Owen Williams - Write Together

In this episode, we kick it with Owen Williams, most recognized for his previous work as an editor at The Next Web and maker of the well-regarded technology newsletter re:Charged. From his broad experience as a journalist and software engineer, we’re going to discuss his latest product launch, Write Together.

We cover a broad range of topics including:

the evolution of content creationwhy it's important to write every dayPHP frameworkshis super nifty Slack hackand much more

Lean more about Makers Weekly and what we're working on here.

Notable Mentions

Vanmoof (2:45) - awesome futuristic smart bikes

Product Hunt (3:19) - a daily list of new products around the web

Ryan Hoover (11:47) - founder of Product Hunt

Medium (6:25) - a modern, social blogging platform

Github streaks (8:10) - a visual indicator of the frequency a developer commits code to a project

Lean Startup (12:30) - a product development methodology (and book) that focuses on rapid prototyping and constant product iteration with the goal to capture learnings cheap, fast, and often.

React (14:35) - a modern Javascript framework for developing web interfaces. See ReactNative for mobile

Laravel and their billing framework, Cashier (14:50)

Getstream (15:39) - out of the box social networking features, like news feeds and timelines.

Stripe (16:10) - credit card processor for internet products

Segment (16:11) - data analytics platform

Chart Mogul (16:17) - out of the box operations portal for SaaS businesses

Bear Metrics (16:27) - similar to Chart Mogul but a bit more robust and more expensive

Google's Startup Program (16:43) - free cloud hosting!!

Sentry (17:15) - Error tracking, Owen integrates with Slack for alerts

Slack (17:16) - Owen routes all of his alerts into a Slack via their API, check out all slack integrations

MailChimp (23:00) - email distribution and marketing platform

Google Reader (23:16) - RIP

Extra Extra

How do you become a better writer? Well, you need to write. This is the premise of the Write Together product. Here's a great article (and interesting story) about how consistent writing can provide meaningful benefits over time; it has over 20k claps on Medium. I specifically enjoyed the sections called "Be Prolific" and "Learn to Recognize Patterns."Network effects (23:16) - in the product development world, this is a term that refers to features that incrementally get better (or provide greater value) the more they're used. If you're working on a product, this is a must-know concept. Here's the perfect resource to learn all about network effects (check out the slide deck at the bottom).

It's with tons of love that I ask you... if you find this interesting at all and want to support this project, please pass this along to a few friends. Thank you and enjoy!