Our new Saas app Papercuts.io is up, and it is in Alpha testing. If it sounds useful to you, go sign up and we'll reach out shortly! We also talk about the future of where this app might go. If you work at an agency or run an agency, please reach out to john@thunk.dev. We want to talk.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We accidentally talk about movies for 15 minutes. Then we talk about calmly riding the waves when bad things happen (a bad thing happened). Finally, we review all of our OKRs from the first half of the year. Spoiler: we made good money, and made ourselves unhappy doing it.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We took some time off. Papercuts is good now. Verbs is still good. We had an uncomfortable moment with a client, and learned some good things from it. Then Daniel discovers we might owe the state of New York $11,000.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We're working fewer client days, but it costs us a lot of money to do that. So what are we getting for that money? We make a plan for what we can do with this extra time to invest in the future.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Luke Roush is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Sovereign's Capital. John worked for Luke for 4 years. If John ever says anything smart, there's a 40% chance he's just quoting Luke without giving him credit. Luke loves nothing more than brainstorming how to make a business tick. Apologies for the sound quality, we had a little snafu.…

It's beef season. We have figured out how to not have Daniel on every client, and which roles we play with each client. Then we have a fun conversation about how we spend money, how much we save for the future, and when to take money out of the company. This is a very real peak behind the curtain, and we're slightly awkward. Build in public.…

Business is great. But that means Daniel doesn't have time to do strategic stuff. John is pulling back on client hours to figure out how to do outbound sales. We plan out an onsite (or is it offsite?). Finally, we review our OKRs.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Steve is the founder of a well established creative agency called fifteen4. Daniel used to work there! We asked Steve about how you do planning (especially with subcontractors) when you have lumpy sales cycles, and no predictable sales process. But he ended up giving us some free consulting on branding, positioning, and strategy for the target cust…

The sales strategy worked! Great leads are pouring in, and we're closing new business. We talk about our strategy on sales calls, and disqualifying ourselves quickly from the wrong kinds of leads. Also we are sleepy.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We want to find a long term partner, and we want your help. Then things come completely off the rails and we stop talking about business. John rants about healthcare "markets", we discuss Kendrick vs. J. Cole beef, and recommend tv shows.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We are looking for 2 big, gnarly, interesting projects to sink our teeth into over the next 6 months. And we want your help finding them. We also recap all of the smart little things we've learned from retrospectives in the last couple months.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We have an opportunity to do something big, difficult, and pretty different from our other clients. John went on the Over Engineered podcast to talk about whether sprints and estimates matter. We review our OKRs.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Daniel and John are out on the speaker circuit. John wants to give more developer talks. We want to mentor more programmers, because that has been an amazing source of clients. And we might convince our friend to become a Laravel dev.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Joel Clermont joins us for a discussion about our pricing model. Like us, he has tried a lot of models, and walked away from most of them. He gives us feedback on our latest idea.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Papercuts progress. Daniel spent some time with the dutch. Getting busy and landing business. John give talks, Daniel gives talks. Retro-driven company.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Thunk is building a SaaS app. We talk about the plan, where the idea came from, and how it'll work. We also brainstorm ideas for the future.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We review our 2023 goals, and set better goals for 2024.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Allison is a former colleague of John's, and we're thrilled to have her on the panel of mentors. She has been a developer, product manager, and executive. She has a lot of good perspective on how developers can think more like PMs, and why that matters. We talk processes, metrics, building teams, living with legacy code, and a lot more.…

Also: is programming art or science? John finds reading painful. Daniel finds small to-dos painful. Why are we paying so many Quickbooks fees? The 2024 budget.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We reflect on a problem with a client. Then we discuss the importance of learning new patterns, adopting new tools, and sticking to conventions.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

After a scheduling snafu, we needed to use our recording slot to have our weekly check-in with Jacob. This is our regular roundup of clients, plus some pleasantries and goofs.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Daniel is jetlagged after returning from Sydney, where he launched Verbs at Laracon AU. We talk about the launch, talk about John's Kickstarter for Colossi, and do a quick catchup on our OKRs.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

You can buy John's game on Kickstarter right now! Daniel's new event sourcing package Verbs is nearly complete, and John loves it. Join us as we spend 40 minutes gassing each other up.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We do some bits. We talk about good practices while pair programming. Then we wonder if product development processes primarily exist to compensate for trust issues. High trust environments are the only ones we want to work in.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

John is tanking a lot of bureaucracy Daniel is writing a LOT of code Daniel is going to Laracon Australia We discuss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgV6M1LyfNYBy Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

According to ChatGPT we discussed: Mentoring and meetings Age discussion Product management Splitting time between two companies Home inspector conference in Atlantic City Billing strategies Different pricing models (hourly, project-based, retainer) Composite team approach (offering product management, engineering, design) Value proposition for sma…

We catch up as usual, and check in on the state of all our goals.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

On this episode we dig deep and do a post-mortem on a messy wrap-up to a client engagement. Our key takeaways: Overcommunicate Overcommunicate some moreBy Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

This episode is late because of an interesting process breakdown. Verbs Vacation A New "vision-mission-value" The Pre-MortemBy Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Aaron Francis (@aarondfrancis) officially joins Thunk's panel of mentors! Aaron gives John feedback on his blogs, and provides LOADS of good ideas for how to improve it and grow the audience.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Who are our guys? We run through a list of potential panelists for our panel of mentors and discuss what it would event look like to empanel them.By Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

