All Episodes
27: Silly Season (empaneling Steve Smallman)
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 subcon...
26: The leads are weak? YOU'RE weak!
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 f...
25: ❤️ Devs seeking new obsession ❤️
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 "...
24: Cohort 2™ (working title)
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 smar...
23: SaaS opportunity knocks again
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 spri...
22: Mentees keep becoming clients
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...
21: Our new pricing model (empaneling Joel Clermont)
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 ...
20: The FULL Stack Developer
Papercuts progress. Daniel spent some time with the dutch. Getting busy and landing business. John give talks, Daniel gives talks. Retro-driven company.
19: We're building a SaaS app
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.
17: Empanelling Allison Lacker
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 lo...
16: Brainstorming our first SaaS product
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.
15: What kind of clients we do (and don't) want
We reflect on a problem with a client. Then we discuss the importance of learning new patterns, adopting new tools, and sticking to conventions.
14: Monday morning baseball
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 an...
13: Launching Verbs at Laracon AU
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 qu...
12: Colossi + Verbs (it's shill day)
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 gassi...
11: Trust issues
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. H...
10: Daniel is Going to Laracon AU!
John is tanking a lot of bureaucracyDaniel is writing a LOT of codeDaniel is going to Laracon AustraliaWe discuss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgV6M1LyfNY
9: The Dawn of The Pricing Saga
According to ChatGPT we discussed:Mentoring and meetingsAge discussionProduct managementSplitting time between two companiesHome inspector conference in Atlantic CityB...
7: Our Great Shame
On this episode we dig deep and do a post-mortem on a messy wrap-up to a client engagement.Our key takeaways:OvercommunicateOvercommunicate some more
6: How Thunk Will Die
This episode is late because of an interesting process breakdown.Verbs VacationA New "vision-mission-value"The Pre-Mortem
5: Empanelling Aaron Francis
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 i...
4: Who Are Your Guys?
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.
3: The Sales Funnel is Working
John's game Colossi is almost readyThe sales funnel is workingMax is having a hard oneWe've made progress on our goalsThis is not the episode about hiring a mentor