensed doula or whatever. Do you know what that is? Matt Stauffer: Yes. Abigail Otwell: Okay. Matt Stauffer: Why don't you explain because I do because that's our- Abigail Otwell: Right, [laughs] you're a dad. Matt Stauffer: -that's our role, but can you explain for everybody what a doula is? Abigail Otwell: A doula is somebody that's there to support a mom during labor. She's really the person that comes for mom. She helps with relaxation and pressure points, just to be there and be reassuring. Basically, she's just there for the mom. That could be at home, that could be at a birth center, could be at a hospital. Matt Stauffer: I've always thought of the doula as basically the number one advocate for the mom, especially when the mom doesn't have a partner or the partner is not necessarily knowing what to do. I think of doulas as they know the things a mom's going to need to care about, they know the problems that they're going to run into, and they are likely the interference between mom and potential difficulty, right? Abigail Otwell: Yes, I agree. I feel like a lot of times, the poor dad's lost as to what to do and there's some things that only a woman can help you with when you're in labor, that men don't really know how to do. Yes, that's what I've always wanted to be since I was seven. Yes, maybe one day, when the kids are grown or whatever. The schedule would be just hard because there's no scheduling when you go into labor, so I could be gone all night, all day, so I think it'll be better to pursue that when the kids are a little bit bigger. Matt Stauffer: Yes. One of my questions I was going to ask is, let's say the kids are 16 or 18 or whatever, what would be your next thing? That's what you're thinking. You've got to be able to, say, get a phone call and be somewhere else with 30 minutes notice and be there for as long as it takes, for 20 hours or whatever. Yes, that's tough. Abigail Otwell: Yes, it is tough. I had a doula with my first and, bless her heart, she was there for 20 hours I think. [laughs] That's a long time. Matt Stauffer: My sister-in-law's a birth photographer, so she has a similar schedule and she's got kids around your kids' age, but the difference is the photographer doesn't have to be there the whole 20 hours. Now, they do need to be there when the baby comes out, but there's a little bit more flexibility, but even so, the only way she can do it is with a large, large, large support system of people who can jump in. Multiple grandparents ready to take a kid at the drop of the hat, and my brother has a flexible schedule, so it's a lot. I definitely hear you there. Abigail Otwell: I've actually thought about doing a birth photographer instead because I also love photography and it's actually something I'm pursuing. I'm taking a class in a few weeks, just to learn more about how to use a camera and stuff, so I have thought about that because I just love birth and being there, but that would be a little bit less time and less hands-on, so I don't know. Matt Stauffer: Okay. Well if you do do that, I'll introduce you to someone. Abigail Otwell: Okay, sounds good. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: Cool. All right, so you were 12, you were doing HTML, eBay, home-schooled, met him at age 17, you guys moved pretty quickly and so, you're in Oklahoma, you are a newly married couple. I assume that he was working at that first job out of college at that point or still in college, so what was life like? What were you interested in? You weren't becoming a doula, at least right then, so what did it feel like for you at that point? Abigail Otwell: Well, let me think. I met him as soon as he graduated college because that's when he moved to a town close to ours. Matt Stauffer: Got it, okay. Abigail Otwell: He lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, which is right over the border. We were on the very edge of Oklahoma, so we were only about 30 minutes apart. I met him a couple of days after he graduated. I don't know any kind of career or anything else. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: Anything else other than keeping this child alive and fed and- Abigail Otwell: Yes, yes, so that -- Life has moved really fast basically since then. Then, we had our second 20 months after we had our first, so they're just real close. Yes, it's just been crazy. I feel like that stage of our life, which was this just exhausting -- just tunnel we were in, that you can't think of anything else except surviving from day to day. Then, once I started to come out of that, I feel like it was about when our youngest was three or four, I started to realize, "Oh, wow, life isn't about babies- Matt Stauffer: I'm a human being. [laughs] Abigail Otwell: -and toddlers anymore. Matt Stauffer: Right, right. Abigail Otwell: [laughs] Yes. What am I going to do with myself? I almost started having this panic moment, like, "Oh my gosh, should I go to school? What should I do?" He's like, "Calm down, take it one day at a time. You'll be busy, trust me." [laughs] Yes, so- Matt Stauffer: Just so if anybody else is -- Well, people are listening to this. The amount of work that a stay-at-home parent has to do is just unbelievable. It's something where the question of "What do you do all day?" Well, sometimes that can be a non-malicious question to ask, but sometimes it's not. Regardless of whether or not it's a malicious question, if you find yourself in the circumstance where you have kids and you've never been a stay-at-home parent, just take a week off of work and send your spouse off on a vacation to just see what it's like. Because I 've done it, and it is like -- Thankfully, my wife is very good at communicating to me the cost that it is on her, so I didn't have to do it to at least get that it's an idea. Having done it, I'm like, "This is non-stop work, non-stop exhaustion, non-stop energy. This is not just like, "Oh, yeah, I sit around and twiddle my thumbs." Have you noticed that children actually need taking care of? Abigail Otwell: Constantly. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: Usually, when you're a stay at home parent, you're also responsible for taking care of the house, right? Abigail Otwell: Right, oh, yeah. Which they're constantly tearing apart. [laughter] Matt Stauffer: Right, exactly. I'm basically a cleaning person, I am a chef, I am a childcare person. I am all of these things all together at once. I want to affirm that that's a crazy amount of work, and even thinking anything about being an actual just human being in the midst of that can be pretty nuts. Abigail Otwell: Yes. It's kind of overwhelming, really. When you're just in the throes of it, like you still are, it's just, especially for her, I feel bad for her. It's really hard to be with your kids all day, with no other human interaction really. Looking back, I'm like, "Wow, that is really difficult." In the midst of it, you're just so tired, you can't really think straight, but once you come out of it, it's like, "Wow, yeah, that's really difficult." Having little kids is very, very difficult. Matt Stauffer: Yes. One of the things that we noticed was that it's probably a lot more difficult now than it used to be, when you had family living all around you and everyone was really close. One of the things we did to make up for the fact that our family all lives many hours away, was move to a neighborhood with tiny little yards, where everybody is really tight and close together, so that you get some of that kind of communal aspect, and that's helped us a little bit. Abigail Otwell: Yes. I remember many mornings just thinking, "Oh, I would just give anything to have a mom or somebody come and sit with my kids for two hours, so I could sleep." [laughter] Just sleep, I don't care if she does nothing else, just keep the kids from killing each other, and let me get some sleep. Matt Stauffer: Right. If they're alive and not screaming when I wake up, I'm good. Right, okay. That was a pretty significant period of your life. That was probably six, seven years before you're really to the point where she was three years old, four years old, and you're out of it now. You've talked about, you did some sewing and it turns out you can burn out on that a little bit. You also were thinking about ten years down the road, 15 years down the road, or whatever it ended up being, where you're in a place where you're considering maybe being a doula or something else like that. What is it that you do day-to-day right now that gives you the most joy? Abigail Otwell: Well, I'll just tell you our daily schedule. It's pretty much the same every day. The alarm goes off at 6:30 and we set the alarm in the kids' room to keep them in bed till 6:30. It's like the opposite. Matt Stauffer: [laughs] It's the opposite, right. Abigail Otwell: It's the opposite. As soon as that alarm goes off, it's like elephants upstairs, just like “Shh”, just running as fast I can downstairs. They like to get up early. Then, get them ready, give them breakfast, get them ready for school, drop them off. Then I go, I normally go to the gym just about every day, straight from dropping them off. I work out and then I come home and shower. Sometimes, Taylor and I will go eat lunch together, and that's nice to be able to do that, to be able to just chat and see each other. Then, we go get the kids at 3:00, and they're home, and fix dinner. On Tuesdays, my daughter has dance and my son has basketball, so he'll take him to basketball practice and I'll take her to dance. We really like having our family time at night and I don't want to give that up. Anything that's going to take us away from the house for more than two nights a week, I'm not going to do it. It's not worth it, no. I just like having that time and they're so exhausted from being at school all day. School is really tough, especially now, it's just there's so much. Matt Stauffer: In what ways do you think your life is different, with Taylor running Laravel, versus if he had a normal 9-to-5? Abigail Otwell: Let me think. When he had a normal job, I felt a lot more alone. Of course, I had a little kid, but I don't know, just waiting for him to get home was my day, basically. I really like being able to go and travel more, that's really -- I love to travel. I think it's because we never did as a family at home, so it's something I really, really, really want to do with my kids, and they really love it and look forward to it. I don't know, when you're away from home and the kids are not infants, it's just like you can really cut loose and just -- there's not really any responsibilities, it's less stressful. You could just have fun and eat junk food and just [laughs] You know what I mean? Just really cut loose and have fun. I really enjoy that and I'm glad he can not have to just have one week a year that we have to squeeze our thing into. When the kids were little, it was nice because if one of us had a doctor's appointment, I could leave the other one with him, they could set up here in his office or whatever. That helped out a lot, not having to hold them everywhere I went throughout the day. Matt Stauffer: He went from that job, he went over to UserScape. When he was first talking about going full-time on Laravel, was that scary? What was it like for you? Abigail Otwell: It was a little scary, but he is extremely responsible, so I knew that if he felt okay with it, that it was going to be okay, probably. [laughs] And he waited until it was well-established, so it wasn't terribly scary, it was more just super exciting because when we were first married, for the first couple of years, I remember we would walk around our little duplex and we would just chat about -- have ideas and stuff that he could do to be able to work for himself, so that we could be together more. It was just like this pipe dream at that point, it was just like, "This will never happen, but it's kind of fun talking about it." He tried a few other little things before that we laugh at now because they're hilarious, but when he made Laravel, it wasn't one of those ideas that he thought would be really used, it was more like, "Hey, I don't like anything that's out there. I'm just going to build my own for me to use." Then, I remember the day he launched it and it was like, "Oh my gosh, Abigail, I've got --" I don't know, just a couple or stars or whatever one can have, and he was so excited. He was just really pumped about that and just, I don't know, just from there, we -- I remember he would get a retweet from somebody with 1,500 followers, and he'd be like, "Oh my gosh, can you imagine if one person retweets it with that many followers and then 1,500 people see it and then one of them retweets it?" It was just crazy. But yes, so when he went on his own, I felt pretty good about it. I've always told him, I said, "If all this goes away tomorrow and we're living in a cardboard box, I'll still love you. We have each other, that's what matters, so we'll figure it out." Of course, that's not going to happen because he's responsible and has everything figured out, but he was. Yes, so it's pretty cool. Matt Stauffer: You're technically not the primary entrepreneur, you're not the name who's behind the framework, you didn't code it. Someone could just say, "Hey, it's Taylor's idea and what you did was give him breathing room to do it." But I don't