Articles
Effort-Outcome Asymmetry
Time machine
A good find
Reasonably unreasonable
(Draft) The Podcast Generation Cliff
No, AI Won't Turn Everyone Into App Developers
Changed my mind: AI is actually good for coding
Thoughts going into the London Podcast Show
Will YouTube kill the podcast industry?
Finding your "zone of genius"
What the podcast industry gets wrong about YouTube
AI isn't going to build your startup
How to make big decisions
AI isn't going to replace you
Is it too hard to build a SaaS in 2025?
2024 year in review
What's happening with founders over 40
Where are these signups coming from?
The best Bluesky apps, projects, tools I've found
Leaving Twitter for Bluesky
The pipeline problem
It's not just B2C vs B2B anymore
Investment loops in SaaS onboarding
Pro skater Chad Muska went broke. Now he's a bootstrapper.
How to make a podcast (and submit it to Spotify and Apple Podcasts) in 2024
Track revenue, not traffic
Compounding returns
We need more calm companies
Test articles
Write 100 emails to people you know
Send your users this welcome email
My theme for 2024: SaaS marketing experiments
2023 year in review
Ten SaaS marketing principles for 2024
Advice for Sending Cold Emails and DMs
The Prosumer market is underrated
Ideas that create opportunities
Flipping tables and hiring kids
How I would build a new startup if I had to do it all over
Silverwood Theme Park Review, Travel Tips, and Photos
What happened to Paul Jarvis?
What is Jobs to be Done? (JTBD)
Can you bootstrap a business if you have young kids?
What is Bluesky social? (Twitter and Mastodon alternative)
Is ChatGPT the next big startup platform?
2022 year in review
Best affiliate programs for indie makers
Public healthcare encourages entrepreneurship
How to get people to choose your product
The secret is to sell what people are already searching for
Avoid fame
is twitter done?
How to use Mastodon: a beginner's guide
Pessimism vs Optimism
musk twitter quitter, bitter?
How to plan a remote team retreat
The potential dark side of AI and GPT-3 writing tools
The ethics of AI-driven feeds
AI-driven content is a nightmare
Older founders do this better
What's wrong with Elon?
Why are you doing this?
Same effort, but better results
Entrepreneurial false-positives
Elon Musk and free speech
Do entrepreneurs create demand?
Find a good party
I can't work from home
Calm yourself
The good life
What makes you click on a YouTube video?
It's been too long
Working harder doesn't make you more successful
2021 year in review
The vague headline
The limits of conventional wisdom
Why didn't my project take off?
It might never go away
Do you need marketing tracking and automation?
Expanding my horizons
Should my SaaS try to get enterprise customers?
Meeps
The Hierarchy of Needs for new Product Ideas
How do I find customers for my SaaS?
The 80% energy principle
How to build a simple HTML landing page using Tailwind CSS
Podcasts and Capital
How many units can you sell?
2020 year in review
The multiplier
Why you should go after a market with strong demand
Good idea or bad idea?
How many trials should I be getting for my SaaS?
Forget about your heroes
Black lives matter
Ideas aren't cheap
The cure
Main Street fights back
We've been exposed
Fight Amazon
Maintenance
Business is like surfing
The main thing
Good businesses have margin
2019 year in review
You don't learn until you ship
Moving on
More stuff or better stuff?
Why people buy software
Who wants this today?
Out of office
$30k
How do you sleep at night?
The haters
We sell saddles here
Selling stuff on a busy beach
Is the Product-Market Fit survey accurate?
People want the basics done well
Jason Fried wants to delete my backlog
Why growing old in tech is hard
How to be more social at events and conferences
How I'm learning to program
Non-alcoholic drink choices
The Freedom Ladder
Fish where the fish are
The myth of the niche market
When should you quit?
It's gradual, then sudden
How do I build something people want?
Wait and see
Should we always charge more?
How to run a mastermind group
People on the internet can be so mean
The hidden reasons why people are using your software
Not all products make good businesses
You only win once
Passion needs rigor
Change your market, save your product
Can you change customer behavior?
Why you need a co-founder
Cynicism kills progress
2018 year in review
This is hard
Can you bootstrap a startup on the side?
My secret phone call with Hamish
How I make my money
Being a solopreneur has risks
Let's talk about startup costs
Why geeks should speak
I have a new website
Do you even want to be "a bootstrapper?"
Two things that kill bootstrapped companies
Unconventional bootstrapping: round 1
The hidden cost of bootstrapping
Is this a good idea?
Why many products struggle, and only a few succeed
Bootstrapper's paradox
Your business isn't about finding a great idea
Maybe you shouldn't be a solopreneur
Optimize for usage, not just sales
Don't sell to beginners
What would you do differently?
When you're building a product, whose opinion should you listen to?
Why I'm building a new SaaS in 2018
What affects customer motivation?
What raves and software have in common
I've been following you since grade 9
2017 year in review
Building software for podcasters –\_Josh Nielsen from Zencastr
Finish the year strong
How to build a Shopify app – Björn’s journey to $300k in profits
What's on your hard drive?
How an NBA player ruined my life
I've never done this before
Stop by for coffee
Why I bought your software
"People need my product!" (But do they want it?)
