Ship it and Sip it

Hire global talent or get left behind | Ep89 with Paul XueLast week Paul mentioned on X that he wanted share his thoughts & findings after a few months of researching the state of global hiring. We're happy to play host to this conversation and share Paul's ideas with you! Here's what we got into: 🤑 The reasons having a global team make sense for your startup.🛠️ How to build a remote, async workflow that won't slow your team down no matter where they are.🚫 What kind of mistakes or blockers still exist for founders who try to go global.🤝 How to connect with employees or employers who are a good fit for the company and culture (without spamming AI generated resumes)And that's just the start — Paul cares deeply about building a sense of community no matter how physically separated a team is. Hope you enjoy the show 🍻Follow Paul on X and check out his amazing guide to building a successful agency! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

Beyond merely budgeting or money tracking, Investrio puts education and money mentorship in the center of the equation to help young folks figure out how to get out of debt and build a better financial future.Here's what we got into in the show: 🤝 How Laura and Joyce met and objectively decided to team up as co-founders 💪 What they brought to the team in experience and skillset 🫶 How they used their community and VC experience to shape the product idea and guide the build 🫣 What speed-bumps they hit along the way as they built the MVPAnd of course what's coming soon and their vision for success with Investrio.ioDefinitely check out their site if you're looking for a better personal fintech product and follow Joyce and Laura on Linkedin for more insights from their founder journey.PS: they share fabulous money management tips on Instagram as well 😎 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

"To get my mission of accessibility out there is not a problem of having the right tool, or developers needing to find the right tool — but rather teaching them all the benefits of accessibility."This week’s guest Charlie Morris is on a mission to help startups, indie makers, and even BigCos make their websites and products more accessible for everyone.Since joining the #BuildInPublic community on X late last year, he’s launched several indie-oriented products, an agency focused on accessibility and heaps more.All on top of his regular 9-5 and also co-founding a mushroom farm with his partner last year 🍄Here’s what we uncover in this show:* Charlie’s motivation to grow awareness around accessibility and to do all this in public.* The details of what it means to have ‘good’ accessibility, how to test it and why it’s a constant improvement journey.* What major sites or products we can look at as great examples to learn from.* How the mushroom farm inspired Charlie to start his indie maker journey.And a lot more. Here are Charlie’s products that you should definitely check out:* A11yAudit.ing — Run a free test on your site and get your accessibility score + tips to improve each factor.* Indie Filter — Free Chrome extension to find indie tools on Product Hunt.* Colour Easy — Generate fabulous colour palettes for your site or brand.* QRuickly — Make lovely QR codes in a snap.Find us on your favorite podcast player HERE This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

Back with a fresh site, Hai and the Wudpecker team are here to extract all the important bits from your meetings both online and in-person — so you can focus on the meeting itself.Today we have look at the website, break down the messaging and dig through some of the free resources they share. Honestly, I couldn’t find much not to like about the site, copy or value proposition. I’ll try to make a few more roasty roasts next time.Anyway, follow Hai on X for more info about the relaunch and check out Wudpecker’s site if you have meetings to remember! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

From the outside, concerts look like a party on the road every night. But the truth is each tour is run like a business and the tools to organize every stop were not quite fit for the purpose. That meant inefficiency, money wasted and in the worst cases, unhappy fans & artists. Ternwheel's here to turn that around and Ashanti brings the skills, support and network to make it happen. We got into: • His start in the music industry and landing in San Francisco to chase his idea for Ternwheel • How live shows are coming back and why they're the main revenue driver for artists. • The long road from ideas to a launched SaaS and what bumps were on the way. • Fundraising, the launch and Ashanti's vision of success in the near future. We're proud our team has helped bring the best v1 of Ternwheel to life and can't wait to see what we can build it into going forward with Ashanti. The show has just begun 🤘 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

You all know the pain — you google a recipe and find a bunch of long-winded SEO optimized foodie blog articles that may have a decent recipe buried somewhere under all the keywords and ads.It sucks, but that's what it takes to stay up top on google.Thanks to Ethan Chlebowski we now have a better option — CookWell.comDirectories and info-products are having a bit of a moment, and I think Cook Well is a fabulous example that other founders and creators can learn from.Here's why:• You land on the page and the recipes are right there, product-led in a way.• The v1 is hella comprehensive, definitely not an MVP but a full, organized resource.• You learn while using the product.So enjoy this fresh roast of CookWell and check out the product next time you need inspiration in the kitchen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

