coders.fm

It's tempting to start coding. But I find taking a step back and considering the core problems helpful. Anticipating pain points guides the solution design.

Chicken and Egg

How do I build a network of guests and podcasters from zero podcasters and zero guests? Without guests, why would podcasters sign up? Without podcasts, why guests?

I'll need 50 guest profiles for the site to have value.

I'll have to swallow my fear of networking and ask for help. I'll reach out to 50 previous podcast guests and ask permission to create a profile on their behalf. I'll base the profile on past guest biographies from podcasts.

I'll do the same for 10 podcasts.

Guests can take control of these profiles by logging in with an OAuth provider that proves ownership of an associated Twitter account or email address.

I can also ask podcasters and guests to mention that they connected through coders.fm.

Once I have 50 guests, I will use content to keep the funnel flowing. My target demographic loves technical podcasts. A few well-authored and relevant articles like "Top 10 JavaScript episodes for new developers." are in order. Each post will end with a call to action. For example, "Want to join the conversation? Be a guest on a JavaScript podcast."

This has implications for the technical design. SEO requires clean HTML (canonical tags, only one H1, etc.) and usually server-side rendering.

Engagement

I want users to engage with the site once a month. The key to engagement is timely, relevant, and personalized updates.

For podcasters, I can have a monthly stats update:

• Number of new guests since the last login by the podcaster
• Number of times the podcast's profile page was viewed
• A "top match" guest profile that would match the podcast
• Success story of connections made through coders.fm

Similarly for guests:

• Number of times the guest appeared in search results
• Number of times a guest's profile was viewed
• Number of connections made to date

I also need to connect at an emotional level. To do this, I'll have featured connection stories (with permission from the podcast and guest). As the site builds history, I can include career success stories for guests.

The technical implication is to capture stats from day one. I know from experience constant small writes bog down a site. I will create a separate API endpoint dedicated to collecting stats and funnel them into a queue. An Azure function will parse the queue and update the database once every 10 minutes.

Discovery.

Guest discovery is coder.fm's value proposition. A search must be fast, accurate, and deliver rich results.

I need a solid technical search solution and compelling data to search on.

I have to ask the right amount of questions at signup. If I ask too much, users drop.

coders.fm will ask only for biography at signup and follow signup with prompts to enrich data. Think LinkedIn.

If I ask interesting questions, I'll get better answers.

For example:

• what are some questions an interviewer can ask you about?
• what topics would you like to speak on?
• what would make your interview particularly interesting?
• On your most recent project, what technology did you use?
• what was your favorite part about using this technology?
• what challenges did you face with the technology?

Another way to guide profiles to good content is by example. In my last update, I mentioned Stealing with Pride. In this spirit, I love how IndieHackers prefills business milestones with examples. It's genius. I'll apply a similar idea to profiles. I also will leverage the minimum post idea IndieHacker uses to encourage rich data.

Writing search from scratch is hard. I'll want to leverage a service. Since I'm on Azure, Azure Cognitive Search is the most straightforward. Azure Cognitive Search has connectivity to data sources and autocomplete out of the box.

Conclusion

It's time to define the MVP. Next time I'll share my MVP feature list. And then maybe I'll actually build something ; )

Hi there!

My name is Justin and I'm building coders.fm in the open (#BuildInTheOpen).

A Tiny bit about me

I'm sharing a bit of my background because it will shed light on the decisions I make as I #BuildInTheOpen.

At my day job, I run a large team at EssilorLuxottica. Even if you aren't familiar with EssilorLuxottica, you might be wearing our product. RayBan and Oakley are among our brands. EssilorLuxottica's a great company and I love it here.

The Motivation

Motivation 1: Meet my own need

A few weeks ago I posted on IndieHackers about two podcasts I want to start (Path to CTO / Cloud for IndieHackers).

I have high respect for podcasters that can solo talk each episode. That's not me. I need technically savvy guests to talk to. How do I find them?

The sites I found with podcast guest lists didn't have the audience I needed. I searched for "python and "AWS" and came up empty.

There's a need.

Motivation 2: Learn Microsoft Azure

I believe strongly that to understand the technology you need to get your hands dirty. You need to build something end to end, even a simple thing.

My teams at EssilorLuxottica (gosh we need an easier name to type) are doing new development in Azure. My hands-on development has been on Amazon AWS. So when it is possible I will be using Azure first.

As I've taken on more CTO and management tasks, I miss the act of complete creation that comes with building something full stack. Selfishly I'm really looking forward to this.

Motivation 3: Help the community

At 45, I'm older than most #IndieHackers and fairly financially secure. Monetization is an afterthought. I want to build something useful.

If the site gains traction, it will help the great technical podcasts I benefit from. It will also help the careers of aspiring guests. This is rewarding to me.

Next Time

Next time I'll talk about what my ideas are so far around stack and content.

If you are podcasting or find the idea of engaging on podcasts interesting, I hope you enjoy following the journey as I figure out how the heck I'm going to pull this off (and what!).