The Art of Product

By Ben Orenstein and Derrick Reimer

The Art of Product is a podcast chronicling the journeys of two entrepreneurs building software companies. Hosted by Ben Orenstein and Derrick Reimer.... more

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FAQs about The Art of Product:

How many episodes does The Art of Product have?

The podcast currently has 220 episodes available.

The Art of Product episodes:

March 21, 201980: Rediscovering Deep Work
Derrick’s been traveling and finding inspiration from re-reading Deep Work, a kind of manifesto of what Level stands for. He’s discovering how to position and market Level, as well as recognize things in his own work patterns that need to change.
Ben’s been feeling anxiety and thinking about Tuple’s broader mission and impact on the world. He believes deep work can be accomplished through the powerful practice of pair programming.
Today’s Topics Include:
Embracing Boredom: Derrick removed Twitter and email client from his phone as dependence on distraction
Recruiting next wave of paying customers; reminding people what Level is and why they should care about it
Learning is a valid category of work you can do during the day; productive use of time
Ability to go deep and focus is a skill most people have lost; getting back into the mindset
Tuple’s mission and onboarding campaign; selling a solution to an underlying problem
Apprenticeship: Learn and gain expertise from peers
Derrick’s main piece of content for Level may not be about specific tool to achieve mindful workplace
Celebrating call quality feedback feature in Tuple; customized CRM to close the deal
Links and resources:
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
Tuple’s Pair Programming Guide
Deep Work by Cal Newport
The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon
Heroku
Screenhero
Ruby on Rails
Podcast Motor
Clearbit
Brennan Dunn’s Double Your Freelancing
...more
30min
March 18, 201979: Moving out of Alpha
Ben shares that Tuple is now out of alpha and into beta, which is an arbitrary marker of stability and feature ability. The move is working as planned by serving as a way for customers to choose to opt in or out, depending on if they want it now or wait until it’s launched.
Derrick choose to steer away from such labels with Level, but understands they might have been beneficial to clearly denote the product’s progress.
Today’s Topics Include:
Ben’s in onboarding mode with Tuple; spent February selling, people pre-pay first month
Where are these people coming from? Inbound interest via email list
Derrick’s next high-level thing to do is proactively recruit key teams, but how?
No more free trials for Level; Derrick has no qualms about asking people to pay for it
Tuple’s always testing new pricing, so some prices were tweaked recently
Two New Tuple Things: Ability to control resolution of call from guest side, and retrospective added to discuss how product and company are better than last week
Notifications feature in Level finally shipped on Friday; Derrick’s responding to feedback
Level’s Potential Golden Metric: Switching rate from Slack
If it’s not worth paying for, why not? Feeling ready and right, not forcing a decision
Links and resources:
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
Drip
Clearbit Enrichment
Patrick McKenzie on Twitter
Brian Casel on Twitter
...more
29min
March 14, 201978: Ultraworking with Sebastian Marshall
We all freak out about things from time to time. Ben becomes neurotic about feedback, but fellow Tuple team members have different triggers that put them into a tailspin. Fortunately, Ben has found ways to better handle stress.
In this episode, Ben and Derrick are joined by Sebastian Marshall, co-founder of Ultraworking. In previous episodes, Ben has mentioned Ultraworking and how he has benefitted from it.
Today’s Topics Include:
Using what he learned about monthly planning from Ultraworking, Ben did March for Tuple
Ben met meditation goal via Ultraworking’s Lights spreadsheet, accountability partners
10 to 10: Ben’s theme for March; wants to win the night and beginning of the day by going to bed at the right time and developing a morning routine to be more alert and energetic
Ben’s doing Tuple demos and getting positive feedback; promising things are happening
Derrick decided to move forward with notifications feature for Level; shipping it soon
Note about Level’s performance improvement offers positive sentiment and sanity check
How much do you trust your own emotional memory, if you feel like you’re making progress or not? Do a data-driven review of week to assess and analyze headway
Track where your time is spent using start and end time; only track most important work
Defining wasted vs. leisure time; aren’t they the same? Depends on how you feel afterwards? Good or bad?
Two categories of “bad” time: Neurotic flow and regret agreeing to something
Average day in the life of Sebastian at Ultraworking; what makes or breaks his week
Building a company and keeping it alive; Ben’s “duh” moment about delegating
Ultraworking’s Work Cycles: Doing work (creative, technical, etc.) in structured way
Links and resources:
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
Ultraworking
Ultraworking: Monthly Planning
Ultraworking: Cycles Template
Ultraworking: Lights Spreadsheet
Roguelike by Sebastian Marshall
GitLab
Bench
Drip
Extreme Productivity by Robert Pozen
...more
48min
March 07, 201977: Reset Your Perspective
Ben’s been checking in with Tuple users to find out how things are going. Things aren’t working perfectly with the product. Before this feedback, he was feeling pretty good about things. It’s not the feedback’s fault, but Ben focusing too much on it.
