42: Justin Jackson - Marketing for Developers

**Adam Wathan** (0:00)
In this episode of Full Stack Radio, I talked to Justin Jackson about how to find new product ideas, how to find customers for your products, and marketing for developers.
This is Full Stack Radio episode 42 Thank you.
Hey, everyone, just a quick update before we get to the interview. Last week, I finally released Refactoring to Collections, the book and video course I've been working on for the past three months. It shows you how to use functional programming concepts and collection pipelines to refactor ugly, complex code into a series of simple, elegant transformations. It's a 150-page ebook, a comprehensive set of exercises, over four hours of screencasts, and it also includes the source code to NitpickCI, which is my SaaS application built in Laravel that's loaded with real-world examples of how to use the ideas from the book and the videos. So last week, I had a sale to celebrate the launch that ended on Friday, where everything was 25% off. But if you're a fan of this show and somehow missed the launch, for a very short time, you can use the coupon code FULLSTACK2016, that's FULLSTACK2016, to get refactoring to collections at the launch price. So I'm not putting the coupon in the show notes or anything like that. It's top secret just for fans of the show who missed the initial launch. But if you wanna check it out, head over to adamwathan.me slash refactoring-to-collections and use that code to get 25% off for the next couple days. That's all I got. On to the interview with Justin Jackson. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Full Stack Radio podcast, where I talk to people in the software industry, everything from user experience and product design to unit testing and system administration.
I'm your host, Adam Wathan, and today I'm here with Justin Jackson. How's it going, Justin?

**Justin Jackson** (1:48)
I'm doing well, Adam. Thanks for having me, man.

**Adam Wathan** (1:50)
Yeah, no problem. I'm excited to chat with you. So for anyone who doesn't know you, do you mind just kind of giving a brief background, kind of how you got into this whole thing and what keeps you busy?

**Justin Jackson** (1:59)
Sure. So I started working for a software as a service company in 2008 called Mailout, and eventually kind of worked my way up to being product manager there. And then after that, I decided I wanted to go and work for some other companies and work on some other products. And I was the product manager at Sprintly for about a year and a half, and then Sprintly got sold.
And after they got sold, I thought, well, I could go out and get another job, or I could go out and do some more consulting work, which I'd been doing. And I decided to take a little break. And I joke that it's like an early midlife crisis, but I'm doing this podcast called Megamaker, where I'm making 100 things this year. And some of those are software, and some of them are just completely not related to software at all.
And kind of the thesis of the show is that those of us that work with keyboards and screens all day, we need to make our own things. And some of those things can be digital, but I think also some of them should not be digital. And so it's kind of exploring all that stuff, like how can we create new things that are outside of work?

**Adam Wathan** (3:12)
Right on, yeah. I think you made like a burrito or something on there even. Mm-hmm.

**Justin Jackson** (3:17)
Yeah, like I wanted to get completely out of software. So what would it be like to go? I mean, it's been 15, 20 years since I've worked in a restaurant.
And I think the one thing it's given me is perspective. We sometimes forget, you know, we're working in these air-conditioned offices with standing desks, and you know, I drink a couple espresso a day, and we have all this kind of luxury that we take for granted. And working in this restaurant for two days, designing this menu item, and then actually making it with the kitchen staff, and then releasing it on a Friday for a lunch special, just gives me perspective.
Like, we have it so good. And you know, it definitely didn't make me want to quit doing software and work in the restaurant industry, but it did make me realize that I should be grateful for what we get to do.

**Adam Wathan** (4:13)
Right on, man. So yeah, the reason I wanted to have you on the show was you, pretty recently, I guess it was maybe a few months back that you put out Marketing for Developers, the book you've been working on?