How to create a membership website
Don't stand still
Adam Wathan's $100k product launch
Things to do when Amazon S3 is down
Why most product ideas aren't that good
Watch for mind gremlins
Going independent (2016 year in review)
The tools I use
How to surprise people in a digital age
This is what starting small looks like
How to get out of a rut
We all want progress
Virtual reality could save the planet
Hypothesis: Nintendo Switch is a social play
I wasted 4 years of my life doing this
Who are you stealing from?
Using JTBD to build better products
Pricing experiment results
What podcasters get wrong about advertising
How to make money from your tiny podcast
You can't change the customer's behavior
SaaS is ripe for disruption
My workplace fantasies
Publish your ebook as PDF, MOBI, and ePub all at the same time
Why I sell before I launch
How I price products
You want more than product/market fit
Why we buy from winners
Your secret success fantasy
Put a billion dollars on red
Focus on your own shit
Park your experience
Don't swim upstream
Is the market for self-published books saturated?
Business is like a game of Frogger
Fear of launch
You can't split test human experience
Product traction is like waiting in line at the grocery store
Make stuff and be happy (2015 year in review)
Documentaries you should watch this holiday
How to build demand before you launch
You're lucky
3 things I learned from my book launch
The last mile
Startups should make money
Keep making things
Ultimate validation
End of an era
Do people still read blogs?
No marketing unicorns
Don't follow your heroes
2014: a year of making stuff
Landing page teardown: Serial podcast
How user growth really works
Do I look dumb?
Do things that scare you
Be careful who you go to for advice
The cold months are coming
Let’s make some stuff
What type of pain are you solving?
The person on the other side of the screen
Earn the right to be heard
Your product's missing ingredient
Is it harder to get noticed?
It's different now
When you can't win
Your second biggest problem
How desperation affects creativity
Be social IRL
Choose your audience wisely
Your blog could be a party
My embarrassing iTunes receipt – exploring the customer journey
Start your marketing with other people in mind
Speaking of starting small
How to start
Get traffic for your content
A simple way to validate your startup idea
Play the long game
Is "sales" a dirty word?
We are not normal people
Feeling threatened
This is real life
How do you find time for side projects when you have kids?
The 2013 revenue stats I didn't want to share
It's not us, it's them
Succeed with your own product in 2014
Why didn't you launch last year?
How to choose an audience for your blog
1,000 email subscribers
What stops us from building products?
How remote work changed my life
The downward spiral
Where does a great culture come from?
My first kiss
Nikki Durkin: Don't talk about ideas - just do it
Why you're not making sales
How to get (and keep) a job in startups
Geeks as tastemakers
Producing good content isn't enough
Self-Publishing Hangout highlights
Just f*cking do it
Hiring developers
Why people buy products
Sitting on the curb drinking a slurpee
Believe in me
Heads down
Quit trying to attract a crowd and just help people
Pretty doesn't sell
Twenty dollars in an envelope
How to end the remote work debate
How (not) to validate your idea
Don't call it a comeback (working remotely)
Meet people
Starting a business is easy
My blogging demons
Jarrod Drysdale's advice for starting
A VIKA BYSKE standing desk
It's not enough to build a product that people want
Why distributed teams are more effective
Why I would pay for Twitter
What the People of Wal-Mart want
Why I don't read at work
What Amy Hoy taught me about starting a business
A 13-year-old on a BBS
Retina is not a big deal
Terrible Apple products
Geek dad
No one wants to buy my sneakers
Forget the Valley: bootstrap founders can live wherever they want
Most successful founders are in their mid-30's, married with children
Kathy Sierra is brilliant
Customers don't care about your solutions
Things I've quit doing at my desk
Will a college degree get you a programming job?
If you work with pixels you should be thankful
What's important
How to keep clients happy
Building a better mousetrap? It had better catch more mice.
Fatherhood
What is real work?
How to get 1000's of paying customers
How do you know when to stop designing?
Where would you rather work: 37signals or Zappos?
Useful is forever
Zappos is wow
How do you consume digital media?
Your idea needs a passionate believer
How to build a better Canadian neighborhood
Are you in love with the idea, or with customers?
Meshwest Edmonton
How to design a customer support process
8 habits for a better day at work
My rant on customer support for web apps
Stop screen sucking
Everybody stop
No one knows what they're doing
The coupon code is a slap in the face
I worked a day at 37signals, and I liked it
If you're from Edmonton, you'll remember Happy Pop soda
The sex and cash theory
Building a standing desk
Why are people looking at your website?
We're in the Age of Content
This is a classy move
Be real.
B2B
Business lesson: less research, launch small
Review of 37signals' first app for the iPad: Draft
The iPad is a family device
2010: Products I can't live without
Better time spent at work
Interviews from the Future of Web Apps in Miami
A better office
Better typing
A better Apple TV
A better birthday party for kids
Better doctor visits: house calls
A better urbanism
Local news web site
Think clearly about print advertising
A better toilet
A better parking lot
Why can't we stream TV in Canada?
Yes! Apple TV!
Good news for fans of the IT Crowd
Justin's world