Talking Shop with Aaron Cohn from realnice
Today I’m publishing an conversation I had with Aaron Cohn for the Contraption Company podcast. Aaron is the co-founder of realnice, a simple personal website builder. realnice competes with my product, Postcard, which is also a personal website builder. So, I thought it would be fun to sit down with a competitor and talk shop.
This isn’t the first time that Aaron and I have competed. In this episode, we discuss how we met, our different approaches to building website software, no-code, craft versus indie software, and more. This conversation offers a deep dive into the nuances of modern software development, valuable for anyone interested in the tech industry’s latest trends.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or many other players. Watch the interview on YouTube here.
Links from the episode
- Connnect with Aaron on aaroncohn.com
- Connect with Philip on philipithomas.com
- realnice
- Postcard
- Moonlight
- A.Team
- Startup buys startup: PullRequest snags remote developer hiring platform Moonlight
- Advice for marketplace startups
- Zero-sum game
- Status quo
- Marginal cost
- Notion
- Figma
- Slack
- Strava
- Airbnb
- Uber
- Network effect
- The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects
- Dreamweaver
- Wordpress
- Squarespace
- Wix
- about.me
- Linktree
- Make My Mom a Website
- Y Combinator Fellowship
- Staffjoy Launhces from YC Fellowship, Helping Businesses Automate Their Workforce Scheduling
- Product-Market Fit
- EnterpriseReady: A guide for SaaS companies to build the features that enterprises love
- Calendly
- Cal.com
- WeCroak - Find happiness by contemplating your mortality
- Memento Mori
- Wordpress: Our Journey to Powering 40% of the Web
- How Does WordPress Maintain Backward Compatibility Over Time?
- Webflow
- Zola
- Appy Couple
- Partiful
- Luma
- How to replace social media with a personal newsletter
- The Trick Facebook Added To Make Us All Hooked On Social Media
- heyitsaaron.com - Aaron’s Postcard
- Wabi-sabi
- Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
- What is a domain name?
- Expensify
- Expensify job application - “What’s the URL of your website? If you don’t have one, why not?”
- Bubble
- (Meme) On Programmers as Ditch Diggers
- CRUD: Create, Read, Update, Delete
- Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- What is page speed, and how does it influence SEO?
- Ruby on Rails
- How we prototyped Moonlight with low-code tools
- Dimes Square Ventures
- Typeform
- VideoAsk by Typeform
- Airtable
- Tally
- Cover Letter Copilot
- Brokerloop
- Glass - Your Home for Photography
- Indie Hackers
- GoodEnough
- Pika
- Digital Product Studios
- Wildbit
- Postmark
- People-First Jobs
- Google sunsets Domains business and shovels it off to Squarespace
- Namecheap
- Porkbun
- Ionos
- ICANN
- Entri
- Plaid
- Progressive Web App (PWA)
- Introducing Push Notifications and PWA Support on Booklet communities
- Steal Like an Artist
- Creating a permanent Zoom link
Show notes
- 00:00 Introduction and Welcome
- 00:32 The First Guest: Aaron Cohn
- 01:10 The Competitive History
- 01:59 The Shift to Craft Software
- 03:27 The Challenges of Building a Personal Website
- 03:29 The Journey to Indie Software
- 03:50 The Birth of Personal Website Builders
- 04:41 The Struggles with Marketplaces
- 05:22 The Evolution of Website Builders
- 06:41 The Importance of Simplicity in Software
- 11:03 About Postcard, Philip’s product
- 12:09 The Power of Personal Email Updates
- 14:14 About realnice, Aaron’s product
- 23:03 The Power of No-Code Tools
- 27:22 The Power of Bubble: A Developer’s Superpower
- 27:34 The Indie Maker’s Journey: From Scarcity to Abundance
- 27:46 The Pieter Levels Approach: Launching Multiple Apps
- 27:50 Craft Software: The Art of High Conviction Development
- 28:10 The Rise of Craft Businesses: A Case Study of Glass.photo
- 29:09 The Indie Hacker’s Dilemma: Money vs. Passion
- 29:44 The Artistic Element in Software Development
- 30:21 The Power of Distinctiveness in Craft Software
- 32:38 The Challenges of Building Personal Website Builders
- 36:09 The Future of Personal Website Builders: New Features and Ideas
- 37:15 The Importance of Design in Product Development
- 38:47 The Real Competition: Battling the Status Quo
- 39:19 The Power of Collaboration in Business
- 39:33 Conclusion: The Contraption Company Podcast
People mentioned
2024-03-04