Derrick can empathize with Ben because of his experience with Level. It takes just one negative outcome to have an irrational impact on your mental state. Reset your perspective!
Today’s Topics Include:
Considering additional indicators within Tuple to gain feedback
Ready to buy another seat? Tuple’s first expansion revenue
Having a healthy level of stress vs. being in a state of complacency or false optimism
As a coping mechanism, Ben reached his goal to mediate every day for a month
Don’t let negativity infect everything else; improvement and growth are important
Onboarding process and positive changes between original and revised product versions
Oh no! Say it isn’t so; Tuple’s using Slack for feedback dialogue
Lack of sleep didn’t stop Derrick from shipping performance improvements to Level
Derrick expresses gratitude for open source technology that he’s using to build Level
Tuple team finally getting a paycheck, a well-earned achievement; Derrick did the opposite and transferred a bucket of cash into Level’s account
Getting to the next level of swag; trials and T-shirts to put credit card on file
Product advice and ideas for notifications and posts in Level’s Inbox
Selling annual deals to specific people, companies; we’re in this together for the long haul
Trying to find time to write and talk about journey of starting a new product and company
Links and resources:
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
Zoom
DataLoader
Waking Up with Sam Harris
Elixir
Elm
Stripe
Honeybadger
Heroku
Jason Cohen
MicroConf
Brian Casel
...more
1h 1min
February 28, 201976: The Scotch Budget
Derrick’s been on a startup roller coaster. It’s been one of those weeks for him. So, he’s grateful for Scotch! He just factors it into Level’s budget.
Along the same lines, Tuple bought lunch today for its staff. It feels free, but Ben doesn’t think you can write off such expenses, even if you talk about business between bites.
Today’s Topics Include:
Boring numbers stuff and stress of assembling financials for 2018 taxes
Ben’s goal to meditate every day in February to feel centered in the startup world
Spotify surfacing new music helps re-energize Derrick’s work day
Tuple’s Goals: Focus on stability in February; onboard additional teams and return to feature development in March
Don’t assume; ask users what they want and make sure you clearly understand them
Derrick shares Level updates on Startups for the Rest of Us podcast
Do metrics matter? Derrick’s on an information diet to uncloud his brain
No Twitter for Ben before noon because it’s too much of a distraction
Performance overhaul and interface update to improve users’ impression of Level
Tuple’s recent improvements include proxy server support and a feedback button
Ben’s Tuple Onboarding Calls: Fun to show people the product for the first time
Links and resources:
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick’s Level Manifesto
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
Waking Up with Sam Harris
Headspace
Naughty Professor on Spotify
Episode 429: Building a Launch List of 5,900 and Grinding Out Customer Development
Drip
Ruby on Rails
...more
29min
February 21, 2019 75: Lots to Be Grateful For
Ben is thankful for Tuple’s success so far. It is helping companies improve efficiency and countries improve the quality of their residents’ lives.
Derrick also expresses gratitude for companies being interested in his product, Level. He is setting up a specific team in Level and addressing concerns to convert them.
Today’s Topics Include:
People want to work at Tuple, and specifically for Ben; it’s flattering, but Tuple is not hiring
Tuple beat out a competitor during a company’s trial use
Tuple will be given to Watsi, a non-profit that does crowdfunding for medical procedures in third-world countries and is developing a platform for countries to manage healthcare
Core Competency: Keep your brain sane during challenges and changes
Vice vs. Virtue: Coach and convince champions that Level may not be immediately gratifying, but a virtuous and better way to work
Tuple is no longer offering free trials; pain of purchase and pre-qualification put up front
Calls to action, connections, and surveys help identify ideal prospects and leads
Links and resources:
Watsi
YNAB
Ultraworking
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick’s Level Manifesto
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
...more
36min
February 07, 201974: The Only Way To Learn
Do you lack energy or motivation at work? Ben tried a new service called, Work Gym from Ultraworking. He found it worthwhile and got a lot of work done on Tuple that he had been putting off for quite awhile. Tuple is about to reach a major milestone - recent PR deployments mean no more global list of online users.
Derrick has also been addressing how to set up companies, teams, and individual users interested in trying Level. So, he hasn’t intentionally built any billing model into the backend of Level, yet
Today’s Topics Include:
Prioritizing tasks and trying to be comfortable with the lack of knowing everything
Ben and Derrick find value in sales and onboarding calls, although the take up time
Doesn’t matter if something isn’t right, right now; keep experimenting, learning, and testing to figure out what works
People are willing to pre-pay to be placed on the newly created Tuple trials wait list
Tuple Status: Stability is going up, bugs are being fixed, and crashing occurs less often
Tuple plans to deploy a fix where users don’t have to enter a keychain password every time to update the app and support for them to choose which display they want to share
Results from Superhuman Product Market Fit Survey sent to Tuple users
Ben’s Bad Idea: He decided not to do Habits for Hackers due to lack of pricing and bids