think that would be a full description of the situation. As an entrepreneur with an incredibly supportive spouse, who's a business partner with another entrepreneur who has a very supportive spouse, I'm very aware of how much our spouses are a part of the work we're doing, even if their fingers might not be in everything. Are there any aspects of what it feels like to not just be a supportive spouse, but to be a co-entrepreneur that you could talk a little bit about? I know that's a little bit of a vague question, but do you have any sense of the ways in which you see yourself being a part of Laravel, versus just watching Taylor do it? Abigail Otwell: Yes. Ever since I was little, I've been an entrepreneur. I love talking about small business ideas, I have had many little businesses over the years, ever since I was pretty little of my own, so I really love talking about the subject, whether it pertains to me or to somebody else. I love hearing other people's ideas, and dreaming about stuff. I often ask him -- I can't give away any secrets, so I've got to be careful here, but [laughs] I'll often ask him, "How's such and such coming?" I try to keep up and keep interested because I am interested. Even though I can't use it or whatever, I still am interested in the process and how it's coming. When things are really, really busy, like getting ready for Laracon, I just know in my mind he's going to need more time. I'll need to give him that time, and it's just a season, it may be busier, he may have to work a Saturday or Sunday here and there, or bring his laptop down after the kids are in bed and work a little bit, but I just know it's a season and it'll pass, and things will calm back down. That way, I try to give him time and space to create, but I also like to talk to him about it, try and stay interested in it and stay up on the latest programs. Also, I try to give him ideas here and there, where I can. I know once he incorporated one of my ideas in Forge, which was kind of cool. For security, but- Matt Stauffer: That's awesome. Abigail Otwell: Yes. I'm like, "I can't code it, but would this work?" He's like, "Oh, yes." Yes, that's kind of fun. Matt Stauffer: Are you familiar with the phrase "rubber duck debugging"? Abigail Otwell: No. Matt Stauffer: There's an idea in coding that when you're stuck or something's not working, one of the best ways to solve the problem is to talk to somebody about it, but it turns out it's not often what the other person is telling you that's helping, but just the process of talking through with someone. At Titan, we all have a little -- somebody in a book once said, "You could literally just stick a rubber duck on your desk," and so, you all who can't see, I just pulled a rubber duck off my desk. You could just sit there and talk to a rubber duck and I've realized that I use my wife as a rubber duck often, expecting that she'll just kind of smile and nod and then, like you said, she'll have really -- as a non-technical person, she'll have fantastic input about user behavior or what would look like for -- And I'm like, "I'm glad I used you instead of a rubber duck because this is way better." It sounds like you're not just rubber duck, although that is a thing, where you're really listening, but you're actively involved in some of the processes of thinking through stuff. Abigail Otwell: Yes, and I try to be, and if there's any way, I'm always telling him, "If there's any way I can help you with the conferences." I looked up videos for him and I was like, "I can just take over contacting the venues and getting food lined up," and so, just trying to take anything I can off his plate. He ends up doing most of it himself and does a great job at it, but I do try to help out here and there with that kind of stuff. Because I'm like, "I can do that." [laughs] Matt Stauffer: Sure, sure. All right, so one of the things I noticed is that you have had a little bit of social media interaction with various folks in the Twitter world and the Laravel world. You're on Twitter at times and we'll see you at conferences along with the kids, although you're usually taking care of the kids a little bit more in those contexts. What does it feel like to have a whole bunch of people interact with you and following you primarily because they're developers and just random people from countries around the world following you? Is it weird, is it kind of fun, do you have any idea what they're actually talking about? Abigail Otwell: It is a little funny because I'll tweet something and I'll be like, "Wait a minute, that was totally the wrong crowd for that." Because nobody's going to care in this crowd. But yes. Matt Stauffer: Some things go on Facebook, some things go on Twitter. Abigail Otwell: Right, exactly, yes. Although I have been trying to step away more from Facebook, Instagram. I'll delete Instagram for a while, then download it, post a picture and then, delete it again. It's just, I don't know, it's just so much to keep up with and sometimes, I just need a break. Anyway, yes, it is kind of funny to open Twitter and it's -- Twitter and Facebook are totally different worlds. Both politically and just everything. Everything is totally separate. Everybody I follow just about on Twitter is tech people, and I think everybody that follows me is tech people, so sometimes I have to keep that in mind, I'm like -- Then I feel like -- I don't tweet very often because I'm like, "What would I have to offer to this crowd? I don't know what to say." [laughs] Matt Stauffer: I know that feeling. Often, I also find myself saying, "You know what? I'm a whole human being and regardless of whether you followed me for one thing or another, this is who I am." I try to remind myself to self-censor a little bit less and just be like, "You know what? If you don't like this part of me, you can go follow somebody else who talks about just the tech you care about or whatever." [inaudible 00:28:50] Abigail Otwell: Yes, I agree. Sometimes, I'm just like, "I don't care, this is me, so-" [laughs] Matt Stauffer: Right, yes. You're following me, then you're going to get me. Abigail Otwell: [laughs] If you don't like me, there's an unfollow button. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: Nice. All right, so if there were a Laracon in a different country in the world that you are most interested in visiting, somebody should go spin up this Laracon just to give you the excuse to travel with Taylor, which one would it be? Abigail Otwell: Boy. Okay. Somewhere tropical. I love the beach. We're looking at a place- Matt Stauffer: What about Costa Rica? Laracon Costa Rica? Abigail Otwell: I think there's a huge Laravel group, is it -- Okay, where -- he was just telling me the other day there's -- one of the biggest Laravel groups there are, is somewhere like that. Is that Brazil or Costa Rica? I don't know, but- Matt Stauffer: There's definitely a big group in Brazil, for sure. Abigail Otwell: Yes, I think it may be that, but he pulled up and I was like, "Okay, I will go there." [laughs] Matt Stauffer: [laughs] All right. All right, so if you're listening and you have a large Laravel community in a tropical location, you might get some special- Abigail Otwell: I will be there. [laughs] Matt Stauffer: -special bonus points behind your conference Abigail Otwell: Yes, for sure. Matt Stauffer: I like that. You are technical, you understand technical things, but I think that your perspective on the apps that Taylor's building and the technical stuff he's doing can often just as, A, not being the one writing the code, and B, not someone who dreams of architecture design patterns all day, I would bet it gives you a little bit of a broader perspective than some of us can have at times, when we're stuck in code. I got two questions around that. Number one, what, either, is the best thing you've seen come out of the Laravel community or the best hope you have for the Laravel community on a broader perspective? Two, do you have any worries or correctives or things you -- warnings you want to give or things you want to tell people, "Hey, make sure you stay away from it?" I know it's kind of broad and vague, but basically, what are your hopes and dreams or what are your fears, from a broader perspective, for Laravel, as a framework, as a community, as its possible impacts and all that kind of stuff? Abigail Otwell: One thing I was really surprised about the first time I came to Laracon, which would have been the first year, in Louisville, so it was three years ago, I guess? Matt Stauffer: I think so. Abigail Otwell: Before then, my kids were so little and dependent on me. There was no way I was going to be able to leave them and go to these conferences, even though I really, really wanted to. It was the first year, we actually all went and brought his mom to that one, but now I'm able to go. I was really pleasantly surprised by just how -- just these people, they were just so friendly, and happy, and welcoming, and just really, they were -- everyone was so excited about it. It made me really excited for the future of Laravel and just to see the culmination of all his work, because I see the grueling day-to-day stress and just hard work and extra hours. To see it like always feel using it and all these cool stories of people being able to quit their jobs and work from home with their families because of it, that, to me, was so rewarding, very, very rewarding. Even though I wasn't technical, I still felt like I made a lot of friends and still talk to a ton of people. Yes, I really love that. As far as the warnings go, I don't know. I don't know, I think it's -- I feel like the Twitter fighting has kind of died down a little bit. Matt Stauffer: Yes, it does seem like it. Abigail Otwell: Maybe I'm just kind of in a hole, but- [laughter] Matt Stauffer: No, I think it's either died down or- Abigail Otwell: I don't really go and read it that often. Matt Stauffer: Yes, or I've just muted everybody, I'm not sure which. Abigail Otwell: Yes, one of the two. I don't know, lately, I think have been going pretty well, as far as that goes and everything. Matt Stauffer: Cool. No, I like the idea that you said about -- I mean, when I was asking about the impact it's had on your life, you described a lot of impacts on quality of life for your family. When you described the impacts it's had on other people, it was a similar thing, it was quality of life, and self-determination, and family time, stuff like that, and it's cool for that. I never want to be the one who pits financial success against those sorts of things because, often, financial success gives you freedom and gives you the ability to do that. Abigail Otwell: It does. Matt Stauffer: We could have said, "Oh, you know what? The really good thing is that lots of people are making lots of money or lots of people are getting famous or rich or whatever," which are not bad things, but again, I love that one of the vibes is for people to live the life that they want to live. That's something I've heard you talk about a lot here, which I think is really cool. Abigail Otwell: Yes. That, to me, is -- I mean, that's really all there is. Family and just being able to -- I don't know. I think it's just coming from where I come from, I think it's -- that's so important to me, is just spending a lot of family time. I love that the kids can come in and see Taylor after school and -- I mean, I try to keep that at a minimum because I know he's working, but he'll often let them come in and say hi. Then, within two hours, he's downstairs for dinner. It's just really enriched our family life so much, having him home and working for himself and it's really cool to see that happen in other people's life, especially as a direct product of Laravel. I think that's really cool to me. Matt Stauffer: I love it. I think that's a good point to stop on because it makes -- it gives you all the feel [unintelligible 00:34:04] -- This has been amazing. I really appreciate you taking your time here. If people who listen to this were to take one action in their lives or in the Lavarel community or something in response to this, one thing. Some people, it's, "Hey, follow me on Twitter." Is there one thing that they did in response to hearing you talk with -- what would that one thing be? Abigail Otwell: Just enjoy each other. Just, I don't know, just try not to get bogged down in the day-to-day or the stress, the arguments. Just to really try to enjoy your family, and spend time with them and -- I don't know because, in the end, that's really all that matters, I guess. Matt Stauffer: I love it. That's great. Abigail Otwell: Well, I appreciate you asking me. Nobody has really asked me to be on these things before, so I was a little nervous. I was like, "What I'm going to say?" You're easy to talk to. Matt Stauffer: Yes. That's what it says, it's about you, it's not about saying the right thing or teaching the right thing, it's just -- there's people behind all this. The hope is to get to know the people. A lot of people, again, they know your name, they might not know you. Hopefully, they know you a little bit more and you'll have even more friends at next Laracon. [laughter] Matt Stauffer: Cool. Well, Abigail, thank you so much for your time. It was a total pleasure talking to you and see you later. Abigail Otwell: Okay, thank you, bye. [music]

