This is a collection of articles I wrote over the last couple of years. These days, I usually write about building and launching software products.
This is the first time I’m writing a “Year in Review” post. In the past, I wasn’t sure about the value of me writing a post like this. However, I always liked to read similar posts by people I know. I hope there’s something in this post that is of value to you, or at least inspires you in some way or another.
Today, I launched Stage, a content management system, designed for band websites. As of today, it’s out there for everyone to see and use. It’s already making 307€ in monthly recurring revenue and hosting the websites of five bands, including those of internationally known bands like Nightwish, Epica, and Sonata Arctica.
As a single founder, my time is valuable. I have to split my time between working for consulting clients, doing paperwork and acquisition, and working on my product Stage. I wouldn’t get anything done, without several tools I heavily rely on.
In the following, I want to share the most important products, that help me bootstrap my own product. Hopefully, you’ll get some insights into my toolset and discover one or two products you didn’t know about, yet.
I’ve always been a fan of Mathias Meyer’s reading lists. They’re one of my go-to resources to discover interesting books to read. While I didn’t read nearly as many books as he did, I wanted to share the books read in 2014 in the same vein. So here it is: my reading list of 2014!
More than once writing view code for a Rails application ends up with a messy template file. The separation of structure and style doesn’t always work out as intended. Frameworks like Bootstrap force you to use nested structures and lots of class attributes. The view code ends up with a lot of duplication and is hard to read as a result. You’ll get away with that for a while, constantly fearing the next redesign…