45: The Value of Teaching

He’s back! Ben returns from traveling to Hong Kong. He shared his rails knowledge by helping someone who is building a business and using a rails app. He made performance improvements and refactored items. Derrick is also doing some Vim tutoring. Learning something new does not take long or a lot of money, and gets easier.

Of course, both Ben and Derrick continue to work on their new products, as well. Derrick is creating Level, an open source team communication and management tool. Ben is starting Tuple, a pair programming tool alternative for Screenhero.

Today’s Topics Include:

• How to do file browser for projects in Vim: CtrlP; baked-in and plug-ins options for Vim
• Build and code, but talking to customers can impact your course and business
• Derrick is posting small, hot tips on Twitter that are nuggets of valuable knowledge
• Likes and retweets growing Derrick’s number of followers
• Ben needs to tweet more to market to developers for his new product - Tuple
• Derrick continues to work on Level; categorizing communication and how to present it
• Notion of urgency is big issue with Slack that Derrick needs to address with Level
• Brainstorming sometimes needs conversation, and sometimes long periods of silence
• Controlling distractions and creating checklists are part of Derrick’s daily routine
• Derrick is improving the copywriting and calls to action on Level’s landing page
• Ben plans to incentivize people via annual plan upsells
• Derrick is considering a referral tracking mechanism as an incentive
• Big transitions and uncertainty generate anxiety for Ben, but he now has strategies to deal with it
• Trying to create a thing that did not exist before is different than something that already exists; it is harder and more stressful, and you’ll feel pain and be unsure
• Ben’s role as external-facing sales and marketing vs. product development and coding
• Structuring to make yourself happy, but keeping staff happy, too; everyone should like what they are doing

Links and resources:

Derrick Reimer Website
Derrick Reimer on Twitter
Ben Orenstein Website
Ben Orenstein on Twitter
Vim
CtrlP
Your First vimrc Should be Nearly Empty
Thoughtbot
MicroConf
Momentum
Mathias Meyer
Reboot Podcast - How You Walk Through the World with Seth Godin