An interview with Taylor Otwell, creator of Laravel, about what he did before Laravel and what got him started. Views by Drake The Life of Pablo by Kanye West Free 6LACK by 6LACK 808s and heartbreak by Kanye West Blue Neighbourhood by Troye Sivan Laravel & Lawns Transcript (sponsored by Laravel News): Matt Stauffer : Welcome to the Laravel Podcast, episode 55, in which I talk to Laravel creator Taylor Otwell. We learn about his back story, where he came from, and what helped him—and made him—start Laravel in the first place. Stay tuned. Taylor, it's great to have you on season three of the Laravel podcast. Obviously you've been around since the very beginning, but we're doing a little switch up here, where I'm going to start doing interviews. So, I'm super excited to have you as the first person whose brain I get to pick here. So, I guess we can start with ... Say hi to the people. Taylor Otwell : Hey people. Hey party people. Matt Stauffer : Ha. Party people. What we're going to do here for today, and I told you this beforehand, but I feel like a lot of people have talked to you about Laravel, about development, about the latest version. Every time a new version comes out, 5.5 just came out, people want to talk about that. And maybe we'll cover that a little bit, but what I feel like we haven't talked about quite as much is, the man behind the scenes, kind of thing. I think there's a lot about you that people don't know, so I first started with the questions ... I've known you for years now. I feel like I know you really well and there's still certain things I don't know about your past, but then I also asked a few folks, "What are some things you really want to know about Taylor and how he works?" So, we're just going to off-the-cuff, just throw some of those questions at you and see where it goes. Sound good? Taylor Otwell : Sounds good. Matt Stauffer : Awesome. So, first of all, back to the early days, when did you first have a computer in your home? Taylor Otwell : I think I was about ten or eleven, I had a computer. 66-megahertz computer that our neighbor actually, I think had, had it built of us, because our neighbor was a computer programmer, across the street. And this was back in the early days of Windows. Matt Stauffer : Mm-hmm (affirmative). Taylor Otwell : I guess it was like Windows 3.1 or something like that. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. Taylor Otwell : He was an early Windows programmer. And my parents had, I think asked him to help them get a computer for us. And it had a little megahertz readout on the front of the screen ... or on the front of the tower I guess. And was like Windows 95. Matt Stauffer : I'm always interested to hear from people what role, kind of early access and interest in computers has for them. So you having that neighbor, was it your neighbor that sparked your interest or was it having that computer? What was it that really sparked your interest in computers when you first got into them? Taylor Otwell : You know, it's hard to say, I don't think it was necessarily the neighbor that sparked the interest. I'm not sure I even realized that my neighbor was a programmer until later. I think I was just always interested in sci-fi type stuff and geeky stuff. Of course, I always liked Star Wars. I liked The Jetsons cartoon when I was a kid and all the cool tech stuff they had, so I guess I was just always drawn to futuristic tech stuff, so it was natural to be into computers. My first dabbling in programming was just playing HTML, where I would make little websites about the games I liked, like Pokemon or whatever other games I was playing at the time. Just little tips and strategy site. I remember one of the first ones I ever made actually, which was on CompuServe. And our neighbor, that same neighbor helped me and his son put it on CompuServe, was a website about Civilization 2, and sort of our strategies for that game. Matt Stauffer : Yes. What's the oldest website that you still have access to? Do you know? Taylor Otwell : I don't have anything from my childhood unfortunately. I wish I did. I wish I had thought to take screenshots of them and stuff. But a lot of them ... Several of them were on GeoCities and other free sites like that. Matt Stauffer : I remember my GeoCities sites. The only thing that I remember is the first one that I ever built, I hosted on GeoCities and it had a single image in it because image tags were pretty new at that point. So it was basically like text about me and a giant picture with a page scroll on the corner of the picture because the page scroll was the hottest Photoshop effect or whatever. Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I always thought the counters were really cool too. That you could put on your stuff. Matt Stauffer : Oh, my God, yeah. I was listening to somebody's podcast recently, I don't know who it was and the guy who had originally created link exchange was on there. Did you ever do those? Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I remember those. Those were big especially in the Pokemon website world. Matt Stauffer : Right? Yeah. We were all just waiting for one of those big sites to get a link over to us because of how the link exchange rule played. So it sounds like HTML is where you go started, do you ever do any, I don't know what the right term is like coding, coding, like a basic or anything like that early on, or was it not till later. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I wrote few basic things. I also got really into TI-83 calculator programs where I would write little strategy games. Back then, at least in like middle school and high school the popular thing was like that drug wars game. Matt Stauffer : I was just going to say drug wars, that was it. Taylor Otwell : I would write games like that, either with drugs or with other lemonade stand type games. And I learned how to do that basically like sitting in ninth grade English, I just kind of taught myself how to program the calculator. Those were really the first real programs I wrote, I feel like. Matt Stauffer : When was your first exposure to the Internet that you remember? Taylor Otwell : We had internet pretty early after I got my first computer. We had dial up Internet. Just like at 14 4 modem. That was my first exposure to the internet. I don't even remember what sites were really a thing back then. I remember mainly looking at video game sites and just like Yahoo, and stuff like that. Matt Stauffer : When you were thinking, then, about coding ... I think a lot of us we were just kind of figuring it out as we went. Did you think, "Man, this is what I want to do forever," or was it just a fun thing and you were still ... did you have a different plan for your life at that point? Taylor Otwell : I actually did not plan to do coding, even when I entered college, I was doing my degree in computer networking and stuff because I thought programming would be too mathematical and sort of boring. Matt Stauffer : Mm-hmm (affirmative). Taylor Otwell : But I didn't really have a good understanding of what real programming was like, on a professional level. I'm not sure if schools back then, even in college ... I'm not sure I really got a good picture of what actual, on-the-job programming is like. I always imagined it to be so theoretical and really hard, like calculus all the time and stuff like that. But it really, at least for the kind of programming we do on the web, it doesn't tend to be that way. I went through all of college not planning to even be a programmer. Matt Stauffer : Did you do well ... I hope you don't mind me asking ... did you do well in math in high school, did you take calculus and everything? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I was always like a B student in math. Matt Stauffer : Okay. Taylor Otwell : I was just okay. Matt Stauffer : Right. Taylor Otwell : I wasn't exceptional. Matt Stauffer : Not enough that the idea of programming being very "mathy" made you excited about it. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, exactly. Matt Stauffer : Okay. Did you ... like a different tact ... did you always consider yourself someone who's gonna do entrepreneurial stuff? At what point did you start thinking of yourself as, "I'm someone who's going to start a business"? Taylor Otwell : Only a few years after I'd gotten out of college and had a taste of the fact that anyone could take PHP and build an entire web application, which I didn't really realize, I guess, at the time that that was pretty possible for someone to do. Once I realized that, my brain just started churning with different ideas, and even if it wasn't something I could do full-time, but just something small to supplement my income or whatever. I was probably two or three years out of college before I really started thinking that way, though. Matt Stauffer : What was your first exposure to PHP that led you to having that experience? Taylor Otwell : My very first exposure was in college itself. We had a class project, it was a group project with two other people, and we had to build an inventory tracking system for a local charity. This was our final senior thing. We were all assigned real-world projects in the community, and so we happened to get this inventory tracking thing. One of the guys in the group was familiar with PHP, apparently, and said, "We can use PHP for this, because it's pretty easy," and I didn't really know any better, so I was like, "Sure, sounds good." That's when I really got my first exposure to PHP, even though I, on that project, mainly did talking with the customer, and finding out how they needed it to work, and stuff like that. Later, a couple of years down the road, when I started having ideas for side projects and stuff, I had remembered that he had chosen PHP back a couple of years ago in that class project. It was supposed to be easy or whatever, and I knew that we were able to lush the projects, so it wasn't too hard, apparently. Matt Stauffer : Were you ... Taylor Otwell : Yeah, so that's when I revisited PHP, because I hadn't actually used it very much in college. My partner had chosen it as our programming language for that project. Matt Stauffer : In college, when he chose that, were you doing .NET at that point, or did you get into it out of college? Taylor Otwell : No, I only did .NET once I got hired at my first actual programming job. The only programming courses I took in college were two semesters of C++, and that was it, actually I had those two semesters of programming, again, because I was in a networking degree, so I didn't have a lot of programming classes, like a pure computer science major might have. Matt Stauffer : Right. I think I remember you told me that the .NET thing was an intentional, learning-the-job-type situation? Taylor Otwell : Yeah. Matt Stauffer : What was that experience like? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, so, the place that hired me right out of college, they came to my university, which was Arkansas Tech. They were just interviewing students, and since they were there, I just decided to do an interview, even though I hadn't planned on being a programmer. I did the interview, and got the job, and the immediately put you in this six-month training program, where basically, for the first six months of the job, you spend most of your time in class, especially for the first three months, and then for the remaining three months, it's like 50-50 in class, and doing little projects and stuff. They actually taught me basically all of classic ASP, COBOL, JCL, which are two old things, and some beginnings of .NET, but not a ton of it. I did a lot of COBOL and classic ASP, and then eventually got put on a .NET project at work. I just picked that up from the existing code that was already written on the project, because I wasn't writing it from scratch at first. I just taught myself .NET as I got in there, because I already had been programming for a couple of years, so picking up another language was not too difficult, since they actually wrote in VB.NET, and all of their classic ASP was in VB, so ... Matt Stauffer : Right. The syntax was really similar. Taylor Otwell : Wasn't too bad. Matt Stauffer : That actually ... I wanted to ask about .NET and VC, but stepping back for a second, when you guys were writing PHP in school, was this classic PHP, was this ... I'm assuming it was 5-3, based on what I've talked to you about before, right? Was there any framework or anything? Taylor Otwell : No, there was no framework on that project that I remember. It was just classic ... from what I remember, because I actually had to put it all in a thumb drive and install it at this charity, it was just a bunch of random PHP files. There was no real structure to it. Matt Stauffer : Index.php, about.php ... Taylor Otwell : All the ... I remember looking at the HTML and all the PHP being mixed in. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. You got your SQL queries up top, and then the end bracket, and then, all of a sudden, your HTML. Taylor Otwell : Yeah. But then, when I came back to PHP later, it was on PHP 5.3. But again, I started with plain PHP for a few weeks, and then quickly realized that I needed some structure, and that's when I used CodeIgniter for a little bit. Matt Stauffer : Okay. Now, when you were doing .NET, was it .MVC at that point, or was it some predecessor? Taylor Otwell : I've done both. I've done .NET webforms, which were a predecessor to .MVC, and later, I did .MVC, the early versions. Matt Stauffer : I have experience with webforms, and I've never got my brain around the way it works, because if I remember right, it's basically ... rather than a route or a controller, or anything, it's really basically a form that handles its own validation, that handles its own everything. Everything is centered around this form, and then that form, and then that form. It's just a very different mental model, in my ... I know that's not a great description, but am I right in remembering that that's the difference between that versus .MVC? Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I think what they did, is they took WinForms, which is what we used to write desktop apps. On WinForms, how it works, if you want to do some action on a button-click, when they click on a button on your desktop app, you're literally in, the designer can click the button, and it takes you to the spot in the code that's like a click-event handler, and you write all of your code. I think on webforms, they tried to have ... basically, their thought process was, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could make the same model for the web, so that all these WinForms programmers can write these dynamic web applications, so you have the same thing, where you have button-click handlers in your .NET code that correspond to things on your front end." Somehow, they routed that using ... I don't know if it was query strings, or what they were actually passing in the form, but somehow, they were able to route that to the right piece of code when you clicked a button on your web front end. It felt like building a WinForms app, and was really different than any other web technology I've ever used since. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. The reason I was asking is, my brother has done .MVC for ages, and he helped me understand .MVC when I first got into CodeIgniter, but I remember having written webforms before that, and it's such a complete ... it felt a little bit like writing a classic ASP, especially if you're using VB, but then it felt a little bit like some kind of super-powered jQuery, basically. It's not like a mentality that I'm used to seeing anywhere else. Before you got back into CodeIgniter, you had had some experience with .MVC, then. Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I had .MVC, and that's why I even knew the frameworks as a concept to look for, basically. Matt Stauffer : So, you got a job out of school. It almost seems like it was a sponsored boot camp, basically, for the first six months. Is that a good way to think about it? There are getting used to real-world stuff, but you're actually sitting in classes sponsored by the company? