Episoder
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This week, Jess and Jeremy get into the nitty-gritty of resource allocation for indie makers: how to make the most of your limited time, energy, and capital. As solo and small-team entrepreneurs, we constantly have to make tough calls about where to invest. It's not just about money; it's about what will actually move the needle.
They talk through the realities of running lean: how to balance building, learning, and staying sane along the way. From daily reading habits and favorite podcasts to managing information overload and keeping personal playbooks, they share the unpolished, behind-the-scenes strategies they use to grow without burning out.
If you’re bootstrapping, juggling roles, or just trying to make smarter bets with your time, this one’s for you. -
In this episode of IndieRails, co-founders Ben Curtis and Joshua Wood share the origin story of Honeybadger, an application monitoring tool for Ruby on Rails applications (and many others).
They discuss their motivations for starting the company, the challenges they faced in the early days. The conversation also covers their approach to product development, marketing, pricing strategies, expanding into new markets and the lessons learned from their journey.
Honeybadger
Ben Curtis
Mastodon
Bluesky
LinkedInJosh Wood
Mastodon
Bluesky
LinkedIn -
Manglende episoder?
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Our guest for this episode is Garrett Dimon. Garrett is a developer, author, conference speaker and multi time business owner. With some partners, he’s recently formed a company called “Very Good Software” where they own and operate several SaaS apps.
Garrett Dimon is a seasoned software developer and entrepreneur with a passion for front-end development and Ruby on Rails. His journey began in 1998, experimenting with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript before earning a Computer Science degree from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2000. Over the next eight years, he honed his skills in front-end development and information architecture through consulting roles with organizations of all sizes. During this time, he also shared his expertise through a column on front-end design and development for Digital Web Magazine.In 2008, Garrett started his entrepreneurial journey and launched Sifter, a bug and issue tracking application built with Rails, which he ran until its successful sale in 2016. His experience building and selling Sifter inspired him to write and self-publish Starting and Sustaining, a book about building and running SaaS applications. After Sifter, Garrett took some time off from entrepreneurship and joined Wildbit and then egghead.
Eventually he went back on his own independent consulting where he helped clients Fireside.fm and Flipper. Little did he know that later on, he'd become part owner of these companies. In the fall of 2024 the one time business seller became the buyer. He, John Nunemaker, and Kris Priemer are operating Very Good Software, where fireside.rm and Flipper are core products.
Links:
GarrettDimon.com
BlueSkyFireside.fm
Flipper
Very Good SoftwareBooks
Recent podcast appearances:
Taking Over Fireside with John Nunemaker & Garrett Dimon
Master of Generators (with Garrett Dimon) | Dead Code -
Our first-ever IndieRails guest returns to the podcast just shy of two years later. Joe Masilotti shares about niching down on Hotwire Native, changes in the related open source libraries, the direction of his consulting work, his parental leave last year, and the process of writing his forthcoming book, Hotwire Native for Rails Developers. (Special discount for listeners in the episode!)
Related Links
Twitter
Bluesky
Website
Hotwire Native for Rails Developers
Pragmatic Bookshelf page
Hotwire Native docs
Rails World 2023 Talk: Just enough Turbo Native to be dangerous -
In this episode, Jeremy & I are excited to share a mic with Jim Remsik. Jim is the Founder and CEO of a digital agency called Flagrant. He is also a conference organizer…he created and hosts the popular Madison + Ruby conference. Jim has held many roles: MC, speaker, developer, CEO, conference organizer, writer and many more, but I imagine most people know him as someone who is an all around awesome human.
Jim Remsik shares his journey through the tech industry, from his early days in software development to his transition from government work to agency life. He discusses building companies like Bendyworks and Flagrant, emphasizing how design and professional connections shaped his career path. The conversation follows his path from running Adorable to launching Flagrant, including the personal challenges he faced—health issues and navigating business during the pandemic. Jim reflects on the vital role of personal growth, team empowerment, and maintaining human connections in a remote-first world. Drawing from his agency experience, he shares how taking initiative and self-authorization were crucial to his entrepreneurial success. Throughout the discussion, Jim offers valuable perspectives on consulting and collaboration, emphasizing his core belief in actively supporting others' success. He explores the varied landscape of consulting work, industry uncertainties, and the power of personal mission statements. The conversation highlights how meaningful connections, purposeful work, and courageous leadership intertwine. Jim's guiding motto reveals how generosity and community-building shape his professional approach.
