Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Derrick brings a few more new hires onto the team, and ships a change to make clients' Javascript snippets more performant. On Hound, Ben does some direct outreach sales, considers bringing on someone to help with marketing, and muses on the balancing act between product manager, developer, and marketing. Podcast Patreon Survey Upcase FormKeep Drip Bootstrapped Web Podcast Greg Pollack Founder's Talk Hound Third-Party JavaScript ZenFounder Podcast Grand Trunk Hammocks

On Hound, Ben sends out announcements for pricing changes, questions when a decision is the "right" decision when it comes to customer feedback, and toys with per-seat pricing model feasibility. Derrick has a successful first week on-boarding the new dev-ops hire, offers Ben some advice on balancing features with price, and discusses some customer acquisition campaigns. Podcast Patreon Survey Upcase FormKeep Drip Schlep Blindness- Paul Graham (Ben meant 'Schlep' rather than 'Slog') Conversion Cast

Ben plans a camping trip, acquires a new Twitter account, releases his notes on giving great conference talks, and begins to tell users of Hound's new pricing. Derrick reacts to the announcement of Github Projects and what that means for Codetree, ships the new form design on Drip, and muses on the ramifications to Google's announced penalizing of intrusive mobile pop-ups. Upcase FormKeep Drip Ultralight Backpackin' Tips We're on Twitter Projects on GitHub- from GitHub Universe 2016 Codetree Om Next- David Nolen, Euroclojure 2015 'Dear Github' How to Scale a Development Team Speaking for Hackers Google Pop-up Guidelines

On Drip, Derrick deals with a high-bandwidth customer and hires a new devops team member. Meanwhile, Ben brainstorms new pricing structures for Hound. Upcase FormKeep Drip Lessons From the Saas Metrics of 1500 Companies- Patrick Campbell MicroConf Session Overview (video not currently available)

Derrick switches domains from getdrip.com to drip.co, begins to update the design of the Drip widget, and tries to find balance in his varying roles as CTO. Ben hands off the reigns of Upcase, switches to a low-tech project management solution, and mixes work and personal todos. Upcase FormKeep Drip Implementing a Strong Code-Review Culture- Derek Prior Seeking Wisdom Podcast 16Personalities Momentum Chrome Extension

Ben welcomes guest co-host Derrick Reimer, co-founder of Drip, getting to know his background and products for our first outside-thoughtbot view on SaaS strategy (as well as Ben's arm-twisty methods for getting him on the podcast in the first place)! Upcase FormKeep Drip MicroConf Sidekiq Codetree Drip Workflows Derrick on Twitter

thoughtbot CEO Chad Pytel joins Ben to discuss our recent office closings and reasons necessitating this decision, what this means for the product team, and the future of thoughtbot. Also, a teaser of what to expect next from Giant Robots Podcast. Upcase FormKeep Hound Chad on Giant Robots from last year Chad on Twitter

Fresh back from vacation, Ben shifts his attention to a Hound project, adding in tiered plans and pricing. Chris begins to build out a drip sequence for content recommendations, prepares to roll off to return to client work, and leaves us with some final reflections, takeaways, and lessons learned while on Upcase. Upcase FormKeep Hound ./bin/setup Warren Buffett's 2-List System

Chris delves into marketing mode for the TDD course, removes more client-side analytics code, and starts redesigning the information architecture on Upcase. On FormKeep, Ben alerts users to site down-time, removes all pay-per-form logic from the codebase, and begins to set up trials sans credit-card. Upcase FormKeep Netflix Culture Deck Fundamentals of TDD on Upcase Fundamentals of TDD Blog Post Pingdom Sandi Metz on Bike Shed

Ben receives some insight on customer referrals for FormKeep, applies his pricing philosophy to Hound, and realizes a personal blind-spot when it comes to customer satisfaction. On Upcase, Chris patches an automated follow-up messaging bug leading to enhanced focus on server-side analytics, welcomes Tyson to the team to begin work on trail mapping course content, and soft launches the Fundamentals of TDD trail. Upcase FormKeep Age Motivation extension The Laila & Brenda Show .fm wiki Amplitude HitTail Hound Fundamentals of TDD