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, a little bit. It was all on site, and all the instructors were full-time employees that actually were in other departments, actually. They would just pull them into these training classes when they needed them. But it was a really unique place. They only hired new graduates, and everyone goes through the same training program. It's like they just want people fresh, and wanted to sort of train them in their way of doing things, rather than bring in existing programmers that are already, I guess, ingrained with other ways. Matt Stauffer : Right. That you have to un-train, basically. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, it was one of the of the ... I guess, the only places I've worked that only hired new graduates. Matt Stauffer : Interesting. So, you're doing that, you're working at .MVC, and you have this idea that you want to do some side projects, and you mention that seeing your partner in that class project using PHP gave you a little of the idea that you could do something on your own. Can you tell me a little bit more about what the mentality was, and what the thought process was, that led for you to have a good, paying job doing .MVC, that you could do that for quite a while, and saying, "You know what? I want to do something on the side." What was the itch there? Taylor Otwell : I think part of it was having freedom to move wherever I wanted to if it did take off. Then, I could work from home, and we could move back closer to family, because at the time, I was living three or four hours away from the main bulk of my family, which lives in one town. It was just gonna be more freedom is what I remember to live wherever we wanted to. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. You wanted that freedom, you wanted to be able to be self-employed. If it's anything like it was for me, and then you can tell me if I'm wrong, that there wasn't quite as significant of a culture around being an entrepreneur. It feels like there is, today ... there wasn't all these conferences about being a sole entrepreneur. I guess hearing Ian and Andre talk about it, they're definitely ... what's that form they're always talking about? Business and Software? Taylor Otwell : Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Stauffer : But I don't know about you ... have you ever heard of any of those folks who are really big about doing your little business, or is it just something where you said, "Well, I want to do this, and I'll figure it out as I go." Taylor Otwell : No, I didn't know anyone else doing anything like that. I didn't even go to any websites that talked about that or anything. Matt Stauffer : Yeah, same here. I'm interested ... let's see if anything will come up during this chat ... whether the lack of those resources help to hurt us in various ways. You knew PHP was an option. You knew that you could ship with PHP. You at least had the ability to compare it against some other web-based programming things, and it seemed like PHP was more viable for getting something launched, working solo, and so you dug into PHP, you did a little bit of old-school procedural PHP, quickly realized you wanted to do CodeIgniter. What was the first project, do you remember, that you built with CodeIgniter? Taylor Otwell : One of the first projects I built was this really niche thing. I had known someone that owned a book bindery, they rebind old books, and I was going to build a little system for them to take orders and keep track of orders of books they were rebinding. It was a very specific product for this company. I think they were based in Tulsa or something at the time, pretty close to where I was living, really. Matt Stauffer : You built an app custom for them, you built it in CodeIgniter ... what was hosting like? What was the front end like? Do you remember any of the other technical details of what that was like? Taylor Otwell : I think I used DreamHost at the time, so it was just a shared host, because I didn't really know how to configure my own VPS until years later, basically. Yeah, I know I was on DreamHost, and would FTP the files using FileZilla, because I was on Windows at the time, and actually, I didn't even have a Mac until I started working for UserScape after Laravel had been built. All of Laravel, the first version, was built on a cheap Windows laptop. I would just FTP all the files up. When I first started, I was using Notepad++. Matt Stauffer : Yeah, man, I love Notepad++. A lot of good work done with Notepad++ and FileZilla. You were doing that, and at some point, you felt like ... well, actually, I was gonna say, at some point, you felt like CodeIgniter wasn't giving you what you wanted, but actually, the reason you and I first interacted was because I was a CodeIgniter developer who had started learning about IOC and DI, and stuff like that, and I said, "What I wanted was an IOC container for CodeIgniter," and this guy Taylor, this young guy, had written an IOC container for CodeIgniter, and I couldn't find the code anywhere." I ended up DMing you or something, and you ended up saying, "You know what I just pulled ... I got rid of it, I pulled it in Laravel, you should check out Laravel." That was basically how I first my Laravel. I followed Jeffrey at Nettuts for a while, and he'd been talking about Laravel for a bit, so that was what finally switched me over. It sounds like before you went off on your own to do your own thing, you were trying to work in the CodeIgniter ecosystem to improve it. What was that like? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, so at first, I had no intentions of splitting off and writing a framework. But you're right, one of the first projects I wrote was CI injector, CInject or something like that. I was actually pretty proud of that. It was actually the first reflection-based IOC container in PHP at all that I'm aware of. There was one other IOC container that was also written in 2010, a few months later. That was one of the main pieces of .NET/.MVC that I really like was the auto-resolving container. Laravel's container still works, basically, like that first CodeIgniter container did. The other thing I was really interested in was the better ORM for CodeIgniter, and I wanted to get those two things in ... oh, there was a third thing. I wanted better templating, like Blade, where you have an @extends at the top, and then you define these sections that override the parent template section, stuff like that. Template inheritance. I remember the final straw, that I couldn't really continue with CodeIgniter anymore, is I wanted auto-resolving dependency injection in my CodeIgniter controllers. To make that work, you really had to start editing the core files in a way that was not in a nice, packageable, shippable way, where other people could do it. Then I hit this crossroads, where I considered just forking CodeIgniter, and making this "special edition" of just sort of souped-up CodeIgniter on steroids, and giving it another name. Or just starting fresh. I think I just started fresh to just experiment at first, and then got so far along, I just kept going. I know I rewrote the first version of Laravel, probably a solid five or six times until I was happy with it. Matt Stauffer : What was the first thing you wrote in Laravel? Taylor Otwell : I remember writing the routing engine first. Probably the routing and the views. I think ... I don't remember exactly what I was doing for the database at the time. There was an active record of implementation called PHP ActiveRecord, that even at that time had become abandonware. That was back in 2010. Then, there was another couple of libraries. One was called Idiorm ... it was I-D-I-O-R-M, and then it had a corresponding ORM called "Paris". I think the Idiorm thing was the query builder, Paris was the ORM. Actually, Eloquent was very inspired by Paris, because it had the sort of model where a relationship is just a function of the model that returns a query builder. Eloquent, of course, still works like that to this day, so Paris deserves quite a bit of credit for coming up with that model. I don't think the person who wrote Paris even programs PHP anymore, last time I looked, but I'm not sure they're aware that Eloquent was so inspired by that. Matt Stauffer : That's really cool. I remember the moment where I realized I had to leave CodeIgniter was when I recognized that some of its inherent restrictions were forcing me into writing worse code. For example, some of the ugliest stuff in my old CodeIgniter apps were because I had ... database models, they called it, which was really like it was a model and repository and three other things, but you cram it all into one, and so you have methods that are everything you could just possibly imagine that would touch the database in any way, would all get crammed into a single class. If you're lucky, you've figured out enough to at least differentiate those classes by table. But that wasn't even always the case. Like you said, without view inheritance, you end up loading views and data in every controller and passing them around to each other, and you've got a single variable that you're passing through your controller method that tracks the data that's eventually going to get past the view. There's just a lot of things, because of the constraints of CodeIgniter, you just wrote worse code. When you started doing Laravel, you wanted to be able to do dependency injection and all these things. How much of your mindset was, "I'm gonna write things that are gonna make people write better code," and how much of it was, "I want to do these things, and I can't do these things." Was it a purity concept? Was it an ease-of-use concept, or were those things all tied together? Taylor Otwell : At first, I feel like it was a lot of ease-of-use, but also, there was some purity mixed in as well, because of the whole dependency injection thing, which I considered a more pure approach to doing some things back then, and of course still is a more pure approach a lot of times now. I feel like ... but also, ease of use was huge, too, because I wanted it to be very Apple-esque, where it was just really nice to use out of the box, and you didn't have to do all these hacks and customizations to get it really nice that I had to do with CodeIgniter. I wanted it to be like when you unwrap Laravel, it was this nice package that you could use, it was all cohesive and coherent. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. I want to talk a little bit further on that for a little bit. One of the things that you've talked about since the early days is that you recognize that the documentation in the community just make a really big impact on people's experience, working with the framework of a library. You've reference the fact that CodeIgniter was so successful, in large part because it had great documentation. For starters, what do you think it is that prepared you to be in a place where you could recognize that? Is it because you hadn't trained to be a programmer, or are there other experiences in your life that made you more sensitive to those types of, or do you even have a sense for what that is? Taylor Otwell : I don't know. I feel like it was just a low tolerance for pain in terms of programming, because programming wasn't a hobby for me, even really back then. I didn't come home and program, I did other stuff. To have a painful experience programming wasn't that great for me, because it wasn't something I was particularly obsessed about, and so if I was gonna do it at all, I wanted it to be really enjoyable, and easy to do, and fun. I just had a really low threshold for any pain points in the tools I was using, I think. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. It's like we always joke about the fact that a lazy programmer is a good programmer because they're gonna do the one that doesn't waste time or whatever else it ends up being, so I hear that. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, and even when I was at my .NET job, I had already discovered that I really enjoyed writing tools that helped programmers be more productive, because I remember one of the things I did there in my free time, when I had a few extra minutes, was I wrote this little program called WeDev in .NET that was like ... the closest thing I can think of, it would be a lot worse version of Slack, but it had a file dropbox where we could drop files to each other, and it had a little status indicator of what you were doing then, so it was like our own little instant messenger with a file share thing. But I really loved that project, so that was my first taste of, "Hey, I really enjoyed making developers' lives easier." I think that was part of what drew me into Laravel, was it became this fun project to see how productive I could make a programming environment. Matt Stauffer : Yeah, I like that. One of the things that really struck me when I first started going to Laravel conferences was how many people told stories about the ways that Laravel had changed their lives. That was something I wasn't used to. I think people ... there's some jokes around that the terms of "artisan" and some of the other terms we use in the Laravel world, but it's reflective of a really different approach for what the priorities and values are coming from Laravel. What's the goal? That's the question I was asking about purity versus ease of use, it seems like developer happiness is really a very significant ... like productivity and happiness are really significant goals that you have there. When you were building Laravel, you started out, you wanted to scratch your own itch. You wanted to make something that was good for you and it made you be able to do things a certain way, but you were relatively public about it. You started showing people. At what point did you start to realize this is something people are responding to? This is something that might really be a big player in the post-CodeIgniter framework world. Taylor Otwell : I think when I was pretty far along and had, basically, a finished product, only then did I really decide that I would go all the way and document it. I knew that the documentation would be huge, because I felt like that was why CodeIgniter was even popular to begin with, because there was Kohana, which was another, CodeIgniteresque-type framework that had some advantages, and had some better features, but the documentation was so much worse that it just never really had the same steam that CodeIgniter had. I had picked up on that pretty early that if I wanted Laravel to be popular, I would have to write really good documentation. I tried to write, basically, CodeIgniter-level documentation from the very first 1.0 release, because I've seen a lot of people put stuff out there, and then looks like, "Documentation coming soon," or "Documentation in progress," and it's never gonna get the same reception as if it's a finished product. I thought I had a pretty productive little thing, and decided, "Hey, I'll go ahead and document it and put it out there, and see what the response is." My mentality at the time was, "Even if nobody else ever uses this, then that's fine with me, because I at least have something enjoyable to use when I write PHP." Matt Stauffer : Are there any people or moments or inflection points or whatever where you point to a thing and said, "If that thing hadn't happened, or that moment hadn't happened, it would have been a completely different story"? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, so there's a couple of moments. A big moment was, there was a point where a few PHP programmers were teaming up to make this PHP framework called "Fuel", and it was a few CodeIgniter people like Phil Sturgeon, and Dan Horrigan, and one other guy, I think, one or two other guys. I think they were trying to build the successor to CodeIgniter that was moving faster and had features that people wanted, and stuff like that. They had some pretty decent marketing pages for it, and stuff like that. I remember I had some ideas ... I was actually excited about Fuel, and had some ideas that I wanted to put into Fuel. I can't remember what they exactly were at the time. I think one of them might have been some type of route filter-type thing that ended up being in Laravel, or something like that. I had messaged one of them and said, "Hey, I'd really like to help out on Fuel. This is the feature I want to add, or whatever." They weren't super-interested in the feature, which is fine. It's not a knock on them, they just weren't interested in it. I was like, "Okay, I guess I'll keep working on Laravel," but if they would have bit on that, and been interested in me helping with Fuel a little bit and some of these things, then of course, I think things could have been really different, because I would have jumped into Fuel and started adding stuff there, and probably would have just started using it, and become invested in it. That's one moment. Probably the biggest moment I can think of where things could have taken a really different direction because that feature wasn't really a fit for them, that I just kept working on Laravel. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. Well, I, for one, am grateful to whoever it was that rejected that feature. I think ... it's not to say that something else wouldn't have come along, but I think your life would have looked a little bit different after that point, so I think it's a good time to ask a couple questions about what's your life like today. When you were working full-time ... I assume it's at least a 40-hour work week .NET job, and you were writing Laravel on the side ... do you have a sense for what your hours a week were looking like between day job and Laravel work? Taylor Otwell : Yeah. I seemed to have a lot of energy back then. I worked eight to five, and then I came home. James, our first child, was pretty young at the time, just basically a baby, when I'd first started working on it. I would hang out with the family from five to nine. We were just in a little two-bedroom apartment, it was 900 square feet. We were all in there together, pretty close. Abigail would go to bed around nine or 9:30, and I would actually stay up until one or 1:30, a lot of the time. Going to bed at midnight, for me, was like, "I'm going to feel great tomorrow, I went to bed at midnight." I would stay up until midnight, one, sometimes two, the majority of nights, really, and work on Laravel. I was putting in, let's see, probably three to four hours of Laravel work every night, and somehow felt pretty good, actually. I can't really seem to do that anymore. I don't know what changed, but ... Matt Stauffer : Yeah. When my wife was pregnant, she would go to bed at 9:00 every night. I was not happy with my day job situation, and that's when I wrote my first softwares and service. I was working 90, 100-hour work weeks between my normal job and that. It's the same thing. There's no way I could do that right now. But I'm glad I did it then, back when I had that energy. Taylor Otwell : Even when I wrote Forge, I was still working at UserScape, and would stay up until midnight or one routinely, because that took six months for me to build just in my free time. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. At some point, you had Laravel to a point ... I don't want to go too deep in this story, because it's been told before, so I want to cover things I haven't, but you got to a point where Laravel was good enough that it attracted Ian's attention. He was looking to do a reboot of UserScape, which was handled PHP from scratch, and he pick Laravel, and he hired you, and said, "Hey, you build this thing out, and you can make Laravel better, so it can support our needs." You would add a lot of features that UserScape needed, and that helped Laravel grow up in a lot of ways. You told that story. I think the interesting aspect that hasn't been covered before, is what the shift from being UserScape plus Laravel to solo Laravel look like. What were some of the things that you were thinking about when you were starting to make that decision ... when you were starting to consider going out on your own, what was scary, what was exciting, what considerations did you have before you decided to go solo? Taylor Otwell : Some of the scary parts were just not knowing how much longevity Laravel, as the ecosystem, would have, because ... Forge was out, and was doing well, and I was actually making more on Forge than I was making at UserScape pretty quickly. But Laravel was still relatively new. It was only three years old when Forge came out, so there was questions. What if everyone stops using Laravel? What if a better framework comes out in six months and everyone's like, "Screw Laravel, screw Forge, I'm using whatever." That was one of the main fears. The exciting part was that I would just have so much time to work on Laravel. At the time, it was just unfathomable if you know how much time that would be, because 40 hours a week on Laravel. If I'm working just two or three hours of my free time at night, it's two weeks worth of free time. I could try stuff faster, I could experiment faster. That was the most exciting part for me. Matt Stauffer : Yeah, that's cool. I remember talking to you during that time where, to me, it seemed obvious because I have a similar story where I did DreamHost, but I was running a softwares and service from 2010, 2011. I needed a VPS, and I tried managing my own Linode VPSes, and it was just awful. I wasn't trained in that stuff. I ended up paying for these super-constrained hosts that didn't let you do what CodeIgniter and Laravel needed, because nothing like Forge was out there, and I just couldn't afford from my SaaS to pay a DevOps person to handle it. When Forge came along ... I don't want to be bombastic, but it really revolutionized individual developers' and small teams' ability to run fully-robust VPSes without having full-time DevOps people. For me, as someone from the outside, first of all, I said, "Please let us pay you more money," but second of all, I knew that was really gonna sustain. But I know that there were times where it was a little bit scary. Within your realm of comfort ... I don't want you to have to say your deepest, darkest secrets, but what does make you nervous today? Are you worried about some other framework? Are you worried about PHP no longer being viable? Are you just feeling pretty good? What does ... in the life that you have, where Laravel is very popular, very stable, what's on your horizon? Taylor Otwell : Nothing makes me too nervous anymore, because even if Laravel started dying today, and died a slow death over the next few years, I would have secured my future at this point, in terms of "I'm gonna be able to retire with my family, the kids' college is paid for, and I don't have to worry about those things anymore." I would just be like, "Okay, great, thanks for the memories," and I would apply to work at Tighten, I guess. Matt Stauffer : I know, I love it, yes, I'm sold. Taylor Otwell : I would have to just go back to being a regular guy programmer, working on projects and stuff, but I don't know. It doesn't make me too nervous, because I always try to have this mentality that Laravel, obviously, will not be a thing anymore, that either because PHP's not a thing anymore or there's some other framework that's better or whatever. I don't know how long that will be, but I don't really get too nervous about it, because I feel happy with what I created, the memories I made, what I did for my family for decades to come, basically. If it all ended tomorrow, I would be fine. It would be a fun ride. Matt Stauffer : I love it, and that's really good. I think that makes me so happy I want to touch two other things, and then we might just cut it short. The two other things are in that same direction, about what makes you happy and what gives you peace outside of programming. I think the first question is, do you have any daily practices or any mantras, or any things that you do to center yourself, and just help you handle life when it's stressful or not? Just things to keep you steady, I guess. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I try to meditate some. I can't say I do it every day, but every other day at least, let's say, I try to meditate. For me, that's a spiritual thing, but for other people, it might not be. It might be more just a "focus your thoughts" kind of thing. Also, just try to keep life and perspective during that meditation, I guess. Try to think some of those things ... same thoughts where I don't want to hold too tightly on the success of Laravel, or being a popular programmer is core to my identity, because I think that's setting yourself up for a lot of pain in the future, because all things pass away eventually. It's just a time to focus my thoughts. Also, I just think about my family, stuff like that. More important stuff than programming. But I find it just de-stresses me a bit, helps me focus on what's important, and it's refreshing. But now I try to make time to do it. I feel like as soon as we get up in the morning, now with two kids, it's sort of rushing around everywhere getting ready for school and stuff like that. But yeah, that's what I do. Matt Stauffer : Yeah. You got to be intentional about those things. You've talked about productivity systems and how much you love Wunderlist and stuff. How structured do you keep your life? Do you have, "This is the hour when I do that"? I remember you've talked about starting with pull requests and issues. Do you still have some of those same structures, or is it different with Mohamed around? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I still have some structures. It's not structured to the point that every hour of the day is structured. I'm more focused in day increments moreso than hour increments in Todoist, which is what I moved to after Wunderlist, which I'm really enjoying, actually. I have this bullet journal approach, where I only really sit in the "Today" column of Todoist, and I have, usually, five or six things that I want to do that day, and I have them in Todoist, and then I have projects that I treat just as grab-bags, the things I want to do at some point. Some of my projects in Todoist are actual projects that I'm working on, like Laravel Horizon was, where I have all the things I want to do. But some of them are just movies I want to watch, or music I want to listen to, or something like that. I do keep my day fairly structured, where I start my day with port request and emails, but then after that, it's not so structured. I just work through my to-do list for that day as I ... just whatever I feel like doing next. But it's still structured at a daily level. Matt Stauffer : Right. In regards to the music that you're gonna listen to ... I'm not gonna ask you to tell me the best rap album of all time, because we could do a whole podcast on that, but do you have one that, even if it's not your favorite today, has been the longest-running favorite, or the most significant impact, just the one that you played out like no other album or something. Taylor Otwell : I feel like I go in phases, and it's funny because each Laravel release, I feel like, has had an album that I feel like I really played a lot for that release. I know on one of the releases, I played the Views album that Drake put out quite a bit. One of the releases was "The Life of Pablo" from Kanye West. But I think one of the albums recently that I really played a lot was ... I think you pronounce his name "Black" even though it's spelled with a six on the front, so "6lack" is what it looks like. He's a rapper/singer hybrid, I guess you could say, almost more singer than rapper, but I played that album a lot when it first came out, and still play it quite a bit. Matt Stauffer : All right. Did you like 808s and Heartbreak? Taylor Otwell : Yeah, I really like that album. Matt Stauffer : I played that out like no album for quite a while. Taylor Otwell : Yeah, looking through my music ... okay, another album I played a lot was "Blue Neighbourhood", by Troye Sivan, who's not a rapper at all, he's a singer. But that's another album I just really wore out over the past couple of years Matt Stauffer : I've literally never heard of it. Taylor Otwell : Okay, you should check that out. Matt Stauffer : I definitely will. That's awesome. I'll put all of this in the show notes. Okay, let's see, so I'm sure rap is one of these, but what outside program inspires you? Whether it's inspiring you to do good things with programming, because you hear something that gives you a thing, or just inspires you in terms of your life and your family and your entrepreneurial-ness or whatever else. What inspires you? Taylor Otwell : Any time I travel, I feel like I get inspired. Any time I see some cool part of the world, or some really beautiful piece of scenery while I'm traveling or something, somehow that just inspires me to create cool stuff in general. For me, that usually translates into trying to think of cool Laravel ideas, so travel is a big inspiration for me. Let's see, what else ... you know music is a big inspiration. I don't know. Those are the two things that jump out at me. Matt Stauffer : That's good. I didn't prepare you for this one, so sorry, but my friend DeRay and his podcast always asks every guest for one piece of advice that they've received that's really influenced them across their life ... is there any one piece of advice that really stands out, that has big impact on you, that you've gotten from somebody else? Taylor Otwell : One thing that comes to mind that wasn't really a piece of advice, but just more like learning, is probably from my grandfather, who just did jobs really well. Anything he worked on, he just made sure it was done really right, in a way he could be proud of. I don't know, I guess it goes back to an old-fashioned work ethic that he must have been raised with, but I think that was really inspiring, and I actually blogged about this once, but when I worked with him, actually when I was in college, we took care of all the lawns at our local church. It was just a lot, because they had soccer fields, and just big lawns and stuff, and even with that, he put a lot of attention to detail into that. It inspired a lot of my own attention to detail and going forward. It wasn't a spoken piece of advice, it was more of just a thing you had to observe, but was pretty impactful. Matt Stauffer : I remember that post. I'll link it. Well, I could ask you questions for another hour, but I'm gonna try and keep this one to the hour range, so I think that is pretty good for my questions for today. Is there anything else, especially along this line of questions, but just in general, that you feel like you want to talk about today? Taylor Otwell : I can't think of anything. Matt Stauffer : Okay. Taylor, this was ridiculously fun. Part of the reason that I'm having you is that the first episode of the Laravel Podcast, Season Three, is because everybody wants to know about you and you have a lot to say, but also I just want to say, officially, from me, and from Dan, and from the rest of the crew at Tighten, and the rest of the Laravel crew, thank you for what you've done for our community, because when I talk about Tighten, I say, "You know what? We're creating a company that we want to take care of people. We want to create good jobs for people and stuff like that." You're doing the same thing with Laravel. Yeah, you make money off of it, and you have the ability for yourself to create certain kinds of codes and stuff like that. But your attention to providing good things for people is evident throughout this interview, and just throughout everything about what you've done for Laravel. From all of us, thank you very much. Taylor Otwell : All right. You're welcome. Matt Stauffer : Awesome, man. Thank you so much for speaking with me today, and that's it for today. Taylor Otwell : All right, see you. See you.

