Makers Weekly

Latest Episodes:

Greg Pichler - PunktApp Sep 30, 2020

Show notes

I love this episode and product, you will to! Greg and I talk about how right place, right time, right product can really help your app get early exposure. He got a shoutout from Suhail's (founder of Mixpanel and Mighty) "Shipping Friday" tweets (earlier this summer, Suhail would feature a Maker who recently shipped product). From that point on, Punkt was off to the races. Punkt has also been featured in the AppStore.

Product Description

Punkt is a private and secure one-sentence journaling app for iOS. One sentence a day helps you to learn more about yourself. The app makes it easy to reflect on emotions, weaknesses and driving factors in your life. It’s the perfect app to form a journaling habit and become a tiny bit happier in your life. The app is based on a simple but joyful design and focuses on your privacy. No login, no ads, no tracking frameworks or whatsoever are included in the app. It’s all about you and your stories.

Tech stack

Designs were made in Sketch. Development done in Xcode. Data is stored on the device and in private iCloud container.

Tools

RevenueCat has to be mentioned here. It makes it super easy to integrate subscriptions or IAP in your app. Other than that no tracking tools, crash reporting frameworks or whatsoever. No one but the user should have access to the data / content of the app.

Social media handles

Personal: @iPGregor (Twitter), gregor.pichler (Instagram)

App: @punktapp

With terabytes of ❤️

- Dan

Aditya Rao - Kaapi Sep 09, 2020

Show notes

We talk about how to handle employee engagement in a remote world.

Topics include: Employee feedback & engagement platform for remote teams

Tools used: Slack app is Python, Serverless - AWS Lambda, Webflow for marketing site

Technologies: Hyper terminal + VS Code deeply integration for code. Love notion for documentation. iA writer for writing blog posts. Slack for communication. Figma for design.

Justin Mitchell - YAC Aug 19, 2020

Show notes

Remote work is here to stay. Justin and his team are pioneers in the space building tools to help teams do their best remote work.

Jack Scott - Authpack Jul 01, 2020

Show notes

Authpack is a turnkey user login and payment system for web projects. Jack and I have a great chat about developer enablement and why keeping it simple is a feature :)

Stack

Frontend = React, TypeScript, Emotion.

Backend = TypeScript, GraphQL, Custom build.

Client side is open source: https://github.com/jackrobertscott/authpack-client

Apps and tools he uses religiously:

Notion, VS Code, Adobe XD, Webflow, Sentry. Pretty excited to see how Webflow pushes the no-code movement forward!

Social

Twitter: @jacrobsco & @authpack

Kaben Clauson - TruePublic Jun 18, 2020

Show notes

TruePublic allows users to anonymously share opinions

and see what others think based on their gender, age, race, location, and political leaning.

Tools: Mixpanel, Shift, Any.do, Calm App, Slack, Streak CRM, Discord Chat, Google Hangouts, Trello.

Social

Tech Stack

React JS for Web
PostgreSQL
MongoDB
Redis
ElasticSearch
RabbitMQ
Kafka
Spring Boot, Spring Data, JPA, Hibernate, Jersey

Dev Ops and Infrastructure

Jenkins
Nexus
Gradle
Docker, Docker Swarm
NewRelic
ELK Stack
AWS

Aparna Dhinakaran - Monitor ML Feb 13, 2020

Show notes

A super techy jam with Aparna Dhinakaran, Founder of Monitor ML. We talk about everything machine learning, artificial intelligence and bias that machines inherit from their makers, humans!

Monitor ML tracks the performance of models throughout their lifecycle and connects them to business metrics. They support model tracking, metric logging/analysis/alerting and production event logging. You choose the framework, they monitor the machine learning model.

Ryan Wood - CALA Jan 26, 2020

Show notes

CALA is the world's first fashion house technology that makes it easy to design, produce, and deliver fully-custom apparel. Ryan brings a ton of premium design expertise as the first principal designer at one of Silicon Valley's most adored startups, Superhuman.

CALA offers design assistance, material sourcing, and sampling. With powerful features like in-app notifications, task management, and real-time commenting — so you can maximize productivity in the studio or on the go. Whether you're looking to screen print tees or embroider evening wear, CALA offers you the couture approach of the best fashion houses with the manufacturing capability and speed of the largest mass-market players.

Tech Stack: TypeScript, node.js, React, and PostgreSQL

Tooling:

Notion: Internal process documentation and personal notes/ideation

Typeform: PMF/NPS survey results and internal product feedback

Airtable: Tracking feedback and customer profiles

Webflow: Marketing/landing pages

Figma: All things digital design

Linear: Issue tracking and prioritization

**Are.na:** Sourcing inspiration and moodboard creation

You can find Ryan below:

https://www.instagram.com/nexpure/

https://twitter.com/RBTRYN

https://ryanw.co/

With terabytes of ❤️

- Dan

Sam Matthews - SINC Dec 09, 2019

Show notes

Sam had basically excepted that he would be a starving documentary filmmaker. While in his tent in Tanzania on a shoot, he starting tinkering with programming to solve a problem his friend was having. They needed a way to manage time tracking for hourly workers easily. This side project turned into SINC, a rapidly growing startup that helps thousands of companies understand and manage the variable wage costs associated with having large populations of highly-skilled hourly employees.

Technologies and topics covered in this episode:

When is your MVP actually ready?
Hybrid mobile technologies -> React and React Native
Firebase and AppEngine - lightweight and turnkey infrastructure as a service
AppStore Optimization (ASO)
How to think about customer acquisition for your mobile app

Darren Chait - Hugo Oct 28, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, I sit down with Darren Chait, Founder/COO of Hugo, at their San Francisco headquarters. Hugo is a connected meeting notes platform that integrates with all your favorite tools. Darren started Hugo to solve the problem of creating a more open and collaborative team culture. We discuss product analytics, pricing strategies, the importance of storytelling and much more!

A few highlights and callouts from the episode 📢:

The team at Hugo recently released a book on building a 10x Culture
We mention a bunch of tools you should know about, links below:
Customer comms/feedback: Intercom, Ask Nicely, Delighted
Product event tracking/analytics: Segment, Mixpanel, Heap Analytics, Pendo, Chartio
Roadmapping: Product Board
Great article about product-market fit by Rahul Vohra (CEO @ Superhuman)
Good conversations about pricing. Shoutout to Patrick Campbell from Profit World, here's a cool post by Patrick about Slack's pricing
Conversational marketing - shoutout to Drift
Jobs to be done framework, Clay Christensen

Cheers,

Dan

Mike Turner - This Week Sucks Tonight Oct 09, 2019

Show notes

In this episode I sit down with one of Phoenix’s fastest growing comedians and producer of the city’s hottest comedy shows, Michael Turner. We talk about how he got This Week Sucks Tonight off the ground and scaled into one of the best comedy rooms in Phoenix, and has since taken the show on tour.

We also discuss:

How speaking at his best friend’s funeral was a fundamental moment in identifying his purpose in life, comedy 🙏
The importance of social media for the modern comic
How they stumbled onto Phoenix’s most successful recurring comedy show “This Week Sucks Tonight" 🤣
The tools they use to record live shows: Mevo and SlingStudio
Find him online: @notmiketurner, @thisweeksuckstonight, and https://www.thisweeksuckstonight.com/