This week Josh, Ben, and Starr look back at all of the things that Honeybadger shipped in the last 12 months. They also give Apple some free management advice and provide their thoughts on MicroConf's latest announcement. Lastly, will Honeybadger move away from error monitoring and bet its future on textbox applications? Tune in and find out! Links: Exponent Podcast Johny Ive MicroConf Hiring Process FounderQuest episode Fireside Chat FounderQuest episode Dundie Awards Full Transcript: Ben: I wa...
This week on FounderQuest Josh, Starr, and Ben talk about the quandary of not knowing how to build something until after you’ve already built it. Therefore, once it's built it can be hard to fight the urge to tear it down and build it again taking into account all of lessons that were learned along the way. The Badgers also imagine a rewrite of Honeybadger using the latest in 90s technology. Trigger warning for Perl developers! Links: Peanuts Christmas special Garfield Christmas special KonMari ...
The guys throw the show notes out the window and kick it freestyle on this special Thanksgiving episode. All of today’s hard-hitting questions are answered: Dark meat or light meat? Turkey or duck? The warm glow of a fireplace or the warm glow of a database upgrade progress bar? Plus, the guys talk about when to start holiday feature freezes and what Honeybadger is working on/not working on this December. Links: Build Your SaaS podcast capitalism episode Transcript: Ben: For some reason that rem...
This week on FounderQuest, the guys talk about their decision to offer a free plan alongside the paid plans for Honeybadger and how it impacted the overall business. Josh is also back shares the hottest of takes from his recent trip to Nashville to attend RubyConf. As usual, the show goes off the rails and talks about flying, Ben’s Eye of Sauron approach to fiscal management and an acquisition strategy based around companies named after honey badgers. Full Transcript: Josh: Oh yeah, I got first-...
This week Ben and Starr talk about Honeybadger's efforts using marketplaces to get new business and whether it's worth the development time needed to set them up. They also discuss Honeybadger's participation in the GitHub Student Developer Pack, creating a code of conduct that still allows for free swag, and tease out a special announcement for RailsConf 2020! Links: GitHub Student Developer Pack Seth Goden AWS Marketplace Heroku Marketplace GitHub Marketplace Microconf RailsConf Honeybadger Bl...
On this week's episode of FounderQuest Josh, Ben, and Starr talk about their Soc 2 and GDPR compliance efforts. They go over the different strategies to handle compliance, the potential costs involved, and discuss if it's worth the time and money. When embarking on their compliance research, the guys also stumbled across some surprising claims companies are using to stretch the truth on actually being compliant. Learn a few of the 50 shades of compliance* that they found. Links: Kolide Soc 2 GDP...
This week on FounderQuest the guys weigh in on a recent debate sparked by Jason Fried at Basecamp around the value of backlogs. In short, Fried proports that backlogs cause unnecessary stress and that if an idea will be forgotten about if it isn’t written down, then it probably isn’t important in the first place. Honeybadger does have a pretty significant backlog and some on the team find it more useful than others. Each of the guys discusses how they deal with the backlog, whether they ignore i...
The guys talk about creating content for Honeybadger and the difficulties switching back and forth from writing prose to writing code. Starr channels his inner Anna Wintour and describes his latest initiative recruiting developers to write guest posts on the blog. Josh talks about his process for writing evergreen content for the newsletter. Links: Leveling Up The Devil Wears Prada Seth Godin Indie Hackers Mastering Ruby Exceptions eBook Full Transcript: Announcer: Hands off that dial. Business ...
The guys talk about how they are scaling up their awesome customer service without adding headcount and their journey from email customer support, to chat support, and back to email support. They also discuss how to deal with informational silos and if they should transition Honeybadger to an invite-only luxury brand. Links: Intercom Help Scout Honeybadger Full Transcript: Announcer: Never forget that you have the tools to build a life on your own terms. Forget the haters. This is Founder Quest....
Season Two of FounderQuest is upon you! The guys discuss what they did while on summer break, releasing breadcrumbs on Honeybadger and why they help when debugging, launching the new blog, Amazon RDS, and Airwolf! Links: Write for our blog . Full Transcription: Josh: We can't all be book-learned like you star. Starr: Yeah, I'm book smart. Josh: Yeah. Starr: You guys are just the street smart ones. Josh: We just read what's ever on the front page of Amazon. Starr: No, y'all know how the streets w...