In this episode, Jacob and Michael are joined by Ian Landsman to discuss the exciting new conference venture Laracon Online.

In this episode, Adam talks to Ian Landsman about shady marketing tactics that will turn your customers against you, and how to be more authentic with your marketing strategy. Sponsors: Rollbar, sign up at https://rollbar.com/fullstackradio to try their Bootstrap Plan free for 90 days Hired, sign up at https://www.hired.com/fullstackradio to double your signing bonus to $2000 if you get a job through Hired Links: Test-Driven Laravel Early Access, Adam's TDD course UserScape, Ian's business HelpSpot, UserScape's help desk product Shady Tactics in our Midst from Ian's blog Shady Tactics, Round 2 Securing the Five-Figure Sale, Ian's new free eBook on landing enterprise sales The Lean Startup Edgar, social media tool with invite-only sign up flow

In this episode we talk about Ian's trip to Laracon, politics, working on multiple projects simultaneously, working on web apps vs other types of products, The Hive, changes at Userscape, dogs, naps, contractors, Twitch, board games, and kids growing up.

In this episode we talk about Ian’s trip to Laracon, politics, working on multiple projects simultaneously, working on web apps vs other types of products, The Hive, changes at Userscape, dogs, naps,  contractors, Twitch, board games, and kids growing up. Fideloper (Chris Fidao) on Twitter Servers for Hackers Thanks to Linode for sponsoring this episode. Sign […] The post Bootstrapped, Episode 75, “Don’t you worry about Dave. You worry about Butov!” appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.