Zeng’s got so many AI projects going on it was hard to decide where to focus without this turning into a 4-hour chat (which would be lovely). But we managed to scratch the surface and, in my opinion, this is almost all one can do in terms of AI right now. The pace of change is furious, tools pop up and disappear too fast to fixate long on ‘the state of things’ now. ‘Cause tomorrow it’s gonna be different, and we both hope, better.Here’s what we uncovered:🐾 Zeng’s memories from the early days of AI art — being trolled and learning tricks to prompt beauty.🔎 How she curates tools to share with her PicAisso community⚒️ What tools creators and founders can use to quickly generate useful brand assets for their new product ideas🫤 The dark side of AI — what we shouldn’t make!While you enjoy the show, I highly recommend you check out some of Zeng’s own tools, products and content: • Picaisso is both an amazing art prompt maker and her newsletter.• FemmeStock is a lovely service of feminine stock photos created by Zeng.• Here’s a great collection of 100 banner images for social media and more.That’s just a start, go check out her bio page to find lots more 💜 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

Flipner AI might be just the solution you're looking for. But can it deliver on that promise? Find out where I see Flipner's potential and what the founder could improve ahead of the Product Hunt launch on Jan 25th. Here are my main tips for Alex:* Replace ‘texts’ as the cover-all outcome — specify what kinds of content Flipner will help folks create.* Give a few clear before-after examples of how the AI writing assistant helps transform voice transcriptions. There’s a lot of potential here if it does well! Same goes for the style changes from AI, give us some convincing samples.* Condense the 6 listed use-cases down to 3, add a concise header for each and shorten the description texts — people scan these sections so you have to hook ‘em with titles.* Differentiate Flipner from other notes platforms. There are a lot and many of them have AI integrations already. If it’s the voice transcriptions, double-down on that.Check out Flipner.com to sign up! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

“You have to focus on small wins because maybe this week you get 100 impressions, next week you get 150 or a single post that finally gets two replies while the others received no feedback at all.If you see these small wins, these small improvements every week, not every day probably, but every week — you see something.”There are 3 reasons I’m stoked to have Alberto on the show:* His depth of experience and background — anyone who goes as far as completing a PhD in Comp Sci and then decides to write blogs instead simply raises at least one eyebrow in curiosity. But that was (digital) ages ago, he’s been writing and creating on the web since the 00s and still brings joy and passion to it. * The Medium.com experience — while I’ve had writers and marketers on before, Alberto’s the first who has focused on Medium for his long-form content. I wanted to know why and what he’s done to win a following there.* His experiments — one of Alberto’s posts on X caught my eye when he described his test of posting long-form content directly on X for a month instead of Medium. He saw very little engagement on his long posts but got a lot from his reflection on the test. It’s always fun to chat with folks who are experimenting in public.We got into all those topics and much more. If you enjoy Alberto’s perspective on writing online — go check out his free mini-course and Notion template aptly named The Unstoppable Creator. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

But check it out and you'll see why I'm so stoked for CopyFrame. Roast 'em Gently is a new show where I find upcoming PH launches and break down the product page according to the copy, the value prop and just the overall vibe. And CopyFrame promises a ton of neat features that will make life SO MUCH easier for high-volume copywriters or any folks who launch a lot of new websites or landing pages. Dive in and let us know what you think. Subscribe to CopyFrame's launch to see what it’s all about 🚀 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

If you've ever had these questions pop into your head, this show's for you.Our guest Jay Unwin brings 10+ years of experience in fitness and stress management to uncover what's causing us stress today and what we can do about it.Here's what you'll learn: 💡 How to de-stress in winter & make better resolutions 📱 What to about stress from social media 🚰 Where stress comes from and how to handle different sources 😴 What recovery on the day to day looks like So if you're feeling a bit frazzled, pop in your earbuds and head out for a quiet walk in the snow and enjoy the show ❄️ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

Alexandra is the product manager on the VeroSkills team, a role she grew into thanks to her innate curiosity, organizational skills and customer focus.In this show, we uncover the balance between product and people that makes product management just work.Along the way, Alexandra shares:⚒️ how she facilitates amazing team meetings🤖 the automation process that cut VeroSkills onboarding time in half💪 what motivation means in a startup teamAnd a lot more about her journey to PM + her perspective on goals and how to reach them herself and as a team.Enjoy the show 🫶PS: For more about VeroSkills, check out Episode 67 with founder Daniel Walsh! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

​​Today we have an interview with Lera Kuntsevich, founder of Clipwing. She's an ideal guest because she has helped tons of other founders during the Nano Grit and Bootcamp challenges earlier this year — and now she's striking out on her own as a founder of Clipwing — the tool to make shorter clips out of longer video content. Lera is open and radiates positivity among the Build in Public founder community. But she's also transparent about the challenges she's faced along the way and how she tries to overcome them. We explore: • Lera's journey from designer to founder • what happened in Momentum With Paralect and Igor and Nano Grit • building Clipwing in the Nano Accelerator • the build in public community and how it helps Lera as an open founder. “I built Clipwing for you even if you're not my target audience — still for you because just I love the build-in-public community. We grow in this community, we learn from each other. I'm building Clipwing because I see how other people without any tech experience — they also built some products and it motivates — if there were no build-in-public community, I'm sure that there wouldn’t be Clipwing because I wouldn’t find any motivation to do it.”As always the show is made possible by Paralect and if you have a moment after listening to this show please do go check out Clipwing.pro make a few short clips from your longer content and share them with the rest of the internet. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

