Hackers Incorporated

Adam and Ben are back on the mics after nine months to give an update on their lives.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Catching up

• Adam on X
• Ben on X

Adam just wrapped up a big hiring project at Tailwind Labs, adding both a new engineer and a new designer to the team. In this episode he talks through the process with Justin Jackson, founder of Transistor, to compare notes and record what worked, what didn't, and how he will approach hiring in the future after going through this process.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Talking hiring with Justin Jackson from Transistor

• Job postings for the roles at Tailwind Labs
• Adam on X
• Ben on X
• Justin on X

After almost six years, Ben has stepped away from day-to-day work on Tuple and moved to its board. Friend of the pod Aaron Francis interviews Ben about the whole beautiful, complicated, enriching experience. As a treat, the boys dive into what's next for Aaron as well.

37signals have talked a lot about how they build new features for existing products using Shape Up, where they carefully hammer the scope to avoid letting anything ever drag on for more than six weeks. But there's not a lot of information out there about how they approach new product development, where it can take over a year to actually get the first version out the door.

In this episode, Adam goes deep with Jason Fried about building and shipping their new HEY Calendar product, and whether or not Shape Up was part of that process.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Building the HEY Calendar with Jason Fried

• Adam on Twitter
• Ben on Twitter
• Jason on Twitter
• Jason's walkthrough of the HEY Calendar
• HEY Calendar

In this episode, Adam and Ben sit down to evaluate how things went in 2023 in their business and personal lives. The dudes share kind of a lot in this one! More personal flavor than usual. Lots about fitness, mental health, gathering, and rascally-ness.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Ben and Adam review 2023

• Adam on Twitter
• Ben on Twitter

In this episode, Adam and Ben talk through the Tailwind Labs business model. Is Tailwind UI the best way for the company to make money? Or is there a different model where incentives are better aligned with growing the Tailwind CSS community as a whole? One potential model is offering a marketplace for templates and UI kits.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Black Friday

• Adam on Twitter
• Ben on Twitter

In this episode, Adam and Ben catch up on recent events at Tailwind Labs and Tuple. Adam spoke at Rails World and the impromptu Tailwind CSS meetup in Amsterdam. Ben shares his learnings from some recent feature launches at Tuple.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Burpees

• Adam on Twitter
• Ben on Twitter
• Adam Wathan - Tailwind CSS: It looks awful, and it works - Rails World 2023
• Tuple Triggers
• Tuple App Veil

Adam wants to start the process of growing the team at Tailwind Labs, but knowing exactly who, when, and how to hire people (and have them actually work out) is a lot harder than expected. In this episode, he sits down with Jason Fried, founder and CEO of 37signals, to get all of Jason's best advice about hiring.

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Talking hiring with Jason Fried

• Adam on Twitter
• Ben on Twitter
• Jason on Twitter
• Patrick Collison — Fast

In this episode, Adam and Ben share some personal updates on lake houses, gym equipment, and luxury electric vehicles, and answer listener questions on topics like things they'd change when starting over, how to be more valuable as an employee, the point in their businesses that had the biggest impact on their happiness, and would they ever sell their companies.

Discuss this episode on Twitter →

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Personal updates

• Adam on Twitter
• Ben on Twitter

So many developers (your podcast hosts included) make the same mistakes when trying to turn an idea into a business for the first time. In this episode, Ben and Adam talk through a bunch of these mistakes, why they matter, and what you should do to avoid them.

Discuss this episode on Twitter →

Timestamps

• (00:00) - Ben's Laracon talk "Predictable Mistakes of the Developer-Turned-Founder"

• Adam on Twitter
• Ben on Twitter
• "Predictable Mistakes of the Developer-Turned-Founder" on YouTube