We had a support issue this week that boils down to "when I clear cookies I get logged out". To be fair to the customer, there's 2 layers of abstraction on top of that, and it wasn't immediately obvious - to them nor to us - what was going on. I don't like it when my software is confusing.

Brutal. And also more true for me than I'd usually admit.

Every month when I get the invoice for hosting the Bootstrapped podcast, I think to myself: a) record another episode; or b) cancel the account, and take the podcast offline. Most months I go with option c) do nothing.

I love the candour of the founder we interviewed for the latest chapter of "Kill the HiPPO", the book I'm co-writing. Yes, he plans and prioritises new features. And yes, the plan is often put aside to work on something else.

The first lesson wasn't a great start. The teacher spent the time mostly going over Catalan pronunciation and orthography. I'd much prefer we actually went over and over a typical real-life spoken interaction.

I paid a potential new hire to do a short test task. Did it go well? They did the task well AND they uncovered some bugs - and provided excellent repro steps. So, yes, I think it went well. Until they accepted an offer from someone else. Ah well, I'm a bit disappointed but happy for them.

I got the sudden idea this morning to take a beginner’s course in Catalan. Given I’ve lived in Catalonia for 10+ years, I might reasonably be accused of having waited too long to do this. Through the magic of the Internet I’ve booked my first few 1-on-1 classes and start tonight.

Something I didn't expect: By focusing Feature Upvote to primarily serve video games, we'd get a high-paying "boring business" customer because an employee and saw Feature Upvote in use by their favourite game and thought it would work well for their products.

I'm conducting interview 9 (out of 10) today for my book, Kill the HiPPO. Getting close to the end of this stage - which seems to have gone on for ever - is intoxicating.

You know those dull, lifeless explainer videos many B2B SaaS products have? Not this one! For Feature Upvote's new explainer video, dull and lifeless is not allowed. We've use the aesthetic you'd find a video game trailer. youtu.be/q5FprDGrej0?...

It was a pleasure interviewing @jarvdusa.bsky.social for The Community Lounge podcast today. A natural story teller!

The research for Kill the HiPPO, the book I'm writing on choosing what feature to build next, is already changing the way I go about projects.

A potential new “enterprise-y” US-based customer fell through because their legal department found it to be too risky to deal with us as a non US-based company. A bit disappointing - but completely out of our control.

From research for my book, Kill the HiPPO, on choosing what feature to build next in your software: "He once spent 1.5 to 2 weeks building a feature that one customer asked for. But not only did the feature not result in new signups, the customer who requested it also cancelled afterwards."

I made pizza tonight with my daughter, who is half Italian. When she saw the special ingredient I was adding to my half, she gave me a look of utter disgust.

This is good. Hilarious actually.

The problem with letting customers use custom CSS for our feedback boards is that they might change the font to Comic Sans. 😱 But seriously, I like what our customer has done here, to capture the lighthearted nature of their game.

Further thoughts on this: if you are creating a SaaS, ALWAYS go with a solid, old-school relational db (eg PostgreSQL, MySQL) unless (or until) you have a very strong reason not to. “It might not scale” is NOT a very strong reason.

At Feature Upvote we fix bugs first. Read why - and how - we do this: featureupvote.com/blog/we-fix-...

If you are into coding and doing it with quality, this podcast ep is self-recommending. Code Complete is one of my all-time favourite coding-related books. It is in my “wisdom of the giants” category. overcast.fm/+ABKyPIvX1Ao

Our marketing efforts to raise awareness of Feature Upvote in the video game industry are bearing fruit. We got contacted this week by a studio that makes a game in the Steam charts Top 10. It's a massive game, a huge success. They are considering using us to manage player feedback.

A YouTube channel with just 1 video, that single video being 15 years old, and with almost 2 million views. youtu.be/XKRQMCHlONU?... Related, I’m trying to learn how to trill my R´s when I speak Spanish. It’s hard.

"I made a super popular game. You know it, and you probably have friends and family who play it daily. "I went to GDC (big games industry event) and I felt out of place - unlike the other people here, I felt I wasn't a real game creator' Josh Wardle, creator of Wordle, paraphrased by me. 1/2

I heard on a podcast about "Subtractive game design" - You remove anything that isn’t amazing. Got me thinking about whether the same approach can be applied to SaaS, in general, and my product, Feature Upvote, specifically. It probably can't for B2B. But sounds great for B2C.