In this episode, we talk about Mr. Rogers, releasing How Are Sales Today, writing desktop apps in C++, Parse closing and Uberdeck, Scribbleton, Userscape’s new office, Userscape’s partner program. How Are Sales Today Eric Barnes’ Blog Abstractions Conference Thanks to Linode for sponsoring! Sign up today and get $20 off.   The post Bootstrapped, Episode 67 appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.

In this episode, we talk about Mr. Rogers, releasing How Are Sales Today, writing desktop apps in C++, Parse closing and Uberdeck, Scribbleton, Userscape's new office, Userscape's partner program.

In this episode, we talk about Star Wars, how much Ian loves it and how much Andrey hates it, synchronizing hardware between home and office, code signing and certificate confirmation, international currencies and writing currency exchange code for How Are Sales Today, direct sales, the Userscape marketing plan for 2016, tracking advertising, adding more features vs releasing software earlier, and on-premise vs. software in the cloud. How Are Sales Today? Sales and SaaS metrics for Stripe The Joker: Mark Hamill Brad Bell's talk from Peers 2015 Andrey's talk from Peers 2015 Thanks to Backup Pro for sponsoring this weeks show. Get 50% off with coupon code bootstrapped.fm Also thanks to Linode for sponsoring this weeks show. Get $20 off your first month with code: bootstrapped20

In this episode, we talk about Star Wars, how much Ian loves it and how much Andrey hates it, synchronizing hardware between home and office, code signing and certificate confirmation, international currencies and writing currency exchange code for How Are Sales Today, direct sales, the Userscape marketing plan for 2016, tracking advertising, adding more features vs releasing software earlier, and on-premise […] The post Bootstrapped, Episode 65, “Star Wars is the ‘Dora the Explorer’ of science fiction.” appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.

In this episode, we talk about the new app from Quantic Insights, opening up a business bank account, meditation, mellowing out with age, new Userscape office, and Fallout 4. Deploy PHP How Are Sales Today? (or QiBar). The new app from Quantic Insights Jerry Seinfeld talks Transcendental Meditation

In this episode, we talk about the new app from Quantic Insights, opening up a business bank account, meditation, mellowing out with age, new Userscape office, and Fallout 4.   Deploy PHP – Servers for Hackers How Are Sales Today? (or QiBar) – the new app from Quantic Insights Jerry Seinfeld talks Transcendental Meditation   Thanks to […] The post Bootstrapped, Episode 63, “How Are Sales Today?” appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.

In this episode we talk about photography, Userscape’s new employee, health insurance, Finsumi, building everything yourself, outsourcing, Quantic Insights, C++, customer support, working from home, audiobooks, and video games. Graciously sponsored by: Release Notes Conference. Offer code: bootstrapped for $100 off. Quantic Insights Awesome Batman artwork SaaStr   Discuss this episode in the forums >>     The post Bootstrapped, Episode 59 appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.

In this episode we talk about photography, Userscape’s new employee, health insurance, Finsumi, building everything yourself, outsourcing, Quantic Insights, C++, customer support, working from home, audiobooks, and video games. Graciously sponsored by: Release Notes Conference. Offer code: bootstrapped for $100 off. Quantic Insights Awesome Batman artwork SaaStr   Discuss this episode in the forums >>    

In this episode, we discuss Andrey’s PhillyPopecation, Release Notes Conference, how we do sales at UserScape, why you should never offer unlimited/site licenses, Jet Brains pricing, SaaS pricing for on-premise products, Ian’s Last Of Us update, video game violence, “shooting feel” in a game, we talk AGAIN about having dogs, dead fish. Graciously sponsored by: Release Notes Conference. Offer code: bootstrapped for $100 off. Quantic Insights stealth mode landing page HelpSpot website, talk to sales Testrail Second Variety Discuss this episode on the forums >>  

In this episode, we discuss Andrey’s PhillyPopecation, Release Notes Conference, how we do sales at UserScape, why you should never offer unlimited/site licenses, Jet Brains pricing, SaaS pricing for on-premise products, Ian’s Last Of Us update, video game violence, “shooting feel” in a game, we talk AGAIN about having dogs, dead fish. Graciously sponsored by: […] The post Bootstrapped, Episode 58 appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.

In this episode, Matt and Taylor are joined by Ian Landsman of UserScape. Ian is the founder of UserScape, the creator of HelpSpot, and the man behind LaraJobs. The crew discusses hiring, being a good job candidate, and most importantly: Star Wars.