Show Links:
Socials
https://bsky.app/profile/jremsikjr.bsky.social
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jremsikjr/
Flagranthttps://www.beflagrant.com/team/
https://www.beflagrant.com/blog/author/jim-remsik/
Conferenceshttps://www.madisonruby.com/
https://rubyconf.org/about/
Postshttps://medium.com/authority-magazine/jim-remsik-of-flagrant-five-things-i-wish-someone-told-me-when-i-first-launched-my-business-or-14699acfbda2
https://www.beflagrant.com/blog/2024-predictions-2024-01-30
https://devops.com/the-ruby-on-rails-resurgence/
https://devops.com/the-ruby-on-rails-resurgence-2/
Other Podcastshttps://shows.acast.com/dead-code/episodes/all-those-letters-that-you-do-with-jim-remsik
https://www.codewithjason.com/podcast/14444689-211-jim-remsik-ceo-of-flagrant/
XO Ruby
https://bsky.app/profile/xoruby.comReadalong - Practical Object-Oriented Design: An Agile Primer Using Ruby
https://app.thestorygraph.com/readalongs/5983b152-bf48-4ff3-aeb0-976ea67d0d08 -
Jess and Jeremy kick off the first recording of 2025 with a recap of 2024, and a look at their plans and goals for the new year. We chat about the importance of celebrating milestones, time management, financial planning, scaling development with business growth, and the cycles of sowing and reaping in our work.
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Paul Campbell is a Rails developer (since v0.13), conference organizer, and the CEO and co-founder of Team Tito. Paul joins us to talk about his career building software, companies, and events. We chat about Paul's journey into programming, the risks and rewards of running conferences, finding his co-founder, and the opportunities that led to building Tito, Vito, and most recently, IO.
Relevant Links
Paul on BlueSky
Team Tito
Tito: event registration
Vito: online communities
IO: bespoke RSVPs -
In this episode, we are joined by Barry Hess, James Adam, and Matthew Lettini from the Good Enough team to discuss their journey in creating a self-sustaining business built around meaningful, user-focused software. We explore the inception of their company and their latest product, Jelly—a shared inbox for teams. We dive into their experimental approach to business, their year of experimentation known internally as "Cosmic Maelstrom," the rollout of other products like their blogging software, Pika, and the decision to offer free tools. The team shares their insights into maintaining a human touch in customer support, navigating marketing challenges, and the value of brainstorming unconventional ideas. Through it all, they emphasize the importance of community, sustainability, and creating software that should exist in the world to make a meaningful impact.
Links:
Good Enough
Jelly
Pika
All ProductsGood Enough Socials:
Newsletter
Mastodon
Bluesky
Threads
XJames
Matthew
Barry -
In this episode, we're excited to introduce our guest, Becky Searls. We recently met Becky at Rails World and learned about her business, Better with Becky—a fitness training program focused on people with a growth mindset. Over the past year, she worked with her husband Justin to build her first product, Build with Becky, a personalized workout program and fitness app built in Rails, which launched publicly during the conference! We chat with Becky about her professional journey starting as a K-12 educator, becoming a fitness instructor, building her own business, and now moving into the product owner role to develop a custom app.
More About Becky
Becky Searls is definitely not another influencer, and she’s more than a personal trainer. Her experience in education, embrace of evidence-based research, and personable judgment-free approach sets her apart in an industry famous for baseless hype and scammy practices.
Spending over a decade as an accomplished foreign language teacher, Becky truly has the heart of an educator. When she learns something important, her first thought is always how to best share it with others. She also knows life's greatest lessons are found outside of the classroom. So as she dives deeper into research papers spanning health, fitness, nutrition, and psychology, she can’t imagine keeping all the useful things she discovers to herself.
That's what Better with Becky is: the place she translates cutting-edge science into practical tools and everyday advice for the rest of us.
That may explain why, as her debut product, Build with Becky doesn't look like other exercise programs. Yes, it will give you a great workout. But you won't believe how much you'll learn along the way, without even realizing it. And yes, you'll probably see progress toward your fitness goals. But don't be surprised if you also gain deeper insights that connect with other parts of your life. That's just part of what you get with Becky!
Training and certifications include:
• Master of Arts, Education (The Ohio State University)
• National Strength and Conditioning Association Certified Personal Trainer (NSCA-CPT)
• Mindfulness-Based Behavior Change Facilitator
• Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certified Coach (PN-L1)
• USA Weightlifting Level 1 Certified Coach (USAW-L1)
• Pain-free performance specialist (National Academy of Sports Medicine)Relevant Links
Better with Becky
Beckygram (which syndicates her Instagram)
Becky's YouTube
The Empowered Programmer (Justin's Rails World talk, featuring Build with Becky) -
In this episode, Jess and Jeremy chat about leveling up professionally, the importance of community and personal growth, and the challenges of starting new things. Jess shares several things that have inspired him recently, and Jeremy gives an update on Liminal and shares some ideas he has around discoverability challenges in the Rails ecosystem.
Referenced
Bunch of Guys video clipRaise your standards video clip“Start from wherever you are and with whatever you’ve got.” - Jim RohnLiminal forum app -
In this episode, Justin Searls (open source author, speaker, and co-founder of Test Double) joins us in-person at Rails World to talk about his career, speaking, consulting, the One Person Framework, and building a web application for his wife's fitness business, Better with Becky.