Seems like an appropriate time to re-share the @aaronboodman.com thread. "Chrome was delivered without any sprints at all" xcancel.com/aboodman/sta...

The last few years I've worked 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. Now the new school semester started, I'm going to try a new schedule: 5 hours a day, 4 days a week. Friday each week is becoming "do something active outside" day - to make the most of living in Spain.

“The customer is always right.” No they’re not, but you have to decide what to do on a case-by-case basis: 1. Act like they are; treat them like they are. 2. Be polite, but ignore. 3. Ask them to no longer be a customer. 4. Realize they actually are right.

I went for a bike ride yesterday and got DOUBLE punctures - both the front and the rear tyres. Found this nasty little thing in the front tyre. Haven’t found the culprit from the rear tyre yet.

Tech startup idea: instead of starting your car with your key, you get in, turn on the display panel, enter your password, get your phone out, open the authenticator app, enter your pin, enter the timed passcode, then open the start menu, then helpdesk, then "request engine start", then submit a tic

Last week I was on holiday in a place with terribly slow and unreliable Internet. Out of curiosity I checked some of our customers' Feature Upvote boards - and they performed well despite the bad Internet. A story: Feature Upvote _was_ initially blindingly fast, back when we launched. 1/4

We don't pre-announce coming new features. We wait until they are done. But in the Feature Upvote newsletter today, I put a BIG hint in the screenshot as to what we are currently working on. Something many of our video game industry customers have been asking for.

Every business owner, sooner or later, learns this: Hire slowly, fire quickly. If you realised you hired the wrong person, deal with it immediately. It sucks, no-one enjoys doing it, but not dealing with it puts your whole business at risk.

Last week I was on a family holiday with no wifi and really bad phone data connection. It was the first time in **YEARS** when I (almost) fully took a break from work. And only because circumstances demanded it. And it was good! (Oh, and my business didn’t collapse without me for a few days.)

A comedian and actress (who I think is not in the tech world) shows exactly what people think about your company shoving its new feature (AI of course) down our throats. Damn this is spot on. youtube.com/shorts/8-lgJ...

On a short hike today, I spotted a donkey disguised as a zebra. Gotta admit, I was briefly fooled.

Someone wrote what I feel. lobste.rs/s/ntruuu/lob...

Ever had the experience of a payment processor you've been using for years sending you an email saying "complete our KYC process within 2 weeks or we'll suspend your account" and you are just about to go on holiday for the next 2 weeks....

We've added an experimental "undo" button to some actions on Feature Upvote's moderation tool. Inspired by Gmail's undo.

being born? you mean doing an escape womb?

Important warning: There’s some wrong information on the Internet.

Akismet's new pricing works out to roughly 1 cent per spam check. (Luckily we're on their old, reasonable legacy pricing.) Makes me think there is an opportunity for a lean and hungry founder to create a new Akismet competitor.

While researching my book, I stumbled upon an act of business bravery from Mark Stephens at IDRsolutions: scrapping a somewhat successful product. Why would you do this? Because you've hit its limits and they are curbing your ambition. That is, it was successful, but not successful enough.

Time for my weekly WAG aka "Writer's Accountability Group". I think that's what it stands for? If you are writing a book, I highly recommend getting yourself into a WAG. A good starting point: www.usefulbooks.com

I saw - and heard - marmots on a very short hike in the Pyrenees with my daughter.

This. I say over and over that many so-called solo founders have a very supportive and unheralded life partner, without whom the business would not have succeeded.

An unexpected thing I got from writing a draft chapter of my book, Kill the HiPPO: An open and upfront explanation of how moving from pay-once pricing to subscription-pricing saved the Ulysses app from financial ruin.

We did a short but awesome hike today in Andorra. Featured were marmots (they whistle like humans), mountain streams (cold and clear), and a so-called “Tibetan bridge” (pictured).

Hello from the Pyrenees.

I used to be strongly in favour of emailing our list (for a B2B SaaS) only once a month. But I’ve been convinced otherwise. Recently we upped our send-frequency to weekly. The sky hasn’t fallen yet. Unsubscribes remain low. No complaints. 1/3

Awesome podcast episode that answers the question: how did Beethoven make such great music when he was deaf? overcast.fm/+AAMLcYkT4oE