Ben rants about bad jokes on twitter, doesn't ship any improved activation features on FormKeep this week, irons out some bugs on FormLinter, and begins an ad campaign. Chris contemplates shifting Upcase's business model, and walks through the impetus driving this decision. Upcase FormKeep John Carmack Twitter Fan-In FormLinter The Weekly Iteration

Ben encounters a downed FormKeep and enables a monitoring service, completes the un-grandfathering process for accounts on old tiers, and begins work on improving activation flow. Chris sends out a survey to users and discovers a shift in the Upcase demographics. Upcase FormKeep pingdom FormLinter

Chris digs into the causes for a MRR drop, discovering usage trends with seasonality; and in the process gets a clearer picture of Upcase's user base. Also, he welcome Geoff to the project, and begins a new marketing initiative driven by user testimonials. Ben welcomes Tyson onto team Formkeep to begin redesigning on boarding, and continues FormLinter improvements / marketing. Upcase Formkeep Typeform Hiten Shah on Giant Robots ChefSteps FullStory FormLinter

This week, we ruminate on the meta-organization of project management. Ben embraces team feedback on FormLinter.com, reaches the end of Formkeep's grandfathered pricing window, and removes sandboxing to streamline plan structures. Chris contemplates Upcase's role as a product within thoughtbot, prepares to welcome on new team members (bye Gabe!), and restructures topic relationships to improve discoverability. Also, the return of Dance Talk! Upcase Formkeep Getting Things Done Warren Buffett's 2-List System FormLinter Ruby on Rails 15 Minute Blog Engine Demo

On Formkeep, Ben launches FormLinter to increase form accessibility and conversions, and looks forward to additional persons on thoughtbot product work. Chris continues marketing of the Bourbon Smash course, wrestles with metrics and analytics, and improves team logins on Upcase. Upcase Formkeep FormLinter AccessLint Traction- Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares inbound.org Failing on Day One- Chad Pytel Panopticon

On Upcase, Chris releases the Bourbon course, restructures how new courses are highlighted, and discusses juggling the various factors that contribute to MRR. Ben takes on-boarding notes from a century old dance school to improve activation on Formkeep. Upcase Formkeep Hardcore History Bourbon Smash Course on Upcase Ruby Tapas Arthur Murray Dance Centers Bootstrapped CPC Rule of Thumb- Jason Cohen Dark Age of Camelot

Ben changes product activation flow, possibly for the worse, launches a new UI, and muses on new customer acquisition for Formkeep. On Upcase, Chris starts to see benefits from the domain transition, and brainstorms on how to un-bottleneck course releases. Upcase Formkeep Thinking, Fast and Slow Getting Things Done Planet Money 667: The Experiment Experiment

Ben delays a new feature until an easier implementation can be reached, adds additional event tracking for better site usage feedback, takes a medium to large digression to rant about Javascript, and makes headway on Formkeep's UI refactor. On Upcase, Chris steps back from the content spotlight, takes a hit to traffic from the domain transition, and tests all things email. Upcase Formkeep Amplitude Analytics Segment Analytics Bike Shed #58- Rewrite vs refactor episode Keeping the Front-End Modular with BEM- On Giant Robots Blog Inline CSS at Khan Academy: Aphrodite Clearbit Your Money or Your Life How to 10x in 15 months- Rob Walling 2012 SaaS Conversions Benchmark

Chris transitions Upcase to thoughtbot.com/upcase for SEO and branding purposes, and introduces reactivate & resubscribe functionality. Ben publishes a blog post on Formkeep's pricing history, optimizes the initial form setup page, and begins work to implement a no credit card up-front trial. Upcase Formkeep ConvertKit’s 3,000% revenue growth that nobody saw coming- Josh Pigford Is your company really only doing $45,000 per month?- Josh Pigford Hedonic Treadmill A Tale of Three Pricing Models- Ben Orenstein 2012 SaaS Conversions Benchmark Wim Hof Method Fastly

Ben switches from Mandrill to Sendgrid, turns a corner on his guarantee vs trial test, and begins the process of overhauling Formkeep's UI. Meanwhile, on Upcase, Chris utilizes an interesting method for A/B Testing, teases a secret project, and increases SEO by changing out the header. Upcase Formkeep