Episodes

I first heard of growing through alliances from Alan Weiss, who has been independent consulting for decades, author of over 500 articles and 60 consulting books, and pioneered the value-based fees approach. He doesn't hire and prefers alliances. And as a 1-person business, I'm always intrigued by strategies to scale without hiring. Jamming about three types of partnerships solo businesses can consider to grow in this episode

I’ve been running a public daily audio diary (what you're listening to now!) about Lunch Pail Labs since the end of 2020. They are short (usually ~10 minutes) episodes on the biggest thing on my mind that day and topics range from a new framework I discovered all the way to how my company performed that week. Jamming on 3 powers discovered from the practice, and how I'm thinking of evolving it in the future.

Jamming on no-code education for entrepreneurs and where it might fit in the services journey map of a provider. Here are the other links I referenced in the episode: 4 courses and cohorts for entrepreneurs to validate their ideas and build their MVPs without code Lunch Pail Daily episode #67 No-Code services journey map Lunch Pail Daily episode #152 Reasons not to work with an agency

I joined ship 30 for 30 in early January to help me develop a shipping x writing habit. Prior to that, I had a daily writing habit but I struggled to complete full essays and share them. The ship 30 for 30 challenge is to write an atomic essay (1 idea, 250 words, less than an hour to write) every day for 30 days. I'm now halfway through the exercise and here are a few lessons from the process so far.

It's the weekly, week in review episode (here's the template I use). Discussing the wins and losses and all that jazz at Lunch Pail Labs this week (1-24/22 - 1/28/22)

Jamming about digital minimalism and how I'm thinking about it at Lunch Pail Labs.

Jamming about recent trends in open-source SAAS and how that can be applied to no-code as well as some tools that I'm keen on trying. Here are the tools mentioned in the episode Tooljet N8N Budibase Appsmith Nocodb And here's a previous episode I shared on open-source no-code (🤦🏿‍♀️ excuse the background music, it was a year ago and I thought that was a good idea)

Today's episode is an expansion of the software stacks as the firm concept that I mentioned in the nature of the firm and solopreneurship podcast episode and essay. Specifically operational tools that are supporting this change and some reflections on opportunities!

This episode is an extension of the atomic product episode that I shared a few weeks back. Today, cracked open the Wiley book of Testing business ideas and picked out a few tactics I might try. Overall I think I'm looking for something different as an atomic product but jamming about all of that in this episode.

It's the weekly, week in review episode (here's the template I use). Discussing the wins and losses and all that jazz at Lunch Pail Labs.

A mental model is a representation of how something works. They help us simplify the complex into understandable and organizable chunks. From Elon Musk to Charlie Munger, many of the world’s popular leaders use mental models as they can help provide a shortcut to thinking clearly. Here are a few of the models I think of often as I grow a digital product studio. See Farnam street's blog post for more.

Transparency and openness are en vogue. There’s the open startup trend that companies like Butter and Ghost embrace, Austin Kleon put out the call for artists and creators to Show Your Work in his 2014 book, and many creators today embrace #buildinpublic. Starting to see a lot of this manifest by working in public and I jam on some opportunities there and what I might adopt at Lunch Pail Labs in today's episode. Read along, in today's atomic essay.

A lot of no-code tools have networks at play with the hard side of the network being services providers, component developers, educators, and template designers. As networks become more successful there is a risk of overcrowding where consumers (the easy side of the network ) have difficulty finding the right and relevant supply. If Gartner estimates are right and almost 70% of new apps will be built with no and low-code by 2024 there might be a whole lot of connecting consumers to the right sup...

Reflections on Andrew Chen's Cold Start problem, networked products, overcrowding, and some indie opportunities for no-code.

It's the weekly, week in review episode (here's the template I use). Discussing the wins and losses and all that jazz at Lunch Pail Labs.

I saw a tweet recently ripping on the four-day workweek and how it doesn't make sense if you're serious about your career. I've definitely felt this. This time last year I was taking meetings anytime (sometimes until 10 pm 🥴) and often on the weekends. But taking time to rest is not just feel good gobbledygook companies that do this well experience more productivity and better profits. Jamming on that in today’s episode

Gartner predicts that by 2024 almost 70% of application development will be made with no and low-code. Suffice to say No-code has seen a meteoric rise in the past few years and may soon become a large part of working in businesses of all sizes. I've worked on no-code products that were just getting started all the way to more mature products with thousands of monthly visitors. I've seen that there are a few challenges a team may encounter as their no-code app matures, I teased some of this from...

Digital product studios are a relatively new term. Jules Ehrnhard of FKTRY coined the term in 2016 and shares a lot of analysis on the model. Several service companies in the no-code world (Lunch Pail Labs included) use the digital product studio model, it's even in the intro to this podcast but what does that all even mean? I explore all of that is this episode.

have a section in my weekly reviews that I call goal and vision where I reflect on where I'm trying to take Lunch Pail Labs, but I’ve often felt that my descriptions are general. Ali Abdaal describes the ideal ordinary week, so I gave the exercise a try this morning and put some thoughts on how it applies to Lunch Pail Labs.

It's the weekly, week in review episode (here's the template I use). Discussing the wins and losses and all that jazz at Lunch Pail Labs.

Atomic is everywhere. James Clear popularized atomic habits, Andrew Chen chats atomic networks in the Cold Start problem, and Ship 30 for 30 touts atomic essays. I did a quick google search to see what atomic thinking applies to products and didn’t find much, so this episode jams on my application of these atomic ideas to what could be atomic products. Read along with the accompanying atomic essay here.

Yesterday, I chatted about the water company Liquid Death and stages of product markets and how style/identity are the main differentiators in more markets. I did a little research to see what existing frameworks might apply to this thinking. And came across the Design hierarchy of needs ,coined by William Lidwell, which is on the Maslow hierarchy of needs. In this episode, I jam about how Lidwell's framework describes the earlier stages and how I plan to implement all of that at Lunch Pail. Li...

I read an article yesterday on how a water brand for partygoers called Liquid Death just raised $73 million 🤯. It got me thinking about all the upstarts that generate serious revenues with style and identity. I've talked about this idea previously and. I also think product categories go through three main stages before arriving at a place where it makes sense for style and that's when most of the solutions on the market are generally sufficiently good. Jamming on all of those ideas in this episo...

Jamming on cohort-based courses on why I think they're a massive cheat code for solopreneurs. This podcast was also an atomic essay check it out here.