August 1, 2023
This month I'm feeling like a failure since I apparently can't force myself to do things I don't want to do. I keep putting off Google Ads after wading in and getting overwhelmed with the interface and keyword research and having to write ad copy, but I know that's what I should be doing. Or if not Google Ads, I should be working to get into the various app stores (Slack, GitHub, Atlassian) or writing SEO content.
July 1, 2023
Wow, we're already halfway through the year! I'm looking at my goals for 2023 and realizing I really need to step it up in Q3 and Q4 if I want to get anywhere close to my revenue goal, but at the same time, I'm hesitant to pour energy into bringing in more traffic when my activation numbers are still not great, so I'm not sure what my focus should be.
June 1, 2023
I have a bunch of ideas for getting more traffic and sign ups, but right now almost everyone who signs up just pokes around a bit and then leaves, so I want to work on getting those folks to stick around before I bother trying to get more sign ups.
May 1, 2023
The big theme this month was analysis paralysis. Should I work on Google Ads? Getting into the app stores for Slack, Atlassian, etc.? Launch on Product Hunt? There's a whole dependency tree of stuff I want to do before I launch on Product Hunt, so should I start on all of that first?
April 1, 2023
March was a bit of a mixed bag - the Teams integration didn't go as planned, but I had the most new signups in one month ever, and I built out integrations for GitLab, Asana, and Monday.
March 26, 2023
I've spent Q1 working mostly on features and integrations, and I'm happy with the progress I've made, but going into Q2 I really need to prioritize sales and marketing. The alternating marketing week/coding week thing isn't cutting it.
March 1, 2023
Dang, February flew by! I bit off some bigger tasks this month, so it really feels like I barely made any progress. Then again, I always wish I was going faster, so nothing new there.
February 1, 2023
It's been nice getting back into the swing of things after some time off around the holidays! As I talked about in my 2022 year in review, I'm trying to shake off my product tunnel vision and focus on marketing and sales in the new year.
January 18, 2023
As we enter 2023, I wanted to reflect on Teaminal's first year of business - what happened, what I learned from it, and what the numbers looked like. This helps force me to plan, keeps me honest about how things worked out, and maybe helps some readers improve their own businesses.
January 1, 2023
I'm still working on this, but I continue to try and improve onboarding. Namely I'm now showing the initial "welcome" messages as created by Teaminal instead of the user themselves, which was a bit janky.
December 1, 2022
The backlog refinement feature now integrates with Jira and lets you configure the options your team can vote for.
November 1, 2022
It's only five minutes long, but getting a demo video recorded and edited took up a lot of energy this month. I'm really happy with how it turned out, though!
October 1, 2022
I kept getting feedback that it wasn't super clear what you were supposed to do when you were dropped into the app. Which makes sense, since when I sat down and looked at it, every red square below is a place where you might have found something actionable...
September 1, 2022
I'm feeling really good about August! I got a lot done, and did a couple user testing sessions where I watched as folks went through the signup and onboarding flow. It was simultaneously very illuminating and embarrassing to see where they got lost.
August 1, 2022
July saw some decently big product updates! Most notably, I launched a new backlog refinement feature that lets your team vote on whether tickets in your backlog should be closed, need updated acceptance criteria, or are high/low priority. Best of all, Teaminal can automatically pull tickets from your backlog for review, and everything integrates with Slack.
July 2, 2022
June was a super productive month product-wise, but emotionally it's been a bit of a rollercoaster. I've been working on Teaminal for over six months, but haven't signed up my first user yet, and that doesn't feel great.
June 1, 2022
May was a great month! I went on a two-week roadtrip through the national parks in Utah, attended RailsConf in Portland, and then I tried to squeeze a month worth of work on Teaminal into the last week. I was only somewhat successful, but I'm still feeling good!
May 1, 2022
Has it been another month already?! I never seem to get as much done as I want to, but I keep reminding myself that I'm just one person working on this part-time.
April 1, 2022
Welp, I’m doing the dumb thing that engineers-turned-entrepreneurs do and avoiding talking to people by building more features. I keep telling myself that I’m in a competitive space so the app needs to be super polished before anyone would want use it, but I think I’m just afraid of failing. And ironically, that fear is keeping me from having any chance at succeeding right now.
March 1, 2022
I thought I was going to spend the month working on sales/marketing, but I ended up focusing on development after getting feedback that the product just wasn't there yet. I'm a little disappointed in my lack of progress, but it was a short month, I spent a week of it traveling, and SAML SSO was a much bigger chunk of work than I expected.
February 12, 2022
I haven't been doing a very good job of putting Teaminal out there so far. I've been telling myself that I just need to get the marketing site a little more polished or add another feature to the app first. It's scary to share something that's not fully baked yet.
February 1, 2022
January was a big month! I built out a first version of the app, got feedback from several engineering managers in my network, added some more features that they requested, including Slack and Jira integrations, and I think I'm super close to my first team signing up.
January 1, 2022
I always hate when companies retcon their history to act as if the idea leapt from their head fully formed like Athena, so I wanted to write up the real story of how Teaminal came to be.