The guys are taking a few weeks off from podcasting to enjoy the fleeting Pacific northwest summer. They'll be back in late August or early September, fully rested and ready with hot takes to warm you as summer turns to fall.
The guys talk about their experiences with offers to acquire Honeybadger and go over some common structures of acquisition deals (hint - most don’t involve walking a wheelbarrow of money out of your office and never returning). They also chat about things that you should think about if you are presented with an offer to sell your company. Links : GitHub Dependabot Pull Panda Gemnasium Tableau SalesForce Tropical MBA, Before the Exit MicroConf Honeybadger Full Transcript : Starr: 00:01 It's happe...
This week the guys talk about their office equipment and remote workspaces which range from working in a winery to building a standalone office in a backyard. They also go full old cranky developer mode on the new office paradigms and warn the youths of back issues stemming from working on couches and bean bags. Don't get them started on open floor plans or unassigned desks! Learn what has, and hasn't, worked for each of the guys on their quest for the perfect coding space. Links: FogBugz Joel S...
The guys answer a listener question about how to ensure customers are happy with your product and how to be proactive in finding out if they aren't. This can be especially difficult if your customers tend to be a little bit introverted...*cough* developers *cough*. Plus Ben reveals the number one reason customers leave Honeybadger! Full Transcript: Starr: 00:00 Yeah. I totally have been playing dumb this whole time as a strategy, 100%. It's not like I don't actually know anything, or I'm just ma...
Do you know what the 3rd-party scripts on your website are up to? In this week’s episode of FounderQuest, the guys talk about CSP (Content Security Policy) and how it can enhance security in the browser. They also weigh adding it as a feature of Honeybadger vs. a standalone product. CSP - learn it, live it, love it, on this week's FounderQuest. Full transcript: Josh: 00:00 A middle of the night disruption for Ben, what is that? Like 8:30? Starr: 00:05 Oh, somebody called the burn unit! Oh! Annou...
Running a lifestyle business is awesome, contrary to what the VC's say. Figure out your life goals and fit your business to achieve them rather than worrying about 10x-ing. The guys also talk about why developers seem to experience higher rates of burnout than other professions and share their own prevention and coping solutions. Let's FounderQuest! Links: The 'Badger Life Blog Post: https://joshuawood.net/badger-life Full Transcript: Starr: 00:01 I had the voiceover guy, the voice of Barney who...
The guys talk dissect the "If you're not growing you're dying" aphorism and debate if it has merits or if it should be discarded into the dustbin of history. Do entrepreneurs need to have a winner take all mindset or is it acceptable to be a minor player in a large market? Let's get philosophical on this episode of FounderQuest! Full transcript: Josh: 00:00 I just... I think that Ben could really pull off like a massive... Like if you had a gigantic, like foot long beard or something. I think yo...
The guys chat about the early days of Ruby and Rails and discuss how the developer community has changed from a more individual hacking pursuit to more of a team sport. Ben also talks about his experiences at the very first RailsConf and teaches young whippersnappers about Why The Lucky Stiff, Shoes, Caboose, and Chunky Bacon. Lastly, is BadgerConf morphing from running joke to a reality? Tune in and find out! Full Transcript: Ben: 00:00 All right. Starr: 00:01 All right, are we good? Ben: 00:02...
The guys talk about strategies for creating systems, documentation, and automation to separate yourself from your business so you can hire employees, get it ready for sale, or even take some time off. Balancing good customer service while being efficient with your time is also discussed along with reasons Honeybadger doesn't use automation for customer service. Full Transcript: Starr: 00:01 I probably should have muted that, so you couldn't hear the toilet flushing. Josh: 00:05 I don't know whos...
Two part special! In part one, the guys chat about decision making in a siloed company structure and the challenges of making sure everyone is on the same page. That's not all! More details about the secret Honeybadger conclaves are leaked, dirty laundry is aired about the logo scandal that shook the company to its core, and America's favorite Honeybadger is revealed! Full Transcript: Ben: 00:00 Yeah, maybe you want to omit that from the whole thing because we probably don't want the FBI come an...