Derrick continues to do onboarding calls with Level users and reach out to those who were invited and pre-paid, but have not scheduled a demo
Derrick shipped an integration for users to post a message to an endpoint that will be directly posted to a channel or another person in Level to centralize relevant notifications
Links and resources:
Ultraworking
Ultraworking’s Cycles Template
Zoom
Superhuman Product Market Fit Survey
Habits for Hackers
Zapier
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
...more
36min
January 31, 2019 73: Helping Early Access Customers Get Value Quickly
Ben has been experiencing a mix of emotions. Thanks to Tuple, his calendar is packed, and he’s getting more emails, people, and trials. It feels nuts, but it feels like things are working with the new product. It’s a crazy spot to be in, but it feels good. Every day, Tuple gains a little steam.
Derrick feels the same way. He has started doing onboarding calls for Level. Now that he has done the Level demo a few times, his anxiety has subsided. Overall, people seem impressed with the product and interested in trying it.
Today’s Topics Include:
Developing a call to action and pricing process to follow the product demo
Trials vs. Pay-Up-Front: Ideal customers expect to try it, before they pay for it
Instrumentation put in place to test Level; ship solutions in a speedy manner
Users are changing their behavior and using Level in a meaningful or experimental capacity to find a balance between it and Slack
Big Surprise: Derrick’s relief about a mobile client not being a big deal, right now
Power of Customer Development: You won’t know the most valuable points of a product, until you let people use it
People are pretty forgiving; when they offer feedback, be responsive and try to fix bugs
Revision of auction for Habits for Hackers; bidding started, but may not be high enough
Pros and cons of slowing down growth or allowing it to speed up; it’s hard to improve product without feedback
Superhuman Product Market Fit Survey: How disappointed would you be, if you had to stop using Tuple?
Keeping people educated on all the things your product can do
Trying to not over-engineer things; looking for the simplest solutions and integrations
Links and resources:
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
Habits for Hackers
Drip
Justin Jackson
Superhuman Product Market Fit Survey
Zapier
Segment
JSON
Rand Fishkin’s Lost and Founder Book
...more
41min
January 24, 201972: How to Know If a Product Is Ready
Derrick set Jan. 21 as the date to start onboarding some pre-order people for Level. He is trying to keep things in perspective when it comes to both positive and negative feedback. So, he is preparing answers to address questions and concerns about the product’s features and functions, or lack of.
Ben’s thirsty for more feedback, customers, and interaction. Fortunately, overall feedback for Tuple has been strongly positively. However, any negativity can be brutal. It’s a mental game. So, he tries to not fear feedback or let it derail progress. Instead, he focuses on celebrating successes.
Today’s Topics Include:
How to know if a product is ready - present it to people
Level’s Onboarding Goals: Introduce them to product via a demo/training, get their account created, and set up game plan for the future
Overcoming hurdles and getting people to do stuff
Calendly Calls: Preparing for and performing them is more exhaustive than writing code
Last-minute list of Level features Derrick wants to include and reconcile
Tag Team Mouse Mode: Hand-off feature change made for Tuple
Making assumptions, instead of the simplest solution
Interesting 4G experience onboarding Tuple team member in India
Ben asks for Derrick’s forgiveness and understanding for starting a Slack group to get feedback on Tuple
Enterprise Sales Process and Pricing: Customer easily spends $5,000, but it takes 5 weeks - keep the ball rolling
Middle-ground Approach: Make Tuple available to those who want it, can have success
Links and resources:
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
Rob Walling
Jason Cohen
Calendly
John Gruber
Drip
...more
46min
January 17, 201971: Beyond Alpha
Ben has been busy. The alpha launch date for Tuple was Jan. 7. He was nervous about it, but so far, it’s going well. One participant said, “I’m sort of surprised you’re calling this an ‘alpha,’ because everything seems to work!” Ben was glad to hear it, but admits that’s not totally true. He’s still far from where he wants to be with Tuple, but is definitely on the right track.
Derrick has been hard at work, too. He continues to develop Level and knows that there will be ups and downs with customers, functionality, etc. But, he continues to move forward and strives to help others solve problems associated with team communication.
Today’s Topics Include:
Importance of manually onboarding people via calls about product
Setting expectations and communication efforts for a rolling roll out
Users understand that bugs will happen and offer friendly feedback
Experimenting with pricing models for product’s current and future releases
Tuple’s performance dashboard displays key details; caring about things that matter
Bandwidth: Do fewer things and do them well to be able to compete
Level’s future strategies and goals regarding customers and feedback
If a product can solve a user’s problem, then it’s good enough to give to them
Poor execution and explanation of Drip’s price increase
Links and resources:
Art of Product on Twitter
Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Level
Tuple
Drip
Calendly
Screenhero
MicroConf
Superhuman
Jason Fried
Jason Cohen
Brian Casel
...more
43min

FAQs about The Art of Product:

How many episodes does The Art of Product have?

The podcast currently has 220 episodes available.