Follow Justin
Website
Twitter
Mastodon
LinkedInRelevant Links
The Empowered Programmer talk
Test Double
Breaking Change podcast
Fred Brooks
RubyKaigi
The One Person Framework -
On Day 2 of Rails World, Jess and Jeremy join with Drew Bragg of Code and the Coding Coders Who Code It and Adrian Marin and Yaro Shmarov of the Friendly Show to chat about the conference. Enjoy!
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In this crossover episode, Jeremy and Jess join up with Chris & Jason from Remote Ruby podcast to discuss Ruby programming, indie development, and the challenges of building and maintaining software as solo developers. We dive into the origins of Indie Rails, share our individual career journeys, and explore Jeremy's project, Liminal, which aims to replace traditional forums and Slack with a more modern solution. The group reflects on the frustrations with current platforms, their experiences with indie development, and the importance of marketing alongside coding. They also compare Rails and Laravel, talk about the "one-person framework" concept, and the challenges in maintaining open-source libraries. Throughout the conversation, they emphasize the value of transparency in product development and the need for community support. They wrap up with thoughts on the importance of events like Rails Hackathons and the continued evolution of Rails for solo developers. Hit download now to hear more!
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Justin Duke is the founder of Buttondown, an email platform with first-class Markdown support. Justin is also a partner at Third South Capital, where he and his partners buy and grow existing software products. We chat about his background in marketing and software development, bootstrapping Buttondown while working at Stripe, the Buttondown tech stack (Django, a cousin of Rails and Vue), and his latest endeavors with Third South.
Justin
Website
TwitterButtondown
Website
Twitter
Changelog
Stack
Open SourceThird South Capital
Website
TwitterRelevant Links
Markdoc
babelmark
Curtailing the free plan
Work on what matters -
Landon Gray is a Rubyist, speaker, strategic advisor, and AI engineer. In May, he left Test Double to found Identus Consulting, where he helps companies with generative AI and machine learning. We chat about his love for consulting, how he got into AI, and how he's working with clients these days, using a blend of technical and project management skills.
Follow Landon
Twitter
LinkedIn
Ruby AI Twitter
Identus Consulting
Curious Centroid
Forecasting the future: Intro to Machine Learning for weather prediction in Native RubyRelevant Links
Test Double
Great Learning
Claude
Jeremy Howard
Torch.rb
Transformers.rb
Pandas
Jupyter -
Our guest will be no stranger to most of our listeners. He’s been around the Ruby community for many years. He’s spoken at conferences, hosted conferences, hosts a "pretty good" podcast, author of courses, a staff engineer at Podia and more recently the co-founder of a successful SaaS: Job Boardly. Enjoy the show with Jason Charnes!
Related Links
Personal WebsiteX
Job Boardly
Podia
Remote Ruby -
In this episode, we are thrilled to host Nate Berkopec, a renowned author, speaker, trainer, and consultant. Nate runs Speedshop, his Rails performance consultancy, and is the author of "The Complete Guide to Rails Performance." He also maintains Puma, the most popular Ruby web server, and somehow finds time to be an avid cyclist. Nate's journey from a junior Rails developer to a leading performance expert is nothing short of inspiring. Join us as we dive into his story, insights, and expertise.
Links:
XPersonal WebsiteSpeedShopThe Rails Performance Workshop. A four-week program that makes your Rails app faster and more scalable. Attended by over 500 developers so far. Team and solo editions.The Complete Guide to Rails Performance, an in-depth 370 page reference manual on making Rails apps faster.Sidekiq in Practice, a workshop for teaching you how to scale Sidekiq from 0 to 10,000 jobs per second.The Ruby on Rails Performance Apocrypha, a short book about the ins and outs of scaling RailsSpeedshop Blog, the number one Ruby on Rails performance blog on the 'net.The Speedshop Newsletter, a weekly email newsletter that talks about issues surrounding optimizing and scaling Ruby web applications. -
In this episode, Jeremy shares his latest product idea (Liminal, a fresh take on old-school forums) with Jess and gets his raw, unfiltered feedback. At the end, Jeremy makes a commitment to Jess to launch an MVP by November 1.
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Jess and Jeremy catch up in this one-on-one episode after a short summer break. We cover a number of topics, including our latest seasons of work, reading the book Million Dollar Consulting, our mastermind group, and some realizations looking back over the last year.
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In this episode, Jeremy and Jess are joined by two of the cofounders of JetRockets, a custom software development agency with a specialty in Rails. Natalie Kaminski (CEO) and Igor Alexandrov (CTO) share how the company started and how it's grown over the past 12 years. We discuss how and why they use Rails, how they hire developers, their approach to management, and the importance of strong organizational values.
Natalie Kaminski
CEO / Co-Founder
LinkedIn
Igor Alexandrov
CTO / Co-Founder
Website
LinkedIn
HackerNoon
Twitter
JetRockets
Website
Twitter
Relevant Links
Reinventing Organizations
Teal organisation - Vis mere
