Hackers Incorporated

2024 year in review and plans for 2025

In this episode, Adam and Ben sit down to reflect on how things went in 2024 in their business and personal lives and talk about their plans for 2025.

Catching up

Adam and Ben are back on the mics after nine months to give an update on their lives. Timestamps * (00:00) - Catching up * (00:18) - Fitness update * (18:13) - House updates * (24:53) - Ben update * (35:11) - Tailwind Labs update Links * Adam on X [https://x.com/adamwathan] * Ben on X [https://x.com/r00k]

Hiring for tiny teams with Justin Jackson

Adam just wrapped up a big hiring project at Tailwind Labs, adding both a new engineer and a new designer to the team. In this episode he talks through the process with Justin Jackson, founder of Transistor [https://transistor.fm/], to compare notes and record what worked, what didn't, and how he will approach hiring in the future after going through this process. Timestamps * (00:00) - Talking hiring with Justin Jackson from Transistor * (01:05) - Adam's recent hiring project at Tailwind Labs * (02:00) - Justin's history with hiring at Transistor * (03:51) - How Transistor recruited their team * (05:48) - Background on Adam's hiring project * (16:54) - How to stand out as a candidate * (26:29) - Who applied at Tailwind Labs — and who didn't * (35:26) - Who ended up getting the offers * (39:28) - The interview process * (53:49) - Finding candidates, relationship building, and increasing luck surface area Links * Job postings for the roles at Tailwind Labs [https://tailwindcss.com/blog/hiring-a-design-engineer-and-staff-engineer] * Adam on X [https://x.com/adamwathan] * Ben on X [https://x.com/r00k] * Justin on X [https://x.com/mijustin]

Ben steps away from Tuple

After almost six years, Ben [https://twitter.com/r00k] has stepped away from day-to-day work on Tuple [https://tuple.app] and moved to its board. Friend of the pod Aaron Francis [https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis] interviews Ben about the whole beautiful, complicated, enriching experience. As a treat, the boys dive into what's next for Aaron as well.

Building the HEY Calendar with Jason Fried

37signals have talked a lot about how they build new features for existing products using Shape Up [https://basecamp.com/shapeup], where they carefully hammer the scope to avoid letting anything ever drag on for more than six weeks. But there's not a lot of information out there about how they approach new product development, where it can take over a year to actually get the first version out the door. In this episode, Adam goes deep with Jason Fried about building and shipping their new HEY Calendar product, and whether or not Shape Up was part of that process. Timestamps * (00:00) - Building the HEY Calendar with Jason Fried * (01:04) - Why build a calendar * (04:12) - How 37signals approach new product development * (07:30) - Deciding on scope before launch * (13:13) - Was there a six-week version of the HEY Calendar? * (15:38) - Deciding how much time to spend on a new product * (17:46) - Was the HEY Calendar built using Shape Up? * (22:20) - Working on one feature at a time vs. in parallel * (28:47) - What cycles look like at the early beginnings of a product * (38:49) - How a project starts * (45:46) - Increasing surface area vs. finishing things * (47:57) - The development process for HEY Calendar going forward Links * Adam on Twitter [https://twitter.com/adamwathan] * Ben on Twitter [https://twitter.com/r00k] * Jason on Twitter [https://twitter.com/jasonfried] * Jason's walkthrough of the HEY Calendar [https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/1740896488765694186/video/1] * HEY Calendar [https://www.hey.com/calendar/]