Hey guys ladle out some secret sauce for successfully marketing and selling to software developers. Also discussed is their Facebook ad boycott, why you should never call a developer, Coke vs. Pepsi, and leveraging Princess Bride to weed out sales emails. Links: Art of Product Podcast website Ben Orenstein on Twitter CloudForcast website Nathan Barry on Twitter Brennan Dunn on Twitter Railskits website Ruby Weekly website Peter Cooper on Twitter Rob Walling on Twitter Traction website (not an af...
The guys discuss gorilla conference marketing and how they promoted Honeybadger back when they could barely afford to attend the conference, let alone a sponsorship. Also discussed is turning Honeybadger's unprofessionalism into a marketing strength, dealing with swag logistics, and why you should never wear a blazer to a dev conference. Full transcription: Josh: 00:01 Tatum's favorite programming language right now is Haskell, but I suspect it's because there's a big blue elephant on the cover ...
The gents look back with some hindsight on the debates around private equity, VC vs. bootstrapping Honeybadger, and how funding decisions may have affected recent layoffs at NPM and Travis CI. Our recent Twitter ad performance for FounderQuest is also discussed as well as Nintendo graphics and food trucks. Join us! Full Transcript: Josh: We did it. We forgot to send him headphones, Starr. Starr: He said he had headphones. I asked him, Josh. I asked him. Josh: We're trying to get Ben to part with...
The guys dish about their experiences at MicroConf. Ben talks about entrepreneurial ADD, Josh explains why the "good old days" at Honeybadger are now, and Starr challenges younger developers to a coding battle royale. There is also a preview of Badgercon (pending wildlife insurance procurement). Full Transcription: Ben: ... and now Ikea, they're coming out with a blind that's going to be home kit enabled, so we can be like, Hey, Siri, open the blinds. Josh: So you can have the Vegas experience a...
We originally sat down to discuss distractions and Yak Shaving. What emerged was more like group therapy for a team struggling to cope with a spate of JS dependency upgrades. We also discuss purchasing an ice cream truck. Buckle up! Full Transcription: Starr: So, I learned something amazing. Just before coming on here I learned something amazing. Okay, Beto O'Rourke, the presidential candidate, used to be a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow, hacking group. In, yeah the 90's. Josh: Wow. Ben: Awe...
Faced with a punishing week of distractions, the crew discusses their own techniques for remaining personally productive. Full Transcript: Starr: I'm sick of being discriminated against because of my name. It's like they have a better for a name but- Josh: At least I have to pay 60 bucks for just a domain. Ben: Change your name. Announcer: So do those guys really named their App after a meme, huh? Buckle up fellow kids, it's time for founder quest. Josh: I think mine was like ... for what it's w...
The FounderQuest podcast discusses technical debt, examining the trade-offs between engineering ideals and business needs. The hosts share experiences with shortcuts, framework choices (Backbone.js), and infrastructure decisions (AWS), emphasizing pragmatism over perfection. They highlight learning from mistakes to build successful products and solve immediate problems, rather than over-engineering for future scenarios.
The Honeybadger founders reflect on key decisions and events that shaped their company's journey. They discuss the initial motivation of solving their own problem with Airbrake, the significance of having three founders, and the importance of focusing on a niche market. The episode also covers the failed metrics feature, the transition to metered billing, GDPR compliance, and their current interest in open core and self-hosted applications.
The FounderQuest episode delves into Honeybadger's strategy for attracting quality software developers despite salary limitations, emphasizing the importance of well-crafted job descriptions, flexibility, and a focus on work-life balance. The hosts discuss the positive responses they received from candidates, the value of offering a 30-hour workweek, and the need for transparency throughout the hiring process. They also share lessons learned from interviews, code samples, and the overall experience.
The Honeybadger crew discusses their first company hackathon, where they built a proof-of-concept product using Elixir and Phoenix. They explore their motivations, the challenges they faced, and the benefits of stepping away from their usual work to experiment with new technologies. They reflect on the process, the tools they used, and the lessons learned during the week-long project.
