Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

About the show

A podcast about the design, development, and business of great software. Each week thoughtbot's Chad Pytel is joined by the people who build and nurture the products we love.

Episodes

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    242: Too Dressed Up For The Internet (Kim Goulbourne)

    June 19th, 2017  |  Season 7  |  24 mins 22 secs

    Chad is joined by thoughtbot designer Kim Goulbourne to discuss inspiration, side projects, and winning a Webby Award!

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    241: I Don’t Like Talking to Computers (Nick Charlton)

    June 7th, 2017  |  Season 7  |  1 hr 2 mins

    Chad is joined by Nick Charlton, thoughtbot developer and co-host of the Build Phase podcast, to give their impressions on all the news out of the WWDC17 Keynote & Platforms State of the Union.

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    240: Handing Over the Reins

    June 5th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  55 mins 38 secs

    Ben outlines his next steps, reflects on his time at thoughtbot, and hands the proverbial podcast reins over to Chad.

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    239: Change is in the Air

    May 29th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  35 mins 51 secs

    Ben bids adieu to thoughtbot, and outlines his plans, hopes, and fears for the future.

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    238: The Graph is Beautiful

    May 22nd, 2017  |  Season 6  |  19 mins 51 secs

    Derrick gets technical about Drip's performance optimization, and reflects on pre-conceived opinions in regards to tactical & strategic planning after receiving some constructive criticism.

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    237: Steve Jobs Used Slides

    April 28th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  34 mins 13 secs

    Ben and Derrick recount their experiences and lessons learned speaking at MicroConf.

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    236: Care For Customer Support (Spencer Fry)

    April 21st, 2017  |  Season 6  |  37 mins 38 secs

    Ben is joined this week by Spencer Fry, founder of TypeFrag, Carbonmade, Uncover, and Coach, to discuss carryover lessons of successful startups.

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    235: Meta Talk Process

    April 12th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  31 mins 1 sec

    As we prepare for MicroConf, Ben takes a new tact on his talk after giving an early demo, and Derrick recounts a positive pair-programming experience.

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    234: Secret Features

    April 5th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  29 mins 46 secs

    On FormKeep, Ben implements custom redirects on form submissions and starts a test to remove up-front credit card collection, as well as discusses evaluation of feature requests. On Drip, Derrick walks through the app with new devs, considers on-boarding automation, and continues his refactoring project.

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    233: Insert Mode is the Worst Mode

    March 27th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  27 mins 34 secs

    Derrick welcomes new Javascript and Rails developers to Drip. Ben prepares a content deal and interviews a Content Manager for Upcase, discusses the benefits and methodology to Vim proficiency, works on an integration with Wistia, and ponders growing / selling apps.

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    232: Don't Be Boring

    March 22nd, 2017  |  Season 6  |  27 mins 24 secs

    As Ben and Derrick prepare their talks for MicroConf, Ben shares his tips and habits for talk preparation and public speaking.

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    231: Who Likes Using Ugly Software?

    March 14th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  33 mins 1 sec

    Ben & Derrick reflect on the S3 outage and how it affected their services, and muse on managing user perceptions. Derrick submits a talk to MicroConf on what it means to be "customer driven", and begins a refactoring effort to rework Drip's integration system. On Upcase, Ben integrates a referral widget, and enables subscription pausing, while on FormKeep he fixes a trial plan selection bug.

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    230: Sales Through Education (Anna Jacobsen)

    March 6th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  32 mins 55 secs

    Ben & Derrick welcome Anna Jacobsen, Education Director at Drip, to discuss customer demos / onboarding, sales and retention strategies, customer success, and best practices within Drip.

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    229: We Need More Counters

    February 27th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  33 mins 33 secs

    On FormKeep, Ben runs an A/B test on trial length and adds a short onboarding survey, meanwhile wrapping up team signups and working on a content licensing deal for Upcase. Derrick reports back from his machine learning class, and discusses an issue in quality assurance testing.

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    228: Start in Beginner Mode

    February 20th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  24 mins 59 secs

    Derrick travels to Portland to visit fellow bootstrapper friends, Ben recounts his recent conference travel, and a discussion of their most pivotal hires as well as account rescue techniques.

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    227: We Don't Do Fractional Pennies

    February 13th, 2017  |  Season 6  |  30 mins 26 secs

    Derrick celebrates a great shipping week, completing both 'live segments' and a Drip certification course. Ben recounts the rollout & results of the Upcase + Tapas promotion, and reflects on its successes and possible pitfalls.