"Oftentimes people do competitor analysis, but it's a one and done thing and it's not being referenced after that. But there's so much value in understanding how your competitors are growing and how they're adjusting to their market" Uma’s an Entrepreneur in Residence at Wizard Ventures and we uncover:👀 Why competitor monitoring matters for startup success🧐 How it’s different and more useful than one-off competitor analysis🧭 Uma’s journey from University in the US to Wizard Ventures in Berlin🚀 Tona’s launch and GTM strategy Uma and the team create fantastic content around all things startups and we’re glad to have a look behind the scenes to understand how it all works. Check out Tona.so to find out more about competitor monitoring and Wizard Ventures for more of Uma’s work in the wider startup/venture space. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

"Your stories, your scars — physical scars or the scars on your soul — they are important for you because they're the evidence of sometimes difficult, or sometimes very sad stories.These scars make you beautiful because they make you strong."Today's guest Olya Kolyada brought a new level of openness to the show. As the host, I'm sincerely grateful for her courage to frankly share her journey, challenges and all.In part one, we dive into the QA program at Startup Summer where Olya served as a mentor and QA team lead on Moodahub, including:* The student selection process to find the best 6 students to join the course* How the lessons prepared the students to join product teams in just 2 weeks* What challenges the students faced building and testing the Accelerator products.Part two takes a personal turn as Olya opens up about her paragliding accident while on holiday and her long, uncertain journey to recover and return to ‘normal life’.As her medical leave stretched to two years and the number of repair operations mounted, Olya shares who and what kept her spirits up.And how the experience has impacted her perspective on work, life and the scars we all carry.Thanks Olya and everyone who offered her support through it all 🫶 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

Tune in as 3 founders of sporty startups share their stories of inspiration and upsets along their journey to launch 🚀 On the show we have: • AR Bell from GameTime Hero • Tanja Kropf with Adults Play Sports • Wyatt Gustafson at Refr Sports "The word I'd prefer to use over communication is just connection. There's a huge industry in sports with connecting people — whether that be referees or players or teams. It's so antiquated and there are not proper technologies in place to just connect people." – Wyatt Each of these founders has taken a unique approach to solving problems for their sports communities. Game on! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

“Marketing is the only department inside a company that everybody thinks they know something about. You’ll never hear sales people or marketers or HR walk up to DevOps and say ‘Yeah, you shouldn’t use Docker, switch to Kubernetes.’” Founder Frank Diepmaat opens up about his journey in launching the very new Pink Bird Marketing agency. Based in Helsinki, but serving startups and founders worldwide, Frank brings broad and deep experience in tech to focus on helping us market better. We got into: • What Frank loves about marketing vs other tech roles • How he’s structured the agency’s go-to-market in the first few months • Where founders get stuck with their marketing • The tools and MarTech stack he uses to stay efficient with this side hustle And of course we talked shop on #BuildInPublic and generative AI. Check out PinkBird.net to learn more about Frank and the team and schedule a free consultation call if you need a fresh perspective on your current challenge 🤝 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

"We share our expertise — I can share my knowledge about video or animation creation and others can share their expertise in UX or UI. Sharing your knowledge is really important and helps you to improve your own skills."Fresh off the launch of the uptempo fitness apps Spot and Carousel Boxing, Sergei Laptev joins the show to chat about his approach to product and motion design.Find out what he thinks about:💪 Designing health and wellness apps with less friction so people can focus on their health goals🤜 Making promo videos and appealing to users with motion design🚀 Learning new skills and sharing with the design community on Twitter and Youtube🧂 What's going on at Salt & Bold design studioRight now, Sergei's working with the team at goLance on a fresh update and we can't wait to see the new features for the freelance community.Check out Spot and Carousel Boxing if you need a great workout app! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

Serial startup founder Jeff joins the show to share his team's journey from a successful exit with Path a few years ago through the growth of their current SaaS platform Pearly.Jeff's perspective is pragmatic and seasoned with experience — we dive into:⚒️ The drive to build startups and solve real pains🔎 How he learned to focus on what matters more with his 2nd startup🤝 Their 2-time co-founder journey and how their working relationship keeps working🚀 Pearly's go to market strategy + growth flywheelAnd what he's learned after successfully fundraising initial rounds for 2 SaaS startups in health-tech."Being able to get over the hump of demonstrating value and having referenceable customers and having that real trust in the product — that was a big thing for us."Enjoy the show! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com

It's hard to summarise everything she's into and her energy for making great products with the Indie maker community is equally boundless!But we get into all we could in just one show:• Why making better UX is at the foundation of all her work• How she partners with so many folks + us at Nano• What she and I think Nano will be and how she's clarifying that on the new site• What she's learned from recent Product Hunt launchesAnd a lot lot more. At the heart of it all is people, community and trust. Follow her work on X to see the lovely projects and products she's impacting. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com