John's game Colossi is almost ready The sales funnel is working Max is having a hard one We've made progress on our goals This is not the episode about hiring a mentorBy Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

We have glowing feedback for each other Daniel's blog feedback made the blog a lot better Getting creative with business development tactics We discuss the company's Vision, Mission, and ValuesBy Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Daniel has feedback on John's blog posts. Why do feedback? Why is it so painful? The "FG Scale" Does Jacob feel empowered to give us feedback? Should we keep our docs in Slab? Why set goals? What are OKRs? In the back half of the episode, we get super detailed deciding what our goals are for the rest of 2024.…

We like Notion (sort of), Daniel hates Basecamp, and John is prototyping board games. Then Daniel lays out his unified field theory of software engineering and pounds the table for collective bargaining. Patreon Notion From the Folks Who Brought You the Weekend Labor's Story in the United States Our episode with Anil Dash…

In our season finale, we talk about time and attention. Daniel takes John to task about whether or not time exists. We'll be back with Season 4 soon! Patreon This is water (seriously, watch this whole thing. It's quite good) The Witness (one of John's favorite video games) Johnny Smathers new albumBy Daniel Coulbourne & John Drexler

Relay.fm co-founder Stephen Hackett stops in to talk about the perils of finding personal identity in your work, whether or not it's important to "love" what you do, and the weird experience of having an emotional relationship with a corporation. Patreon (the tip jar) Stephen Hackett on Twitter 512 Pixels (Stephen's blog) the Merlin episode the Bri…

This week we recap Discipline December. We talk discipline as a tool, the downside of letting fear motivate your work, and using experiments to diagnose your problems. Then John loses his mind over how much he loves “Holy Hour”. Our tip jar (no pressure, but you know... give us your money) Original Discipline December episode Discipline December Sc…

We return to form with this old school episode with no guest. John is having a hard time getting things done, and Daniel has ideas for how to help. We discuss working from home, making good check lists, slowing your roll, and taking notes. Links Our Tip Jar Discipline December Episode Discipline December Spreadsheet Ego Depletion Flourish & Blotts …

Daniel is going to be disciplined for (almost) a whole month! This is a very meta episode: protestant work ethic, work habits, budgeting, food, exercise, checklists, tidying up, and more! Follow along with our progress in the link in the show notes. If you want to join along, shoot us a tweet. Special Guest: Caleb Porzio. Links: Discipline December…

Long time friend Michael Johnson calls in for our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY. We talk vlogging, managing multiple side hustles, unifying your life, finding identity, and living life without a calendar. Special Guest: Michael Johnson. Links: Patreon (Listener Support) In which we try to think up a novel way to release music (this week's bonus content) Twi…

4-time NYT Best Selling Author Nancy French shares her thoughts on being a Conservative writer in the era of Trump. Nancy recently left the Republican party and faced harassment from the Alt-Right. We also get into the relationship between pop culture and politics, and why Nancy pays more attention to Judd Apatow than Mike Pence! Special Guest: Nan…

John's cousin Aaron Belz drops by to talk about how businesses use language, the difference between students and young employees, how social media can shape the way people make creative stuff online, baseball, and more! Aaron is a poet and essayist who works in marketing. Special Guest: Aaron Belz. Links: Patreon (Listener Support) Captain D's, ple…

Mike Rugnetta drops some knowledge about how to improve internet discourse, maintaining a productive comment section, focusing on the right stuff, why people join internet communities, and what it means for something to "end" on the internet. Lastly, we get into a discussion of video games that feel like work, and why we love them. Special Guest: M…

We're about to take a short break! This episode is about where the show has been and where it is going. John sings the praises of incrementalism. Our list of dream guests is getting long. Links: Fits + Starts Listener Survey Best way for artists and creators to get sustainable income and connect with fans | Patreon In Praise of Incrementalism - Fre…

Brianna is running for Congress! She stops by to share her insights about the work of running a campaign, seeking to support people you don't agree with, and why Millennials need to take direct action instead of making symbolic political gestures. We also get into info security, online harassment, and then some inside-baseball talk about Apple and …

Merlin stops by to talk about finding a job that fits you, prototyping your future, and manufacturing care. Then we have a lot of rapid fire questions for him. Special Guest: Merlin Mann. Links: Independent Writer, Speaker, and Broadcaster - Merlin Mann Merlin Mann (@hotdogsladies) | Twitter You Look Nice Today | A Journal of Emotional Hygiene 5by5…

Anil Dash (Founder / Writer / Speaker / Blogger / Preeminent force on the Internet) argues for a new definition of "open" on the web. We ask for advice on how to be more inclusive as a non-manager. Daniel has some big ideas about infrastructure. Hit us up on Twitter: John: @johnrudolphdrex Daniel: @dcoulbourne Fits and Starts: @fits_and_starts Spec…

Programmer, author, and teacher Adam Wathan stops by to talk about working in public, asking stupid questions, charting a weird career path, and dropping knowledge on your peers. Hit us up on Twitter: Fits and Starts: @fits_and_starts Daniel: @dcoulbourne John: @johnrudolphdrex Special Guest: Adam Wathan. Links: Adam Wathan's Website Adam Wathan (@…

We just saw each other in Chicago! John is a friend of Tighten.co. The show is changing. John is afraid that his life is too comfortable. Daniel thinks it's all about leaning into your fear. We think that Donald Trump and Smash Mouth are indications that we are indeed living in a simulation. Hit us up on Twitter: John Drexler: @johnrudolphdrex Dani…