In this episode, Adam talks to Ian Landsman, founder of Userscape and creator of HelpSpot. Ian talks about the biggest mistakes programmers make when trying to start their own business, where to find new ideas, and why your new software product shouldn't be a SaaS app. This episode is brought to you by Hired. Userscape HelpSpot Snappy Ian's Blog Bootstrapped.fm, Ian's bootstrapping podcast "10 tips for moving from programmer to entrepreneur" "What they never told you about handling B2B transactions", handling purchase orders and invoicing Product and Support LaraJobs Sponsored by Hired

Two Chrises? God help us. Our guest this episode is Chris Fidao, creator of the ultra-successful and awesome Servers For Hackers web site and e-book. We talk about info products (because Chris has to talk about his money making schemes all the time), what devs should know about devops, Nginx vs. Apache vs. Your Mom, and old tech that keeps on keeping on. Also an update of Gary Hockin’s ongoing embezzlement campaign. Did you know STICKERS ARE NOW AVAILABLE? BUY SOME NOW AT devhell.info/shop!!!! Do these things! Check out our sponsors: Roave and WonderNetwork Follow us on Twitter here. Rate us on iTunes here Listen Download now (MP3, 53.1MB, 1:14:00 ) Links and Notes MailChimp Servers for Hackers newsletter Blog UserScape MAMP/WAMP Vagrant tasksel install lamp-server upstart systemd sys5init

In this episode, Adam talks with Chris Fidao of Userscape. They talk about things every web developer should know about server administration, platform-as-a-service vs. self-hosting, Ansible, Docker, and more. Servers for Hackers Newsletter Servers for Hackers Book Chris' blog Ansible Docker Forge "Scaling PHP Applications" by Steve Corona James Turnbull's Books

In this episode, Adam talks with Eric Barnes of Userscape about rebuilding WardrobeCMS, trends in Javascript development, and building an audience. Eric's blog Laravel News Rebuilding Wardrobe Snappy Laravel Forge Sneak peek at Angular 2.0 Removing Batman.js at Shopify

Download this episode. This week we fail to discuss that it’s our 50th episode, family impact on development, Andrey might be hiring a helper so contact him, crazy contract work, Servers for Hackers, UTF–8, Bootstrapped app we don’t have time for, Markdown, Moto X review, a plumber will run UserScape for a day. Servers for […] The post Bootstrapped, Episode 50, “50” appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.

Download this episode. This week we fail to discuss that it’s our 50th episode, family impact on development, Andrey might be hiring a helper so contact him, crazy contract work, Servers for Hackers, UTF–8, Bootstrapped app we don’t have time for, Markdown, Moto X review, a plumber will run UserScape for a day. Servers for Hackers Ellison buys Lanai 20 years of blogging Discuss this episode on our forums.

Download this episode, in which Ian and Andrey talk about antisocial haircuts, Joan Rivers, consulting, Scribbleton on Lifehacker, relaxing, doing a product from start to finish on the show, a Userscape update, Postgres, Nightstand, the Oculus Rift, Minecraft, Star Trek Bridge Commander, Wing Commander, Steam. Scribbleton Snappy Star Trek Bridge Commander Wing Commander 3   Discuss this episode in the forums    

Download this episode, in which Ian and Andrey talk about antisocial haircuts, Joan Rivers, consulting, Scribbleton on Lifehacker, relaxing, doing a product from start to finish on the show, a Userscape update, Postgres, Nightstand, the Oculus Rift, Minecraft, Star Trek Bridge Commander, Wing Commander, Steam. Scribbleton Snappy Star Trek Bridge Commander Wing Commander 3   […] The post Bootstrapped, Episode 49, “A new product from scratch.” appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.

In this episode, we sit down with the developers of Userscape; Eric Barnes, Chris Fidao, and Taylor Otwell, to talk about weird dreams, Eric’s, Chris’ and Taylor’s backgrounds and how they got started at Userscape, supporting open source, Forge, newsletters, servers, building Scribbleton for Linux, content-based products,  deploying desktop apps, and TV shows Userscape – […] The post Bootstrapped, Episode 43, “The Userscape Developers” appeared first on Bootstrapped.fm.

In this episode, we sit down with the developers of Userscape; Eric Barnes, Chris Fidao, and Taylor Otwell, to talk about weird dreams, Eric’s, Chris’ and Taylor’s backgrounds and how they got started at Userscape, supporting open source, Forge, newsletters, servers, building Scribbleton for Linux, content-based products,  deploying desktop apps, and TV shows Userscape – About Us Snappy Eric Barnes – blog, Wardrobe CMS, Laravel News Chris Fidao – Servers for Hackers Taylor Otwell – Laravel, Forge Video of Ian’s talk from Laracon: Open Source & Your Business Scribbleton   This episode is sponsored by Linode.   Discuss this episode with other bootstrappers »  

Download this episode, in which Ian and Andrey talk about Florida, children, stupid teenagers, growing up, stories that go nowhere, growth hackers, hiring a content engineer, unit testing, John Carmack, spending $13,000 on marketing automation software, motorcycles, and baseball tickets. Irene McGee – and her recent article. Userscape is hiring a Content Engineer Ruben Gamez on Bootstrapped.fm John Carmack – The Physics of Light and Rendering Michael Abrash Doom playthrough with John Romero Pardot Infusionsoft Kawasaki ZX-6R Ninja   Discuss this episode with other bootstrappers.    

Download this episode. Andrey talks about Gone Home and the impact it’s had on his life, but won’t give details!  Voiceovers, Antair is 9 years old, UserScape is almost 9 though Ian considers it 10, the good old days of bootstrapping, the constant re-inventing of Antair, Ian goes on a rant about Growth Hacking, project management apps, Ian rants again about marketing automation tools, remote work, Ian talking at Microconf, beards, Ian ranting about taking his family to Disney Gone Home – Andrey’s new all time favorite game Heavy Rain Spec Ops: The Line Don Quixote God Emperor of Dune – Dune series Sia – Breathe Me Sarah Grayson – voiceover actress The Last of Us Bioshock Infinite Tony Baker – voiceover in Bioshock Lost Planet 3 Bill Watterson – voiceover Lost Planet OUR FORUMS, YOU SHOULD BE CHECKING THIS OUT Coffice – mmkkk Cold email thread – growth hacking spam Hubspot Recurly Chargify Kanban The Year Without Pants – Book about remote work Microconf – Ian is speaking at this, too late for tickets if you don’t have them already Possible Bootstrapped.fm meetup in Vegas The Truman Show

Download episode 29, in which we talk about school lunches, fast food, Ludum Dare, game development, Minecraft, Userscape’s new employee, taking a vacation, 2013 year in review, amount of revenue to have before hiring full-time, the first two years of running a software consultancy, being too open about your employee information, Laracon 2014, and running an online retail shop. Gavin Bowman of Retro Dreamer What Now Podcast Bootstrapped.fm episode on movies for programmers Ludum Dare Notch live-coding for Ludum Dare 28, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4. The Story of Minecraft – documentary Chris Fidao (@fideloper) 2013 year in review – forum thread Lessons Learned: The First Two Years of Running a Consultancy Open salaries at Buffer Laracon 2014 in NYC Selling an e-commerce store, with a follow-up   Discuss this episode in our Bootstrapper forums  

Download this episode, in which Ian and Andrey talk about kids’ toys, Uberdeck, making sense of Adwords, Snappy, content marketing, finding a regular job after years of running a bootstrapped software company, selling physical products, Userscape’s new hire, running a conference, and moving to a consultancy.   Startups for the rest of us, episode 160  – podcast with Rob Walling and Mike Taber Andy Brice, his software business training course, and his upcoming Keyword Funnel tool. Pusher – Real time messaging service for web and mobile apps. Found – Elasticsearch hosting. 24ways – Web design and development goodness. Founder made $99 from an $82 million dollar exit. A year of selling physical products. Gavin and Craig of RetroDreamer.   Discuss this show over on our Bootstrapper forums.

In this episode we talk with Dan Syme, creator of Cartalyst, and Ian Landsman, creator of UserScape about business and the open-source world.

Download this episode, where Ian and Andrey discuss the Apple app store release process, making video games for a living, people and companies that “get it”, fonts for web development, trademarks and names, Helvetica – Documentary about the typeface (and design, in general). Indie Game the Movie – Documentary that follows several indie game developers. What Now podcast – Gavin’s and Andrey’s podcast about making mobile apps for a living. Typography.com – the site Andrey was referring to when he mentioned “typeface.com” in the episode. Google Fonts Typekit Snappy Focus Lab – The design team behind Snappy. Bloomberg by Bloomberg PasteVault WordPress open source terms of service and privacy policy. Tom Pitegoff – Ian’s (Userscape’s) corporate lawyer. Patrick McKenzie Lean Startup Uberdeck Antair Snippets TechZing podcast Tim Ferriss –

Download this episode, in which Ian and Andrey cover a host of issues, including an apology of sorts to Patrick McKenzie, a discussion on if in fact the customer is always right, how you support .99 cent apps, non-mistakes from Ian’s past, VC funding and an extremely important tax tip! Links: Appointment Reminder – by Patrick McKenzie Patrick McKenzie Interview Podcast with Patrick & Amy Hoy Freckle Shutting down Charm – Interesting look at shutting down a SaaS app before it launches History of “the customer is always right” What Now Podcast – Andrey’s other podcast Retro Dreamer Automattic Hosting – WordPress hosting Spiderweb Games – RPG games (not $.99!) Ian’s ChatSpot Live non-mistake – Glad I didn’t build it, but still like the logo by Mike Rohde Creating a Business Logo – history of UserScape & HelpSpot logo’s Mixergy Paul Singh Interview Spryfox Rob Walling Stackoverflow initial VC funding Startup.com Movie Stardock Figure53 Atlassian financing Section 199 Domestic Production Tax Credit – this is awesome, talk to your accountant today! Handling B2B Transactions DNL – Ian’s Brother & cousins web consultancy Jason Cohen on consultancy math Business of Software conference – Go, it’s awesome